Ugh. I wish I didn’t have to get so close. Still, worth it.
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You have scanned multiple Creatures, listed below.
Scanned Targets:
? Fire Ludegrund, Deceased (Damaged) - 1
? Fire Ludegrund, Deceased (Partial) -1
? Elsyian Wisp, Deceased (Partial) - 6
? Ludegrund, Deceased (Whole) - 1
? Ludegrund, Deceased (Damaged) - 3
You have met the requirements to unlock multiple Encyclopedia entries, listed below.
Encyclopedia Entries:
? Monster: Ludegrund, Detailed
? Formulae: Firestarter, Item
? Monster: Elysian Wisp, Detailed
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System Alert: Recent use of Function: Encyclopedia generated information duplicated in other entries. Per Fundamental Law: Balance, unique information on Monster: Fire Ludegrund will be added to the base entry for Monster: Ludegrund.
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Huh, that’s new. The attendant wearing a thick outer garment and mask was about to wheel the cart away when Daniel asked him a question. “These fire ludegrunds, are they one of the new monster types?”
“Uh, yeah,” she responded, beginning to push the cart even though Daniel had more questions. “Sorry, Craftsmen are waiting.”
“No worries.” Daniel pulled up the Encyclopedia entry for the ludegrund, having to path to the monsters page first through hyperlinks before finding it on the list. True enough, fire ludegrund didn’t have its own entry. His best guess as to why, knowing what he did, was that it was a simple reskin done by the Illustrious during their tinkering.
The base ludegrund was a flying monster, as many were in Threst, though neither it nor the remnants of the wisps that had come in on the carts were birdlike. It had a swept wing shape, the anatomy not matching up well with normal rules like those in the beast type. The outer body could rotate along a central, hardened core that floated freely like a trackball. It was also propelled through the air by plain magic rather than physics. The normal level 1 variant had sharpened blades on the front edges, and the fire ludegrund could shoot flames from its center core as well.
Daniel read the description of the only formulae he’d received for his troubles and mentally marked it as another possibility for his weapon experimentation before pursuing the other reason he was here. He worked his way from the open-air loading dock where a hauler had just brought the fresh batch of kills to the part of the warehouse containing the actual talent. The entire space was owned by the Hunter’s Guild and those natural or evolved Craftsmen they contracted did their work here. Temir might have insisted that Daniel work in a similar space while making the bags of holding if Aurus wasn’t trying to make a good impression.
Technically, he wasn’t allowed in this area, but Daniel had a good reason to push his luck. He’d kind of screwed himself over when making the winged boots formulae, as the improved version he’d gained following the wastewolf hunt showed.
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Winged Boots (Formulae: Collaborative, Item, Domain: Enchantment, Quality: Standard, Level: -)
A combination of Crafting and Enchanting talent enabling Flight in any Creature capable of wearing them. This formulae is collaborative in nature, requiring the input of multiple individuals in the sequence to construct.
Creation of this item requires the combined efforts of individuals with Class: Craftsman and Class: Artificer, or individuals with appropriate Powers: Crafting. Absence of one or more of these requirements imposes high Mana and Construction/Enchantment Complexity penalties.
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He’d tried making one himself with level 3 fur and had immediately failed. This was turning into a huge issue as, while he did have the lightning wings formulae, no one on his team could use those to fly alone. His idea had been to try and further combine the winged boots and lightning wings formulae into one superior one after doing some prototyping, since the winged boots themselves had been derived from another magical item. That’s where he’d messed up, since including the work of Ornithar had made it a requirement of the design.
Daniel got some odd looks as he entered the large workshop. People of various races moved about large tables, mostly avianoids wearing aprons. He was wearing some casual wear Willow and Khiat had picked out on a shopping trip, since their desert wear wasn’t cutting it in the windy climate now growing colder with winter. Compared to those wearing protective equipment, he stood out.
“Are you lost?” one of them shouted over to him over the grisly sound of butchering. An entire half of the room was dedicated to the carcasses of wolves he’d supplied, while the rest dealt with other kills. Not all of them were Craftsmen, judging by the weapons his weak seventh sense could make out as Foci on a handful. Rangers, if he had to guess.
Daniel snapped back to the avianoid who’d addressed him, who he identified.
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Padri Tiltfeather (Craftsman - 2)
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The aura that came with it was a solid gray. “My name is Daniel Brant. I was here for other business, but I was hoping to find someone that could help me. I’m a new Artificer in the region and there’s an item I can only make with-“
He didn’t get any further as a drop of red entered Padri’s aura, the looks on the others who’d heard suggesting they’d become even more aggravated than the first one. Daniel realized his mistake as he saw that almost everyone was working on skinning wolves. Rumors of who’d brought them in must have spread.
“You asshole!” one further down the line shouted. “You dump all this on us and then strut in here asking for more?”
Daniel would have just backed out and cut his losses if that wouldn’t mean alienating almost everyone who could help his team fly. “I’m not asking people to do it for free. I’ll either pay you or we can split what we make evenly. Isn’t this your job, anyway?”
“We’re contracted with the Hunter’s Guild to help process whatever teams bring in. They’ve got most of us for eight hours every day, but we don’t have to work if there’s nothing to do.” A third Craftsman, this one only level 1, gestured to the wide space with feathered arms. “No one ever works that long, except if some cracked beak dumps hundreds of corpses on us!”
“Worse ‘n that. I hear they’re giving some of the better teams bags of holding to make sure they can bring everything they kill back. We’re never going to catch back up. Guess who we have to thank for that?” Several who hadn’t heard that tidbit glared intensely at Daniel while others moaned. “You can take whatever you want made and shove it up your ass, rare. You and whoever killed these things.”
Come on, the Artificer complained internally as he briefly considered asking Cloak to blank out the last few minutes of everyone here so he could try again, but there was no telling if the god was actually with him now. That didn’t leave him any better off. He had a feeling telling these people he hadn’t known, or what they were doing would help the region, wouldn’t help. At the very least, he could correct one misconception. “I killed them.”
“You killed over three hundred level 3 wolves. How?” Padri, the original Craftsman, asked disbelievingly though with some curiosity.
“Yeah. Took a while but I got through them. I’m a combat Artificer, I don’t just sit around enchanting, I hunt monsters too.”
“Lucky you,” one of the Rangers in the room mumbled darkly. “I’d be out there too, but because of you I’m stuck in here! Fucking Guild’d take my registration if I broke contract. No one told me it would get this bad.”
Daniel continued to hold his ground despite the absolute lack of sympathy in the room. He considered offering to talk to Temir to get whoever helped him free of this duty, but he’d just seem even more an aggressor to their united front. “I’m sorry. Look, I’m just trying to…” he trailed off and shook his head. Daniel was just as disappointed as the Craftsmen were angry, but he was smart enough to see he wouldn’t accomplish anything by staying. Better to track down someone later, when the entire room wasn’t against him. A hammer was thrown at him as he left, but he dodged it.
…
Walking back to his house made Daniel all the more aware of how much not being able to fly was hurting him here. He could make the journey in ten minutes, less if he had his heliorite wings, but the ground path was at least an hour and far more taxing. Even the streets were built for the skyfolk as every time one landed people had to clear the way, causing backups. Looping from the ground limit and gliding to there was somehow worse, as he’d effectively have to travel about 50 kilometers down instead of two up and suffer the Spoke’s limit on fall speed in the process.
I would have brought Willow if I’d known they’d all hate my guts, he thought as he waited for a group of five to finish their descent ahead of him. They were all level 1 and nothing special, they couldn’t even truly fly. Elsewhere they’d have no special advantage, but in Threst they were celebrated. Flight was the status symbol magical items had once been in Aughal. That he had a way to give anyone the power of flight didn’t matter if all the Craftsmen in Aurus despised him.
Distracted by his internal grumblings, Daniel didn’t notice the oddity before the landing team did. It was partially due to his seventh sense only being on par with the level 1s as he could only spend so much time trying to train it these days. To be fair, the other hunters wouldn’t have sensed anything either, except for the fact that the disturbance was affecting their mana flow.
Daniel immediately pulled out his phone and saw that a notification had come through.
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System Alert: System Conflict between ??? and ~Error: Undefined~ has generated an instance of Monster Spawning. Locational suppression of monster spawning is currently disabled due to the effects of the Collapse.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
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System Alert: You are currently in an area subject to an instance of Monster Spawning. Remaining in the area directly affected by the System Conflict will pose a risk of succumbing to Forced Transmutation and ~Error: Undefined~. Fundamental Law: Immutable Soul is attempting to prevent this instance of spawning.
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“Get out of the street!” Daniel tried to yell, but a general concordant murmuring had started as the landing team went on the alert. None of the non-Blessed could sense what was going on, whereas Daniel could feel the unnatural twisting of the mana within him. The loop around his heart resisted, and he felt that gave him more time. He backed up a few steps, empowered strength easily allowing him to force his way through, and could barely sense the diminishing of the invasive mana.
God damn it. “Get off the street!” Daniel shouted again, though more melodically. There hadn’t been a reason to do what he was about to before, but now he needed to cut above the noise. He mentally pushed the volume of his Music function to the max and played back what he’d ‘sung’. The function was loose with its definition of music as he’d demonstrated the first time he’d made public use of it.
The burst of sound visibly injured those standing closest to him as he unleashed the equivalent of a weak level 2 sonic attack. It got the job done as people ran from his warning for one reason or another. Those closest to where the team had landed, including the five, were an exception.
Daniel had thought the most disturbing thing he’d seen magic do was either Casia’s zombies, or the lake monster. This easily beat both. As he continued backing up, he felt a sudden surge within him as the intruding mana attempted to alter how it flowed in his body. It barely did anything, both due to his distance and the loop around his heart, but it gave him an idea of what was happening to those closest to the clearing. His phone left no room for doubt.
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System Alert: The instance of Monster Spawning has resolved. All Wild Mana has been exhausted through absorption by other Creatures. Fundamental Law: Immutable Soul attempted and was unable to prevent this process.
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Those who had ‘absorbed’ the wild mana were currently frozen in place as their bodies changed. Thankfully, it looked like they’d already died. The tags identifying them had completely faded, and when they returned after the quick shift, there was no sign of any mortal soul inside.
Numbly, Daniel pulled out the only enchanted weapon he had. Bone claws, made to be worn like brass knuckles. They didn’t fit his hands too well, but that’s because he’d made them for his cat form which was still too injured to use. He tried not to think about who they’d been as he resolved to take down the new monsters. Aurus’ guard could respond, but none were close enough to stop more people from dying.
As he pushed through the still-fleeing crowd, Daniel used Construct Projectile to rip up part of the earth beside the street and impale one of the monsters that had come from the team. Each was a level 2 example of known monsters from this region, while those in the crowd that had been caught were now level 1 monsters. The one he’d hit was a ground-based monster known as a crag stalker. Half of the team had turned into bulky, somewhat reptilian monsters who could climb faster than normal people could run.
The one he hit died as he spawn killed it. Daggers thrown with Snap Shot took down some of the flock of various flying monsters that took off, some ludegrunds among them. It wasn’t enough to stop all the attacks, and it was all Daniel could do to block out what was unnecessary and focus.
In the next moment, his mouth stretched as he activated Hunter’s Fearsome Roar. It was a hard choice since he’d figured out he couldn’t swap to another power with that slot while it was on cooldown, but it did stop the monsters on his side from advancing. For similar reasons he took Force of Fear, eating a second cooldown to deal damage in proportion to how afraid every nearby monster was. This combination quickly staggered the level 1s, buying more time.
A ballista bolt slammed into the pavement two meters away from him as he broke into the clearing itself. The defensive weapon had tried to aim for the level 2 monsters first, but whoever was aiming hadn’t been able to sight properly. I couldn’t hit anything without Snap Shot right now either.
The closest crag stalker was still blinking, taking in its surroundings as the overwhelming rage against mortalkind overwhelmed it. When it saw Daniel it charged forward, the street cracking as the heavy digits of its feet dug in. It jumped, and then jumped again while in midair, redirecting despite not having a surface to reflect off of. Daniel saw it coming and threw half an arm full of feathers into its face, and then used his enchanted weapons to dig through the monster as its fall was disturbed.
The bone claws formulae he’d gotten from the shank stompers hadn’t seemed too useful until he’d gained his cat form. In addition to shaping them to cut in tandem with Beast Mode’s claws, he’d added elemental damage. On his hands right now were the two he’d made already, one fire, and one lightning claw. The damage versatility was pointless in this case as both level 2 weapons destroyed whatever they cut through.
It’s not just Beast Mode, Daniel thought as he Jumped away from the dead body. It’s not the oath either. It’s me. I’m beginning to believe. He’d been fighting for so long, been through so much, that when faced with this horror out of nowhere he’d had no hesitation. Using his powers felt natural, and while he might not be making the best decision every time, he was making one. It was easy to ignore when surrounded by those who vastly outperformed him, like Gadriel, but alone there was no doubt.
The last crag stalker managed to get a hit in, surprising him with the double jump ability by using it to charge towards him. Its claws were more crushing than sharp and he made out with only bruises, maybe a slight crack in one rib Regeneration would take care of. By the time it was dead the cooldown of Construct Projectile was ready.
Making an educated guess, Daniel tried to use it on the claws that had battered him and was relieved to find it worked. If he could use monster parts in enchanting, then they counted as material. It pierced through something called a mirrorbeak cutter, which despite turning invisible hadn’t been able to remove the tag he’d placed on it. That just left the last level 2 monster, a fire ludegrund.
It was up to full fighting capacity at this point and was lasering the crowd. Even at a distance, the fire beam was powerful enough to cause deep burns in normal people from a glancing exposure. Daniel Jumped towards it after throwing a dagger, but it evaded both. This monster didn’t have the powers the former avianoid did in life, what happened to it seemed different than the process Rorshawd had undergone, but it could still kill.
The fire beam concentrated on Daniel. The ludegrund could keep it going almost constantly, except when it had to rotate the wedge of its main body across the point it emanated from to keep flying. That translated to anything directly in front of it being safe from its primary attack, a weakness the shock runners he’d fought in the Thormundz shared.
Enough. Daniel pushed with his legs, trying to emulate Jump without actually using it. He’d never mastered the full strength his attribute gave him, but in this way he’d had some practice. Daniel didn’t go as far as normal, but he did get far more height than the meter or so his unpowered self could do. At the same time he used Telekinetic Reach on the ludegrund, trying to drag it to him.
It worked, though at the cost of a fifth of his total mana. This ability wasn’t meant to be used on monsters directly, at least not on his level, but he didn’t care. The telekinetic pull lasted just seconds, enough to drag it into his lightning claws which he used to skewer the trackball that was the center of the monster. A fluid from inside ran down his fingers as he landed hard on the ground, lacking the protection Jump normally gave.
Daniel looked around and saw flying hunters engaging the rest of the monsters. All avianoids, they’d been the only ones who could get here the fastest. A few looked at him and then at the scraps of armor that had remained on the crag stalkers. If Daniel was managing to hold himself together, he couldn’t imagine what news of this would do to the general morale of Aurus. He’d thought the uninhibited monster spawns would just mean they could appear in inhabited territories, but not in people.
…
“We need to talk.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Cloak said, appearing in his room. Daniel had just finished making a full set of both claw types for his human form, just in case, when he’d heard the concealed god climbing his stairs.
“How did that happen? Why does the Octyrrum drop its protections during a Collapse? That wasn’t part of it not being able to find enough gods, you programmed it to do that! How are people supposed to sleep knowing that could happen to them at any time!?”
With the disguise he wore, both the clothing and body of a Cleric of himself, Cloak appeared young and inexperienced. The hardness in his eyes betrayed that. “You’re lucky this didn’t come up, or I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”
“So you will now?”
“I wouldn’t, but my guess is you’d do something radical if I don’t.” Cloak summoned an image in the air, a board eleven by eleven spaces. “Are you familiar with this?”
“If you’re about to tell me you see this world like a game, I’m going to throw something at you.” Daniel placed a hand on his desk, which was currently covered by wolf bone weapons and fragments. “And if you were going to say, ‘sometimes you have to sacrifice a piece for the greater good’, I’ll use Snap Shot.’”
“Your anger is exactly the justification for our actions,” Cloak returned smoothly. “You’ve seen that happen once. How many times did you think we saw this during the last Collapse?"
“You mean when you abandoned the people of the Octyrrum?” Daniel asked, remembering the Accounts of Artruz.
“When we took necessary measures, yes.”
“Speaking of, there’s something that’s been bothering me.” Daniel thumbed through his phone, a worried look growing on Cloak’s face. It took him a minute to find his way there, but he eventually found the ‘System Collapse’ entry by way of the one on monster spawns. It was the one he’d seen on the initial notification announcing the new apocalypse. Cloak must have already gotten to it since it was unidentified, but he just needed to confirm the title “This Collapse isn’t because of the Crest, it’s artificial. These are settings you put in place. Why?”
“The Origin Beasts.” Daniel tensed as they broached a topic he’d been afraid of. If Cloak was about to tell him it could appear at any moment, like those monsters had on the street, he wouldn’t be able to handle it. “The first Collapse ended when Hourglass poured a massive amount of our combined energy into his domain. We isolated the very core of the Octyrrum in time while we devised a countermeasure.”
There was a slightly strained hollowness to Cloak’s voice as he continued to explain, as if speaking of a pain he wasn’t currently feeling. “You must understand, the monsters you see can’t survive in the Crest. The Origin Beasts can destroy our Spokes, but they can’t take them over or create their own. Only they survived once they took all the space outside the hub. We allowed enough time to pass that they were forced to hibernate, and at that point we had a chance to try and find them while expanding to reclaim the world.”
“If the monsters come from the Crest, why can’t they survive in it?”
“Many reasons. Suffice it to say that when this world was invaded, the conflict between systems created an environment which neither side could exist within. The Origin Beasts project it onto us passively. Every element we deny or mitigate strains the Octyrrum, and their influence grows as they wake. We incorporate what we have to, and that burden grows as they rise.”
Daniel chewed on that for a few moments, realizing at the same time that if they could talk about this, the topic must not have come up during the unidentified time. “You’re talking about Growth?”
“That’s just a part we allowed into the Octyrrum. We couldn’t fully block it out. We won’t be able to until the Crest and the enemy gods are gone. Only then will the system conflict finally end.” Cloak’s voice sounded so weary there. “The Collapse is exactly that, a collapse of resources to the center as a last failsafe so we can preserve the system core. As far as the monster system, I would expect it to begin fully influencing the monster population again. All the Collapse has done is unlock versions of monsters we have restricted for various balancing reasons. Balance must be maintained, if only to keep the system stable.”
“How long do we have?”
A shape flew past the window. An avianoid, Daniel realized a few seconds later. After the spawning incident Aurus was on high alert. Cloak sighed again, bitterly. “We’d have more if my damned church would listen to me. This far out in the fringes, in another’s Realm, it’s not as structured as I’d hoped. Monster spawning would have been just one of the warnings I could have given.” He shook his head as Daniel tried to speak, actually silencing the sound he would have made. “You couldn’t have done it, you don’t have the connections or the authority, not for this. Either way? We have some time. Even though this Spiritualist movement was more organized than I’d believed, waking a slumbering god is no easy process. In the worst case, which this is, a full collapse to the center of the Octyrrum in which nothing outside of the core is defended will still take decades. Their gods will begin infiltrating the Octyrrum with elements of the enemy system well before then, however.”
“Alright.” Daniel didn’t feel too much better for that estimate. “But right now, monsters are showing up and taking over people’s bodies.”
“Even with the Collapse, that will be rare. We were simply unlucky. Now that people are aware of the threat it can be mostly avoided so long as there is someone nearby who can tell what’s going on.”
Daniel didn’t want to ask the next question, but he did. “Was today because of me?” The presence of the ludegrunds in the horde was too much of a coincidence, even if they were native to the region. “The first one just happened to be right in front of me. If I’m a danger to my friends-“
“Then I wouldn’t be standing next to you. Those incidents can’t affect me, but they can alter my Proxy. It is random,” the god assured. “The majority of monsters will appear from natural material like rock, or even water vapor. It’s harder for the process to change a living thing, but sometimes it just happens in an area where it can’t choose anything other than a populated section.”
“Path of least resistance,” Daniel muttered, catching Cloak’s attention.
“We should speak more on your world sometime. In some topics, you are far more knowledgeable than you should be.”
“I still don’t trust you.” That hung in the air for a minute, neither seeing a way forward in the conversation. After enough time, Daniel just picked another topic. “Willow’s advancing again. We’ll see if your advice pays off.”
“It should. She’ll get Spirit Guardian as long as she keeps both the ideals and the archetypes of it in mind. It’s too well suited to her for the Octyrrum to give her anything else. That’s one of the reasons people would run into an advancement wall, you know. The Octyrrum wants to give someone a specific class, but we restricted it or they’re too opposed to it. Don’t worry, with her it will go smoothly.”
“Thanks.”
“We’re not enemies,” Cloak said slowly as if Daniel hadn’t heard him four times before. “There are things I wish I could tell you, beyond what Torch has blocked, that I simply can’t. If they ever got out, the Octyrrum would be finished no matter if we defeated the Origin Beasts again. Torch would have annihilated a region if a hint of one of those secrets was found.”
Daniel pointed a sharp finger at Cloak. “One of the reasons I have a hard time trusting you is that you say you’re not my enemy, and then you say something like that.”
“Look what the secret of spirits did! This entire Collapse is due in part to some of our population discovering and swearing themselves to the Origin Beasts through the discovery of that topic alone. There are billions of people in the Octyrum and only ei-, seven of us.” Cloak’s voice broke towards the end.
“Billions.” Earth had that many, but humans were also the apex predator there. How many regions were there? “You’re right, I don’t have your perspective. I also don’t have your goals. If there was a way to get Hunter and all of my friends to Earth, I’d take it right now. I know there isn’t one, so I guess I’m stuck with you.”
“Daniel! There’s someone here to see you!” Khiat shouted from the common room.
“As am I, you.” Cloak faded from his sight.
“Coming!” Daniel shouted back. It had to be Quala. She’d been late for their nightly meeting, no doubt due to the attack. Today was the first moment people would truly realize the Collapse was here. He looked to the door and was surprised to find the visitor already tagged. He didn’t have Hunter’s ability to reflexively do it to anyone entering his range. But then again, he’d already tagged this person today. It was Padri, one of the Craftsmen.