Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 43: A Difficult Decision (Patreon)

The trio had to stop shortly before they reached the mana pool cavern, since the path was blocked by a stone wall. It covered it from one side to the other, and if the stone hadn’t looked so new and oddly straight, it would have been easy to think the tunnel ended here.

A moment later, the stone began to slowly recede back into the ground, flowing away like water. Behind it, Ayala came into view. Her face was pale, but her expression held determined lines and her eyes were intent. She was standing just in front of the two guards, making it clear that she was defending them. Their wounds were wrapped with quick, tight bandages.

“You need to go get the experience from the last pack,” Sam told her simply. “The flaw won’t close until after that, and I’m not sure how long we should leave it unattended.”

Ayala just nodded, as she looked down the tunnel and then toward the two guards behind her.

“One person should come with me, and the other two can guard the cave here.”

Sam glanced over the guards to see if they were awake, but they were both unconscious for now. It wouldn’t do for him to be the first one they saw, if they woke up.

“I’ll go with you,” he offered, causing Ayala’s eyes to widen with surprise. He sent her a considering look, before he turned and gestured back down the tunnel.

After the realization of what his appearance meant, he was willing to be a bit nicer to her, at least enough to be polite. Unlike Ismela, she hadn’t attacked him or done anything except be nervous.

As for the wizardess, that had apparently been the reflex of someone who didn’t think before they acted. She still should have waited to see what was going on before throwing lightning at him, or asked the seer in their group if he was actually a demon, or...just run in the other direction. He shrugged, pushing the wizardess out of his mind.

“We should hurry,” he added. “I’m not sure how good of an idea it is to leave it there.”

He also wanted to see what happened when the Flaw closed. He had the feeling that it would be important to him.

“We’ll be here and I’ll keep an eye on the guards,” his dad offered, giving him a nod. “It looks like they might survive, but the wounds are pretty severe. Yeres is still bleeding out his guts into that bandage and Lesat is missing the leg. Unless there’s magical healing....” Jeric’s words trailed off.

Ayala hesitated, turning back toward the guards for a moment as something seemed to pull her in that direction, but there was a conflicted look on her face as she sighed and turned back around.

“I used one healing pill on them both already..., hopefully their Constitution is enough with that. Lesat’s leg is the most difficult to fix. I’ll be back soon. Maybe we can do more for them.”

With that, Sam and Ayala turned and headed back toward the flaw. It was only a few minutes away, but it was enough for the silence between them to become noticeable.

“Your golem was helpful,” he said, breaking the impasse. “It’s a skill for your class?”

Ayala turned slightly toward him, shooting him a quick glance out of the side of her eyes, before she nodded. “It’s Earthwalk. It’s what the class is named for. Maybe, when I’m stronger, I’ll be able to summon more of them, or a bigger version. The wall came from Summon Earth.”

“It’s a good class,” he offered, before he turned the subject to something more interesting. “Have you ever heard of essence, where it means something like mana?”

Ayala frowned as she thought about it, and then finally shook her head. “No, I’ve heard of essential energy, but never the term essence like that.”

It was proof of a sort, and Sam added it to the evidence he had. If Ayala hadn’t heard of essence with all of her education and church background, it meant that it wasn’t well known in the world. It might still be a secret of the church, but it wasn’t in the popular concept.

Her father might know more, but there was no way Sam was going to meet him until he was at an equal level of strength. Preferably stronger.

He was about to ask another question when Ayala took the initiative.

“Who were you before this?” She gave him a quick glance before she turned around again, looking toward the front. “I know you said you’re from a village, but who were you there?”

“Just a boy,” Sam replied honestly, letting out a short sigh as he thought about it. “A villager’s son who dreamed of being a wizard..., to throw spells and fly across the sky.”

Ayala actually laughed at that, covering her mouth with her hand. Some of the nervousness she had when she looked at him faded away.

“What about now?”

“Now...,” Sam let out a deep breath as he looked towards her and then back down the tunnel. Krana’s vision explained most of it, but Ayala had already heard that. She was looking for a different answer. “I’m wondering how to keep my family safe when Flaws show up.”

“They tend to only show up in the wilder areas,” Ayala answered automatically. “The flow of experience is stronger around cities where there are a lot of people, which makes the seal stronger there. It’s similar to why monsters don’t appear near cities, I think.”

“It sounds like we need to move to a city then.” Sam looked over at her as an idea for the future flashed through his mind, and he felt a hint of gratitude that she had mentioned it.

“Or at least, they do,” he added. His appearance might prevent him from joining them. “I can’t risk being seen with them like this.”

“I...wish I could help,” Ayala said, a bit sadly. She’d heard enough of his story that she understood what had happened, as well as what Krana had seen. “An Enchanter can make a good living in most cities, so if Krana’s idea for an amulet works, maybe it won’t be a problem.” A frown passed across her face as she looked at Sam. It looked like she was about to raise a question that was on her mind.

“There is something I still don’t understand. It occurred to me the first time you mentioned your family name.... You said your family name is Hastern, from Tower Reach?”

“Yes, my grandfather was from there,” Sam answered with a shrug. He wasn’t sure why it mattered, but that was the city his family had been from before coming to the village.

“That name is rare and I’ve only heard of it from one family.  I’ve been meaning to ask. Are you from the Tower Reach Hasterns? The Arcane Researchers who are really famous?” Ayala’s face scrunched up a little in confusion as she looked at Sam.

“I don’t know how famous they are,” Sam answered. Surprise made him look over at Ayala as he continued walking. “We haven’t been in contact with them for a very long time.”

He’d never heard that story about his family, but the fact that she said they were from the same town and had the same name immediately grabbed his attention. The fact the class was correct was even more suggestive. The same family name and the same class as his great-grandparents?

“But that’s the family that invented the Tower Magus subclass.” Ayala’s eyes widened as her guess was confirmed.“If you’re from that family, how come you’re living in a small village? Shouldn’t you be in Tower Reach?”

“The Tower Magus subclass?” Sam’s ears perked up as he heard that and he turned around to look at her. “You mean the racial subclass for humans?”

“Yes, that one. I thought everyone knew about them. Tower Reach is a long way from Osera, but it’s really famous for that.” Ayala was studying him now, her eyes carefully avoiding his horns as she frowned.

“My grandfather was disowned a long time ago.” Sam replied as he looked away. Whatever she thought it meant, it was a lot simpler than that. His father had told him their family had its golden days, but the idea that they were that famous only made him angry.

“I’m sorry,” Ayala said quickly. “I suppose some traditional families who are very strict do disown their children, if they don't like their class. I didn’t know the Hasterns were like that.”

Sam turned over what he’d just heard in his mind, connecting a few points, and an intense dislike for his great-grandparents hit him in a burst.

“It doesn’t matter,” he answered at last, shaking his head. That branch of the family had many years to help out and they never had. If it were true that they were so famous and had invented one of the only two racial subclasses for Humans that he’d ever heard of, how could they have disowned his grandfather and his father?

It said nothing good about them at all.

As for now, he seriously doubted they would help him with an illusion amulet, and that was the only thing he was interested in, but he wasn’t going to ask them for help. He would have to explain why and show his appearance, and he wasn’t willing to take that risk.

If they were willing to disown their own children, they would probably try to kill him on sight, like everyone else. He would take care of things on his own.

“We’re almost there,” he said, turning the conversation back to the present. “It’s just around the curve.”

He could feel the flaw in front of him now, perhaps because the spiders were no longer blocking it. It was a tiny speck of essence that was calling to him. Maybe that was how Outsiders found them, or maybe there was a way to make them by drilling through some part of the seal.

Ayala’s expression cleared again, her eyes narrowing as she looked ahead. Sam watched her with some bemusement. At moments, she was a young woman with an expressive face, and at others she was this...daughter of the church, who must have been raised on stories of battles and with the expectation that one day she would join in.

There weren’t many female guards in the village, but if there were, perhaps some of them would have been like her.

As they rounded the corner, the flaw came into sight again, accompanied by Ayala’s quick gasp of surprise.

The rainbow tear was hanging there in space, but where there should have been a dark space at the center, there was a long chitin-covered and serrated leg trying to force its way through.

They had already gathered most of the experience from these spiders, and the sense of rippling pressure from the World Law was binding the flaw in place. It looked like the spider was having a much more difficult time getting through than the others.

He stared at it, with his eyes fixed on the leg as it tried to tear at the space, but no new notifications appeared about enemies.

“I don’t think it’s able to fully break through,” he said, shaking his head as he relaxed a bit. “Maybe if it had more time.”

They’d only been gone for a few minutes, but clearly it was not safe to leave a flaw behind. If they’d taken longer, perhaps the spider would have been able to get through.

He turned toward Ayala, feeling optimistic about it all, only to see that her face had gone completely white. He shot a quick glance back toward the flaw, but nothing new was happening.

“What is it?” he asked as he looked around for more enemies. There wasn’t anything around them, but his senses roved out farther, searching through the tunnels as his ears tilted, listening for the smallest sound. “Did a spider escape?”

There was no notification for it, but perhaps the World Law hadn’t noticed yet.

“My father was right....” Ayala’s voice was quiet and shaken as she stared at the spider leg, which was flailing wildly, trying to tear its way through to no effect.

Sam followed her gaze to the leg, which he had to admit did look strange, and then back to her face. He turned around again, searching for another enemy, but there was still nothing.

“That’s all I see,” he said. “It’s alright.”

Ayala’s face had gone pale, however, and he finally realized that it was all due to the spider leg sticking through the flaw. There wasn’t anything else around them. It was ugly, but he didn’t know why it bothered her. It was just another Outsider spider trying to get into his house. In a minute, he’d chop it off and the flaw would close.

“No, this proves everything.” Ayala turned to him, her hands clenched into fists. “Fighting them in the tunnel through the eyes of my golem was one thing. They were just like regular monsters. But this..., I can see them tearing at the World Seal! Don’t you know what that means?”

Sam shook his head as he considered what she meant. It was clear the sight was affecting her, but he wasn’t entirely sure why. This was just the nature of the world. When he looked at the flaw again, he supposed the flailing leg did look kind of bizarre.

It was just thrashing around there, almost mindlessly, as it searched for purchase. The serrations were trying to tear at the edges of the flaw, but they weren’t able to widen it.

“It means I was being foolish before, and I need to face reality.” Ayala’s hands clenched again before she forced herself to slowly relax them, as she turned to stare at the flaw again. “Look at that spider leg. It’s reflexively trying to get through, to kill anything on this side, and to eat us. If it could, it would probably devour the entire world. That’s what Outsiders are.

“Yes,” Sam agreed simply, as he waited for Ayala to adjust her perspective. “It needs to be stopped. Isn’t that what we’re doing?”

“It means I need to do what I was raised to do.” She studied it for a moment longer, before she turned to Sam and her expression changed again, relaxing, as she started to accept the idea. It looked like she had come to some realization.

“Work for the church?” he asked, as he started to understand. “That’s what your father wants, right?”

“That and more,” Ayala sighed, as her thoughts turned inwards for a moment. “But we should close that first.”

Sam pulled out his spear as he walked forward, channeling crystal flame down the edge as he raised it. A quick swing followed, shearing off the spider leg that was flailing around.

“You should grab the experience,” he suggested, as he put the spear away. “I’m going to see if any of these corpses have materials for crafting.”

Maybe there was something useful here still.

Ayala turned immediately and pointed toward the carapaces.

“Those spiders should have an internal organ where their fire was generated, but it may be useless. They don’t seem like the web type, so there won’t be spider silk. The serrated legs could be used for weapons..., but most likely, it’s the carapace with the red stripes that’s the main material.” Ayala paused and pointed toward the closest spider, waving her hand at the signature markings.

“Turn it over and look inside. It should be lined with a softer material that can be used for spell parchment. The carapace itself could be used by some professions, but I doubt you want to make armor out of it. Other than that, make sure not to eat anything from Outsiders. They have strange effects sometimes and can be poisonous.” She rattled the words off automatically, as if it were a school lesson.

Sam blinked at her, and then he nodded before going over to one of the carapaces. The red stripes on them were still there, gleaming against the black surface that was covered in thin ridges.

Behind him, Ayala went to see if she could gather the experience. Her golem had participated in the battle, so she should be able to, but she’d never used that ability before. On the way here, he’d checked the remaining spiders to make sure they had gathered it all. Once that was done, the flaw should close.

With a lot of effort, he was able to rip the carapaces away from the spiders’ corpses. As Ayala had suggested, there was a dense web of shimmering grey material inside, which looked like some type of padding.

When he scraped it out, it separated from the inside of the carapace in large, silvery strips, almost like an internal layer of skin. It was a lot like silk, but a bit thicker and tougher. When he pulled on it, it stretched slightly and then snapped back into place. It did look like it would work for spell parchment.

He managed to get quite a bit of it as he went from spider to spider. Each spider gave him enough for four or so scrolls, with more from the big ones, but some of it was damaged from the battle. He’d have to stop by the other spiders and get that as well. If he collected it all, there should be enough for thirty or more spell scrolls.

While he was working on that, he glanced over to see what Ayala was doing, only to notice that she was standing there staring into space, as if she were wrestling with a difficult decision. She hadn’t gathered any of the experience yet.

She looked up into the air, as if she were staring at the heavens above, and before he could ask what was going on, she said two simple words.

“I accept.”

The words were loaded with meaning, and for a moment Sam wasn’t sure what she was doing. Then he felt the swirling pressure of the World Law descending and he understood in an instant.

She had just accepted a subclass.

She hadn’t taken the experience yet because she was deciding what to do first. If she got the maximum experience, she would definitely end up over Level 20.

The World Law descended in a spiral of increasingly intense white light that swirled around Ayala and poured into her body. Her skin seemed to take on a gentle luminescence, glowing from the inside.

It didn’t take long from his perspective, as the energy swirled around her. He could almost see the flow of energy settling into her body as new abilities merged with her. Each of them was a scintillating web of light that shone like a diamond against the dark walls of the tunnels.

He’d overheard Krana’s conversation with her before and he knew that there was only one subclass her father would allow her to take. Apparently, seeing the flaw in front of her, along with the immediate need to gather all of the experience, had forced her to make the decision. The white light was also a tell-tale sign.

She had just become a Priestess.

The flow of energy continued as Ayala stood there in the center of the tunnel, surrounded by the scattered corpses of Outsiders. He could see the regret and frustration in the lines of her body, in her stiff neck and clenched fists, as well as the same determination that she’d shown in the battle. He couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for her.

She hadn’t wanted this. She had wanted to do something else that was more free, perhaps a craft or some other profession that could let her be herself, but she had accepted it as necessary.

This was her duty to the world.

In many ways, it was the same for her as it was for him. Neither of them had a choice if they wanted to see the world stay whole. They had to do everything they could to protect it. He gave her a nod of respect as he turned away, heading back to his task of gathering the spider material.

Behind him, the process continued and light glowed across the walls, but it was a quiet, serene brilliance.

By the time he was done, Ayala was waiting for him near a couple of the normal spiders. They were the only ones that had unclaimed experience still. He had killed them at a distance, and it looked like she couldn’t get the experience.

She looked basically the same, except that she seemed to have a slight, white glow around her that was woven through her presence. If she had gained the maximum experience from the two larger spiders, she had probably just hit Level 24 or so, bringing her up close to the rest of them.

She looked a bit different now, with a stronger sense of energy to her that came from increased vitality and higher attributes. She had probably added a few to Constitution and Charisma, with the majority in Intelligence and Wisdom. Since she had a caster class and a healing subclass, she was probably going to have to split her efforts between the two.

Behind her, the sense of pressure from the World Law was increasing around the flaw and he felt an expectant weight in the air, as if the World Law were waiting for him to finish the job.

He gave her a nod of acknowledgement as he bent down, touching the two spiders as he pulled the experience from the corpses, and this time he could feel the flow of excess energy dissipating into the world around him. It was a stream of sparkling power that he could just feel at the edge of his senses. It had that same sense of ecstatic starbursts around it that always hit him when he leveled.

He kept his attention locked onto it as he looked towards the flaw, waiting to see what would happen.

He felt the energy sweeping past him, heading for it. The sense of pressure that was hanging in the air increased as the force of reality became more intense. A feeling of stability and weight began to press in, like great stones pushing down on top of the area.

At the same time, he felt a surging expectancy in his blood, demanding that he reach out and grab that experience for himself, but he pushed it aside. The World Law would definitely not appreciate him interfering and being marked as Defiant once was already enough.

The rainbow gash shuddered as the flow of energy through it started to change. Slowly, like a vise closing, webs of sparkling light shot across the opening. They were blue and white, then yellow, and then other colors following in quick succession.

He could feel different elements being woven into each strand. Some were Fire and Water, others were Air and Earth, but beyond that there were other things. The web of energy began to intensify as more concepts were added. He could taste the feeling of the earth, the weight of ages, a sense of desolation and loneliness, the feel of a sunset, the brilliance of the last light of the stars before the sun rose in the morning, the spreading coolness of a shadow beneath a tree as moss grew across the forest floor.

Everything he sensed was part of Aster Fall, and it quickly became too complex for him to follow as more things joined in. The flaw at the center was filled with the web of light and then it began to close. First, the rainbow flares at the corners halted and folded in towards the center, and then the dark gash grew smaller. The web of energy grew broader, encompassing all of it like the sky covering over a distant hole in the earth.

It felt like the gash was growing more distant, as if it were retreating from him, and then, between one instant and the next, it was gone.  There was nothing left where it had been but the smell of stone and the silent echo of the tunnels.

A notification appeared as the voice of the World Law resounded brightly in his mind.

The Flaw has been Sealed. The World Barrier in this location has been restored.

You are Acknowledged, Battlefield Reclaimer.

To remove the Defiant trait, assist in sealing nine more Flaws.

Aster Fall thanks you for preserving the balance.

At the same time, he saw Ayala staring into space. Her hands clenched into fists and then slowly uncurled again as she listened to the same voice. Her eyes set into determined lines as her face hardened. Then her posture relaxed as she seemed to come to a decision.

“We need to head home,” she said, turning towards him. “But first, I need to help the guards. It’s time for me to live up to my responsibilities.”