When the day finally came, it was not Temir who met them at the Hunter’s Guild. Daniel’s team had, with Murdon’s help, submitted final notice that they were ready to register. The draconoid didn’t have any special connections to smooth over the process, but Tounaki did. Most of them found it funny how the Knight continued to pretend that no one had caught onto their relationship. If only Lograve were here, he’d have carved an ice sculpture of the two in a compromising position and put it in the middle of a street somewhere.
He wasn’t here, though. It was only the members of his team that would be registered, and the special attention of Tounaki had helped when it came to Tlara. She was now recorded as a Beastmaster remotely piloting the wyvern, and any inconvenient questions had been pushed to the side. When they eventually revived her, they could make it seem like she’d been there the whole time.
That just left proving to the Threst Hunter’s Guild that they were capable of fighting while flying. As someone who had gone through the DMV on his world, Daniel knew the process would be as easy as the driving instructor would make it. He just hoped they got someone reasonable.
The moment they all landed in the wooded area of the separated island containing the Hunter’s Guild, someone called out to them. It had to be obvious who they were. Avianoids didn’t have a monopoly on flight powers, just consistency, so there were humans and those of other races who were ‘flight certified’. That being said, Wingcraft were notable as they landed.
The combination of lightning wings and winged boots allowed for both control and propulsion respectively. It took some getting used to, especially with how Daniel had designed the sets. For most the boots were simple, it was the wings that were the problem. The moth fur helped as Daniel had decided on something more akin to a wingsuit than mock physical wings coming off the back to better maneuver. The material’s clinging effect kept them stuck to the arms when activated, while the green feathers lining the edges lent their weight reduction effect. Even Khiat could fly, though she was the slowest of them.
Daniel identified the man who’d called out as well as the three standing next to him, frowning as the tag failed to produce any information on the leader. The rest were level 2. Oh well, at least they can’t blame us for having people at different levels.
“Hey! You’re that new team with the Artificer right? Nice gear,” the leader called out as they walked towards each other. He gave the largest smile to Willow after finding her next to the wyvern. “I should look into ordering something.”
“You mean asking your dad to,” one of the whispered, the snide comment from the avianoid Martialist named Bertrar only meant for his team but picked up by Keen Senses, which Daniel kept on now by default.
“I am Kahvin Talongleam, also known as the Sonorous Gale. This is my team, the Talonwings. A pleasure to meet all of you.” His speech kicked into a more formal gear as Daniel suddenly had an unfortunate recollection of Heldren. He noticed there was a crack in Kahvin’s beak, not immediately obvious but there if you looked for it, and wondered how that’d happened. “I, in the capacity as a level 3 team leader in good standing with the guild, will oversee your flight certification training and safeguard you should the need arise.”
“Are you a Hero?” Khiat asked hopefully, still as charmed as ever by the class.
Kahvin shifted uncomfortably as the large dusker addressed him, but tried not to show it. “Of course! I take it as my charge to offer help to those in need. My team and I often fulfill auxiliary, necessary roles such as this.”
“Anything to get off regular hunting duty,” Betrar complained to himself again, now audible to everyone as they’d closed the distance.
“Anyway!” Kahvin said loudly, shooting a glance behind him, “This is going to be simple. We shall hunt prey appropriate for your team, something in the low to mid level 2 range.” Daniel thought to protest there since they could easily handle that, but going after something more difficult would just prolong this unnecessary step. Plus, he’d like to see the look on Kahvin’s face after he blew the target away with his blast bow.
“So we do that, get back, and we’re in the guild?” he asked hopefully.
“Er, yes. Basically.” Kahvin waved a hand and dropped the formal tone after Daniel didn’t reciprocate. “There’s all this paperwork I have to fill out but as long as you can kill something without us needing to get involved you’re fine. Used to be stricter but with everything happening they want as many people out there hunting as they can get.”
“Good. Let’s go.” He wasn’t sure if it was that initial look at Willow or his experience with Heroes, but there was something about Kahvin he didn’t like.
“Hey, not to be rude, but how the Crest does that plant fly like that?” The only female member of the team, named Adva, asked. It was a fair question for an outsider, all things considered.
Daniel had been met with a problem when it came to Khare. Their unique biology was an advantage in some regards, but using the methods he had for the rest of the team would have locked the gestalt in their humanoid form. Instead, he’d made the lightning wings in a bowl shape, leaving holes in the bottom for Khare to thread vines and make contact with the boots. The combination flew through the air differently, and on top of it Khare faintly looked like a shelled, fire-breathing lizard who’d just kidnapped a princess, but they’d preferred it to Daniel’s gear when they’d tried that out.
“Khare flies just fine,” Daniel replied evenly.
“Talongleam. That’s one of Threst’s notable lineages,” Willow commented from the back of the group.
“Yes! My family has long served this region and has remained pure to the race, as you no doubt can tell.” He gave what Daniel was rapidly considering a creepy smile to Willow and asked, “Who are you to be so wise in the ways of Threst? I can’t recall seeing such a pretty face grace these skies before, for it is a rare thing that eclipses Threst’s own beauty.”
Both Daniel and Tlara’s eyes narrowed at that, the Artificer also seeing the charm effect blink into place above Willow. She was still dealing with level disparity, but even if she was balanced, the Hero had every advantage over her. He slipped his dominant arm into the bag on his side and withdrew the blast bow, which had a last-minute addition to the design. After almost dropping it during a test in midair, he’d made a self-repairing wrap from the moth fur so that it could cling to his hand and arm. Mentally juggling the active effects of all his magical items was getting to the point of becoming tedious, but he didn’t have to think too hard about what to do next.
“We’re just here to hunt.” Daniel might have flipped into Beast Mode if he wasn’t trying to keep that a secret, but he did brandish his weapon. The barrel didn’t exactly point toward Kahvin, though a slight adjustment might easily, accidentally shoot him in the knee. “Keep the charms off my team.”
“Told you we should have tracked down that no-rection power,” the fourth member, Clacki, whispered to Bertrar. “He’s always doing this.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Indeed, that is a rather brazen accusation!” Kahvin rebuked, switching in and out of Threst’s formal speech. To Daniel, the lack of consistency just showed how shallow the Hero was. At least Gadriel committed to the bit.
“I have a power that identifies people and shows active effects on them. Even if I didn’t, you were being obvious. Like I said, we’re just here to hunt.” He pulled on the bolt of his weapon, loading a round. The Hero wouldn’t understand the gesture but the intent should be clear. This was clearly the worst kind of person he could’ve gotten stuck with, but like hell he would let some asshole mess with Willow like that. Tlara was also charging the spines in her wings, using one of her powers on herself to prepare the attack. People in the area started to step back.
“That’s enough!” A loud, feminine bellow cut across the grounds. Daniel recognized the speaker. It was the pinkish-white draconoid from the regent’s briefing. She was higher level than him too and he’d never gotten her name, so all Identify Creature showed was a vaguely red aura that came off as annoyed to him. Kahvin’s was a deeper shade, though the rest of his team were colored more by embarrassment and fear of the draconoid. “Talongleam, I don’t recall your team assignment involving tearing up my lawn by starting a brawl.”
“C-commander,” Kahvin addressed the draconoid, who was speaking loud enough to be audible from the guild’s entrance sixty meters away. Given what he knew of Threst, Daniel was surprised an avianoid didn’t have the position. “I was just executing my duties when-“
“Yeah.” There was distant thowmp, and then the Commander was sailing through the air, landing heavily close to the group. It could’ve been Jump, though she’d been too far away when the power started for Daniel to tell. Neither did the draconoid have an obvious Focus. She did wear intricate wooden armor that rolled in on itself to give the appearance of a stormy sea, but it didn’t resonate like a Focus would. “Sure you were.”
“Commander, are you implying that-“ Kahvin attempted to continue in his increasingly petulant voice, but she ignored him.
“Daniel Brant. Heard a lot about your team. Liked what I saw at that meeting. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to pull together something like this. I need more Artificers in my guild. Not less,” she added that last part with a look towards Kahvin. “It’s obvious no one’s happy about what’s going on. Deal with it.”
“He used a power on one of my teammates. Look, we can bring down whatever monster you want us to without them babysitting us.”
“And you haven’t used one of them?” she asked knowingly.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“There’s a difference!”
“Not in the eyes of the law,” the Commander replied firmly, though Daniel felt the hard edge in her voice was directed most toward Kahvin. “I’d like to take this moment to point out that with Rikendia’s royal line officially being ruled extant, there is every chance certain kingdom-wide policies may be reviewed and revised by Threst’s court.” The Hero’s feathers covered the fact that his face had just grown pale. “For now just suck it up, both of you. It is the current policy of the Hunter’s Guild that all Blessed must be verified as flight capable before they can hunt in our skies and I can’t spare anyone else who’s certified to do this.”
You mean you don’t want to spare them, Daniel thought. Kahvin was beginning to seem like a paper tiger. Sure, he was higher level than him, but there was no way he was higher than 3. Daniel could have gotten to level 3 himself by now if he didn’t care about level disparity. In fact, he could’ve done it before leaving the Thormundz. You only needed 20 advancement potential after getting a class at minimum. Maybe there’s a reason he’s running around with a bunch of level 1’s and 2’s instead of hunting on his own level. “We’re just supposed to trust him to be impartial?”
“Nothing subjective about it. Get out there, kill a monster. You two disagree about what happened afterward Torch Clerics get involved. Do not make me involve Torch Clerics.” She sighed, and Daniel could just make out scraps of pink flame along with the exhalation. “Am I clear?”
“Perfectly, Commander,” Kahvin replied sharply, still shaken from what she’d said about Rikendian policy. Daniel knew it was a kingdom-wide stance that certain classes like Bards and Rogues be allowed to use certain powers on the populace to help train their class, within limits. Technically, Heroes didn’t advance from romance. Kahvin must have been exploiting a loophole after awakening a charm power.
“Great. There’s a flock of whitesprings a Fate just spotted trashing the abandoned village of Diver’s Rest, two hours north and near the ground limit. Seems like there are some new level 3 variants among them. Handle it.”
“Level 3? Commander, uh, shouldn’t we go after something more appropriate?” Kahvin asked. “We have level 1s with us.”
“You’ll be fine. Artificer, point that thing at the ground and fire it.” Daniel gave her a confused look until the Commander pointed to his weapon. He obliged, and there was a crack as the round’s explosive charge detonated. It was slightly quieter than the first few he’d tested which better preserved the slug. The default magazine he kept locked by not loaded contained bullets with fire-enchanted wolf bone that usually survived the process of being fired. The bone didn’t give him any special benefits, but there was enough of it that it was worth using for normal ammunition.
A plume of dirt erupted as the bone slug cut its way into the ground. The Commander whistled as she inspected the hole. “I think you almost pierced to the other side.”
“What is that?” the Martialist on Kahvin’s team, Bertrar, asked. He looked like a melee specialist, but also that he’d consider a change if he could get what Daniel had on him.
“Multi-part construction. It propels bolts at high speed by causing a small explosion in the weapon. Enchantment on the front end that only affects what you fire. Inventive, just what I’d expect from an Artificer.” At this point, Kahvin seemed to recall that Daniel had been almost pointing it at him earlier and took a step back.
“That weapon explodes?”
“You can tell what it does?” Daniel asked at about the same time.
“Not like I was hatched yesterday. Shame something like that wouldn’t scale well or I’d see if we could get a few ballista working with that design. Can’t imagine it’d survive being fired more than once, and we couldn’t just stick a tree in front of a couple Craftsmen and tell them to make ammo for it.”
She has to be some kind of intelligence-based class. Arcanist?
The Commander exhaled through her nostrils and her tone grew more reasonable. “Look, I get your concerns, but someone needs to take care of this. Use a modicum of intelligence and it will be fine, whitesprings aren’t strong for their level. Clear out the flock. Talongleam gets its quota filled for the next week and the probationary team passes flight certification. Don’t make this harder than it has to be, and for the love of the gods, don’t make me deal with Torch Clerics.”
…
Kahvin made it harder than it had to be. Talonwing and Wingcraft flew separately through the skies of Crest, keeping near the ground limit but not too close to it. The common wisdom of the region stated that sticking too close to one of the two massive teleportation walls left you open for potential surprise attacks from something near the sky limit above you.
At least flying was still amazing enough to make up for the jerk’s presence. The wings on his back couldn’t provide lift, that’s what the boots were for, but they did allow him to turn in the air and catch the wind. His very first deployment of this kind of device had ended disastrously for many reasons, but now it felt like he’d fully realized the dream.
Willow was the sole exception to their team, riding on Tlara rather than using her equipment. She waved over to him and Daniel flew close to her, marveling at how easy it was to fall in formation with Tlara without over or undershooting. The wind made talking slightly difficult, but they could still hear each other. “What he did, how can I defend against it?”
“Punch him in the face.” She frowned at the unhelpful advice. “Sorry. I’ve been hit by that before too. Your wisdom will help, and if the context isn’t right it’ll break. I’m pretty sure if he tries it again on you it’ll either fail or have a far lower chance of working.”
“I don’t like having thoughts like that about other people. Anger,” she clarified at Daniel’s odd look. “I should have been advancing my wisdom, I’m only going into this with one power.”
“It’s a good one for your level. Don’t worry, you’re covered as long as you stay by Tlara. Once we get to that village, I’ll identify the level 3s. Between me and Khiat, we have a chance of taking them out before they even get to us. You should advance with a future in mind rather than what you need now.” He glanced at Tlara and wished his next question could be asked in her absence, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Are they still following us?”
“Yes.” Willow indicated the general air around her. “It’s odd. They’re following, but the elevation isn’t affecting them. I’ve never seen them over me.”
“Strange.” As if that’s the strangest thing about having another god following me around in a different dimension. “Well, keep an eye out for any other spirits and take them in if you can. I’m going to avoid Beast Mode if at all possible so I won’t have access to Sense Astral. If we run into something like those wolves, you and Hunter will be our best bets.”
“Alright, but I can only go where Tlara does and I’m sure she wants one of those level 3s for herself.”
Right, because we totally need her to have another flying body she can jump into at a moment’s notice. “Ok. I’ll try and ground one of these whitesprings for her to dominate.” He pushed on the effect coming from his boots to draw himself to eye level with Tlara. Her head now had some armor and, true to his bitter thoughts, he had made it slightly itchy. There was no other way to get the sections of fur armor to fit her without the cling effect of the moth fur. “And you, if the monsters pressure you too much, fly away with Willow. I don’t want to risk her getting separated from you.”
She snorted in response and glared back at him as if to point out his contradicting orders. In fairness, he had been in Beast Mode that other time. “Pretty sure she won’t leave without making sure some other monster won’t snap that jerk in half before she gets a chance.”
“You two must be getting along a lot better now, I didn’t think she’d take that much offense on your behalf.”
Willow’s head bobbed as she chuckled. “It’s not that, it’s that she has an excuse to do it.”
Daniel had to quickly peel away as Tlara suddenly snapped towards him, the attempted bite not at all pulled. At least, it didn’t look like Tlara had held back. She is keeping it together, right? Daniel wondered, suddenly worried that all these ‘pranks’ might be something else. Worst case, we see if anyone else in Aurus has Telepathy after we get back.
There was little else that occurred on the flight to Diver’s Rest, aside from an incident where Khiat tried to fly through a cloud only to find a sky island hiding inside. Kahvin had excitedly called for a brief break but whatever he’d been looking for inside wasn’t there, and he dejectedly called on them to keep moving. He seemed more dejected than aggressive now, though hints of red were still in his aura.
When they came upon the sky island hosting the city, it was obvious why it had been abandoned. The main stretch of land did come this way, but to get to Diver’s Rest by foot you had to take a circuitous route of bridges that once linked a chain of smaller islands going down to the village proper. Those, as well as the buildings, had been heavily damaged as the monsters rolled in.
The creatures that had ended up capitalizing on the withdrawal were whitesprings. These were another bird hybrid monster that didn’t exactly fall into the beast category, like the tempestfowl elemental whose feathers adorned his team’s gear. The normal, fully grown variant was level 2. The photo in his Encyclopedia was a better representation than what he could see over a kilometer out.
They were faintly reminiscent of the feathered snakes from his world, only there wasn’t anything reptilian to them. The common whitespring had a long, tubular body with many small sets of wings branching off like the legs of a caterpillar. They were predominately white, though the monsters had variations in the subcolors. None were too unique from looks alone, but neither was every monster a carbon copy of each other. Ringcats, for example, had different patterning even if their fur was always blue, white, and gold.
Several notable exceptions were among the flock. First was a group of about half a dozen young whitesprings he’d feel guilty about killing later. There weren’t any new variants among the level 2s, but it got interesting when you took into account the level 3s. One was named a ‘crossed whitespring’, and looked like two had been joined perpendicularly at the center while also doubling in size. Another two had the ‘iridescent’ variant tag. Based on how their color patterns glowed, Daniel guessed it had more active powers than the others. Lastly, there was a handful of the normal alphas.
What he didn’t see was any sign of special monster domain tricks that Cloak had warned him about, though they’d play it safe regardless. Sucks that I can’t scan them before we fight, but I don’t care enough to lose this advantage. “Hey. We’re going to engage. Our plan’s to go for the level 3s first and mop up the rest afterward.”
“You can hit them from here?” Adva asked incredulously.
“Gravity should help. I have an aiming power though. Khiat, what do you think?”
The dusker’s head turned to the abandoned village below them and she drew her bow, the movement somewhat clumsy as she also had to bring herself to a hover with the boots. “It’s so strange. I’ve never had to shoot at this angle before, the dunes never got this high. I’ll try my best.”
“Yeah, well, whatever,” Kahvin muttered. “Just do it. I don’t care.” The Hero’s continued sulking made Daniel question what his true age was. He appeared mid-20s, assuming he could judge that right with avianoids. Considering he had at least a few years more than that due to how leveling affected aging, he was behaving a decade younger than he was. This gave Daniel every reason not to regret his earlier reaction to Kahvin going after Willow.
And this is the guy they certified to decide whether people could get into the Hunter’s Guild or not? Yikes. Threst clearly had as many problems as Aughal when it came to people abusing power, they just hid it better. He put that out of his mind though and shouldered the blast bow. Of everything he’d managed to do, putting reliable sights on this weapon had been beyond him. Iron sights he could do, no problem, but there was no guarantee the blast bow would fire perfectly straight. As much as he felt reluctant to continue relying on it, Snap Shot was necessary to use the blast bow at anything other than close range.
“Mark me,” he said to Khare as he tagged one of the iridescent whitesprings which was currently blasting the support beam of a house with rainbow energy. He didn’t want to find out what that did until he unlocked the entry in his Encyclopedia. The orange wedge over the monster flashed red, and he charged the ammunition currently in the receiver with Scatter Shot at the same time.
“Ready Khiat?” Daniel asked, and she nodded back to him. Steading himself, Daniel pulled the trigger.