Chapter 113– Ranger Academy XIII (Patreon)

“Blasting the hell out of the Formorians” eventually became a chore, and I started to mix up my attacks, manipulating flames to hit Formorians closer to the Outcropping I was on, mixing it up with the [Fireball]s I was throwing further out. [Fireball] had a longer range than my manipulation and control skills, and had more bang for the mana used, but - and I couldn’t believe it - I was getting bored of throwing endless, extra-large-backpack-of-Arcanite-fueled [Fireball]s. There was just no variation.

My night vision went to hell in a handbasket with all the flames being thrown around, and I was oh-so-briefly regretting ditching [Eyes of the Milkyway]. Ah well. [Moonlight]was much, much better.

I’d occasionally see flashes of light from other Outcroppings further down. There seemed to be a Lightning mage to my left, lightning bolts like Artemis’s crackling every 70 minutes or so, and some sort of Brilliance mage to my right, a rain of Brilliance arrows showering down every 40 minutes or so.

The natural conclusion, I mulled as I threw more fireballs into the crowd, was other mages traded off on the Outcroppings, blowing all their mana, then trading spots while they regenerated up. I had a backpack full of mana, so I was able to single-handedly hog the spot.

Something was wrong. I didn’t need to be able to hog a spot to give Toxic support – hell, I wasn’t doing any supporting at the moment. I didn’t need this massive backpack of mana, fueling a [Pyromaniac]’s every dream.

What was going on?

I had lots of time to think – I didn’t really need to aim, just occasionally pause as Night flashed by, trail of gore left in his wake. However, no matter how I put the pieces together, it didn’t quite fit.

The only conclusion I came to, was this was probably related to my lessons being heavily focused on leadership and the like, relating to the Rangers maybe wanting to make me a team leader? Maybe they’d decided I was doing well enough in my lessons, and wanted to get my level high enough to justify it?

But this was absurdly expensive. Why not just, I dunno, let me be a Ranger for a few years, and let my level rise naturally that way? Get a solid core of other Rangers who knew me before making me a team leader?

And who ever heard of a team leader right out of Academy? Ok, fine, so I wasn’t right out of Academy, but still.

I continued puzzling and blasting for most of the night. Didn’t have much else to do, besides make sure I didn’t fall under any circumstances. I’d die horribly.

Eventually Night jumped up onto my Outcropping, and bless [Center of the Galaxy] for not having me fall.

“Excellent work Ranger Elaine.” Night said, in his usual formal manner. “Let us return, and see what progress Toxic has made. I trust you still have mana in reserve?”

I saluted.

“Sir! Yes sir.” I said, not quite sure why I was going full-formal.

Night nodded.

“Excellent. Follow.”

We walked down the outcropping, endless tides of Formorians on either side, rushing to their doom in the meatgrinder.

“Why do they keep attacking?” I asked.

Night shrugged.

“I do not know. Eight times I have attempted to dive deep, to find and cut off the source. Eight time I have failed. There are larger, more powerful Formorians, and once inside their nest, I would be overwhelmed and crushed. Even I am not powerful enough to directly challenge them in their lair, nor am I able to fight a Broodmother. I am certain, however, that the Broodmothers, the Queens of the Formorians, are leveling, and leveling well, from all this.”

Night shrugged.

“They do not desire to communicate, nor do anything other than consume. For the most part, I have given up attempting to solve the problem myself, rather keeping an eye out for those with the talent to potentially solve the issue. Hence Toxic, and to a smaller extent, you.”

I nodded, as the dawn started to light up the horizon. We reached the frontlines, where a massive roar of approval came from the soldiers. Night lifted his right hand in the sky, clenched in a fist, and from the sound coming from the soldiers, it was like their favorite team had just won the Superbowl.

“Night! Night! Night! Night!” A chant came from them, the soldiers energized by his mere presence, throwing the Formorians back with vigor.

Night smiled, a pure smile of genuine happiness, at seeing more soldiers alive from his efforts, at the cheering of the crowd, his efforts to protect being rewarded.

The moons were setting as the sun was coming up, promising a perfect, cloudless day, and I took the chance to blast out [Moonlight]-empowered [Phases of the Moon], seeing dozens of small injuries heal up.

I ignored the level-up notifications. There had been a lot of those recently, and I wanted to see them all once we were done.

Night and I walked back.

“With your leftover mana, and Arcanite, we shall take you to one of the healer’s stations. I believe you wish to do some good there, correct?” Night asked me, pulling his cowl up to hide himself from the sun.

“Yes please.” I said, eagerly looking forward to it. I was so bored of blasting endless waves of Formorians.

We made our way to a large tent, rows of soldiers on stretchers outside, each marked with one of two strips of cloth – a green, or orange strip. Soldiers from the frontlines were coming up in either pairs or trios, either one soldier supporting a second, wounded one, or two soldiers carrying a third on a stretcher. A half-dozen support staff milled around, receiving each soldier in turn. They’d get marked with a green strip of cloth, an orange strip, or immediately sent into the main tent, an efficient triage system.

“I’m here to help. I’m here to help. Let me get in position to do the most good.” I mentally repeated to myself, fighting off the urge to just start blasting healing around. The green-strips would be fine – heck, some of them were only technically injured. The orange-strips needed some help, but it was the people that weren’t given a strip, just sprinted right into the tent, that required the most help.

I needed to be in that tent, helping.

“Ranger Elaine. I trust you’ll be able to find us once you have completed your task here.” Night said. I’d barely started to nod when he was off like a shot, back in the direction where our tent was.

He really didn’t like the sun.

I made it to the entrance of the tent, where a pair of guards waited.

“Everyone needs to wait in line and be triaged first.” One of the guards recited mechanically, not even looking at me properly.

“Hi, Ranger Elaine here. I’m – “

“Don’t care. Everyone needs to be checked out by triage, Ranger or not.” The guard said.

“I’m here to-“

The guard looked down with a frown.

“Was I not clear?” He asked, gripping his spear.

“Are you fucking dumb?” I shot back, tired of trying to be polite. “Have you bothered to [Identify] me? Can you not see I’m a fucking healer, trying to get in and help?”

The other guard lost it, doubled over laughing, as the first guard went red, then purple, veins throbbing on his head.

“Go in, go in, healers are always welcome.” The second guard said, tears of laughter in his eyes. “Forgive him, we get way too many people trying to skip the line, trying to pull rank for some reason or another.”

The first guard came to a decision, and unhappily relaxed. “Go in.”

I didn’t thank them on my way in. I was feeling petty.

Long story short, after the guards it was relatively smooth sailing for me to get, for the lack of a better word, a booth.

“Pull down the red tassel when you’re out of mana. Pull the green tassel down when you’re ready to accept patients.” One of the helpers told me.

I experimentally pulled down on the green tassel, the red one lifting up via a simple pulley.

“Sounds good! I’m just here briefly until I run out of mana.” I said, getting a foul look from the helper, who muttered something about ‘part time workers’ and ‘no work ethic.’

I resisted sighing and rolling my eyes. Seriously people. Instead, I patted my backpack.

“I have a lot of mana.”

The look in the helpers eye changed somewhat, as he put one and one together. I wasn’t here for a dozen patients or so – I was here for potentially hundreds.

Green tassel down, the first patient was brought to me, the two soldiers with him flopping his hand onto my booth as he lay, barely breathing, not really conscious, on the stretcher. I got eyed by the soldiers, who decided that I must’ve been screened at some point, and that it was a 17-year-old girl in the healer booth, not the grizzled 40+ man they expected.

“Left stomach, long cut.” The first soldier recited. I glanced down at the man I was going to heal, seeing that was indeed the primary injury, although they’d neglected to mention the guts hanging out. I touched him, focusing on the injury they’d mentioned, pulsing [Phases of the Moon] through him, watching the guts get sucked back into his stomach, wound stitching back up.

“Thanks!” One of the soldiers said. The other just threw me a dirty look, and the three of them walked out.

That was pretty much how it went. Injured soldier came up, and either him or his friend would give a short description of the injury, saving me – and the other healers – the trouble of diagnosing the problem, letting us quickly get to the needed image to rapidly heal them in an efficient, if not perfect, manner, balancing mana usage with rapid healing, to get to the next patient, who might be critical.

There was no telling when a critical patient would come in, but mostly I was on a steady diet of orange patients. A green patient came in at one point, grumbling about the long, long wait.

“Look, see that guy over there?” I said, pointing to a soldier being rushed in, screaming, missing his legs. “That gets you immediate attention. Lose some legs, and we’ll see you first.”

The soldier – both green in seniority, and now green around the gills – mutely nodded, letting me fix his arm, before moving on.

It took me about an hour and a half to finally run out of mana, at which point I made my excuses and took my leave.

“Ranger Elaine.” The helper saluted me on my way out. “We appreciate your help at any point.”

I smiled at him, mentally snorting. I probably threw something of a wrench in their operation, a healer randomly showing up, causing a kerfuffle, then leaving again after a short time, but hey – that was more of a “them problem” than a “me problem”. Plus, I was helping people.

I snuck out the back, not wanting to get trapped in the triage section in the front. Now that I was no longer getting myself in a position to help, [Oath] would demand I stop and heal people, and given my immediate proximity to the healing tent, I had a few minor issues getting out, mostly around pausing people heading that way, regardless of severity, and fixing them up.

I made it back to find Toxic eating, Night just hanging out, a set of soldier’s rations – triple the norm, standard for a heavy mage - out for me.

“Ranger Elaine. Welcome back. Sit, eat. How was it?” Night asked me.

I sighed, and tucked in with gusto.

“Some hiccups getting in. Idiot guard wouldn’t let me get a word in sideways about being a healer. After that, relatively smooth sailing, although escaping was a hair tricky.”

Night nodded.

“Excellent. Toxic’s already reported back.”

Arthur grunted.

“I’ve fired thousands of those poisoned arrows out. It’s still going to take months, if not years, of doing this before we see results.” He griped.

“Help me out.” I said, around a mouthful of bread that I’d torn into with bestial ferocity. “What’s different this time from the usual attempts to poison these monsters, which I have to assume has been done before.”

Arthur nodded.

“Yup! Our best guess is, a long time ago someone tried poison. It didn’t work too well. Then a more lethal, faster-acting poison was developed. Eventually, we hit upon something strong enough to kill the Formorians before they hit the shield-wall of the frontline soldiers – anything slower than that wasn’t worth it. Problem was, it was also pretty damn toxic to our soldiers. It was refined, improved, and we hit on a poison that was cheap mana-wise, fast-acting, and had almost no impact on our soldiers. We’ve been sticking to that for hundreds of years now. Sure, once in awhile someone will try a slowing, or a sleep, or a confusion, or some other type of crippling poison, but it turns out flat-out killing them is the most effective use of mana. We didn’t try to develop it further from there, we’d hit upon what we thought was peak efficiency.”

“However, it’s clear that the poison used doesn’t really impact whatever recycling of the bodies the Formorians do. I’ve been working on a poison, with your help and the System, to hopefully manage to get back to the Queens, killing them once and for all, ending the threat of the Formorians.”

I sat there, munching on the cheese – slightly stale – as I processed what Arthur was saying.

It clicked.

“Hang on, you’re talking about genocide.” I said, slowly dawning horror at the realization.

Arthur thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Yeah.”

“Ranger Elaine. We have been locked in conflict with the Formorians for centuries. It is clear this only ends with one of us ended as a species.” Night said.

“Maybe, but – this is genocide.” I said, voice laced with horror, cheese dropping from my grip.

“Yes. Do you have a problem with killing the creatures attempting to end us all?” Night asked.

“No, but I have a problem with trying to make them extinct!” I said, getting up to my feet, looking around. Didn’t they get it?

“Tens of thousands of other solutions have been tried. Each and every one of them has failed. They will not negotiate. They will not relent. There is nothing there but hunger, and a desire to see us all dead. Please, Ranger Elaine, enlighten us. What else is there?”

“There has to be something apart from fucking genocide!” I shouted. “I’m not participating in this.”

“Are you sure you wish to declare that?” Night said.

“Yes.”

“Even if we should strip your Ranger qualifications, pitch you from Academy, and leave you here, with barely the clothes on your back, for defying my orders?”

I froze at that. I remember the last time someone had considered one of Night’s orders a suggestion - thrown into the ocean. Night did not like being disrespected, nor his orders ignored.

His arguments about what needed to be done with the Formorians wasn’t wrong, either. I couldn’t object to a solution without presenting a better one – that was just poor form.

But no matter what, I couldn’t condone genocide. I couldn’t participate. I had to have some lines, even in this line of work, that I wouldn’t cross. Some ethics, even not [Oath]-restricted, that I stuck with.

Heart pounding, tears forming in my eyes, I saluted Night.

“Sir! Yes, even then.”

I closed my eyes, waiting for the hammer to drop. I could only hope that he threw me into the “safe” half, and didn’t decide to just directly feed me to the Formorians.

Instead, I heard a hissing laughter.

“Very well, little otter. It is good to have some ethics, some morals, even if they are, ah, inconvenient. Far better than your mentor, Artemis, who I had some concerns that you would follow.”

“However, you still stand because they are merely inconvenient. Challenge me on a greater issue, and I shall not be nearly so lenient, nor tolerant of your beliefs.”

Night paused a moment, collecting his thoughts.

“To be clear, you shall not interfere with Toxic’s mission?”

I was going to have a heart attack with how fast my heart was going. I hit myself with [Vastness of the Stars], just to try and keep my composure. And not have my heart explode on me. Be bad for my health. Although, with my healing, and having recently fixed my broken spine, it wasn’t impossible to…

I refocused on Night, answering his question.

“Sir! I won’t interfere. Simply not participate.”

Night nodded.

“Alright. However, there is a greater mission which you need to focus on, between bouts of combat. Namely, you need to check to make sure what Toxic is doing isn’t blowing back on us, and isn’t poisoning us as badly or worse than it is the Formorians. Given the mechanism involved – poisoned arrows fired a long distance – I do not believe this is as significant of a risk as some of the other poisons we have tried over the years, but it never hurts to be safe, to be careful. Now and then, I ask you to wander around, talk with other healers, see if they have noticed an uptick in poisoned soldiers or the like.”

I mean, we didn’t always know what we were healing, one of the joys of magical healing. But yeah, I could keep an eye out for a new disease which could be linked to what Arthur was doing.

I saluted, happy and excited to be able to do something I wanted to do, to help with something not conflicting with my ethics. Being a check that the poison expert didn’t start murdering our side was the perfect job for me.

“Of course I’d be more than happy to!”

“Very good. We shall continue. Tonight. For now, I believe we could all use a rest.”

I collapsed on a seat, like a puppet with its strings cut, hardly believing what had happened. I’d opposed Night, and somehow survived. For now.

We fell into a rhythm pretty quickly – Wake up at dusk, eat breakfast/dinner, head out to the frontlines, blast away for hours, return as the sun rose, blow the last of my mana healing people, make it back to the tent, have a brief chat with Arthur and Night, repeat.

A week passed like this, then Night was ready to leave, to head back towards the capital. He had a few parting words for us.

“Ranger Elaine. This is a valuable chance you have been offered. Do not squander it. You will likely be offered a class-up for your [Pyromancer] class in the near future. I’d encourage you to not take it, if you have any intention of taking [Ranger-Mage] as your next class. Wait. Allow your [Ranger’s Lore] to rise, which shall boost the power of [Ranger-Mage]. Additionally, your [Constellation of the Healer] will assist with the additional stats. The experience does not vanish into the ether, it builds and accumulates.”

“Wait on spending your free stats, unless an emergency occurs. I shall think upon where is best for you to allocate them.” Night said, giving me some solid advice.

“Toxic. Do not be afraid to try new things, different things. You have proven yourself, time and time again. Failure is acceptable. I’d rather this take thirty years, and succeed, than to fail because you tried to accomplish it in three. Do not pressure yourself too harshly.”

With that, Night left with Sky.

Then it was just me and Arthur. We switched to a saner daytime schedule, and Nature occasionally joined us, a massive, hulking, silent figure. He didn’t say much, but clearly wanted some companionship now and then, and to listen to more of my stories that I told during our downtime.

We spent until late Spring like this, our backpacks of Arcanite finishing recharging right as the last one was spent. The ability to cast like I had unlimited mana did ridiculous things for my experience. I don’t think it was possible to design a better leveling experience – and maybe that was the point. Night was right; this was the chance of a lifetime. The leveling was epic.

[*Ding!* Congratulations! [Constellation of the Healer] has leveled up to level 213! +10 Free Stats, +15 Mana, +15 Mana Regen, +15 Magic power, +15 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element!]

[*Ding!* Congratulations! [Constellation of the Healer] has leveled up to level 240! +10 Free Stats, +15 Mana, +15 Mana Regen, +15 Magic power, +15 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Mana, +1 Mana Regen from your Element!]

[*Ding!* Congratulations! [Pyromancer] has leveled up to level 114! +5 Free Stats, +14 Mana, +8 Mana Regen, +14 Magic power, +8 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Strength from your Element!]

[*Ding!* Congratulations! [Pyromancer] has leveled up to level 128! +5 Free Stats, +14 Mana, +8 Mana Regen, +14 Magic power, +8 Magic Control from your Class! +1 Free Stat for being Human! +1 Strength from your Element!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Celestial Affinity] has reached level 240!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Warmth of the Sun] has reached level 174!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Warmth of the Sun] has reached level 178!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Medicine] has reached level 193!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Medicine] has reached level 202!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 213!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Center of the Galaxy] has reached level 233!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Phases of the Moon] has reached level 213!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Phases of the Moon] has reached level 240!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Moonlight] has reached level 181!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Moonlight] has reached level 240!]

Moonlight: Range: 24 Meters. 89.6% Increased cost/meter.

After capping [Pyromancer] I’d been more inclined to spend mana getting [Moonlight]up to speed, than throwing more fireballs into the unending horde. Didn’t stop me from doing it, but my priorities had shifted.

[Veil] hadn’t leveled at all. I hadn’t needed to use it.

[Vastness] was also unused, and I was starting to think about axing the skill if a good skill was offered to me.

All of my [Pyromancer] skills capped, which given how much I’d practiced the skills without getting good [Pyromancer] experience in the past, made sense.

Also, with the sheer number of [Fireball]’s I’d thrown.

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Identify] has reached level 134!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Identify] has reached level 136!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Recollection of a Distant Life] has reached level 157!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Recollection of a Distant Life] has reached level 159!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Vigilant] has reached level 193!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Vigilant] has reached level 195!]

I was a little surprised at that. Turned out, it only really did anything when I was moving through camp. The Formorians just didn’t seem to care enough to trigger the skill. Other people though? According to my skills, they were the real threat.

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Oath of Elaine to Lyra] has reached level 200!]

Another surprise. My best guess were my scrolls still circulating around, or people taking my [Oath] starting to funnel experience to me.

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Ranger’s Lore] has reached level 174!]

…

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Ranger’s Lore] has reached level 182!]

Training didn’t move an inch. Maybe it was because I was acting as a Ranger, not a Trainee? It’s not like I was training for anything, more than I was standing and blasting ants. Not exactly Ranger training.

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Learning] has reached level 213!]

[*Ding!*Congratulations! [Learning] has reached level 214!]

The lectures from Night had done most of the work, and little bits I learned about life on the frontlines did the rest.

I was more than pleased with the opportunity I’d been given, and I think Night would agree – I hadn’t squandered my chance.

And hey! My birthday was around the corner!

[Name: Elaine]

[Race: Human]

[Age: 17]

[Mana: 35460/35460]

[Mana Regen: 36219]

Stats

[Free Stats: 1032]

[Strength: 184]

[Dexterity: 210]

[Vitality: 297]

[Speed: 220]

[Mana: 3546]

[Mana Regeneration: 3967]

[Magic Power: 3079]

[Magic Control: 3406]

[Class 1: [Constellation of the Healer -   Celestial: Lv 240]]

[Celestial Affinity: 240]

[Warmth of the Sun: 178]

[Medicine: 202]

[Center of the Galaxy: 233]

[Phases of the Moon: 240]

[Moonlight: 240]

[Veil of the Aurora: 212]

[Vastness of the Stars: 139]

[Class 2: [Pyromancer - Fire: Lv 128]+]

[Fire Affinity: 128]

[Fire Resistance: 128]

[Fire Conjuration: 128]

[Fire Manipulation: 128]

[Fuel for the Fire: 128]

[Burn Brightly: 128]

[Rapidash: 128]

[Fireball: 128]

[Class 3: Locked]

General Skills

[Identify: 136]

[Recollection of a Distant Life: 159]

[Pretty: 130]

[Vigilant: 195]

[Oath of Elaine to Lyra: 200]

[Ranger's Lore: 182]

[Training: 160]

[Learning: 212]