After the End: Serenity

“That’s great, but I don’t want the experience.” Serenity was getting tired of repeating himself. “I’ll be happy to help hold the wall, but I’d rather not be out in the center. I really don’t think you’ll need me anyway. This shouldn’t be harder than what you’ve already faced without me. I’m not that important. I’m just a symbol, and defending the wall should do that just fine.”

“We don’t know what they are and we don’t know why we couldn’t find them. They could be anything, and-”

Doyle cut Nightwitch off. “Stop taking counsel of your fears. If there’s one thing we’ve figured out about this Tutorial, it’s that it isn’t out to get us. As long as we take advantage of the opportunities we’re given, everything is possible. And Serenity’s right. He’s strong and can take a lot of damage, but he’s not that far ahead. If he had a Path, maybe, but right now? Two or three people could fight him with a reasonable chance of winning. I have the people, we’ve been killing other packs. We’ll sneak around behind this one and catch them between us and the wall.”

Nightwitch shook her head, but stopped arguing. “Fine. We’ll do it your way this time.”

[Time before first Beast attack: 00:00.10:00]

Doyle and his scouts watched from the tree line. They still hadn’t seen any sign of attacking beasts. He was expecting them any time now; wherever they were, they had to be close to the camp. He didn’t want to split up his team to search for them this late, but he wasn’t sure if he had a choice. He’d wait another five minutes-

Something in the cleared area between the trees and the wall of the camp caught Doyle’s eye. It was near the spot where the creek turned away from the camp. He waved to his team to follow him, and they all snuck to the edge of the woods.

That was close enough to start seeing the sun reflect off the monsters. Creatures made of glass were climbing out of the stream. Doyle took a moment to look at them. They were crocodiles - or maybe alligators? He wasn’t sure how to tell them apart. Either way, he was certain he didn’t want to get bitten.

If they really are glass, this is going to be impossible. Glass may shatter when it’s thin, but thick glass is really sturdy and these things are big. I bet they aren’t really glass.

Still, it was good news. Glass gators probably couldn’t climb very well, so the wall should hold them off - and once they were out of the water, they were much easier to see.

Doyle had his team wait until they all seemed to be out of the water. One was much larger than the others; they’d leave that one for last.

They attacked before the horde even reached the wall. Most of Doyle’s team could use a bow, and a torrent of arrows struck the glass monsters from behind. Three quarters of the beasts fell without even seeing an enemy. A single arrow in a good spot was enough to leave them unmoving and leaking a clear, shiny liquid.

The glass alligators turned towards their attackers. The next volley took out the remaining smaller beasts. If this continued, this would be the easiest group they’d fought.

The Glass Lord charged straight for Doyle. It was much faster than he’d expected, and he dove behind a tree to avoid it. It circled the tree as quickly as he could stand, and opened its mouth to bite Doyle.

An arrow hit the opened lower mouth. That had to be a lucky hit, but Doyle wasn’t going to complain. The monster roared and Doyle took the time to toss his bow to the side and draw his knife. Now all he needed was to get behind its head.

One of the few melee members of Doyle’s team - Justin, Doyle thought - ran up beside the glass croc and stabbed a foreleg. Its head turned to bite the source of its pain and Doyle saw his chance. He leapt up on top of the glass alligator. It was slicker than he’d expected, and he stabbed down with his knife before he fell off. The knife carved right into the monster’s skull, without hitting scales or bone, and ripped backwards.

No wonder the small ones were so easy to kill.

He grabbed for the joint between the head and leg, trying to stay on top as the monster thrashed. He pulled his knife out and sunk it back in again, digging and trying to find the brain. After what felt like minutes, the monster stopped moving and Doyle let himself slide off it. He and several of the others carefully separated the head from the body to make certain that it wasn’t just faking its death. One of the earlier beast lords had done that.

[Beast attack defeated. Beast attack did not reach camp wall. Secondary attack conditions met. Attack will commence in 00:00.05:00]

Amazingly, there were no major injuries. The scrapes Doyle had were the worst anyone had taken. This had been the easiest beast pack yet; they’d simply died too easily.

Serenity stood on the wall on the far side of the encampment from the side where the glass alligators had shown themselves. A five-minute countdown probably meant the Voice didn’t want them being too prepared - and it definitely wanted them to fight this group at the wall. Doyle’s team was still looking for the enemies, of course, but the timer was almost up and they hadn’t found anything yet.

As he watched, a shadow seemed to move away from the nearest trees, then another shadow joined it. “They’re at the treeline! Watch the shadows!” Serenity could see Doyle’s team moving in behind the moving shadows, but they didn’t seem to see anything.

When the timer hit 0, a larger shadow emerged from the trees and the entire group headed towards the camp. Serenity could finally see what they were: Shadow Wolves.

No wonder Doyle couldn’t find them. Shadow creatures are almost impossible to see as long as they stay in deep enough shadow. They’re in the open now. I wonder if these require magic to kill them?

Nightwitch stood on the wall next to Serenity. She gathered her magic and silently cast [STARS FALL]. The meteors fell straight through the shadows and hit the ground.

They were followed by arrows from the forest.

“Only magic will hurt them!” Serenity shouted. “We need everyone with an attack that hits as magic! Especially anyone who has an area attack!”

There were several things Serenity could do, if he had to. None of them were fast. The best attack against shadows would be Light magic. He’d merged that into Plasma centuries ago, but Plasma still had the properties of Light. He could limit it to just light the way he did a Light spell, but without the damage limiters …maybe encase his knife with it? It wouldn’t be as useful as a proper Light damage enchantment or infusion, but it would be better than nothing.

While he was still working out a way to be effective, a man who had been somewhere deep in the camp ran towards the wall and climbed the stairs next to Serenity. Serenity vaguely recognized him, but knew he’d never done a Trial with Ross.

Ross raised his hand and gave a throwing motion, while whispering something. A bright flash jumped from his hand to one of the wolves, then from that wolf to another and another. There was an almost immediate SNAP after each flash.

Ross’s second lightning bolt targeted the big wolf. Each of the secondary strikes took out a small one, but the big wolf seemed unharmed.

The wolves threw themselves bodily at the wall. They didn’t budge it at all, but the spots where they hit seemed slightly less real, or perhaps slightly less substantial than they had a moment before.

By now, half a dozen mages had gathered on the wall above the giant shadow wolf. Serenity had to yell at them to get them to concentrate on the giant, but once they did, it started looking injured. He’d abandoned any notion of fighting in this battle himself; his place here was clearly the general, not the footsoldier.

As the only person watching the entire area instead of only his small piece, Serenity was the first to see when the wall started to collapse where the giant shadow wolf kept battering against it. “MOVE! Get away from the wolf! The wall is going to fall!”

Most of the mages scattered.

Ross didn’t move. He kept flinging lightning bolt after lightning bolt.

Serenity glanced at the wall. There was no way it would support both their weights. It wouldn’t support Ross’s for much longer. He took a couple running steps to the edge of the damaged area and leapt for the mage. Ross fired off a lightning bolt right before Serenity grabbed him, hitting the giant wolf - but even with that spell gone, a charge flew through Serenity as he landed, holding Russ, almost outside the damaged area. The wall collapsed and Serenity shielded the mage with his body, as much as he could.

The lightning running through Serenity hurt, but it wasn’t enough to upgrade either his shock or pain resistances.

“What were you thinking? [Lightning Storm]-” Ross broke off as the giant shadow wolf lunged at him, only to be hit by at least a dozen different spells.

The other mages had finally arrived.

Serenity watched as they quickly killed the wolf.

“You need to either pay more attention to what’s going on around you or you’re going to get to train your friends’ Shock resistance. And I promise no one likes the guy making them train Shock resistance.”

Ross stared at Serenity, then at the ruined wall. His gaze flicked back and forth.

“There was plenty of time to move, everyone else did. As a hint, when your allies move out of the way, you should at least know why.”

“I didn’t notice.” Ross looked at his feet.

Serenity picked himself up out of the rubble. “Practice.” He looked Ross up and down. “Also, great use of that spell.”

Lancaster chuckled as he watched Serenity scold Ross. He’d known Ross for years; he was (or had been?) an EMT for years before the Tutorial came, and was a fun man to go out for drinks with when work was over. He had some of the best stories of the things he’d seen over the years.

This was a complete Ross moment, too. Ross would always get so focused on what was in front of him that he’d forget everything else. It was why he’d never made the transition from EMT to anything else; he hated being interrupted or rushing things that shouldn’t be rushed. Once he switched focus, though, he was golden. It was part of the reason Lancaster had set him to guarding Macho, it would take something serious to distract him during his shift-

Something like the attack of a giant Shadow Wolf and a call for “all mages especially ones with area attacks”? Yeah. That’d do it. It was probably the right call, too. Lancaster hoped Ross had remembered to get someone else to watch Macho, but he probably hadn’t.

Lancaster started running towards the hut he’d stashed Macho in.

It was empty.

“Shit.” This was why Lancaster had set a guard on the man.

Lancaster knew what he’d been after; Rissa had confirmed she had something that looked like what Macho described. She’d refused to say what it did, though she’d seemed confused that it was what they were after.

Unfortunately, he now couldn’t deliver the man to jail properly after the Tutorial ended. He also didn’t know who’d sent him after the stained glass object; Macho had gotten the request through an “odd jobs guy”. Lancaster would follow up on that once the Tutorial was over, but it was probably a dead end.

Unfortunately, if he didn’t manage to recover Macho, he’d probably never get to talk to the “odd jobs guy;” Macho would warn him and he’d vanish before Lancaster got there.

Maybe he should talk to Ross about how to guard someone and positive handoffs.

The more important conversation was probably with Doyle; he’d need Doyle to keep an eye out for Macho.