Icarus Awakens

Lograve arrived back at the library an hour after Thomas had. Following the awkward silence, the Cleric had led the conversation to his recently abandoned village of Verlund and mostly complained of those who frequently visited him. The stories reminded Daniel of his mother’s and he’d listened nostalgically, glad Thomas at least didn’t overreact to innocent questions.

“What are those doing out of place?” Lograve asked, noticing a set of books stacked on one of the tables.

“Oh, uh,” Daniel stammered nervously. “A Bard came by looking for something on the survivors?”

“The library is closed! The sign on the door said as much.” It seemed one of the few things that made Lograve angry was an intrusion into his home. “Did they take anything?” Daniel shook his head hurriedly. “Well, that’s good. Who were they?”

“She said her name was Evalyn. She was looking for more information on who survived the Upswell. I couldn’t stop her, sorry.” Thomas was watching Daniel’s face with interest as he blushed.

Lograve relaxed. “Oh. She shouldn’t have intruded but I suppose I understand, given the circumstances.”

Stop thinking about the Bard. Daniel forced himself to focus on something else despite Thomas clearly wanting more information. “Isn’t the library always supposed to be open?”

“A lot has changed recently. Thank you for coming,” Lograve addressed Thomas.

“No problem.” Thomas grinned as Daniel painfully remembered his penchant for gossip, but he held his tongue too. For the moment at least.

“You said you had an idea as to how I could help,” Daniel desperately changed the topic. “Does Thomas have anything to do with that?”

“Yes. His presence here goes beyond spreading the word of your new flame to the rest of the village.” Lograve shared a shark’s smile with the Cleric. “Ah but don’t take it too hard. I assumed she charmed you? It’s practically second nature to a Bard.”

“Yeah, she-“ The books in front of him prompted a question. “Wait, advancement can come from accomplishing feats related to your class, right? Can Bards advance with-”

“Yes,” Lograve cut off the question before it increased the age rating of the conversation. “Like anything it has diminishing returns.”

“Is it ok for them to use their powers that way, or at all on someone they’re not fighting?”

“The charm powers of Bards are based only on attraction. It is gray, morally speaking, but it’s not outright, uhm.” Lograve paused and tried to put it delicately. “Those kinds of powers won’t make you do anything you wouldn’t willfully do under the right circumstances. Perhaps we should discuss the assignment I have in mind instead?”

“No no, this is getting interesting,” Thomas interjected, still smiling. "Hey, Guy, wanna see who can turn her head first?"

Daniel turned away from him entirely. If it’s going to be like that, I’m putting you both on pause. He needed to clear his head and from what he’d learned, spending mana this close to night was safer than earlier in the day. He wouldn’t need the mana burn effect of Regeneration unless he was attacked in the next few hours, which seemed unlikely.

His eyes were fixed on the building across the street with Lograve in the peripheral. People were beginning to settle in for the night. Crowds moved about as villagers took advantage of the last chance to socialize before curfew restricted them to their assigned quarters. The first time he’d used Moment of Clarity he was too panicked to make sense of it or realize he’d even used magic. Now, he could faintly sense the mana within him dwindling. He had about two minutes, give or take, before he’d run out. The ongoing drain wasn’t too bad, but initiating the ability had taken a chunk of the magical energy. He suspected the descriptors 'moderate' and 'minor' mana cost in the Encyclopedia entry referenced discrete quantities relative to each other, but he had no idea of the numerics involved since his only sense of his mana was an abstract pool that shrank with power usage.

Half of the time he’d bought was spent finally driving the specter of Evalyn from his mind, leaving the rest to actually think. Roost’s Peak. Thomas joining Kob’s team and then coming here. Assignment. What Lograve wanted him to do seemed obvious in hindsight. Does Moment of Clarity improve my intuition, or did I just need time without any chaos going on to get my head straight? But monster hunting? Sure, he beat a sparkbat swarm, but only by jumping off a cliff. He didn’t even have the stick he’d used against them.

I do have Ringcat, he thought, finally remembering that there was a murder cat out there with his name on it. I don’t think he’s even level 1. Kob’s level 4, so anything we fight’s going to be out of my league. Everything is out of my league.

Mana was burning up within him. Daniel’s senses were growing more attuned to the new source of magic, but only slightly. I could just stay here and read. It’d grow more crowded, but it’d be safe. What does Lograve expect me to do? He remembered Thomas complaining when he’d first entered the library, provoking another question. Wait, what would Thomas do?

A few seconds passed and he understood. Depending on the team’s composition, we’re either cannon fodder or trainees. If this is Lograve’s idea I doubt it’s the former, so they’re trying to cheese advancement? Taking part in destroying high level monsters would logically give Daniel the means to level up even if he only took a small part in the fight. The drawback, what he guessed the drawback was based on how experience worked in role-playing games, was that the strategy would inversely impact the rate of advancement among the higher-level members.

Lograve did say he wanted to know what happened when I reached level two. I guess he wasn’t going to leave me reaching it up to chance. There was conflict in him, but as the last seconds ticked by he made a decision.

“I’ll do it,” Daniel said. To the others, it appeared a sudden declaration without the minute and a half he’d spent thinking. In that time, he’d forgotten the last thing that had been said.

“Really?” Thomas almost squealed. It was night and day with him when he was off the job.

“No.” Daniel fixed his eyes on Lograve. “I’ll join Kob’s team. It’s some kind of training run, right?”

The Arcanist looked floored, as if Daniel had pulled every book off the shelves around him and burned the pile. “Did Evalyn or Thomas tell you?”

“I didn’t know myself.” Thomas offered, recovering from the crack in his voice and beaming at what Lograve had implied. “That does make more sense than taking me on as a primary healer. I should have thought of that.”

“I had a lot of time to think about it today. There were clues, I just put them together.”

Lograve coughed at the simple answer. “Well, that’s well deduced. I thought I would need to talk you into it and brought Thomas here for moral support. I see that was misdirected.” The look Lograve gave Thomas was only mildly stern. He couldn’t be too upset at a kindred spirit.

“I-“ Daniel paused and also looked at Thomas. “Should I mention how I got here in front of him?”

“No. Just leave that out and I’ll know what you mean,” Lograve said over the Cleric’s protest.

“In that case, my home is pretty boring, Lograve. It’s probably hard to believe, but something like this is what I’ve been waiting for.” He took a seat and supported his head with a hand. “Not falling out of the sky or lightning bats, but if I’m already here? This kind of mission seems like the way to learn how to use my powers. It's that or wait around here to be attacked. At least this way I'll have someone strong looking out for me.”

“I’m sure the fact that Evalyn’s on the team helps right?” Thomas ribbed him.

“Yeah, actually. I’m not going to deny it.”

The others laughed, and Lograve added, “Oh, you’re going to have to be careful around her. Bards can be just as sharp as they are soft.”

“Who else is on the team, by the way? I don’t suppose there’s another Artificer I can learn from?”

“Well, no, you're the only one in the region.” Lograve’s tone grew hesitant as he continued. “There’s ten total. You’d know yours truly, Kob, Thomas, and… Gadriel.”

Daniel choked on his spit as he fell out of the chair. Sputtering, he cried out, “No, oh no, no way!”

…

“Assistance?” the gestalt in front of Daniel asked as he found himself under a red banner. It was the next day, early morning. The village and camp surrounding it bustled with renewed activity. The next wave of hunting teams were departing throughout the day and final preparations were being made. Three of the stablehands behind the gestalt were guiding the giant mammalian spider called a silk shocker to someone that Daniel was grateful wasn’t on his team.

He wasn’t sure if this was the same gestalt he’d spoken to before or not but tried to be familiar either way. “Hi! I’m here to pick up Ringcat.”

“Return?”

Are they asking for a receipt? I didn’t get one. How would they even read that if they’ve got some kind of weird language processing difficulty? Daniel watched another monster whose knees extended above the rest of its body amble of its own volition towards someone at the edge of the fences. Oh. “I can’t, would you mind if I looked around?”

“Care.” The gestalt opened the gate and Daniel passed through.

Ringcat had not had a pleasant experience in the village. Everything besides the hunters was bigger than it but behaved like prey. The docile nature struck it with more fear than anything else. Whatever happened to them was wrong and there was no escape from it. This made the furious hatred towards the hunters and all they made grow ever worse, kept only at bay by the concern of what lashing out would do to its only ally here.

It still sensed the pack member near and would have escaped to find it if not for the hunters. They would surely kill it before it could reach open ground and make full use of its speed. The meat given to it was the one positive. Ringcat ate more in those few days than it had in the past month.

Strength was rising within it. Growth was near. The hunters were slowly giving Ringcat the key to its escape. By the same feral instinct that made it fear the other beasts around it, Ringcat knew a change was coming that would enable it to leap the fences in a single bound and clear the tents before a weapon could reach it. Only, the pack member found it first.

“Ringcat!” Daniel called out as he spotted the green outline among the rest of the gray. Identify Creature was proving more useful than he’d first thought and he’d wished he’d kept it on the beast in the first place so he could have kept an eye on him. “I hope he hasn’t been too much trouble.” The gestalt’s vines grew taut for a second before it unhitched the pen Ringcat was in.

“Fortune.” They gestured back to the front gate.

“Thanks, you too! Come on Ringcat. Uh, please?” he added as he didn’t move. The murder cat then reluctantly padded to his side. The cat’s eyes were locked on the gestalt next to Daniel. “Thanks again!” Daniel waved as he left.

“Spiritualist.” The curse would have been spoken under the gestalt’s breath if they had any.

…

Tlara's most treasured power was the Stasis Pouch function of her Focus, though it was a topic of debate among the few Beastmasters she knew. Storing her tamed creatures in her Focus removed much of the upkeep that would otherwise eat into her funds. The less money she had to spend on her tools, the better. There were downsides to such a radical power, of course, but she was far from someone who liked having all her monsters follow her around.

She idly picked at her arm and pulled a tick out from under the feathers before tossing it into her beak. It was only fair to feed on what would feed on her. The parasites were a fact of life for her class and an opportunity as an avianoid. Opportunities were how Tlara saw the world. The blank spots on Kob’s team had screamed to her when their name first appeared on the Roster. That was just before the guard had approached her and ‘encouraged’ a discussion with the Commander.

While Daniel had been passed out in the manor’s lounge she had pounced on another opportunity. A negotiation, in fact. Murdon had intended to intimidate her into keeping the dragon under wraps. Tlara didn’t see the benefit of informing everyone else that they should be as cut-throat as her, but Murdon wanted it kept secret and that gave her leverage.

If anyone was going to survive in this region without the protection of Eido, its garrison, or the Spoke, it would be the strongest. That was Kob and their team. She was on the higher end of level two and had enough experience to justify her presence there. More importantly, she had a bargaining chip and not much else to cash it in on.

Kob’s team was assembling a few minutes walk away from the town before they’d set out for Roost’s Peak. A lone tree amidst the grassy hill was chosen for lack of more appropriate meeting spots. Their destination was to the north and built into the foothills of the massive mountain ridge. Its closer position to the Crest and the dangerous mountains meant it needed walls and its own small garrison even when the Spoke was providing its protective effects. Heldren’s team had gone ahead to support part of the garrison as it protected the withdrawing civilians, leaving the rest behind to fend for themselves.

The team Tlara joined was going to slaughter everything in the area to allow the remaining garrison to hold the fort. As she understood, Roost’s Peak was being used as a holdout to stem the tide of monsters from the north. The longer it could stand, the safer Hagain Village would be. Only it doesn’t matter, she thought. It’ll get bad when people realize that.

She needed to be stronger and to be in the company of the strongest. Fortunately, her wisdom, the attribute paired with endurance to be core to her class, was 27. The ongoing penalty to advancing her strength would make catching that up difficult, but overcoming monsters with raw force was what Kob was for. All of the potential she earned during this trip was going straight to wisdom. Once she reached level three, she’d discard her current set of tools for those of higher quality. She’d be strong enough to survive and justify her presence with the titan.

That was the double-edged blade of the Beastmaster. Their strength was inherent to those creatures they tamed and their powers were mostly suited to enhancing their tools over themselves. What direct offensive powers she had were mostly focused on weakening enemies, monsters in particular, or enhancing the attacks of her tools. Beastmasters were tremendously potent in times of peace, but in her current situation, it would be harder for her to adapt than other classes. Precisely why she needed to be in the company of the strongest. Crest, Kob could just tie up level three monsters for her, as long as she could get the point across to them.

Four individuals and the titan that was Kob were waiting by the tree when noon arrived. Herself, another avianoid, another gestalt, and an insufferable human who was making her gender very clear to the world. A Bard, Tlara thought. Great. If there’s another of them or a Hero, we’re doomed. At least there was another avianoid. Their diets differed slightly from humans and were completely distinct from gestalt, which didn’t have one. Having at least one other meant they weren’t packing special food for just her. He had the look of a Totem Warrior and she was relieved to find he carried an earth totem focus. Avianoids who took an air totem practically shouted their unoriginality. She needed allies who could think.

Kob was another matter entirely. Their expression was as solid and dull as their false hide. “Wait,” the rumbling voice responded to her glance.

“Yeah, yeah. Just feeling exposed out here.” A strip of longer feathers on the outside of her upper arms raised, similar to the skin of humans when they got goosebumps. It was hard to suppress the reaction due to the level disparity. Her charisma was just under level two, neglected along with strength for more appropriate attributes.

The other avianoid seemed grateful for the silence to be broken by someone else and spoke up. His feathers were almost entirely brown, the severed paw he wore blending in well. “I am Tak. You are a Totem Warrior, like me?”

“Beastmaster, obviously.” She scoffed. The intelligence penalty of his class was making itself known and it seemed her initial impression had been wrong. It didn’t occur to her that not having any of her beasts out might make one tend towards another assumption.

“Do I sense a flame kindling?” the human added unhelpfully. The charm effects she showered on others might have made Tlara tolerate her more if she didn’t despise Bards. The woman could force an ability through her weak charisma if she wanted to, and knowing that grated on Tlara’s nerves. Both avianoids looked at the human. Tak’s expression was lecherous compared to Tlara’s spiteful one. “I can already tell this is going to be a fun team,” the Bard laughed, and no one in the group was able to tell how she’d faked the easygoing chuckle.

…

Lograve had told Daniel that he should approach the meeting point alone. It would be better to be seen as an individual and not someone attached directly to his puppet strings. That’s how Lograve put it anyway. He’d also been warned not to mention the whole ‘from another world’ thing. According to Octyrrum theology, there were no other worlds except the hell that was the Crest. Any hardline believer would take offense if Daniel claimed otherwise, especially with the disappearance of the Spoke making people scared and vulnerable.

Just what I needed, zealots. He and Ringcat had gotten close enough to the meeting tree to make out who’d already arrived. Upon seeing two of them he pulled out his phone and shakily tapped it. Daniel had imagined his first advancement would be a special moment, maybe the night after his first monster hunt. Instead, he used all four points on charisma before he’d be face to face with a hot woman and a Hero who hated him. His entire body tingled.

Your Charisma is now 10! Advancing it beyond this point will allow you to awaken Powers bound to this Attribute as determined by your Class. ???

-

Your Charisma is now 12! You have gained Feature: Bartering.

Daniel felt buyer’s remorse. What was he thinking? He was about to go off to fight monsters, the last thing he needed was the ability to- wait, what did Bartering even do?

Bartering (Feature, Charisma, Domain: Knowledge, Level: 1)

You possess the Power to improve your haggling when trading or making other business deals related to your primary profession. This effect scales with charisma, and Intelligence to a lesser degree; inversely scaling to the opposing Creature’s charisma. Sentient creatures that possess a higher Level than you have a significantly higher chance to resist this effect.

Useful if I’m ever somewhere that uses money. Damn it! He realized Ringcat was looking at him oddly. The emotions the murder cat had shown so far had been hunger, exhaustion and hunger, fear and hunger, and today fear and complacency. This was something else. It’s almost like I can sense him? Like I can tell what he’s thinking instead of just guessing.

“Can you understand me?” he asked. The thought that he was embarrassing himself in front of the distant team was pushed aside. Something important was happening. His instincts told him that even if he couldn’t describe it. The answer to his question was no, he realized. Ringcat couldn’t fully understand him because there was an ephemeral barrier between them that Daniel could now perceive. And break! He had that potential now. He had that choice. “I don’t know exactly what this is but it feels like it’ll do something to both of us. Do you want that?” he asked Ringcat.

Ringcat was confused. The pack member had started shining in its mind’s eye. The light was warm and comforting and terrible. It knew it was the same force that had dulled the minds of the others in the stables and it wanted to slash and kill the pack member before it could wield the terrible light against it. However, the pack member was its better and it could not resist them.

Daniel felt an emphatic ‘No!’ from Ringcat, the response strong enough that it broke through the wall. “It’s ok boy,” he said sadly and patted Ringcat’s head. “It’s probably something weird anyway. I’ve got a few things going on and that’d be just another to add to the pile.” He looked at the people on the rise ahead of him. “You know, I have some friends now. At least two! You helped me when I first got here, or, at least, you didn’t kill me. I don’t know if you can understand me or not, but if you want to be free then you should be free. If I let you go, will you just run? No biting?”

Ringcat sensed the hunter in the dual creature show itself. There were other hunters behind, and many, many more in the village below. Its instincts told it to attack the hunter/pack member if it had a chance, but it didn’t want to. The hunter/pack member was at times as meek and defenseless as when it had first spawned, though there was also a strength the dual creature hadn't yet realized that the ringcat could appreciate. More than that, it felt as though this creature could truly see it in a way no other had. Even with a dark presence in the back of the ringcat’s mind urging it to rip open the soft mortal’s neck before him, there was something else there that pushed back and quelled the killing instinct.

It had happened before Daniel consciously registered it. In his soul, he’d wanted to release Ringcat if he wouldn’t harm him. The agreement was made and the charm on the creature was removed instantly. Afterwards, Ringcat didn’t flee. Instead, his phone vibrated with two notifications.

??? has evolved into Feature: Beast Friend*. This Power Evolution was triggered through the rejection of the original Power by your Soul. The original Ability has been lost and cannot be regained.

-

Beast Friend* (Feature, Charisma, Domain: Universal, Level: 1)

You possess the Power to create and strengthen a Bond: Friendship between yourself and Creatures of Type: Beast that are not currently Charmed, Tamed, or Dominated by another. To be affected by this feature, the beast must be a receptive target and of a Level equal to or lower than this feature when it is used. After this feature is used, it cannot be used again unless the original target dies or the bond is willingly severed by both Entities. Additional benefits may be granted depending on the nature of the creature and the strength of the bond.

*???

The light had changed! The illusion of the pack member had fallen away from Ringcat’s eyes to reveal the hunter that lurked beneath. Yet this hunter had denied itself the yoke it would put on Ringcat. It was showing mercy? The light coming from it was still warm and comforting, but there was no longer a soporific taint that would dull Ringcat’s mind when eclipsing it. The ringcat felt no magical compunction to defend this individual, but the strange part of itself pushing against its normal instincts was winning out and preventing it from attacking.

Daniel sensed once more the wall between Ringcat and himself. He still had the power to break it down, though now that would only create an opportunity instead of forcing the power’s effect to work. “Well so much for no more weird stuff. An ability I didn’t know I had turned into a pun so bad my Focus gave it an asterisk.” He reached out a hand to Ringcat as if to shake a paw and cringed internally when he remembered the rest of the team was still watching him. Too late now. Guess I’ll embrace it. “So what do you say Ringcat? Beast friends?”

The handshake went further than the physical realm. Ringcat sensed the hunter reach out to it with the light. The deal could not be undone once it agreed. This hunter was different. Was it a hunter at all? Its instincts told it so, but its instincts would have seen it kill the hunter in its sleep, kill this hunter right now after biting off the hand. For a third time, a part of the beast it hadn’t noticed before pushed against that impulse. There was something different about this ringcat. Something that had been there, sleeping until circumstance had woken it. Ringcat was a feral beast that suddenly realized it could be more.

The world changed slightly, a minor shift for all but the two on the outskirts of Hagain Village. “Well I felt something happen,” Daniel said to Ringcat brightly before checking his phone. To his surprise, no notification came through. He shrugged and pocketed it, turning his attention back to his new friend. “I guess that makes us beasties. Ugh, I’ll stop that. Thanks for not killing me, and for doing whatever it is we just did. I hope it’s not going to turn out too strange. You feeling alright?”

Yes¸ came the mental reply, snarling and confused.

“Oh good, glad to hear- wait what!?”