Oath of the Survivor

The proctors of the exam were in a stir, eyes glued to three screens as excited chatter erupted around the room.  The cycle was over three-quarters complete, and three of the most promising candidates were each wrapping up major confrontations.  Suerrillax didn’t even bother trying to crowd around them to watch the live feed, instead pulling up the scenes from her nav bracelet.  The quality of the images was lower, but that was fine with her.

They tracked the candidates through what amounted to a surveillance scanner build into the nav bracelets.  It offered a live feed of their actions, even if it didn’t offer a lot of insight into their skills or dialogue.  Only about a dozen applicants had failed out, and all but one had settled in nicely with the civilizations near them.  The bulk of these were simply waiting out the clock, with three notable exceptions. 

The first screen showed the four-armed fae woman – Tillienne, as she gracefully moved across the battlefield.  The planet she’d been sent to had a persistent blizzard, and during her time among the people she’d been researching its origins.  It turned out that the storm was actually powered by ritual magic that was slowly siphoning life force from the unawakened populace.  After uncovering this injustice, she confronted the responsible parties, and was now single-handedly tearing through the city as her axe and spear flashed.

Sacrificial magic, as a rule, was generally prohibited in any Collective-recognized space.  In the cases it was permissible, there needed to be informed consent that was well-documented on the behalf of all parties.  Any abuse or lack of consent was prohibited, and the penalty was universally death.  While Suerrillax wasn’t sure of the specifics, it seemed as though this was part of a larger plan to keep the populace from leaving and settling elsewhere, while allowing leadership to luxuriate in their mansions. 

Finally, Tillienne’s spear pierced the heart of the enemy general, punching through his silver breastplate as though it were paper.  There was an eruption of cheers from the spectators in the room as they reveled in the action.  Suierrillax understood that the fae had created more work for herself, but felt confident the studious woman would at least be able to create stability for the remaining populace before she left.  Her attention was drawn to her second screen, where action was still playing out.

The second applicant that had caused a major stir was Jax Cain.  He was the scion of Cain Jewelers, one of the preeminent suppliers of D and C Grade crystals and custom components in the Collective.  Jax was heralded as one of the brightest talents of his generation, achieving D Grade while still very young by human standards.  Even now, Suerrillax didn’t think he could be more than one hundred and fifty cycles old.  She saw his round face and kind, dark eyes that were nearly covered by his shaggy brown hair.

As a powerful wielder of lightning magic, the world he’d been sent to was a good match for his skills.  The land had a series of large spires that jutted up from the ground and acted as lightning rods, causing much of the area to be bombarded by a nearly endless stream of electrical discharge.  The civilization here was human, living in caves in a mountainside and subsisting on mushrooms.  Since arriving and making contact, Jax had been mapping out the area, and was only now ready to put his plan into motion. 

The young man effortlessly matched the lightning in the air with skills of his own as he walked across the harsh expanse, fending off bolt after bolt as though he was swatting away gnats.  He carried with him a series of explosives he’d been crafting, and only after he set the first against the base of a pillar did he get serious.  Lightning cloaked his body as his shaggy hair stood on end, and he dashed away with ludicrous speed as an explosion rang out. 

He repeated the process over a dozen times, and soon his body was covered in shallow cuts from the shrapnel.  Despite breathing heavily, he continued his work.  Soon, there was an area surrounding the mountain that was free of the pillars.  Jax limped back to the caves, where thousands of eyes were watching.  As the lightning fell, the region with the destroyed pillars remained untouched.  People took tentative steps out of the caves, and soon the excitement was plain to see on their faces as more and more came rushing out. 

Suerrillax wasn’t entirely sure what all contributed to it, though from the snippets she’d observed she thought it was likely tied to crowding inside the caverns.  The space Jax created should allow the people who had been holed up to expand much further.  The hallmark of exceptionalism was found in making differences like these, and Suerrillax was confident that both Jax and Tillienne would be fine additions to any of the guilds.  Of course, their performance paled in the face of the final participant, who had drawn attention from the moment his application was received.

Arhades, a budding genius of the Alabaster Court, stood still as a statue on the beautiful green plains.  A gentle wind blew his silver hair, and he finally drew his long, thin blade.  The weapon was a brilliant gold against the white of his armor.  A gentle glow began to surround him as the ground shook, heralding the appearance of his next opponent.  The world he’d been sent to wasn’t dangerous because of the natural environment, instead being densely populated with megafauna, with more than a few at D Grade.  The civilization here had adapted to survive through a combination of stealth and mobility, their settlements moving on large landships. 

The velgian joined one of these ships, but instead of running, he convinced them to enter the territory of dangerous beasts nearly every day.  The wholesale slaughter was incredible, and more and more of the ships congregated as Arhades cut a bloody swathe across the plains.  Now, he was confronted with the third D Grade monster since he’d arrived.  The creature was a four-meter-tall lizard, standing on two thick legs.  Its front arms were stubby, though its wicked fangs and pointed horns made it clear it was designed for violence.  The creature snarled before charging, every step causing the ground to shake. 

Arhades stood unperturbed as the beast closed the distance, wickedly fast.  Fuzzy creatures watched from over two dozen landships, while at the same time evaluators watched from a galaxy away.  The creature closed with twenty meters, then ten, then five.  If Arhades was bothered, he didn’t look it.  As the gaping maw of the beast opened to consume him, the white-armored velgian flickered, appearing behind the creature with his sword extended. 

A fountain of blood erupted as the beast staggered, a deep gash appearing across its torso, crossing down through its stomach.  It tried to turn and face its opponent, but it was too slow.  A beam of pure, white light smashed into its skull between its horns.  It faded as quickly as it appeared, leaving a fist-sized hole through the monster’s head.  It fell to the ground, dead.  Arhades flicked the blood off his blade before sheathing it, expression as serene as before. 

While Suerrillax enjoyed watching him fight, she was hardly surprised.  He was related to the twin prodigies of the Alabaster Court, who sat atop the Mercenary Guild as the two most powerful active mercenaries the Collective employed.  It was rare for velgians to join the guild system, and with a prominent name like theirs behind him, how could Arhades be anything less than an absolute monster?

She sighed as she turned her attention back to the screen she’d been technically assigned to observe.  There was a fourth outlier, but it was a boring one.  By now, Suerrillax was convinced that the human she found so interesting at first was really just stupid.  The civilization lived within the stone of the caverns, and though he’d spent so much time inside them he still hadn’t made contact. 

Creatures had stopped approaching him, so there wasn’t even anything exciting to watch.  Instead, he aimlessly wandered through the caverns, stared at lichen, and managed to be injured by every new hazard he came across.  It was a miracle he’d survived this long.

~~~

Kyle grimaced as he lowered himself into the pool of acid.  ADAPTIVE REGENERATION had gone a long way towards toughening up his Enhanced Carapace, but the acid was still uncomfortable.  It was remarkable to him how many different dangers existed inside the caverns, and he was thankful that C.H.A.D.D. had encouraged him to make the descent.  Heat, cold, and hail were good, but he was confident he could find environments to train those resistances in abundance.  Flesh-melting pools of acid?  Far more unique. 

He let out a breath as he adapted to the discomfort.  The past weeks had been great for him, with another two levels having been gained.  Between the flesh-eating fungi, pools of various acid, and petrifying toxins of an organic crystal they’d harvested, Kyle had been able to really push himself.  His Enhanced Carapace had benefitted the most through ADAPTIVE REGENERATION.  While he didn’t have an easy way to test, he expected that his skin was several orders of magnitude more durable than it should be.  That was saying something, given that his Endurance attribute had risen to a respectable 850, only trailing behind Willpower and Intelligence. 

“C.H.A.D.D., how are the energies from the lichens treating you?”

Naturally, Kyle wasn’t the only one improving.  As he’d grown more comfortable understanding the different aspects of the ecosystem, Kyle identified a few of the natural treasures that he felt comfortable allowing the drone to absorb.  None gave C.H.A.D.D. the same greedy hunger it experienced on Earth, but there were still a handful that it was interested in.

[THEY ARE INTERESTING, DR. MAYHEW.  AND FROM WHAT I CAN TELL, ALSO COMPATIBLE WITH THE OTHER ITEM.]

That put a smile on Kyle’s face.  Originally, he wasn’t sure if absorbing the energy from plant-based treasures would get a response from the world tree seed.  So far, each one had.  The seed was still frustratingly inert. Even with PARASITIC RESONANCE’s unique ability to wear through the resistance of targets it connected to, the seed didn’t respond to his will, at least not yet.  It did, however, seem to archive the information from all the different plant-related treasures, and somehow C.H.A.D.D. could access that information through its Administrator Weevil class. 

Auric Perception picked up a disturbance at the same time C.H.A.D.D. flashed a warning, and Kyle rose from the pool of acid, knowing he was being watched.  It had become a consistent trend, with what Kyle assumed were the local sapients spying on him through the walls.  They weren’t terribly powerful, and seemed more interested in him than harboring ill-intent.  Still, he didn’t like being peeped on in the bath.  He dressed as ADAPTIVE REGENERATION mended the remnant burns, and soon he was walking down the tunnels again, munching on some mushrooms IDENTIFY showed were edible.

His routine continued, until an alert from his nav bracelet gave him a message – the cycle for Phase One of his Practicum was complete, and it was time to go home.