Icarus Awakens

Daniel’s Encyclopedia had a major flaw. Two, actually, and he was aware of only one. First, it was difficult to navigate. What annoyed him most was that it didn’t allow him to directly look up anything he was notified about. Hyperlinks would generally let him go to anything relevant, but only inside the app. The problem then was there was too much to look up, too many directions he could go and too much going on to spare the time for it.

The Encyclopedia’s greatest flaw was also its greatest strength: it told Daniel what his powers did. Normally, anyone with a class would need to feel out new powers to discover what they’d awakened. This was a slower, but natural process, allowing an intrinsic understanding versus the flat entry Daniel read.

For some powers, that was fine. Snap Shot made him shoot better. It wasn’t that complicated an ability at face value. Something like Beast Friend, on the other hand? Daniel didn’t even know for certain the extent of what that feature did, or the bond it created. His only knowledge of the bond of friendship came from what he had gained from improving it. The nature of the bond was nestled there, deep in the Encyclopedia and within Daniel himself, but because the Encyclopedia granted the illusion of understanding he looked no further than the surface. This shortcut benefitted him in the short term, although the full side effects of relying on his Encyclopedia would remain undiscovered for quite some time.

That was why Daniel didn’t know that the intensity of his Empathic Link with Hunter reset at dawn, just like his mana did. In fairness, the details from the notification had warned that lowering the intensity would be temporary.

“Awaken!” Murdon called out to the camp soon after dawn. A Bard’s playing would have been a gentler wakeup call, though the only one in their number had been among the late sleepers. The thundering voice was enough to rouse everyone in any case. It was odd, what happened when Daniel awoke. The depression he’d ended yesterday with was still there, but there was a sudden contentment and vindication as well. The feelings were odd, alien. He couldn’t make sense of them but they felt as real as anything else. Daniel got up and looked around, trying to figure it out.

“Uh, Guy?” Thomas, as well as Evalyn, had returned to Daniel’s campfire after he’d gone to sleep. The Cleric was looking at him oddly. Why…

Oh. God damn it! He was trying to stand on his four legs, er, on his hands and knees. Hunter was next to him looking confused as well, a confusion that was mirrored suddenly within Daniel. He quickly cut the link as best he could and got off his hands. “I thought I fixed that,” he complained.

“Most people do stop crawling once they’re old enough to walk,” Evalyn teased playfully. That made him pause. She was happy? No, she was acting, just like she had been since the Upswell.

“No, it’s,” he paused. He’d been telling people too much lately, Thomas the gossip being the most flagrant example. They still hadn’t talked to Lograve, and he didn’t need an Empathic Link to know the weight of the Origin Beast was hanging over the Cleric’s head. There was no harm in telling them about the bond, right? They already knew Hunter was special, although Daniel couldn’t remember who knew the ringcat talked. He needed to keep better track of his secrets.

To hell with it. He trusted them, and maybe they could tell him how to stop his power from making him think he was a ringcat. “The power that made Hunter, uh, Hunter created a bond too. It’s got an Empathic Link, and that recently got stronger. Too strong.”

“Is that how you communicate?” Thomas asked, interested. “And how strong’s the link?”

“Normal? My focus says it’s normal intensity, although we’re keeping it low whenever we can.” I trust them. “And, uh, no. There’s a Telepathic Link too.”

“You can’t form a Telepathic Link with a ringcat.” Daniel just scratched his head, and Hunter looked at Thomas, keeping his eyes fixed on the Cleric’s face. “Guy, what’s he thinking?”

“You threw aside that opinion rather fast,” Evalyn noted, grinning at Thomas’ nervous tone.

He shrugged and took a step back from Hunter. “Guy didn’t show his tell, and I did hear a dragon talk yesterday. This isn’t-”

Lograve interrupted him. “You’ll want to get ready. We’re moving out soon. I wouldn’t leave anyone behind, but Murdon can get irritable in the morning. Something to do with only getting a third of the sleep he should be.” That last part sounded like a particularly sore point for the Arcanist. Lograve turned, only here to pass that along, but paused when he fully read the situation. “What happened?”

“Guy’s just going on about all the links he has with Hunter.”

“Links?” Lograve blinked. “Plural? There’s one other than the telepathy?”

“You knew?”

For a second, Lograve looked like a fish caught out of water. Then, he looked squarely at Daniel, and flatly said, “No.”

“What?” Daniel asked, trying to discern if the imperiousness was feigned or not.

“Unlike yesterday I do not have the time for this. You’ve reached the limit of absurdity for the rest of this journey. I forbid you from developing any more odd powers until I’ve had a moment to consider the ramifications of the ones you already have!” Wisely, Daniel didn’t mention the other new benefit of his recently deepened bond, and Lograve took the silence as an assent. “Good! Now, if there’s anything else-”

“I need to speak with you privately,” Thomas said seriously.

“I was going to say, ‘save it for later’.” The two began conversing silently as Lograve stopped caring and revealed he had Telepathy to Thomas. When Lograve turned back towards Daniel, he didn’t have to guess whether Lograve was upset.

One brief, yet scathing lecture on the value of secrecy later, Lograve had gone to rejoin Murdon and Quala with a worried look on his face. That left a newly chastised Daniel to get himself and Hunter ready. His similarly mortified friends considered the various, impractical, and ice-related threats Lograve had made should they say any more on the monster in the mountain.

As he was getting Hunter’s pack ready for the ringcat, Daniel had a thought, which he then aimed at Hunter. I’m sorry I just told them without asking if you were ok with me telling people you can talk.

I do not care.

Well, ok, but I still should have asked right? It feels like the kind of thing you should get angry about. I mean, I trust these people, but if others knew what you could do they’d want to hurt you. Especially after Rorshawd talked to them. People could connect those two dots in a bad way.

Glad you asked now, then. Hunter bared his fangs at Thomas, but only briefly and in a manner that could be confused for a yawn. Daniel would have asked how the ringcat would have known to direct the gesture if the impression of him being a gossip was solely on Daniel’s side of the table. Said table had been very rudely upended this morning.

If Hunter hadn’t been asleep at dawn, they might have been able to reduce the Empathic Link’s intensity before things became quite so jumbled. As luck would have it, Hunter had chosen to rest through the pre-dawn hours after returning from his hunt. True to his word, Hunter was able to go days without rest if need be, but there was his mana and the mana burn effect of Regeneration to consider. The hunt last night had not been entirely one-sided. With the threat of an upcoming battle, the ringcat wanted to be in top form.

Daniel knew this for the same reason Hunter knew Thomas was a gossip, they’d been right next to each other for some amount of time while the Empathic Link was on full blast. Nothing had been done to permanently alter their mannerisms or personalities, but an echo of that time remained that was only slowly fading. One more distressing after-effect was Daniel’s sudden habit of licking his hand before running it through his hair which he was fervently trying to suppress.

Daniel ignored all of that and hoped it would go away. He’d been making a habit of that recently. Daniel lifted the pack and struggled under the weight, even with his improved strength. Adding the heliorite to it weighed Hunter down significantly. Are you ok with carrying all of this stuff? It’s mostly mine, and if I’m asking things I should have before, then I shouldn’t not now.

Hunter brushed his nose against Daniel’s backpack. We both carry burdens. You cannot help that I am stronger.

You- Daniel shook his head and smiled. The darkness was still there in his spirit, but Hunter’s antics were helping. They had to be on purpose since Hunter had gotten a full dose of exactly how Daniel was feeling. You’re a good friend.

Do not like new feelings though.

No kidding.

Hunter gave Daniel an odd look, You do not like? You want to know what it is to hunt. To be me.

There’s a difference between a ride along, and mainlining concentrated ringcat psyche even if it takes me out of my head a little. God, I can’t even imagine what the full Empathic Link would be like if we were sharing senses. We’ll have to be careful to avoid that until we figure out why it flipped back into the on position.

Not joining tonight’s hunt?

Oh, hell no, Daniel adjusted the last strap on Hunter’s pack. That’s about the only thing I have left to look forward to.

…

An unexpected star was rising amidst the traveling remains of the garrison: Tlara. It was well known that she had dominated a pair of young skyshock wyverns, the only one to have done so since the Upswell. The young variant was not foolish enough to test Roost’s Peak’s ballista, and even if they did, there were no other level three Beastmasters near the mountains.

Her appearance in the city ahead of the dragon already caught the attention of those who had only faced hostile wyverns for the past month. When Rorshawd assaulted the city it was Murdon and Quala that ultimately came to their aid. None were left to forget that Tlara’s wyverns had allowed them to do so.

Today, she traveled with the other leaders of the force. Murdon, Lograve, Janice, Alost, and Tlara. Gadriel was there too, but at a distance that suggested he was traveling near, but not with that group. Quala would have joined the other avianoid if she wasn’t still busy keeping Sigron stable and Claire…

Well, there had been some kind of argument going on between the Cleric and Claire. Daniel had been too busy having half of Hunter’s mind shoved into him to notice anything. He also lacked the will to. Saying he was putting off any kind of contact with her would be an understatement. In his mind, they were already done, and he’d thrown away any chance of changing that when he decided not to improve charisma. It was for the best. Or at least, that’s what he told himself.

As the 30-odd mortals, one ringcat, one wyvern, a mole-like creature called a gravel zapper that was a distinct creature from the shardrock moles, and a spark rhino traveled, a light rainstorm kicked up before turning into a full blown downpour.

“Great,” Thomas muttered as he stepped around a puddle forming from where the spark rhino had imprinted its foot into the ground. “Rain. Again.”

“Again?” As far as Daniel remembered it hadn’t rained like this before. Some, but this was a true downpour to match his demeanor.

“Yeah, it’s always raining here Guy. It sucks. This’ll probably mean lightning later too. I hate this.” Thomas kept his tone light, but his dislike clear.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t think we’ve had a thunderstorm since the Upswell. We were past due for one,” Evalyn said, face turning up to the rain to show that absolutely none of her unearthly beauty was due to makeup,

“Huh. Good while it lasted.”

The first peal of thunder rumbled in the distance and Daniel got a bad feeling. This was a world where Heroes existed. The tropes from his world’s fiction sometimes played out here. Bards tended to be sultry and flamboyant when they weren’t in distress after a dragon attack. Heroes actually had capes that fluttered in the wind, whether it was blowing or not. As he walked with his friends, including an increasingly grouchy Thomas, he considered something. Last night, Gadriel had said he would do something vague and heroic to make sure no one died. What did that probably mean?

He would do something vague and heroic of course! There was no inherent problem with that, especially if it worked. What Daniel feared was what the weather was implying. No dramatic encounter was complete without something to raise the stakes. He could be wrong, it was just that Daniel would be in a glass half empty mentality if the cup hadn’t already overfilled and soaked him to the bone. At least summer was winding down and the heat wasn’t too bad.

Hmm. I can not smell anything, Hunter complained.

Yeah, and the rain’s so loud I bet you can barely hear anything either. That would make Hunter’s passive detection far worse than it was before, though he’d already tagged everything within a couple of kilometers from the spot they’d been in when the rain had started.

Yes. Would hide when it rained before.

So it has been drier than normal?

Yes. Hunter sounded thoughtful. Agree with healer. Liked it when there was no rain.

Yeah, your fur’s getting soaked. For his part, Daniel was also miserable. The rough cloth clothing he’d been provided was poorly repaired, bloodstained, and not at all water resistant. At least there was nothing in his pack that would be ruined; his phone having proven completely waterproof when he first found it.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and Thomas jumped.

“Someone’s antsy,” Evalyn remarked. “Scared of lightning?”

“No,” Thomas said, looking around alertly. He wasn’t the only one. “It’s the things that can come with it. Everything about the rain here is awful.”

Another clap of thunder, lightning visible now in the distance. They were getting to the end of where Hunter had been able to mark creatures before the rain had started. Daniel was getting nervous too now. “Do these storms last long?” he’d almost had to shout.

“Not too long. An hour normally,” Evalyn answered.

“Shouldn’t you know Guy? Pretty hard to miss this.”

“For someone that likes to burrow into everyone’s secrets, I thought you would have learned by now that Daniel only came to the Thormundz two months ago.” Daniel looked at Evalyn furtively, nodding his appreciation. He’d thought back to the painful moment before they’d first reached Roost’s Peak and realized he’d never explicitly told her the truth. Either way, she’d figured it out and was covering for him.

“Still-” Thomas started, before realizing he was being rude.

Daniel didn’t blame him for it. The rain was making this journey ten times harder. Hunter’s senses were blunted, the ground was a mixture of sticky mud and gravel, and the lightning was so much stronger compared to Earth’s. Far off strikes carried a weight to the thunder that they produced that shook Daniel with every boom. He’d be looking for shelter if the continued movement of the others didn’t pull him along with them. What if this had happened in the middle of a fight?

Wait, what? Daniel thought back to something Thomas had said. Things that come with the lightning? That’s when a bolt of lightning impacted the ground a short distance in front of him, changing the situation drastically.

Acting as a flare, the lightning cut through the rain-imposed darkness to reveal not only those Daniel was traveling with, but a large mass of people ahead of them as well. Not even a kilometer away! Not even half a kilometer, and so many people, it had to be the Tyrant’s army. Tags lit up amongst the mass as Hunter did what he could before the flash was over. Less than a third of the people Daniel had seen were marked.

Focus! Hunter shouted in his mind, and Daniel realized he hadn’t done anything. He’d been too used to Hunter doing all the work. A situation where there’d be a time limit on using Identify Creature had never occurred to him. It would have been the perfect chance for Moment of Clarity to shine and he’d just sat there stupidly.

Amidst the panicked shouting it took Daniel a few more seconds to realize the light from the lightning hadn’t gone fully away. Balls of light had shot off the main line moments before impact and split away. It had seemed like just a trick of Daniel’s senses until he realized the motes were still there and moving on their own. What’s more, there were red auras, and words over them when Hunter marked the lights.

Sparkbat - (1, Energized)

The last thing Daniel noticed before the initial shock was over, and a single voice cut over the rest, was that there was something wrong with some of the people Hunter had tagged.

“RALLY TO ME!” Murdon’s voice rivaled the thunder. “DEFEND AGAINST THE MONSTERS!”

No, we have to-

“Great, sparkbats,” Thomas complained, close enough to interrupt Daniel’s thoughts.

“Tyrant!” Khare shouted, the mouth the vines created unraveling somewhat through the force of the voice it was casting. The anger in the voice was unmistakable. Instantly the Cleric became serious, not having noticed the people ahead.

Evalyn pulled her instrument off her back and rubbed at one of the metallic sections with a hint of concern. “Don’t worry, we’ll just join together until the monsters are gone. My music won’t do much against all this static though!”

Would it change anything if they knew? No, he had to tell them, but so many people were already rushing to Murdon as the sparkbats started taking notice of the mortals around them. Did they literally ride the lightning down here? No time to ask questions, there was never time to ask questions. Murdon had to know before they started dying.

The Commander was close enough that he normally could have shouted to him. Not through the rain, or the bursts of thunder from lightning both distant and nearby. “Can anyone talk to Murdon from here?!” Everyone shook their heads, even Khare, and Daniel started running. Hunter followed, understanding, and the rest followed cluelessly.

As the monster threat was airborne, there was more value in securing their position than aggressively challenging the enemy. Even more so considering there was a larger force of assumedly hostile mortals nearby. Daniel understood holding back until the random factor of the monsters was dealt with, especially given the terrible conditions of this battle. There was just one thing that changed the equation.

“RESERVE AMMUNITION! ALOST, DESIGNATE TARGETS!” Murdon commanded as Daniel was pushing his way past people. Armed people looked for a second at Hunter as a threat before turning their attention to the flying creatures shooting lightning. Their lightning was still purple, but the sparkbats were no longer chaining it between them. Time to think about that later.

“Murdon!” Finally, the draconoid’s head turned. He was wearing the helmet that normally hung from his waist.

“Quickly,” he said, voice echoing even at a lower volume.

“The Tyrant brought everyone from the village,” Daniel told him. Lightning struck another time, and this bolt carried additional Sparkbats to the ground. As the flash died, Murdon’s eyes widened as he realized the problem too. Some of the people Hunter had initially tagged only had names. That wasn’t new, it just indicated someone without a class, but some were smaller than the adults and Daniel hadn’t seen any dwarves in Hagain. For some reason, the Tyrant had brought everyone in Hagain to assault Roost’s Peak, all in one group. Even the children.

Defending this position was the right thing to do if you ignored that. Everyone in Murdon’s force was experienced by now, could defend themselves, and wouldn’t risk attack from the enemy. The Tyrant’s force was larger, and they were the reason innocents were in danger. They could defend themselves, couldn’t they?

Murdon reached the same conclusion Daniel had. Even if only one child died because of their inaction, it would be the same amount of blood on their hands. The Tyrant had painted Murdon as a monster, but he would be one now if he did nothing. This was the price of virtue demanding payment.