The prospect of venturing into unknown ruins would have normally intrigued Daniel, so long as they weren’t the buried kind. Even with recent events and the unexpected deadline, he was still looking forward to it. They couldn’t be that dangerous since Soraso was Murdon’s friend and had initially picked him for the job. They couldn’t be. More importantly, they were his best lead for Hunter.
Wingcraft had also gotten a few upgrades since Ygazir’s horde descended on Pinion’s Point. Willow had begun awakening new powers after resolving her disparity, and everyone else was still gaining them as normal. The pace of advancement was slow compared to the explosive gains of his two dragon hunts, and yet they were going faster than the average hunter.
Powers aside, the team was also getting reinforcements. Not Murdon or Quala, sadly, as both had other responsibilities such as continually pestering the Fates to search for their missing friends or denying that they were dating fledging Pyromancers. At this point Daniel was beginning to wonder if his friends had been sent halfway across the world and wondered how long it would be before they reunited. It was possible his Spoke held the way to bring them back, but as always control of it eluded him.
Instead of those two powerhouses, they’d been loaned one hunter from another team, and been assigned another who’d recently finished a long recovery. Only the first was with them today. Shuni. It was a little surprising to find that Rogues had entire power sets related to traps, though in hindsight Spinner was exactly the kind of monster you’d want to have them for.
As his Spoke hadn’t tossed him any of those powers from the Rogue class, they’d needed to bring one on board in case the Octyrrumites of old had set anything up when the world started to Collapse. Daniel still wasn’t clear on how old these were as Cloak had been cagey about the details before he’d all but abandoned direct contact with the Artificer. He was sure the specter would pop back up once he either found whatever the god wanted in the ruins or uncovered the last of the memories, but for now he was on his own.
Or, well, as much as he could be. This is still so surreal. “So everyone, this is Shuni,” he began as he introduced the Rogue while everyone gathered in the common room of the central house. It had several areas open to the sky giving it a semi-courtyard feel, which also had the happy coincidence of allowing Khiat to relax while at her full height.
“Hi gang. Never been ‘loaned out’ before but I don’t mind spreading my wings a bit,” she replied with a voice a touch deeper than the average avianoid. No member of the species could be said to have a husky voice, but hers had an element of weight to it that most didn’t. “You all seem alright and I’ve already met a couple of you. And before you start worrying, I’m not that kind of Rogue. Stickyfingers don’t make it to level 2 without getting that rep.”
She flexed her arms while keeping them level with the rest of the team as if to show there was nothing in her sleeves. It might have also been a nod to Daniel, who’d promised to provide a few pieces of gear to help her prepare. The stash of fur was definitely over halfway gone now. Still, without Tak or the guild’s resources to process kills he’d need to be stingier in the future.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Willow replied tactfully, though there was a noticeable hesitation in her voice. “We’ll be up to seven with you and the Knight. I hope that will be enough.”
“Ah, I’m not too worried,” Shuni smirked as she leaned against a wall, her shoulder beginning to blend in with the wood as she did. “I’m thinking of this like a patrol. I mean, no one’s sure we’ll be fighting monsters, so that’s an improvement right?”
“Right,” Willow nodded, but that did little to relieve her.
The Rogue’s eyes went to each of the people in the room before she turned back to Daniel. “So Captain Brant, I know that Knight’s not joining up until the last minute, but what about that Totem Warrior of yours? He seems like the type that could give me a run for my money, and that’s saying something.”
Khare of all people had figured out the joke first and was looking at Daniel while in their fully-humanoid form, waiting for the reveal. It would’ve been the perfect time to shift considering they were in a private space, especially because Daniel had yet to tell Shuni his full name since meeting her earlier today ‘for the first time’, but he was wary about Beast Mode now that it had an extremely troubling power attached to it. He hadn’t gone back into it since that day. “That would be me.”
“No, really,” she laughed, to which Daniel just shrugged helplessly. “Seriously? Did you multiclass?”
“It’s complicated.”
“So who’s the seventh then?” Daniel caught Willow’s glance and inwardly sighed. The constant interplay of secrets had grown old to him as well, but at least this one was something they had a good explanation for.
“Our Beastmaster.”
…
In the end, Tlara’s situation was the easiest to explain away. There were already a few odd classes awakening among the general population, to say nothing of the powers that both the Collapse and system default had reintroduced. All they needed to do was be a bit creative with when Tlara had acquired her ghosting power and they could blame it on the larger trend, rather than the actual reason of Daniel’s Spoke giving it to her for whatever reason.
Obviously, that and Daniel’s dual form nature were the only party secrets exposed during the initial meeting. Depending on how the initial expedition turned out, Shuni might only be with them for a day. If all they needed to do to get Hunter back was set foot in the ruins then Daniel wouldn’t have any reason to continue exploring them. Well, almost none, but it would give him more leverage in getting Cloak to explain why he was so fascinated with them.
The group left Pinion’s Point soon after, leaving Spinner and Janice behind. The Martialist had been stirred but not overly shaken by being kidnapped, though she still turned down Daniel’s offer to make flight gear for her. The way she’d put it, Janice wanted to continue her development with both feet on the ground as she didn’t want to stay in Threst forever. Which was good as Padri was still incommunicado, and he was wary of roping in another Craftsman to help out with the boots.
The now six of Wingcraft settled down near a gathering of small floating islands, the largest of which would barely fit six Tlaras. There was little risk of danger as the one good thing to come from the recent horde was a scouring of the local monster population. More would spawn eventually, but the real threat would be the elite monsters the other horde leaders would reintroduce once their terrible powers had run their course.
No, they weren’t here to hunt but to test out powers with Shuni in tow. Daniel had one in particular from advancing dexterity that he couldn’t try out while near a populated area. “Alright, everyone behind me?” he asked over his shoulder, catching Tlara rolling her eyes even though she was the furthest away.
“Slow!” Khare complained, itching themself to see what Daniel had acquired ever since he’d initially described it.
“Ok, ok,” Daniel said, being careful as he withdrew a single piece of ammunition from his bag of holding and cast Scatter Shot on it. He didn’t need to individually load rounds in order to cast that spell as it worked through the receiver, but he was being very careful to only keep one of the new combination spineshard rounds out at all times. If flame hit the red jacket, or lightning the purple bullet, while it was anywhere other than in his weapon it would be a wild explosive projectile.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
After briefly rotating the blast bow sideways so the dual-explosive didn’t fall out, he slid the bolt in place. “Just a warning, this could be loud. I don’t know if Scatter Shot will pick up the extra damage from the attack or not.”
“If it’s that powerful, should you be using the spell before trying it out?” Willow asked in a fit of rationality.
“I’m aiming for that island,” Daniel said, pointing to one about two hundred meters out. “So, we’ll probably be fine.” He was mostly joking, and worst case someone would need a healing potion. He got down onto his knee and did his best to manually aim with the iron sights on the blast bow’s frame. Without actual rifling in the barrel or Snap Shot to guide his hands his accuracy was iffy, but then again his target was the size of the side of a barn.
“Power Shot,” Daniel declared, though the words didn’t echo with magic. It didn’t require an incantation, but he really wanted to call out the power this time and honestly wouldn’t have minded if it did need to. A dim light began to glow at the end of the barrel, continuing to glow as he charged the ability.
<hr>
Power Shot (Ability, Dexterity, Attack: Ranged Weapon, Domain: Destruction, Charge, Level: 2):
You possess the Power to imbue your next ranged weapon attack, improving its Damage. Initial Mana cost is minor, with cost and effect scaling to the total amount of time the ability charges. This is a Magical ability that does not function in an area of Magical Suppression.
<hr>
The longest he could hold the charge was a minute, after which he’d have to choose to release the attack or watch the magic fizzle. This was actually one of the powers he’d read about before in Lograve’s codexes, and it was normally restricted to Martialists and Rangers. Just another sign of his Spoke playing games. While explosive power was great, it came with incompatibility with Snap Shot.
Still, Daniel couldn’t wait to see what kind of trouble that random island was in. He let the charge attack build to its very limit and triggered the attack with the newly designed firestarter mechanism. It was hard to see the purple-colored bone bullet as it traveled through the air, despite Power Shot doing nothing to the projectile speed. That was all in the weapon’s design. He did notice it impact, landing disappointingly far from where he’d-
Daniel was almost knocked backward from the shot going off, Balance being just enough to keep him in his kneeling position. He heard Shuni exclaim a curse and saw Khiat catch Khare before the force pushed the unrooted gestalt off the island. While that happened behind him, utter destruction befell the poor island he’d targeted. It was impossible to make out how many secondary explosions Scatter Shot caused because of how they overlapped, but when the blinding light faded the entire island was gone.
“Holy shit,” Shuni cried out. “That looked like a level 4 attack!”
“I got all of it?” Daniel asked, just as bewildered.
“No.” Khiat was leaning over the edge as she put down Khare. “I can see it with Hunter’s Eye. A lot of it is gone, but the island’s falling.”
“I’ve heard the islands here lose stability if most of the original size is taken away.” Willow gave Daniel a wide eyed look as she picked herself up, Tlara having almost saved her with one of her wing arms only for the Spirit Master to bounce off. “You want to use that in the ruins?”
“Not that exactly,” Daniel replied, smiling a little self-consciously at the local armageddon he’d just caused. “That’s using Scatter Shot and explosive rounds. I can try a normal one at, say, half strength.”
“So wait, you can make that insane weapon and fully transform into that killer body?” Shuni asked in disbelief, still hung up on that last point. “What kind of class is Artificer? I haven’t heard of any in the region doing stuff like this.”
“I’m guessing they haven’t fought dragons either.” Daniel flashed Shuni what he hoped was a mischievous smile and hand loaded a normal bullet. His ammunition varieties were becoming complex and that was only with two damage affixes to play with. Converting his trigger mechanism to have fire by default had necessitated making a stock of his normal ammunition that could be triggered by that element, since Invest Affix still cost mana and he couldn’t count on infusing electricity into the blast bow in every circumstance.
He held the next Power Shot for only thirty seconds, after calling it out first as a matter of course. This time he aimed straight down since the island they were standing on was deeper than the one the Hunter’s Guild rested on. Thanks to Zolyra he knew he hadn’t made it all the way through the last time, and the only changed variable was Power Shot.
There was no contest between the two shots. For one, the hole dug out by the slug’s travel was three times as wide and Daniel had almost shot himself in the foot from the cast off force despite aiming it away. Neither he nor Khiat could tell what had happened to the bullet after it had breached the bottom of the island. “That’s probably fine,” Daniel murmured, trying not to feel like someone who fired into the air on the fourth of July.
“Can I get one of those?” Shuni eventually asked.
“Line!” Khare immediately protested before Daniel could reply. They still had the smaller version he’d made but had grown a little dissatisfied with how its firing rate differed from their bows, which they could use in unison with each other. The gestalt was hungry for the real deal, nothing less.
“It’s hard to make,” Daniel said, fending off the request. “I don’t have enough for some of the critical parts either. Find me a bunch of Hammerite and Andorite and I’d see what I can do.”
“Don’t get a girl’s hopes up,” Shuni said in a contemplative manner, and Daniel didn’t like the gleam in her eye as she looked at where a floating island once was.
Putting thoughts of potentially encouraging a crime spree away for later, Daniel turned to the others. “Since we’re asking Shuni to show off her powers, anyone want to try out their new ones now?”
“Yeah, let’s go with the dead Beastmaster first. I still don’t know if I believe you.” Daniel couldn’t help but feel the Rogue was starting to be a little too enthusiastic for a temporary teammate, but it beat having one they’d have to constantly worry about having stolen their things. They all knew Shuni was safe because she said so, and Rogues totally wouldn’t have powers that helped with lying. Worst case he’d have Tlara eat her if he scented anything of theirs on her. Even with restricting Beast Mode, he’d kept Keen Senses by default because of how useful it was with Identify Creature.
The wyvern seemed willing to at least as she took center stage. Tlara hadn’t allowed him to fully identify her powers, so he didn’t know exactly what this one did other than what she’d loosely scribbled on the ground about it being a cool ability. Theoretically, any attack power she got should be more powerful than his, but Daniel had had a long history of abusing synergy to produce greater effects than his level since coming here. He still watched with some wariness since the other attack power he knew she had caused a blast of lightning comparable to about 65% of one of the explosions from his first Power Shot.
Tlara closed her eyes, and then her entire body shifted. Kind of. In point of fact her scales turned green, with the lightning spines embedded in her wings also becoming a deeper green giving the impression of a palette swap. Daniel didn’t get it at first, but Shuni did.
“No way! I’ve heard about an Arcanist with this kind of power. She’s changing the elemental affinity of the monster.” The Rogue passed an appreciative eye over the changed wyvern as she took a step closer. “Poison?”
A liquid began to drip from the spines and sizzled on the ground, though the flow quickly ceased as it became clear Tlara could control it. “How many elements can you do? And can you copy what the whitespring does?” Tlara just turned her head sideways in response to deny him an answer and Daniel let the matter go. She had seen very clear evidence as to why they had to be careful about what elements the team used in area of effect attacks, and he was sure she wouldn’t just blow him up. Not unless she had a good reason, at least. Or was just really pissed off. Too late to rethink my gun’s design now.
The Rogue nodded her head appreciably. “Alright, alright, that’s cool. Don’t know how I feel about hunting, or, eh, exploring with a mortal trapped in a monster’s body but there’s already been some messed up stuff going down recently. Saw that huge one that attacked the town recently and egh. I guess it’s like what Druids do so I’ll just go with it.” Shuni began stretching out her neck as she threw up her hood, and even though she was standing on a flat island in the middle of the day, it became harder to see exactly where she was. “Want to see what I can do?”