Icarus Awakens

Daniel slept for a day and a half. His rest went uninterrupted by other tent mates or the ministrations of Thomas. The medic had nearly worked himself into a fit after being told to keep the tent free of others, but now was not the time to defy the orders of Commander Murdon. It was a dead sleep.

Despite the orders, Thomas at least laid eyes on Daniel from time to time. He barely moved, and the Cleric was worried. In addition to his apparent coma, Daniel hadn’t had any food or water since he’d come under his care. He’d looked like he could have used both when he’d first gotten there. Then again, his boss had assured Thomas that Regeneration would see to his health burns or no, though he might take longer to heal because of them.

They were right. Thomas couldn’t visualize the mana at work, but every time he checked on the slumbering man his wounds had progressed days of healing in hours. That’s all well and good, the Cleric thought. But when he wakes up he’s going to be insatiable.

…

Outside of the headman’s house was a notice board. When Eido was more than a memory, it was a community resource. Villagers would post local concerns and requests for Eido’s garrison that Murdon would pass on if appropriate. Those trying to advance into a class would seek mentors, and mentors sought those who showed promise.

All the space on the board was now taken up by evacuation business. As the disaster had struck unexpectedly there were plenty of people missing in addition to being presumed dead. The left side was dedicated to these postings. Everyone who made it to the village would find themselves in front of the board at some point, either to see where their family was staying or to make their own posting. The other half of the board was for those with class levels, the Blessed. The Commander was still in the process of organizing teams and assigned tasks, leaving blank spots. Among the listings were easier assignments such as guard duty or assisting in the medical tents. The real danger were the hunts, scouting, or other duties that involved travel and fighting. A few paled as they saw their name on those lists. At the very least these duties weren't constant as breaks were scheduled to give them time to advance.

Without fail, a large crowd would pile out at dawn to observe the Roster. It was when new assignments were posted and the heroes that would save them appeared. Today was different. A new team was posted on the board among the others with no particular fanfare. It was almost an insult to the only member listed. More would be added to it before the team was deployed. Either way, the name at the top would ensure the team would succeed at whatever they were assigned.

Kob. Whispers spread the news as the first noticed the name. Someone had been going around claiming to have heard he’d survived from the Commander himself, but it wasn’t real until it was on the Roster. A level 4 remained in the Thormundz.

They were here. The crowd parted like fish sensing an approaching shark. A mountain moved through them. They were over twice the height of some, and their hands could easily wrap around the head of any. Kob didn’t wear armor, or any clothing at all. They didn’t need to.

The giant glanced at a Bard who hadn’t moved away like the others. She returned the gaze evenly, adjusted the accordion on her back, and continued searching the lists of people who’d made it to Hagain. Kob issued no challenge and observed their side of the Roster. Minutes passed but no one else dared approach. Eventually, Kob found their name on the second row of posters from the bottom. They’d had to kneel to find it. Three days. Kob was departing on their mission in three days. The blank spots on the list would be filled out before then. It didn’t matter who it was that accompanied them. Kob had their assignment.

The ground trembled as they walked away.

…

It was with a mix of refreshment and malaise that Daniel woke from his deep sleep. The tent was empty, save for him. The flap was also closed so someone had checked in on him since he’d passed out. He couldn’t tell how long that’d been, but it also didn't matter. His arm was healed! Daniel looked in amazement as the blackened limb had completely recovered. Even the lightning scars were gone. Daniel wanted to jump out of bed and run around, which was when the hunger cramps fully hit.

The sun was low in the sky, but bright through the parted tent flap as he moved it. Daniel took his hand away and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light in the tent first. He needed food, but not so desperately that he’d blind himself in search of it.

Thomas intervened before that happened. “Guy, you’re awake!” The human was wearing the same simple shirt and drawstring pants Daniel had first seen him in, although they’d been washed since then. That was probably a bad sign.

“Were you watching my tent?” Daniel asked. It had only been half a minute since he’d woken up.

“Not all the time,” Thomas said like it was nothing. “I have to rest you know. Geez, look at that arm!” He moved far closer than he should have to take a look at it. “Amazing! I wish all my patients were like you, Guy. All I had to do was watch you sleep.”

“Yeah.” Daniel took a step back. “How long exactly?”

“About two days. It’s morning, by the way.”

“I can tell.” His stomach grumbled. “Food?”

“Right!” Thomas dashed out of the tent. He reappeared instantly but without any tray or plate in hand. “Don’t leave the tent, please.” It was spoken like someone else’s order that Thomas had to relay.

“Why?”

“Dunno. The Commander wanted to talk to you right after you woke up. Mysterious aren’t you. Oh, by the way, Kob survived! Seen by the Roster, at least that’s what people are saying. No one else on their level though, they really are the last one.”

“Is the Commander that-” Daniel again struggled to think of a way to describe the dark lizard person he’d seen without inadvertently causing offense. “Person that got Lograve?”

“Yeah! Know why he’s interested in you? Totem Warriors are hardly anything to work yourself up over if you don’t mind me saying.”

Daniel took note of the man’s pressured speech and thought, That’s hardly stopping you. And I’m not a Totem Warrior! He could have debated the point, but he was too hungry to. “Any chance I could eat before then?”

“Right, sorry. But don’t leave the tent.”

“If I do you won’t come bring me food.”

“Fair enough!” Thomas sprinted off again.

Daniel thought about how he’d healed while he waited on food. Long resting in some role-playing games could fix anything, but he was starting to suspect he’d been wrong in assuming this world worked like an actual game. People kept telling him that his healing was unusual. It had to be a specific power, but his character sheet didn't have anything like that on it.

He checked to be sure. There were no new notifications, though he did worry he might have missed some while he slept since they weren’t stored anywhere. He did still have those points he could assign to his attributes, but it would be best to wait until he had a grasp of what was going on before using them. Like I’ll ever know, he thought bitterly. The tent was filled with silence as Daniel let himself space out. He was hungry, and that made him think of Ringcat. There’d been others of his kind there, so Daniel was sure he was doing fine.

The tent burst open again. “Right, gotta run!” Thomas said in greeting. “Poke your head out if you need more water. If nature calls just use one of the corners but don’t-”

“Leave the tent, yeah.” Daniel didn’t feel any urge, his body was focused on other matters. He looked at the tray in front of him in surprise. It was well made, with handles on the side for carrying. The slop he’d been dreading was instead a roasted leg the right size but not shape for a chicken, accompanied by a couple of what Thomas called cord fruit. Unlike the ones he’d first seen, these were connected by the stems and clued Daniel into their name.

As he crunched into them, he was inspired to see what they looked like on the branch. Daniel assumed they grew on branches, though vines were an appropriate option as well. Maybe they grew on the vine people? He paused eating and decided to turn his attention to the leg until that mental image was gone.

The meal was finished in minutes. On Earth, Daniel would have been a little slower and more askance of the unidentified if faintly familiar meat leg. It tasted too good to worry about that. Hunger is the best spice. It occurred to him as he drank the last of the water that being confined to his tent could be seen as a bad thing. In other circumstances he would have been terrified, but this was hardly a prison. Sure, if they kept him here for days he’d be clawing at the walls, but Thomas didn't have the sense of a jailor. The worst thing he could do was give the only people who might help him a reason not to. He could probably get away with opening the front of the tent.

He did. It was a nice enough day, with sunlight painting the ground as it passed through tents. Daniel sat on the edge of the bed and watched people pass by. It was more entertaining than television in a grim way. Injured were being brought in and treated, while the dead were being confirmed as such. Death might have disturbed him if he still didn’t have trouble thinking this was all real. It all felt like a scene in a war movie establishing that the good guys were in dire straits before moving to the front lines for the real action.

He saw those whose injuries were the most severe were being brought to one of the many tents around him. Eventually, they had to be placed in the shade when there was no more space inside. The empty bed next to him stood out and worried him a little. It felt like Daniel had been singled out, which in fairness was what Thomas had told him. Neither he nor the empty bed told him why.

He continued watching. Most people brought to the tents were saved in some way or another. Thomas and a collection of vines seemed to be the ones with healing abilities, while others used more mundane methods for people who weren’t actively trying to die. Daniel didn’t see any new races among the crowd, nor did he see one that looked like the Commander.

A thought struck him. “Hey phone, what kind of race is Commander Murdon?”

For more information on Race: Draconoid, consult Function: Encyclopedia

-

Draconoid (Race, Varies, ???)

A race of intelligent life that takes the form of tailed, scaled humanoids. Subraces exist that correspond with each primary Variant: Dragon.

???

Not much he couldn’t guess, though there was more Unidentified knowledge. It seemed to have infected his Encyclopedia like a cancer. At least he knew what they were called. “What about the other two?”

Avianoid (Race, Air/Wind, ???)

A race of intelligent life that takes the form of flightless humanoid avians.

???

“Let me guess, the other one is ‘Vineoid’?”

Gestalt (Race, Varies, ???)

A race of intelligent life that takes the form of an Elemental. Subraces exist for each Element: Primary.

???

“So, they’d be earth Gestalt? It is a better name than vineoid.”

“Admiring your reflection, Guy?” Thomas poked his head through the tent’s opening, making it look like he’d been beheaded.

“Gah!” Daniel almost dropped the phone. “It’s my phone. My Focus,” he added when that made no headway.

“I thought your necklace was your Focus. That doesn’t look like something a Totem Warrior would use.”

“Don’t you have other people to help?” He was growing tired of people insisting that, and Thomas could grate the nerves with repeated exposure.

“That’s an odd way to thank someone who brought you clothes.” The rest of Thomas was revealed and a bundle was thrown his way. They looked similar to what Thomas was wearing. “Can’t have you meeting the Commander shirtless a second time.”

Daniel chastised himself mentally as he picked up the bundle. I always do this, he thought. His mother had been the one who had patiently coached him to where he was today with other people. He had been much worse. Daniel’s problem, one of Daniel’s problems, with people is that he thought too far ahead and assumed too much. No one liked trying to talk to someone that was one conversation beyond them. Wait that makes me sound like an arrogant jerk. I just suck at talking to people. “Sorry.”

“Look, Guy, I deal with sick people for a living. ‘Fuck you’ sounds close enough to ‘Hi there’ as far as I’m concerned. Just don’t leave the tent open when you change. Make it fast though, there’s a gawper here for you.”

“Gawper?”

“You know,” Thomas mimed what seemed like a turkey. “That kind of guy.”

“Sure.” Daniel almost let the conversation end there, but he forced himself to speak as Thomas was walking away, “Hey, Thomas. Thanks again!”

“Yep!”

The clothes didn’t fit too well, more one size fits all than something that came with a chart. They weren’t too scratchy and what he had been wearing was unrecoverable anyway. The shirt had been ruined, and both his pants and undergarments were torn and bloody. Going from four pockets to one small one was a problem. His phone didn’t fit, and he had something else to store. Just before leaving where he’d landed in the forest, Daniel had noticed one of the lightning spines lying on the ground. He only found a dozen, but they’d been useful enough to gather.

Shrugging, Daniel tore some cloth from his ruined shorts and used that to bind them into a stack. He wasn’t going to wear them again. The stack fit in the pocket though it stuck out. The phone, he’d have to carry.

As he stood by the now open tent flap, someone among the throng took notice and approached. A cape fluttered in a wind that didn’t seem to exist for anyone else. Daniel’s first thought was that Heldren had returned, but it wasn’t him. The man in front of him was human, though the hair was shorter, a lighter brown than his, and the face a few years younger than Heldren’s mid 30's-ish. The clothes under the moderate armor were different too. Still, both men carried themselves in the same way.

The man walked up to Daniel like an explosion would go off behind him. Not in a panic, but with measured steps and a self-assuredness that called for a pair of sunglasses. When he was near the tent, the man introduced himself with a winning smile. “Gadriel Cross, at your service. The Commander has bade me accompany you to your meeting with him. The pleasure is mine.”

Daniel was shaking the man’s hand before he registered that it had been offered. Heldren Storm and Gadriel Cross, Daniel thought. Do they pick hero names when they take the class? “Thanks. Are we going now?”

“Indeed! I have a feeling this will relate to our Roster assignments. I hear murmurs that Kob’s team is being formed as we speak!” Gadriel began walking, confident Daniel would follow him.

Kob, Daniel thought as he followed Gadriel. Thomas had just mentioned whoever that was. “What do you mean, Roster assignments?”

“Ah, I see you haven’t been brought up to speed. Allow me to explain.” Gadriel gestured out to the tents around him. “What do you see here, Daniel?”

“Tents?”

“Yes, tents! And within them are the innocent, and within the innocent are hope and dreams of the future shining like the jewels of a crown. It is the duty of those with the ability to protect these treasures to do so.” Gadriel was gearing up for a speech in the exact way Heldren had back by the bridge.

Daniel made an educated guess. “Do you have the Mantle of Inspiration feature?”

Gadriel looked surprised and the building momentum faded away. “Y-yes. You have heard of me!” he puffed up.

“I met someone named Heldren Storm who had it too.”

“Sir Storm.” Gadriel fully deflated.

“It’s impressive!” Daniel tried to recover his latest fumble. Gadriel didn’t seem to think highly of the man.

“It is but one of the tools at my disposal!” In a flash, the sword at Gadriel’s side swung through the air. He’d tossed it, though it flew like his arm was still attached and fell quickly back into his hand. Gadriel grinned at Daniel. “A Hero faces many dangers on his path. Powers alone are not enough to meet every challenge, and should we travel together, you shall find my talents run deeper than my class.” The crowd around them took notice.

They continued to walk after the light applause, Gadriel’s confidence fully restored. “I am curious,” Gadriel said, making conversation out of what would be a boring walk. The field hospital had been near the edge of the camp, and their destination was the center of the village. “What developmental strategy do you prefer?”

Another foreign concept to Daniel and a chance to put his foot in his mouth. Honesty was usually the best policy, except in cases where people didn’t like the unabashed truth. Situations like these felt like he was walking a tightrope instead of talking with someone. “Sorry, is that something specific to the Hero class?”

“No! It is in fact something every man, woman, and child should take seriously, should they not hit their wall before awakening a class. It determines your fate in this world.” He flexed one arm in what seemed an unconscious gesture. “I follow the path of balance. I am only level 2, but each of my attributes are 28. There have been a fair few who had underestimated me by level alone.”

28? Daniel thought, astonished. If this is some kind of covert role-playing game, that’s insane. He thought for a moment. His focus told him his core abilities were endurance and intelligence, both of which were in the mid 10s. Gadriel was level 2 and had loudly declared his attributes. Is that how levels work? “I haven’t thought about it, this is all new to me,” Daniel answered, continuing to walk the line.

“You should consider your path. Does Totem Warrior come with any attribute penalties?”

Again with that nonsense. “It halved my dexterity when I took it, but otherwise no.”

Gadriel frowned, “Is that so? I thought, well, in any case, that is good news! Many classes affect your attributes in trade for the powers they bestow. Those with an initial penalty seem the worst, though if you don’t multiclass, which you should doggedly avoid, that initial penalty will soon smooth over. The true bane comes with those classes that affect your ability to advance attributes going forward.” He pointed a thumb at himself. “The Hero class has no such weaknesses.”

Advancement, attributes, penalties. The Hero beside him was throwing around terms Daniel was only tentatively familiar with and not at all in this context. Half of what he thought he knew was probably wrong. Not knowing what Gadriel was talking about was something that would draw suspicion, and he could hardly act as clueless as he was. All the same, Gadriel was eager to espouse his views on leveling which was an excellent opportunity to gain more information. “So it’s best to advance everything together? It sounds like people should focus on what their class is best at.”

“Ah, that is the path that leads many astray. Granted, it is the key to short term power, but it comes with its inevitable downfalls.” Gadriel sat on a bench and gestured for Daniel to join him.

“Don’t we have a meeting to attend?”

“Ah, but you see, this is important! Destiny would not cross our paths sparingly. I suspect they are considering us for the same Roster assignment.” Daniel sat. He didn’t know the way and would have to let the Hero talk himself out before they’d be back on track. “It comes down to variety and level disparity. You are aware that you awaken powers based on the attribute you advance, yes?”

“Yes,” Daniel said, now aware of this fact. It’s working!

“So naturally, one who focuses only what their classes provokes them to will find themselves with powers too focused on one aspect of themselves. As a balanced Hero, the powers I possess allow me to use the full breadth of my being!” He flexed both arms in a wide position and Daniel got a better sense of what the word gawper meant. “It is a strategy that gazes onwards to the peak of what mortals may attain!” Gadriel basked in what was now the noonday sun. With his pose, the golden rays looked like a spotlight.

“What about level disparity?”

“Yes, sorry.” The Hero was dragged back to Earth, or whatever the name of this world was. “Say you could shatter a mountain with a strike of your fist. What problem might you have?”

“Running out of mountains to punch?”

“Ha, quite so! But in point, a person who does not balance their attributes will find that strength unwieldy without appropriate dexterity. You will often see this problem in Arcanists who focus on their mental attributes. Even at high level, these individuals are quite weak due to their low endurance and can have problems channeling mana if the disparity is great enough.”

“Being unbalanced makes part of you weak at higher levels, but you wouldn’t know that initially when it’s all upsides,” Daniel surmised.

“Precisely my good sir! You can find yourself in quite a chasm later on with little to dig yourself out of it. Advancing attributes becomes more difficult the higher you level, and it is no better for those you neglect. Hit your wall at the wrong time and you shall be permanently crippled.”

Something occurred to Daniel. “How do you know what your attributes are?” He only knew about his because of his phone, and the enhancement feature made him believe that was a special property.

“You might as well ask how I know my age.”

“Oh.” Daniel unlocked his phone and held it out. “I was just curious because my pho- my Focus displays them.”

Gadriel looked at the outstretched screen in surprise, “This is your Focus? But I thought?”

“I don’t know why people keep saying it, but I’m not a Totem Warrior. I’m an Artificer.”

The Hero raised an eyebrow. “An Artificer? I am well aware of how aspersions to one’s character can travel faster than they. My apologies for the assumption.” Gadriel bowed his head and then looked at the screen again. “I’m afraid I can’t read the text here. What language is this in?”

The one we’re speaking? Damn it, one thing at a time.

Daniel explained what the numbers meant and Gadriel snapped his fingers. “Ah! See, your charisma is far too low for your level. Do you have trouble communicating clearly?”

“Somewhat, yeah.” Daniel cleared his throat. “I mean, yes.” He hadn’t considered increasing his charisma to be a way to make him less awkward, even though it was obvious now that he thought of it.

“My suggestion would be to get that to level one as soon as you can. Do you have any advancement potential in you?”

Daniel just clicked the upper right button in response. Gadriel turned to him, waiting for an explanation. "Oh, sorry. I have four. I can increase my attributes now but I wanted to wait until I understood things better. I guess that time is now.”

Shock colored Gadriel’s expression. “Four? You have four? My good sir, that is fortunate. I commend your patience. I doubt we have time to commit those advancements before your meeting, however.”

“My Focus mentioned this. It, uh, stores knowledge too,” he explained. “I can instantly advance. Also, there’s this weird thing with my attributes, see?” Gadriel looked on in increasingly mute horror as Daniel increased his attributes, reset the change, and reapplied the improvement to different ones while explaining all the while. At a certain point Daniel noticed, but it was too late.

Gadriel stood, his expression strange. “I cannot let this stand!”

“Huh?”

“You wish to make a mockery of me with this absurdity? This illusion? You must have been informed of my history and have been playing me a fool! Clearly you have conspired with Sir Storm. My tolerance on many things is great, but I will bear no insult.” He took on what looked like a fighting stance and Daniel grimly remembered his sword shooting through the air.

“Mr. Cross, please I didn’t mean anything. I’m, that’s,” he fumbled again. “It’s just an Artificer thing.”

“Cease your lies! We have tarried too long and the day grows short. I have a duty to complete.” Gadriel angrily walked away without further word, expecting Daniel to follow.