Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 59: Above the Plains (Patreon)

When the world faded back into existence, Sam wasn’t sure how much time had passed. The image of the darkness stretching away from him hung in his mind, along with the distant stars. It was a strange vision, similar to when the Outsider ruins had transported him. Something about it told him that it was real, as if he'd glanced into what the World Law could see.

There was a dull ache throughout his body, as well as a sense of strength that hadn’t been there before. He’d thought the quick gains were behind him, but it was only possible because the World Law had helped. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to absorb that much experience at once.

He understood the experience limit now. It took more energy to continue to alter his body and abilities as he went up in levels, as if he were fighting against a natural law with every step. If that much energy had hit him without the World Law controlling it, he would have been blown apart. The experience had slowly turned into energy for abilities and attributes, but in a raw form it wasn’t much different than being hit by a lightning bolt.

He took stock of the changes as he looked through his status sheet. His shoulder and arm ached from where the Grey Shard Stalker had slashed him, although he’d nearly forgotten about the wounds. The Bloodweaver had also left a slash on his wrist, but that had sealed over already with no sign of lasting damage. With his Constitution at 40, minor wounds would be gone in a day or so.

He was Level 42, which was more than he’d ever planned for, but it still wasn’t enough in the grand scheme of things. Ismela had been 35, just a bit lower than him, and Ayala’s father was over 200. Maybe he could feel a little comfortable if he reached his First Evolution, but it would be better to get to the Second. There were a lot of powerful people in the world.

Each level from 32 to 66 took more than 200k experience, which meant at least a couple of significant fights per level. It was clear from the bonus experience and traits that the World Law also heavily rewarded those who worked for it, helping them to advance faster, which explained why the church was so powerful and how they had so many high-level Priests. Ayala would have to reach Level 80 just to be considered a real Priestess.

It was clear the World Law, or World Core as it had referred to itself, was only going to do that if you’d done something noteworthy that helped it. He had a feeling that it had cost the World Core at least as much energy as he’d gained in order to help him.

He shook his head again as he closed his eyes and began to meditate, restoring his essence. The cavern was blocked off, so they weren’t in any danger, even if something was still alive in the tunnels. All around him, the others were doing the same. There was a murmur of surprise here and there as they adjusted to the experience gain, but for the most part it was a thoughtful silence.

A little while later, they finished their meditations and started to discuss what had happened. Except for him, they’d all received about 650k experience, as well as the bonuses from killing the Soul Remnant, including Soul Echo, Dauntless, and a chance to upgrade a single ability to Advanced. His dad was at Level 35 now, and everyone else was at Level 34.

He’d received the bulk of the experience from the fight, and they had split the remaining third, but no one protested. The exploding cores had won the fight and it was the World Law’s verdict.

He pulled out one of the new auras and began to intensify it as he looked around the room. He had a feeling the journey out would be untroubled. There wasn’t much left in the tunnels that would bother them and the road across the Abyssinian Plains and to Osera was a fairly low level as well.

The promise of being home soon pulled at him.

The only thing they had left to do was to clean up the final items and the remaining loot. All that was left was the Bloodweaver’s staff and a dimensional bag at its belt, which turned out to be full of rare and semi-rare ores and crystals. By silent consent, both of those items ended up with him. Ayala and Krana didn’t need them and Lesat was working for Ayala. His dad just shook his head as he handed both of them to Sam.

“You can use them for enchanting,” Jeric said with a smile. “The crystals are something to experiment with and the bag will let you carry a bit more.”

Sam didn’t protest as he took both and hooked the bag onto his belt next to the other pouch. It would expand his carrying capacity by quite a bit. As for the staff, he had to ask Krana to identify the enchantment on it for him, since it wasn’t one of his own.

“I’ll try to teach you Analyze on the way home,” she announced, as she handed it back to him. “You’ll probably be able to pick up the skill for it with some guidance and a bit of mana to help.”

A trace of her mana remained on the item, allowing him to see its information.

Staff of Withering Stasis.

[Enchantment: Withering Stasis (Expert).

There is a chance to hold an enemy frozen in stasis when they are struck with this weapon. The effect and its duration depends on the difference between your Wisdom and your opponent’s. Minimum 1 sec. Maximum 10 seconds. This effect may fail for a variety of reasons. Adds +6 Wisdom, +6 Intelligence when held.]

Sam shook his head as he turned the weapon over, studying the runes on it. The pattern was a spiral of runes that he wasn’t familiar with, and he wanted to sit down and study it right there. The enchantment had to have been how the Bloodweaver froze Yeres in place when he hit his shield.

They had to leave, so he settled on committing the pattern to memory as he let his aura pour through the staff, sensing out the pattern of runes as he built up a three-dimensional model of it that he could work on as they walked. As his Wisdom and Intelligence increased, it was becoming easier to absorb new patterns like this, and once he had them, he didn’t forget them.

When he completed his study, he turned to Krana and offered it to her again. In the hands of a Wisdom-based caster, this was an excellent melee weapon.

“This would work better for you than for me,” he suggested, as he held it out. “You should take it.”

“I’ve no need for it,” Krana refused, shaking her head as she pushed it back to him. “I’m fine with my war hammer. You keep it. I can tell you want to study it.”

Sam turned to Ayala, starting to hold it out to her, but she was already holding up her hand.

“My father will find me something that works,” Ayala said, shaking her head. “It’s all yours.”

With that, Sam happily put the staff away in his new dimensional pouch. He could study the enchantment more later and figure out how the bonuses had gotten so high, as well as the new runes and patterns that contributed to the effect. He’d never seen an enchantment that used an attribute against an enemy before. If the staff were sold, it would probably bring in dozens of gold, at a minimum.

The only thing left in the area after that was some scattered equipment from the Grey Shards. He took a few knives and bows for enchanting practice, stuffing them into the new dimensional bag, as well as quite a few of the grey cloaks that were still intact, one of which he passed to his dad to wear.

On the way home, he would see about enchanting them with the runes from Ayala and Krana’s equipment, which would help keep off the rain and dirt. It would be more things to practice on.

After that, the mood turned somber as they collected what remained of Yeres’s corpse and dug a grave in the stone floor. Ayala did most of the work, moving aside the stone to create a deep space for the guard.

“I’ll do it,” Lesat spoke up as he lifted Yeres’s body off the ground and carried him to the grave. He set the guard's body down on the side and then jumped in, turning back to pick him up again. As he lifted him for the second time and settled him down into the grave, his posture slumped.

A sense of exhaustion radiated out from Lesat as he stood there in the grave, looking down at his former friend. It wasn’t a fatigue of the body, but of the spirit. His head was bent as he started to speak.

“I knew him since we were children, you know,” he said slowly, searching for the right thing to say. “He was...always an idiot, but an honest idiot, and a good friend. He deserved better.”

Sam stood near the grave with the others and nodded in agreement. They all deserved better than the hand they’d been dealt. Yeres was one more example in a long line of people who had died to Outsiders. All of them should have lived longer lives and died in bed surrounded by their grandchildren.

“I don’t think I’ll go back to the Guild,” Lesat said slowly, as he looked down at his friend. “It wouldn’t be the same. This mission was a disaster, and they don’t care about someone at my level anyway. It’ll only cost a few gold to pay off my contract. After that..., maybe I’ll leave Osera too. I’ve spent too long there.”

“You’re welcome to come with us,” Sam said, speaking up on the spur of the moment. He’d never liked the guards much, but they were people and not monsters. “There’s always another road to travel.”

Lesat’s movements were slow as he swung around to look up at Sam.

“You need a guard after this?” he asked, his voice low. “I suppose you do...someone to stop people from looking too closely until that curse gets dealt with.”

“That would be fine,” Sam agreed as he looked Lesat in the eyes for the first time. The guard looked lost. He couldn’t bring Yeres back for him, but he could give him some sense of purpose. “You could be my guard, once you leave your guild. There will always be monsters to punish for what happened to Yeres.”

A gleam flickered in Lesat’s eyes at that. He turned toward Ayala to see if she would stop him, but she said nothing, making it clear that she wasn’t going to stand in the way. He returned Sam’s gaze, a bit of life coming back to his features.

“That there will be,” he agreed slowly. He looked down at Yeres, shaking his head before he turned back to Sam. “I think I’ll take you up on that.”

The guard let out a sigh as he started to move, reaching up to pull himself out of the grave.

When he was clear, Ayala raised a hand that was surrounded by yellow mana and the stone began to flow back into the grave, covering over Yeres’s corpse. When it was done, she raised a stele as a tombstone over his head, and at the top of it, she placed a familiar, nine-pointed star.

“He died fighting for Aster Fall, so let him rest beneath the Guardian Star,” she said, as a pulse of white energy traveled from her hand into the stone. The stele began to shine, glowing with the touch of Holy Ground.

Everyone was silent as they gathered the rest of their things and moved toward the escape tunnel. They had to shift some rubble out of the way from what had once been the fort, but it didn’t take them too long to clear it. The tunnel was still there, stretching away in an undamaged loop back toward the main path.

They traveled down it in silence until they reached the main tunnel, which curved away toward the exit and Osera. At the junction, Sam turned to his dad with a somber steadiness in his gaze. There was a lot more maturity in his posture than there had been when they’d left, what seemed like so long ago.

“Let’s head home,” he said as he swept out the new grey cloak and set it around his shoulders. It covered him up well enough, although it was a bit short. The tunnels held a particular silence in them, like the echo of the earth breathing as it waited in still expectation for the next moment to arrive.

“Let’s head home,” Jeric agreed, his eyes crinkling. He tossed his own grey cloak over his shoulders, its fabric stretching across his broad back as he joined his son in looking down the tunnel toward the future.

He’d returned home from many journeys before, sometimes with excitement and other times with regret, depending on what he’d discovered, but this time, the road leading home was bordered by new possibilities.

The ruins had been the start of it and they’d nearly died more than once, but they’d made it through. His hand came down, patting Sam on the shoulder. He left it there as the two of them looked into the distance. It felt like he had to reach up this time, adjusting to Sam’s new height.

---

The path beneath the Abyssinian Plains unrolled in front of them as they walked, day unfolding into day. The distance passed in flashing steps and the color of the stone changed from dark to light as they made their way out from beneath the earth.

Eventually, they climbed up out of the tunnels into the clear sky of Aster Fall, surfacing at a cave’s mouth that pierced out from the side of a sloped hill like the open maw of a serpent. When they reached the exit, the light of the sun struck Sam’s new eyes for the first time, making his pupils widen in surprise.

The world looked different than he remembered, much more intense. There were overlays of mana and other energies woven through it that he’d never seen. His eyes, ears, and other senses brought him an overwhelming flood of information as he looked around.

The sun was a fiery, silver-tinted sphere rising above the eastern horizon, spreading its rays out across the world as it was born on a new day. All around it, a brilliant peach-gold halo of light radiated out, leaving rippled streaks of energy falling across the horizon. Blue and green clouds dotted the light blue sky like a stream of sailing ships passing by, each of them filled with their own distinct aura.

The sun's rays fell down onto the land below, revealing a vast, rolling expanse of low hills covered with waves of knee-high grass that stretched for hundreds of miles until it reached a range of mountains in the distance that resembled a jagged, broken spine scattering the clouds. The light raised purple and orange highlights from their angular slopes, reflecting from ore veins and swathes of green vines.

Some of the peaks were short and suddenly cut off like a shattered blade and others towered through the heavens, so high up that even the clouds were only attendants to their might. All around them, he could see the slow pulse of earth mana, radiating upward from their base until it met the energy of the falling sun and exploded outward in a thousand hues.

Rivers of silver-purple mist flowed down from the mountains and curled above the plains, wandering here and there between the rises in the ground as they suddenly descended in one area and rose again in another. Between the grasses, there were scattered areas of sand and hills.

The hills were low rises topped with trees that had leaves half as long as their trunks. The leaves draped down across the grass and fluttered in the wind. Between those hills and the patches of sand, rocky stones protruded.

Here and there, flocks of birds sailed through the sky, accompanied sometimes by a larger beast that looked like a wyvern or a giant hawk in the distance. A few small herds of deer roamed the grasslands, their bodies shining with a mix of scales and horns as they grazed on the grasses.

The mixed rainbow colors of an elemental storm hung in the distance above the mountains to the west. The flares of heated rain and gale winds swirled through it.

Above it all, Aster Fall’s three moons were visible against the dawn sky, their colors ranging from light green, to soft blue, and finally a quiet purple.

Sam stood there, taking in all of the new impressions as he felt his senses come to life. It felt like the world was pouring information directly into his mind, the amount building with each passing moment as it became more familiar to him.

The smell of the plains and the passing animals, the touch of the wind changing as it crossed his face, and the heat of the sun falling on him with a trace of distant fire...all of it was new and touched with its own unique power as he spread his arms wide and looked up into the sky.

He took a deep breath as he looked directly into the sun, letting its rays sink into his eyes, and then he brought his gaze back down to the east. The path to Osera stretched ahead of them for hundreds of miles across the grasslands, somewhere below where the sun was rising.

To the south was the village of Cliff’s End, where his mother and sister were waiting.