SA AU #2 - Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

Chapter Twenty

New Information

It took me longer to extract the information out of Dannin than I liked. Precious minutes, seconds even. But he was shaken, and a full patrol was lost. A full patrol of level 25-30s.

A patrol we couldn’t afford to lose.

The pain in my chest was only lessened by the sheer relief that my son hadn’t been with that particular Patrol. Jackson was safe, and my world could function as long as my kids were safe. I could function, I could help, I could research — as long as my kids were safe.

Slowly getting a little mantra going.

“How did he survive?” Evelyn mumbled, her head in her hands as we gathered back in the library trying to sort through the information we’d gathered.

I shrugged. “His shoulder is all sorts of messed up, claws that just… well.” What was I supposed to say. He’d been in literal shock, not to mention trauma from the wounds to his upper torso. That lingering debuff halted a chunk of his System boosted healing.

“The System kicks in and heals you pretty fast.” Gemma piped up, her now subdued tones ringing across the silent room. “Whether you want it to or not, unless it’s a mortal wound you’re not dying. That debuff made a nasty stasis, but he’ll be fine.”

She would know considering how many times she’d been ripped apart. I gulped, trying to envision the battle in my mind. Kyle walked over, ushering Dannin with him. Poor kid, even with the determined set to his pale jaw, he had to be suffering something bad.

“He wants to tell us in his own words.” My brother was visibly shaken. Mana rushed around him, filling up his stores. He’d obviously healed Dannin of his debuff. Considering the way the kid’s skin knit back together in front of my very eyes, it’d been effective.

Several of the people pushing into the library had been people with Kyle since the hospital – they knew my brother and the ranger.

It took Dannin a couple of deep breaths and repositioning to get the words out, but once he started, they tumbled faster than anything I’d managed to pull from him.

“We were just on our way through Daisy Hill. Like usual for clearing, keeping an eye out for the Dropbears… Koalzilla things. Whatever they’re called.” There was a nervous overtone to his words, a sort of vibration that told me he was close to tears even as the Mana wove in and out of his wounds, repairing them like it was nothing.

“We kept formation, myself and Shazza bringing up the rear.”

Shazza had been an ice mage, if I remembered correctly and I cursed having lost one of our more powerful mage types. Even if I hadn’t known her well, she was human and that was becoming a rare commodity around here.

“It all happened so fast. We rounded a particularly close group of trees and saw two, maybe three Koalzilla corpses piled on one another. Off in the distance, it looked like there were some more, but they were moving away from, not toward us.

“Suddenly from all around us, things dropped from the trees, and I know it sounds crazy. But they were like dogs. You know?” He looked around beseechingly, caught my gaze and clung to it like a life raft.

“Those big upright dogs we all studied in ancient history? The ones in the pyramids. They had sleek sort of fur instead of skin, massive jowls and huge canine teeth. They wore armor, and a few of them had guns.” Tears were having at it again, but he didn’t seem to notice it.

Ginali’s comment on the humanoid dog remains we’d found niggled in the back of my mind. I got the feeling I knew what that corpse was now.

“At first I tried. I loosed arrows, I aimed, and completely missed every single time because they were moving just too fast. Shazza screamed at me to run.” He shrugged, wincing as he did so, belatedly remembering the wound that probably wasn’t even visible anymore.

“One of them almost got me.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Its claws stung like a jellyfish, ripped right through me. Shazza… lanced him, distracted him long enough that I could pull away. I didn’t care how much of my flesh I left back with it, with him… whatever it was. All I could think of was running. I ran, and I left them all.”

He’d paled more by now, and Dale moved forward to shove a seat under the kid. Dannin sat down without fully realizing what he was doing if the dazed look in his eyes was anything to go on. His dark olive skin looked like it had pale green undertones. Kyle nudged me with a scowl on his face before he made his way back to the archer, and I knew he was about to take Dannin somewhere to rest. Best for him to sleep this off.

“I ran flat out back to the cars and I just grabbed one and came here. I didn’t look back, and I didn’t try to help. All I could think of was getting back here and telling you all.” Finally he blinked, like he’d just needed to get it all out.

I knelt in front of his seat and squeezed his arm gently. “You did good. Now we know we have to prepare for whatever they are.”

“Oh.” He looked a little sheepish, like in all the horror he’d just experienced, he’d totally forgotten one of the most important things. That he’d acted how he acted in order to save others.

“They’re called the Zarrie. I don’t think there were many of them, but it felt like they were everywhere. They had weird Levels too. Like lower than you’d expect for all that power. Like beginners. Level 2 and a 3. But that doesn’t make sense …”

The exhaustion that overtook him now that he’d delivered his message to us in full was visible. He sagged a bit and Dale and Kyle propped him up on either side. Sure the System might be able to heal physical wounds, but that sort of mental shit it just put the kid through? That was going to take years of therapy to fix.

Provided we still had therapy. Hell, provided we still had years of anything. After this, I wasn’t so sure.

“Guess we have new visitors to deal with then. The IRSHA aren’t the only ones here.” Sienna leaned back in her chair, her Charisma somehow making the threat feel less imminent, less devastating. There were definite drawbacks to Charisma stacking.

“The Zarrie it is then.” Dor’s business like tones cut through everything. “Do we think those were the same ones from last night?”

Drake shook his head slowly. “No. Not if the kid’s description is right. Last night didn’t feel like multiples, just one big thing. Maybe.”

Dor gave him a stern look before backing up and giving him a brief nod. “Bit of research never hurt anyone. Our coffers are looking decent, though we still need to expand so we can reinforce our defenses more. I suggest we look into purchasing one of the longer distance warning systems.”

“Good call.” Chris had been quiet the entire meeting, fiddling every now and then with something small she concealed in her hands. “Working on some longer range communication devices - we should have them ready within a week or so. Also aiming to help those with telepathy themed classes be able to project a farther distance.”

My eyes bleeped. Not like audibly, but a sort of whirring readjustment as ambient Mana boosted briefly in our vicinity. Nothing like a bright flash of blue to make you rethink your optical implant life choices. Something around us was building, reforming or whatever, and it was using a lot of mana to do so.

There was something we weren’t considering and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to bite us in the butt if I couldn’t figure out what it was we were missing.

Gemma cleared her throat and spoke up. “You realize if they were lower Levels, they’re probably Advanced or Master classes, right?”

I turned to stare at Gemma.

She stood with her arms crossed, foot leaning up against the wall and a bored expression on her face. Like we all should have realized the blatantly obvious. I mean I’d read about it briefly, but in one eye and out the other.

“Level fifty restarts, right?” Chris muttered under her breath, like she was trying to piece something together.

“Basic, is what we all have, or should have. I don’t think anyone blundered into an Advanced class by complete and utter accident here. We can only dream.” She sounded mildly annoyed. But she was rivaling Kyle for highest Level, so I kind of got it.

The stronger we were, the better our chance of survival.

“Basic, Advanced, Master… and well if they’re above that and fighting us at our low Basic levels? We’re entirely fucked anyway.” She frowned for a moment. “So if they were lower Levels, it just means their Classes were more advanced than ours.”

This whole Class system just made me tired. Couldn’t we just keep Leveling in our lowly little Classes up until like Level two hundred and then beat the game? World? Existence? What madman created such a complicated system? Did he just like making everyone’s life miserable?

I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the strain of constant Mana vision on my brain.

“So higher Levels, more potent powers, big creatures able to topple cars and carry off humans, things that vanish in the dark, ancient Egyptian Anubis’ creatures.” There, I think that summed it up pretty well.

“Sounds like what we’re up against.” Even Evelyn sounded defeated and I just wanted to give her a hug and make a pillow fort and never come out of it.

“Kira.” Kyle’s tone surprised me almost as much as his reappearance. “You’d better get out to the wall.”

That didn’t sound good. Not at all.

❖

The mess of Mana waves tangled around everyone and everything as I approached the gate made me have to turn down the brightness settings of my implants yet again. Still floundering to keep myself grounded with how to use them, their sheer ability to interpret data, I as of yet couldn’t understand, floored me.

But as the glare cleared, and I realized just what was in front of me, it was all I could do not to gag.

Kyle and Dale flitted about, with others from their little medical team in tow. Members of our parties limped in, were carried in, rips in their clothing, some still with rips in their flesh. Thankfully though, it appeared that most of them were still breathing.

Most of them.

Two adults I barely recognized dashed past me, reaching for one of the guys on a makeshift gurney. He was convulsing, white froth forming at his mouth as Kyle tried desperately to save him. From the gashes to his abdomen, and the shredded flesh of what had once been an arm though, I didn’t like his odds.

Even the Mana around him tinged red, began to leave, like it was abandoning a drowning ship. Nothing ambient seeped into him, and there was a sickly green ooze of thick Mana winding its way through what remained of his organs.

Poison. Venom. Whatever or however he’d gotten it. That kid was going to die.

My eyes whirred again, pulling me toward him. Drake, his own trauma pushed to the back burner, was busy holding back the boy’s mother as she tried desperately to cling to him.

Purify Mana?

The question rang through my mind, and I didn’t understand what it could mean, or what it did mean, only that I might be able to make it be something.

Sure. I answered, in my head, to my eyes, or whatever it was that Mana Sense actually was.

It tugged at me, the Mana did. My vision narrowed, looking through the kid to his heart, even as it beat so erratically. To the perforated bowels that I had no idea how to fix, to the well of Mana that was trying so desperately to knit him back together and failing.

I didn’t have an ability, all I had was Mana Sense. All I could do was follow the flow of the power to its source and see how sickly it appeared to be in there. My implants buzzed as they assessed the damage to the well in there.

Reaching in with my mind I sorted through the Mana, whirling around in it, slicing the bad components away from it, and making it be what it needed to be. Resistance fought me, like a toxin trying desperately to maintain its hold on the victim it intended to claim.

But I didn’t know how to apply it, just what needed to be done. Looking around desperately, I grabbed Kyle’s arm and tugged him over.

“Kira, what…” but he shut up as soon as I touched him, willing him to see what my implants allowed him to.

“Fuuuuuuck.” He breathed out as he engaged the healing he could, following my directions through to the bloodstream, picking the poison out of the mana as we went with some kind of cleanse ability.

With its path cleared, the blue Mana shone brightly for a split second rewarding me with a massive headache and a new notification.

Mana Purification Skill obtained.

Mana Purification

Level 1

Great. Another skill to track, and spend money on, and perhaps adjust myself cybernetically for. Sudden tiredness overcame me, and that headache wasn’t a joke either. I could feel Kyle close to me, his frown very obvious in my mind, but I was just glad he was there to lend me sturdiness.

Kiddo was probably going to make it now, and I could hear the mother weeping sobs of joy. It washed over me, infected me. There was no way I could leave a kid just a few years older than my own to die if I could help it. Even if all I could do was show Kyle what he needed to heal.

“Kira? What the hell was that?” he whispered in my ear as he helped steady me on my feet.

I shrugged, exhausted before midday. Fantastic. “Mana Purification apparently.”

He nodded, squeezed my shoulders, and left to go help some of the others heal faster.

Even as I blinked away all of the fatigue, promising myself I’d get to rest later, I realized that one little pitstop needed to become more. There were perhaps a dozen wounded people all around me, their auras not as bad as the kid I’d helped save, and yet still worse than they should have been.

So instead of stopping, I soldiered on, following Kyle and helping him as needed. It led me to wonder just what the poison was that these Zarrie used because without a shadow of a doubt I was positive their claws were drenched in it, or else their weapons were.

Hell, it also made me curious about if all of this was these Zarrie. Some of these injuries and debuffs didn’t appear to be just from these alien warriors.

We needed ways to protect ourselves from roaming huge monsters, and the strange canine Zarrie. Otherwise we were going to lose a lot of people fast. And that wasn’t something we could afford in any way.

More discussions for our city council, more paper pushing and developing strategies, but for now, if I could help save people, I was going to do so.

I couldn’t believe it wasn’t even lunch time yet.