Bonded Summoner

Tanda pierced the werewolf through the heart, her diving attack successful. She retrieved her spear from its dying corpse, and took back to the trees, seeking more enemies. Her brethren followed, positioning themselves with great care.

Killing that high-level werewolf had granted her a fair amount of experience, or what she learned was latent will. It was because of that, along with all the pills Fhesiah had given her and consuming auril beast meat every day, that she had finally reached level 8.

Tanda Status Level 8

Strength

35

Dexterity

32

Constitution

34

Intelligence

33

Wisdom

39

Charisma

31

Tanda's Level 8 Combat Skill-sheet

Melee Specialization

Level 4

Auril Enhancement

Level 4

Auril Healing

Level 3

Auril Manifestation

Level 4

Melee Specialization Subskills

Spear, Bow, Flight, Mortal Strike

Her Skills were now nearing the peak of her Tier, but weren’t quite there yet. A single week of deathly combat, with higher level foes, had done wonders for her. She had excellent foundations with years of fighting duels with various beastkin and against strong auril beasts, but whatever the Framework was granting her had measurable results. She still felt some leftover vitality in her body, her heart continuously creating more auril out of her spirit and her life force.

Tanda had convinced the clan heads of joining the Framework, but it was not completely successful. Avina’s horned owl parentage father, Davron, was the toughest proponent of tradition and their history. He refused to become an abomination he called it, and were furious that Avina herself had joined.

It was only through an honor duel that Tanda was able to make him back off. While he was strong, he was not strong enough to defeat her. She had improved significantly with Fhesiah’s supplements and guidance of the Framework. What aided her the most in the end, however, was emulating Ophelia, and her short tutelage.

Tanda had learned and starting implementing minimizing her movements, dodging and parrying skills by the slightest of margins. Twisting her body and attacking using the momentum gained where possible. Reducing the tells on her attacks, allowing her to get even the slightest edge.

Davron was able to make minor illusions, creating feints with manifestations of his spirit. It was only through minimizing her own tells and movements that she was able to get ahead, scoring a few glancing blows, and she began pushing Davron back.

What actually finished the fight was copying the trick from one of Ophelia’s stories: where Fhesiah tripped her using her tail. Her wolf tail wasn’t overly pliable or strong, being mostly useless other than… telling people her mood, or if she was…trying to avoid a subject, apparently. But by infusing it with auril, she was able to grab Davron and trip him up.

Tanda learned that Aisling had tried taking on the undead rift, but were rebuffed by the werewolves and their flyers. They couldn’t call for reinforcements, or get a message out, the enemies watching the peak from all sides. Aisling knew that throwing away their lives without the node Tanda would bring was a waste. So they waited for Tanda to arrive with her flock and Alliance Node, to turn the tide– knowing that she would, in time.

After integrating her people involved in the fight, Tanda then rallied their warriors. They had come up with what she considered a decent plan, but it ended up not mattering. They had planned to produce smoke to cover their entrances enough that they could burst through in one direction, but a cold front came in with cloud cover, darkening the sky and producing a fog in the valley, instead. It was like the world itself was helping them, giving them cover to leave the peak unseen.

It covered their exit from their home in a ring amount the mountain, allowing them to exit and approach the trees mostly secretly. She was now fighting through the forest, with a small group of her more powerful warriors. The werewolves had their mountain encircled with enemies, but they could not protect from every direction.

She knew these werewolves had signaled their brethren, but she had the smaller group here, several other groups matching hers, the plan to reduce their numbers as much as possible safely. The enemy was strong in the jungle, but with their connection to the heart of the world, their actions were being aided.

She had gotten Jake’s message, and knew they had to both protect the heart of the world, but also close any rifts that were near. Tanda wasn’t sure what they could accomplish without Jake’s help, but their best bet was to try to kill as many enemies as they could, for starters.

Aisling had foreseen on her way to Harmony Peaks, that they were in great danger, as the enemy that her father defeated would return. Her father and mother had given their lives to force the enemy back, but it hadn’t been enough to finish the job.

It had been nearly two weeks since that time, so the enemy had likely eventually healed. Such a thing was common for adventurers, so the idea that a creature could heal was not all that surprising. But her father… He specialized in killing targets that could heal. All creatures of auril healed at a rapid pace. Part of her had wanted to choose the same as him, but her and her mother’s manifestation was similar to that of the burst specialization instead.

She venerated her father, but ultimately, she realized she was more like her mother. Dahlia devoted herself to him and her children, becoming his spear in battle, and the flame of his passion at home. She would sing songs and dance, and even join him when he acted out the play of their ancestors.

Tanda almost didn’t have time to react to the idea that there were reptile beastkin hiding underground for a thousand years. She was filled with frustration at the idea that the same people that ruined the balance before, were now at least part of the cause for her difficulty now. The tribe Jake found appeared to be good news, but she would reserve judgement until she met them, and could hear their heart’s songs.

Her war party took down several more werewolves, and returned to their peak under the cover of the mist, as part of their plan. Other teams returned successfully, she saw as well. She wasn’t sure what purpose their encirclement served, but she knew it wasn’t anything good. At the same time, they couldn’t do overly much about it. They couldn’t leave the heart of the world, and she was certain that assaulting the werewolves directly was death. She knew that they were all well into tier 1, with how easily they slayed her people.

Her people would have to face them with whatever advantage possible, and their mountain was the most defensible. She had learned that Timon, her father, and his flock had faced the wicked enemy near their inner sanctum of the peak itself. It appeared the enemy’s goal was to face them directly, as him and his forces had climbed up the peak and assaulted it.

Their people were mostly unprepared. Few ranged weapons to speak of, a complete lack of understanding of what the enemy might be capable of. Equipment that could not compare to the enemy’s, she imagined.

Now, they were not much better. They started embracing range weapons, and–

“Look, Clan-daughter! These items appeared on the local market!”

Tanda looked over at Aisling, looking excited. She was holding a javelin, and it looked quite familiar.

Tanda said, “Is that… This looks like what Jake was working on!”

Aisling’s smile grew infuriatingly wide once again, “Oh? Jake, is it? How could this interesting piece of weaponry have something to do with a, ‘Jake,’ I wonder? This was sold by some Guild called ‘Hearthtribe,’ I guess? It’s very peculiar. Even though I fill this with auril, I can set it down for a moment and it still keeps its energy. Meaning, I should have some expectation of hitting an enemy with it being sharper thanks to my will. Is that right?”

Tanda frowned. “That’s right. How could you afford that, anyway? Didn’t you just join the Framework a few hours ago?”

Aisling giggled. “A few hours ago? Please, clan-daughter. Anyway, there were arrows too, and it looks like your flock is decently outfitted now. It’s not like we have all that we’d like, but we should be able to make a decent showing in a fight, at least half a quiver to a full quiver each, to the awakened warriors. There were even some spears and shields with some of these interesting carvings. I have to say, if this ‘Jake’ is half as strong as he is smart to come up with this kind of thing, he should be a real winner! Say, how old is this Jake fellow?”

She gave Aisling another look. She did actually look visibly younger than Tanda had last seen her, just a little over a week or so ago. Her message was sent via a proxy, but could she have sent it on her own through the Menu if she had wanted? Tanda scoffed at her. “Shouldn’t you know? You’re the one who’s seen everything, apparently!”

“Don’t be like that, clan-daughter. You know how my power works, in truth. I see things, but they don’t often make a lot of sense, until we’re at the moment. Why, my foretelling that lead to the message I sent you was a cryptic mess filled with all sorts of strange symbolism! The red armor guy was just a lucky guess, a flash in the images, to be honest. I didn’t see you with him or anything like that. I just saw him and the mere stable image him important alone, and I could tell that he was going to help us. So? How old is he?”

Tanda sighed. “I’m not sure, but I get the feeling he is not much older than me. One of his mates is actually younger than me, but vastly stronger. I do actually think he would fare well against father if he was still here.”

Aisling smiled, looking a bit excited. “Really? He sounds amazing, then! One of them, though? Aw, don’t tell me he’s got a dozen mates already?”

Tanda blushed. “N-No, just three, or four, kinda? I guess.”

Aisling frowned, looking a little angry. “What do you mean kinda? He’s not after an already mated woman or something, is he? Those adventurers–”

“The enemy approaches!” Tanda and Aisling heard a warrior shout, interrupting their conversation.

Aisling handed her a bow and arrows. “Here, take these. You’ll need them a lot more than me.”

Tanda looked at them with a frown. While she had always trained the bow, she much preferred her father’s spear.

Aisling looked significantly at her. “Every tool a purpose, and every weapon a tool. Use the tool that grants power over your enemies, their deadly purpose fulfilled.”

Tanda nodded at her late birth mother’s song, and strapped the quiver and bow on her side. It would be awkward to carry and fly with her halberd, but she was used to being strapped down with extra items.

Their topic of discussion came to an end, as they moved to see what was going on. Tanda’s heart beat strangely in her chest, and so she stopped to try to listen to its song. It was as if the world itself was telling her something. She stopped and slowed her breathing, feeling the heart beat, her spirit connected to the world.

She thought she understood, the world wanted them to retreat! It gave her a feeling of needing just a little more time. Time for what? She knew that it hardly mattered. The will of the world was a strange thing, but her ancestors had always answered its call.

She called her warriors, and she made her plans. In total, she had over five thousand integrated warriors. Her people had been much more than that, but many would not integrate, well past their prime, or simply traditional and unwilling, like Davron. A few thousand of those older joined in battle, knowing their death would be permanent, the rest defending the young ones. In total, she had nearly ten thousand warriors, ready to blot out the sky in arrows and javelins of their own.

The enemy werewolves approached along the bank of the river, and she was surprised to see that the undead did not follow. She supposed that the undead would not be very good at climbing? Or perhaps their number wasn’t overly significant yet? There were around two hundred werewolves approaching, with more exiting the trees.

They were nearly in range for her people to start raining attacks down on them, when she saw a prompt, and the enemy stopped their approach.

[Enemy Champion of Dreadbeast detected. Defeat for reward.]

A Champion? Her ears went flat on her head, and her heart shuddered in fear. Now, it all made sense. How her father was defeated. She believed her father and mother capable of defeating any creature, even at the peak of their Tier. They would use superior tactics and his afflictions, to whittle away at any target, no matter how strong they were. But if the enemy could call a god, like Jake called Hestia…

She thought she saw the one that must be champion, a three-meter tall werewolf, even as he was slouched forward. He stood a whole meter taller than any other, and was as wide as an elephant. His fur was white as bone, and he had vicious looking black claw marks all over his body. His arms had bone spikes at the ends of them, along with large, vicious-looking claws on his wolf-like hands. The werewolves’ armor was made of bones and animal hides, the champion’s matching.

But looking at him, she noticed black energies that looked like scars that wouldn’t heal. The damage caused by her father. Weeks later, and he still had not healed fully! Though, it looked like the damage was almost completely gone, perhaps, this creature was waiting for that, in order to begin his assault. She thought she could feel the wrongness of the creature even from here, a thousand meters away, but it was instead her sensing it with her heart through the world itself. She doubted that her allies could feel it as she did.

The man shouted, his voice loud and echoing through the valley.

“I have returned! This time, I will eradicate your people. Thanks to your warriors, I will make sure to slaughter every child, every elder. I gave you an ultimatum, that your people could merely just leave, and we would take this place as our own. Instead, you fought and lost! Your leaders are dead, you don’t even have anyone left at the first Tier. You are nothing! You should have run when you had the chance. Now, you will feel true terror. You have nowhere to flee now.”

Tanda saw that there were dozens of pterodactyls that had werewolf riders on them, them circling in the air above her people. While she thought many of the adults could probably escape such enemies into the sky, their children certainly could not. For now, the children and elders were deep in the caves of the opposite peak from where the heart of the world was located.

Her heart was thumping in its chest, singing the song of battle. She knew many of her people would die, but that if they won, or if the Champion Jake won when he arrived, they would eventually be revived. This calmed her mind, even though the enemy had hundreds of werewolves, which she knew were of a higher Tier.

Her heart beat with righteous vindication, knowing she would fight to defend her home, just like her father. That his efforts were not for nothing, buying her people time to adapt. She was sure that if they lost, that this Dreadbeast Champion would taint the heart of the world even further. All of her people’s hard work after a thousand years, ruined. She could not allow that to happen.

She screeched her rallying cry, her voice producing a call like that of a hawk. Her people blotted out the sky, circling towards the enemy, releasing attacks at the stationary werewolves. The enemy champion slashed his arm forward, and sickly red energy was released in a wave. Many of her people’s plain arrows were wiped out, her wanting them to save their auril infused attacks for the right moment.

The enemy champion growled and roared, his people covered in red energy, as they began to charge down the riverbank towards their peak. Her people were too high for their bows to be overly effective, but her people could continue to rain down attacks on them. First, however, she wanted to get rid of the approaching pterodactyl riders.

She screeched again, signalling her intentions. Her people then charged their attacks, and began firing at the enemy. Streaks of all different colors flew at the enemy, targeting the mounts the werewolves flew on. Their arrows struck true, dozens of them falling out of the sky in mere moments, as hundreds of her people released their ranged attacks.

Some of her people used their javelins to rain attacks down on the werewolves on the ground, the attacks also striking true. The werewolves were armored, but they didn’t have shields. She guessed many of them were hunters or archer classes, spotting very few that she would consider warriors or mages. Their red energy protected them, but two or three javelins striking the same target, eventually, one would pierce their protection.

The werewolves leaped to the mountain, and began their rapid ascent. Her people retreated higher into the sky, but ranged attacks were returned. They used some sickly red energy to enhance their shots, and her people did their best to interpose javelin and shield users in the front, to absorb the assault.

The enemy champion shouted in a rage. “What is this weaponry? How could a fringe world become so skilled, in such a short time? But no matter. Your people are not the only ones with special weaponry.”

The large werewolf pulled out a massive bow, and drew back an arrow, that looked special to her. There were no others in his quiver that she could see. It was a sickly black, and her whole body screamed alarm as he drew it back. She screeched to retreat towards where she knew the heart wanted them to go, as he fired it.

“Hey clan-daughter, you– Whoops!” Aisling bumped into Tanda in the air, as a spear filled with black auril flew right at the incoming arrow.

The two exploded into each other, and black beams of light were released, piercing through dozens of her people, and dozens more behind them. A beam missed Tanda entirely, by mere inches. Most of those struck fell out of the sky immediately as they were struck at a vital point. In the rest, a sickly energy was invading them, and they began losing their height, and Tanda knew that those struck too would die, either from the affliction, or falling prey to the werewolves below.

The attack was completely devastating, but she could tell it could have been much worse. Aisling’s ‘slip,’ had caused the attack’s cone to be diverted significantly, half the beams ineffectually heading to the outside of her flock. If Tanda was no longer there to lead, they might not have been able to head for their goal– while she felt the calling of the world in that direction, it appeared most of her brethren could not.

The werewolves all started firing their own bows, and while Tanda thought they wouldn’t be able to reach her people, they filled themselves with sickly looking energies and fired their weapons. Her people were already firing in retreat, some attacks hitting the werewolves and taking them out. But her people were falling from the sky much more rapidly. The champion drew his bow back once more, and Aisling arrived to guard Tanda with a shield. “I don’t have my spear anymore, so I’ll just have to use this!”

She guarded the champion’s arrow with auril infused in the amberwood shield, but the arrow pierced through the shield and into her arm. She pulled the arrow through, wincing, as her auril worked to heal it.

Aisling said, “Damn, didn’t see that coming. I can tell it was poisoned, too, but I should manage.”

Tanda and Aisling fled, increased their speed towards the forest she was being drawn to. Tanda felt like they were finally out of the range of the werewolves, them dropping off the cliff face and following her flock down the bank of the river. She was happy that they didn’t instead go for the heart of the world beneath the caves, but she had a plan in place in case they did. It appeared this Champion was confident in his victory.

The Champion laughed. “There is no place for you to flee! No place to hide! I enjoy the thrill of the hunt, and I will enjoy your terror as your life leaves your useless hearts! You have kept yourselves too weak!”

Tanda knew the forest was likely filled with werewolves, as well. But there has to be a reason why the world was drawing her in this direction. Her war party had cleared several in most directions, but she knew that encirclement likely closed back around where they did.

Her people were traveling through the air and moving faster than most creatures could possibly run, but the werewolves were filled with red fervor and moving fast on the ground. They had smelled blood, and they were on the hunt. They moved rapidly, almost keeping pace with her people that were flying.

Occasionally, they fired their bows and managed to strike one of her people. Her people returned fire, but their normal arrows without auril were mostly ineffective. She could tell her unawakened flock did little, though rarely an arrow would pierce an eye or some other vital point. Her people were definitely whittling them down.

Her people were in the thousands, but they were up against several hundred enemies that were worth more than ten of hers. Only her awakened could land solid blows, but despite it taking several to kill these hunters, the hunters only needed one blow to kill her people. The hunters would howl and growl as they killed her people, charging themselves with a vicious red energy as they did.

Her people arrived at the treeline, and Tanda was surprised there were no arrows waiting for her flock. There was some confusion in the Champion’s face as well, from what she could see, as he looked around the treeline with a frown on his wolf-like face. She realized that even the wind was blowing towards the forest, keeping him from detecting the scents inside.

Her people continued through the forest, and the werewolves started to catch up. They leaped through the trees with fervor, clearly in their favored terrain. Her people started catching them with shots of their auril filled arrows and javelins, but many of her people were being knocked out of the sky. The unawakened were unable to continue fleeing as they were being overtaken, and made their last stand.

Her unawakened people were cut down with ease, some werewolves even leaping through the air to cut them down, rather than shooting their bows. Tanda fired her arrows filled with auril, aiming for killing blows. When hunters went for the kill, they would often experience slight tunnel vision. She aimed for this moment, her arrow’s sharpness deadly.

Her auril manifestation was somewhat like the bite of a wolf. Where the sharp blades of auril slashed or pierced into a target, her will would tear chunks out of it by releasing deathly energies and killing the creature from the inside. Jake’s comparison to going for the throat was very apt. Where she made even a small slash on a weak point, a large chunk would be torn out, causing death. Going for the heart, throat, head, or spine were best, for her.

Unlike many of her people, though, she could not use her ability over and over. In order to manifest her will, she had to allow the energy to build and be concentrated, before she could create a powerful attack. She wasn’t sure how the Framework would have guided her to change her manifestation, but she knew it would have had to change to become more like her father’s.

She signaled to continue the retreat, but hundreds of her unawakened people remained to slow down the enemy, as others retreated. They screeched their battle cries, singing the songs of battle. A few even awakened in this process, only to be cut down in mere moments. Tanda made a fighting retreat, the Champion barreling down on her people. He cut them down left and right, awakened or not. Tanda was near the middle of the flock, and he was gaining on her.

Her people fired bows and threw javelins at him to slow him down, but it was futile. It was like he had eyes on the back of his head, performing both acrobatic maneuvers and slashing his sickly red energy to intercept large swathes of projectiles and cut her people down alike. Some arrows even struck his armor or bone spikes ineffectually, despite being covered in auril.

She did her best to aim for opportune moments, but everything that appeared to be an opening was instead evaded easily; the man outperforming his previous limits. He laughed viciously as he cut her people down, and even took bites of her people. He was now covered in her people’s blood and a malevolent aura, and it seemed if anything he was getting stronger and faster. His body and armor had been white, but now he was red, completely covered in the blood of his enemies.

She ran out of arrows, and she knew a majority of her people were low or having ran out already. If they had just had more time and funds, they could have been much better armed. Looking at the enemy, she thought that they might have cut down nearly half of them, though there were supposed to be many scattered around the jungle surrounding Harmony Peaks. Considering that her people were now out of arrows, she felt that they would be lucky to take out another half of those, before her thousands of warriors died.

When her people got into melee range with these enemies, they were carved up with ease. Like a swarm of bees facing wasps, the creatures much larger and stronger than her people tore them to shreds. She began to feel that her people’s loss was inevitable, when the ground started to shake. The werewolves froze in their tracks, stopping their pursuit. Her own people rose higher into the air, trying to see over the ridge they were heading towards.

A stampede of auril beasts crested over the ridge, dozens of them side by side, perhaps hundreds total based on how the very earth shook as they approached. Triceratops, stegosaurus, ankylosaurs, and even the great brachiosaurus were all charging through the forest at their enemy, various auril beasts. The enemy champion howled, and his people took it as some sort of orders, taking to the trees, retreating slightly.

The auril beasts were all herbivores at first, and after many of them crested the ridge, her breath caught in her throat as she spotted them. The great stag, boar, hound, and lion all stood. She could tell they were near the peak of Tier 1, and they exuded the power of life and vitality beyond any beast she had ever seen.

All four creatures were covered in vines and flowers, beasts forming a symbiotic relationship with plants. Behind the auril beasts, came a stampede of smaller, younger versions of the four leaders. But there were so many more other creatures, from all over their world of Highlands. If they could climb cliffs or fly, or they lived in this valley, they were here.

The will of the world had driven allies to come to their aid. Together, her people would defend the balance against a great enemy.