Icarus Awakens

The jubilation of the village was cut short by the warning cries. Lograve was no keen tactical mind, that was the role of his close friend Murdon. Lacking him, he had to do his best. Upwards of sixty level 1 and 2 enemies on a collision course with so many innocents warranted something more than a lone, discrete defender. It wasn’t that Gadriel couldn’t handle himself, he had once parried an attack he couldn’t see, but he could only be in one place.

“Monsters!” was the average of the various shouts. Lograve moved quickly, mentally alerting those who were awake and coordinating a retreat into the village proper. In the center of it, by the lake, one dusker raised their voice to a different concern.

“See what the Octyrrum grants us! My niece, what a perfect opportunity.” The dusker Daniel could identify as Phyl took a bow in his hands like he was offering a sword and held it out. “Show us your new power!”

Daniel couldn’t read the expressions of this new race, but several nearby had a similar pattern of movement amidst the chitin of their faces. Approval? Maybe, since no one was contradicting him. Khiat took her bow and started running very quickly to the large tower. He had a thought then.

“Lograve, do you need me anywhere specific?”

“Uh, one moment.” A brief pause. “Why?”

“Most people have to figure out how their powers work. I want to go tell her what hers does.”

“You know?”

Daniel shook his head, not even able to see her attributes anymore. “No, but I can ask her to share the information. She just got her class and everyone’s expecting her to be some big hero!”

“I see. We should be fine. I’m mostly concerned about these monsters getting to vulnerable people than I am losing Blessed to them. Is Hunter going with you?

Daniel looked to the ringcat who was tracking the approaching monsters through the dunes. “Do you want to?”

No.

“Find Tak and the rest then. Good hunting Hunter.” Ok, I need a better way to say that.

“I’m letting Xtalo know what’s happening, including what you’re going to do. Go!”

…

Hunter had given the village about a two minute warning. Given his current range went out a kilometer, these creatures were moving fast. Compared to what they’d overcome this herd of what his power called shank stompers wasn’t a dire threat. To those who could defend themselves. For normal people, any leveled monster was a mortal threat, and both they and the village had children with them.

Confirming that Hunter had linked up with Tak and the rest, Daniel focused on getting to the tower. Moving about the mass of impossibly tall insect people might have been difficult if he didn’t have the Balance feature that he’d originally called parkour, back when he hadn’t known its name. In the worst case, there was also Dodge Roll. It wasn’t perfect, he was no master acrobat, but people also made way for him as they ushered duskers about his height underground.

Once he was at the tower’s base, Daniel realized that it had been built with these people’s height in mind. Though it was only a couple of stories, the top of each level was at least four meters high. The stairs, also designed for longer legs, would take too long to climb. He’d left his lightning wings in Khare since they were too hot to wear all the time in the desert. To that point, he wasn’t wearing any armor at all. Aughal was hot!

Another power served him here. Jump. It was pretty simple. With level 2 strength and enough mana, he should be able to clear twenty meters or more. He prepared, thought for a second, and shouted, “I’m coming up over the side! Don’t shoot!” Then, he released the mana within him. To Daniel, it felt like he’d jumped normally, save for the fact that he didn’t stop going up.

Ok, I should be able to land on the ledge. Just get ready to- too far, too far! The duskers at the top of the tower watched Daniel come up to their level and keep going, cresting the spire on the tower’s roof, and begin to fall on the other side. What might have been a messy fall was saved by yet another power, Graceful Fall.

Whereas the lightning wings Daniel enchanted let him glide freely through the air, this was a more minor boon that, in this case, allowed him to just grab the ledge. Rough hands with the consistency of slimy stone gripped him, and he saw the taller dusker, Xtalo, pulling him up.

“Thanks.”

“Lograve explained, but tell me yourself. Is our village safe?”

“Uh.” Daniel saw most of the villagers would make it to safety before the first monsters reached the village, and Gadriel was already leading a charge against them. “Yeah. Lograve’s level 4 and we have a couple of 3’s. If it was just us here this wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Praise the Octyrrum. Khiat, he’s here to help with your new class.”

“How?” the other asked distractedly. She was holding a monster of a bow, at least two and a half meters long with metal reinforcing the arms. The draw weight must have been at least a hundred kilograms, and the arrowheads it fired were bigger than his fist. Who needed levels when they could shoot that thing? You might as well walk around with an armor piercing rifle.

Note to self, figure out how to make an armor piercing rifle. “Uh,” Daniel stammered again, tearing himself away from those thoughts. He probably wasn’t coming off as the most confident of people this dusker had ever seen. “I can identify what powers you have if you share them with me.”

“What does that mean?” Xtalo asked with respectful suspicion.

“Right now, I can see both of your names and her class. If she wants me to, I can also look at her powers. That’s it.”

“What is my class?” Khiat looked at him then. Her face was marked primarily by a curving pattern on either side that looked like crescent moons nestled into each other, broken by her mouth and eyes but otherwise meeting in the center.

“Khiat! If this man speaks the truth, let him see your power first.”

A moment’s hesitation, then, “How?”

“You’ve already done it. Just a second.” Daniel pulled his phone out, startling Xtalo, but the Dusker didn’t comment. He was deferential to him, someone he’d just met. It reminded Daniel of the time a cafeteria line had applauded him. Hunter, I’m going to use a moment to read something. It’ll be brief.

Fine. Hunter’s thoughts, carried from where he was running alongside Tak, held a bitter acceptance. The ringcat hated what Daniel was about to do.

Positioning his phone in front of his eyes, Daniel froze time. Or rather, slowed it to the point of being nearly frozen. The mana cost of this ability had been high back when he was level 1 but was more reasonable with the expanded pool and cost reduction level 2 provided. He couldn’t move or use any other powers during this time, but he could think. That’s what had saved him the very first time he’d fought a monster on this world, and countless times since. In this case, he used the Moment of Clarity to read.

Critical Strikes (Feature, Dexterity, Domain: Destruction, Level: 1):

You possess the Power to identify and make use of weaknesses inherent in your target. Attacks you make benefit from improved Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage, the magnitude of which scales with your dexterity and inversely scales with the target’s Endurance and awareness of you.

Finding that entry had been difficult without a search function, but Daniel was able to reach a list of all powers he knew about through the Power keyword. Way back in the beginning, Lograve had allowed him to read through indexes of powers that had added a bunch to what he knew, though the Encyclopedia also gave him some info from things he identified.

Scrolling was the biggest pain, but mercifully ‘C’ was near the top. Considering what she was, it mostly made sense. What confused him was that Khiat’s feature read ‘Critical Strikes*’ on her tag. On his phone, there was only the normal version. It was something he’d seen before with one of Evalyn’s abilities, the feature that bonded him to Hunter, and in the function that had tried to replace Encyclopedia. Despite investigation, he’d not been able to figure out what it’d meant, and he wasn’t going to mention it now either.

“Alright, I’ve got it,” Daniel said, as time resumed. “Your attacks deal more damage to weak spots, and if they don’t know about you, you can do a lot more damage.”

“That sounds like Sneak Attack,” Xtola murmured, though the tone didn’t do much for his volume. “Is she a Rogue?”

“No!” Khiat practically shouted, whirling and not quite leveling the half-drawn bow at him. “I know I’m not. I’m a good person!”

“Khiat! Don’t point that at him!”

“She’s not a Rogue. And it’s called ‘Critical Strikes’.” In the distance, Gadriel was closing on the first monster. His sword reached it first, flying out of his hand to deliver a cut before returning to him in a clean arc.

“I don’t know of that power.”

“What is my class?” Khiat demanded, bringing herself to an even more impressive height. She was almost twice as tall as him like that.

“Assassin,” Daniel said plainly, hoping this wouldn’t inspire another reaction. He was going to Dodge Roll off the tower if it did, since fresh level 1 or not that arrow would go right through him and Regeneration wasn’t a cure all.

“That’s… that can’t be right.” Khiat’s voice was soft, despite the depth of tone her size granted her. She retreated from Daniel, some of the armored segments on her legs coming together as she shrank a foot. The motion reminded Daniel of a slinky, which was a completely inappropriate analogy to be making given the sound of Khiat’s voice.

Xtalo appeared caught between respect towards him and his disbelief. “This can’t be. That is a rare class, and my daughter is not-” He paused for a moment and then said, “She wouldn’t have awakened that class.”

“I can just tell you what my power tells me, and it’s never been wrong.” That I know of. “Look, if it makes it more believable, I have a rare class too. Artificer.” He shouldn’t be telling people that, of course, but Khiat seemed crushed by the news. So would knowing his class help? Probably not. I’m an idiot. “The only reason I came here was to help you. If your power had an incantation or something, I’d be able to tell you what it was. I didn’t want you to fight this without knowing what you could do.”

“If this is true, and charity is what motivates you, then I beg you. Tell no other soul.” In a way, Xtalo looked terrified once he’d accepted Daniel’s words. Were Assassins that bad? She was his daughter! Something else was going on, probably something along the lines of what Thomas had been worried about.

“Of course.”

“Thank you. Khiat, we will speak of this later. Can you fight?”

The Assassin was looking at her bow, conflict in her voice. “I have to, don’t I?”

“And you?”

“Daniel.”

“Daniel, what will you do?”

“Stay up here, if it’s alright. I have a crossbow.” That was one of two weapons he carried with him instead of storing in Khare. After everything that had happened in the Thormundz, Daniel wasn’t sure if he could get up close and personal with a monster again. Firing at them from a distance was fine, but it’d be a good deal of time before he could fully come to terms with the past.

“Artificer indeed,” Xtalo commented, seeing the golden crossbow. “Khiat, I’m sorry this had to happen of all nights. We all love you. As soon as this is over, we will be by your side.” Saying that, he jumped off the tower. Khiat didn’t seem to be worried, so Daniel didn’t look as he dropped. Instead, he surveyed the battle.

Where the Blessed, as Lograve had informed him was the proper term, met the monsters there was one-sided carnage. Mortals who had survived dragons and mind-control parasites tore into the creatures who were a poor measure to their greater kin. From this distance, Daniel couldn’t make out specifics. He could borrow Hunter’s eyes for a moment, something the bond between them allowed, but he was still disoriented by the sharper senses and didn’t trust himself to do so in battle.

A small part of him hated seeing Tak and Hunter charge together, eradicating anything where they intersected. Combo attack. He wanted a combo attack! Oh well, at least Tak isn’t going crazy like last time.

“What do I do?” Khiat’s voice, still shaky, broke through his jealousy.

“Are you good with that bow?”

“Yes. I mean, I think I am.”

Oh god. I’m the experienced one, aren’t I? “Ok. Don’t aim close to any of the people fighting out there. You’d probably take their head off with those arrows if you miss what you’re aiming for. It’s better if we focus on the ones trying to flank around them. If any of them get to the village-”

“They won’t.”

“Ok.” Daniel took a step back as the giant holding a bow suddenly sounded very determined. “If I understand your feature right, your first shot should kill what you hit. Once the others figure out where you are, that power will be less effective.” Daniel looked at one of the arrows again and added, “But even without your feature you’ll probably straight up kill them anyways.”

“Feature? What do you mean?”

Alright, I’m drawing the line at becoming another Lograve. “It’s a passive buff. You don’t have to do anything to use it, it just helps you. Point and shoot. Actually, hold on. I have an idea.”

In the distance, two monsters broke through the blockade and sprinted towards the village. To Daniel’s eyes, they appeared reminiscent of kangaroos, save for being able to operate their legs independently to run. Having blades for arms formed from bone was a definite change as well.

They were young level 1 shank stompers, monsters of the Crest driven to hate mortals and all they built. If they made it to the village, they’d kill and destroy for as long as they lived. Instead, another fate lay in store. From out of nowhere, one started glowing with bright orange light focused on its head and a spot over its chest. It paused, confused, before an arrow obliterated a large section of its chest. Dead in fractions of a second. A crossbow bolt to the head felled the other terrified monster in the next second.

“What was that?” Khiat asked.

“Mark Weakness. I haven’t had a chance to use it because of the mana cost increase on higher level enemies, but it’s really easy if the monster is a lower level than me. Seems like it synergizes well with your feature.”

“Synergizes? Uh, does that mean they work well together?”

Daniel forced encouragement into his voice. “Right!”

The dusker didn’t immediately reach for another arrow as Daniel reloaded, but instead watched him. “You’re so calm. Do you get used to this? I’ve hunted but,” Khiat shook her head, “This feels like I’m fighting for the first time.”

“I guess you do. I’m not going to lie, I don’t think I could be down there right now though. Oh, shoot, over there!” Daniel used Mark Weakness again, noting its mana cost couldn’t be ignored but wasn’t too much higher than Scatter Shot for level 1 enemies. Khiat, true to her word on her experience, snapped her bow up and brutally ended another shank stomper. For his part, he’d had enough time to reload and take down a second, but this group had four. “I can’t get the others, can you?”

He couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking by her face since the patterns there and the way they moved were so alien, but he at least recognized the frown. “I’ll try. I don’t have many arrows.”

“Same with my bolts. I have other options but I don’t know if it’ll help at this range. I’ll mark one.” The third fell just like the first, but the fourth was reaching a tent. They couldn’t stop it if it got underground! They weren’t too far from the tower, he had to try. Daniel prepared to use the ability that grew feathers on his arm before something intercepted the monster.

Xtalo’s massive frame slammed into it, and two others followed. The monster’s arms tried to flail defensively, but it didn’t get the chance as sections of carapace slammed together to trap the blades. “Woah!” Daniel cried out, watching the villagers brutalize the monster.

“That’s father for you,” Khiat commented. “I wonder what he could have been with a class. Daniel, right?”

“Yeah.”

Her voice was tentative. “Am I really an Assassin?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“What does that mean?”

“Honestly, you’re the first time I’ve seen the class. But just because it’s your class doesn’t mean it’s who you are.”

Khiat looked at the edge of the village and saw there wasn’t an imminent threat. “Do you remember when you got your class?”

“Yes,” Daniel lied uncomfortably, sure she wasn’t referring to waking up on a floating island.

“Then how can you say that? I felt the connection to my soul. Freedom, bows, preparation, flexibility, stealth, and weakness. Those were the words that spoke to me. What does it all mean?” She looked out to the monsters. “I feel something when I look at things. I didn’t realize it before you showed me how to use the power, but now? I don’t know if I like it.”

Here, Daniel was lost. He was very atypical when it came to how most people experienced classes in this world. For a while, he’d even had two. “Sounds like you’re a stealth archer to me. And freedom doesn’t sound bad. You said, wait, there-” Three more monsters dead, two to Khiat’s credit, over the next half a minute. Between them and the people in the melee ahead, the battle would be over soon. More so, Daniel was impressed. One of the ones Khiat had killed had been a level 2 variant, the larger pack containing a scattered few. “You said you were a good person. Granted, I don’t really know you, but your father seemed like a good guy too and he raised you. I assume.” Wait, why I don’t try this? “What is it people say, it’s your actions that define you? You’re defending people you love. Assassin or not, I wouldn’t worry.”

Khiat relaxed a little, which was displayed physically by slight contractions in the shell of her shoulders. Daniel’s words had carried mana with the ability he used. Reassure. Like Jump, it did what you would think, only his Encyclopedia claimed it only worked on afflictions like fear. The relief Khiat showed ran counter to that. The Encyclopedia never lied, but Daniel had been taken by surprise a few times in the past when he assumed it also told him everything. “Thank you. Any others coming?”

“No, I think they’ve got it handled. You see the guy doing ridiculous flips while throwing his sword?”

“No? Oh, wait, yes.”

“That’s Gadriel. He could probably take all of them himself if we didn’t have to defend anyone. He took on a horde like this before that had higher level flying monsters, and that was back when he was level 2.”

“What class is he?”

Should I tell her? People here are way more concerned about keeping classes secret. No, wait, with him it’s obvious. “Hero.”

Instantly, Khiat was enthralled, forgetting her woes. It was like he didn’t even need to use Reassure. “Really? What’s his name?”

“Gadriel?”

“No, his Hero name. They all have them, right?”

It’s like she’s suddenly a starstruck high schooler. A giant one. “I know what you mean, but I don’t think he has one yet.”

“Oh. Could, could I meet him? If he’s not too busy after.”

Daniel couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you. He’ll probably have to wash the blood off, except for his cape. He says there’s no power that keeps it clean, but he’s definitely lying.”

“Wow!”

In a way, Daniel was more surprised with himself than Khiat’s reaction. He was historically terrible with people, and for most of his life the only people to be nervous around were human. He’d grown more than physically in his time here and wondered how much of this had to do with his charisma. Following the escape from the Thormundz, he’d improved his from 12 to 18. Along with whatever that did to his social confidence, it had granted him new powers.

Add on top of his introspection the sight of a giant bug falling to pieces over a man she could barely see, plus the fading adrenaline from battle, and it was a very particular brand of awkward Daniel felt then. A good kind, but awkwardness nonetheless.

Khiat was fiddling with her quiver, counting the arrows. Suddenly, she exclaimed, “No! I forgot!”

“What?” She didn’t seem to hear him.

“Oh, oh no! I forgot to get the arrow earlier.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to mind.” Daniel gestured to the field of monster corpses and remembered something himself. Hunter, can you tell Tak to tell someone not to do anything to the bodies until I scan them? Thanks. “Are they hard to make?”

“The arrowheads are chitin!”

“Chitin, you mean like-” For the first time, Daniel realized the arrow tips were the same hue as Khiat’s outer shell. “Do you make arrows from your dead?”

“Not all of them, just- I need to get the ones I just shot!” Khiat swung over the ledge without another word, leaving Daniel alone on the tower. He took a few beats to look around and make extra certain the village wasn’t in any danger. Then, after considering the stairs and shrugging, he followed the duskers’ lead and went over the edge himself.