Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

Sarah Avery Vasilias, Great House Scion, Reborn Lvl 1

Tutorial Realm

Gammon made Sarah work harder than she ever had before, ramping up the difficulty of their sessions steadily as Sarah improved. He was reluctant to have her fight against any more monsters—the Deathshead stalkers were comparatively weak—but Sarah insisted. She suffered more injuries as time went on, but her Fast Healing racial gift was almost miraculous and she was never out of commission for longer than a day.

To Sarah, the combat and movement training were interesting, but what really caught her passion was her work with her anima. Gammon taught her that her anima was far more than just a method to make weapons or gather tensa for her. It was a living organ—once a part of the monster that was killed to create her etherheart—and it could be controlled with great precision to do all kinds of interesting things.

She learned to use her anima to perceive all around her, if dimly and imperfectly for now. Gammon assured her that as she practiced, she would be able to fill in more details. Her anima could also be used to mask her own tensa signature; this was a technique she had to learn when Gammon sent her hunting Deathshead stalkers. They’d sniff out her tensa pool far faster than they’d find her real scent, so she learned to spread it out into the ambient environment by smoothing out her anima and redistributing her tensa pool.

There were countless configurations for her anima and each one had a special name. She was expected to memorize them and reproduce them at will, perfectly each time. Like all her other training, it was hard. Gammon could wield his anima with such precision and force that Sarah thought she’d never be able to match him and he expected that same level of perfection from Sarah. It was slow, slower even than the physical training, but she thought she began to get the hang of it.

She had been getting a steady stream of achievements as she trained, but most of them raised Attributes she hadn’t unlocked yet. She’d calculated all the deferred Attribute scores and came up with +5 Dominion, +5 Speed, +8 Precision, +2 Growth, and +5 Arcana. Once she had completed her Tutorial her Attributes would increase significantly. It was so frustrating to see the evidence of her progress from these System messages but not be able to enjoy the benefits.

Gammon never relented the pace, though. As the months wore on, Sarah wondered when the Tutorial would end. She started feeling like there was only so much experience she could gain with using her fairly limited abilities and she began chafing at the pace. She tried to keep her enthusiasm up, but it was hard when every day was just some new form of test where she’d inevitably be found wanting in some way.

It came to a head when Gammon had her fighting a dozen Deathshead stalkers at once in the parking lot of the strip mall—while wearing a blindfold. Her anima was billowing out of her in tightly controlled, dynamic configurations as she probed her enemies for weaknesses and kept track of their relative positions. Gammon watched her from the interior of the training hall—the stalkers wouldn’t go anywhere near Sarah when Gammon was outside of the building—and Sarah had been resisting the urge to give him the middle finger as she crouched in her fighting stance.

The parking lot was empty, like always and the monsters had come filtering out of the tall red grass, their large skinless bodies glistening in daylight. The sky was mostly covered in a dense layer of heavy clouds but the sun was peeking through a gap and shining on the parking lot, picking everything out in golden light. Even the run-down strip mall with its empty plate-glass-fronted stores and shops looked beautiful in the sun. The monsters spread out, surrounding Sarah in a wide circle as they began circling her, licking their chops hungrily as they moved with sleek confidence.

Sarah had created a long spear with a heavy metal ball at the other end to give her some momentum and stopping power. It was one of her favorite weapons to use against the Deathshead stalkers so long as she could keep them at range. When they got too close, she had to get a little messier with her weapon choices. At least she no longer felt like puking after she was done fighting them.

Sarah kept her graft in her back pocket, knowing that she’d only have one chance to use it before she had to spend time refilling her tensa pool. She only had 120 sparks to work with until she unlocked her Arcana Attribute and her Edge That Cuts Anything graft took 100 sparks per use; that meant any time she used it was a time she absolutely needed it. For now, she was content to let the tension build, biding her time until she needed it.

Before long, the Deathshead stalkers attempted their first probing attack. They’d learned to be cautious with her now, and they didn’t just charge mindlessly in. Silently, three monsters closed in on her from different sides simultaneously and leaped as one. Sarah flipped her spear around with a flick of her wrist and swung it like a baseball bat, her Dominion Attribute empowering her strike so it hit the first monster like a runaway truck sending it tumbling directly into a group of other skinless Deathshead stalkers that were still cautiously circling.

The strike was decisive, precise, and above all, fast. She still had enough time to carry her strike through in a spinning arc and the blade of the spear slashed through another leaping monster’s foreleg, chopping it off and making blood spray everywhere as the creature screamed. The last Deathshead stalker leaping at her was too close for her to use her spear, but she’d become adept at switching weapons on the fly. She dismissed it into sparkling motes of light, forming another weaponform with her anima at the exact same time. The spear disappeared and Sarah, who was already in position to attack the creature, suddenly had a blue crystalline baseball bat in her hands.

The bat flashed through the air and the stalker’s head caved in as it sailed by her, falling to the ground in a heap as the crack from the hit was still echoing in the air. The one she’d hit with the weighted end of her spear was screaming and dragging its rear legs behind it as it tried to escape back into the redgrass fields while the one that had lost its limb was breathing its last in a pool of its own blood. The other monsters had tightened their circle too close for her spear to work and they looked even more cautious now.

Sarah reformed her blue baseball bat into a long-bladed claymore and began swinging the huge blade in a simple warding pattern. The nine remaining stalkers snarled menacingly, snapping at her with their toothy jaws but they didn’t tighten the circle. Sarah watched them through her anima carefully, doing her best to maintain the undirected focus required to maintain her anima configuration and feel the rhythm of the fight at the same time. The monsters seemed reluctant to attack now that three of their number were dead or dying so Sarah decided to take the fight to them.

She darted forward, lashing out with her claymore in a huge, obvious sweeping strike. The monsters dodged the attack by leaping away from it while the others closed in behind her, rushing at her while her back was turned. Sarah perceived them as red-hot balls of hostility in her anima and their move was expected: Deathshead stalkers almost always preferred to attack their prey from ambush. The obvious swing was just a setup to allow Sarah to spin with the momentum and bring her sword in at a sharper angle.

The blue crystal blade whistled as it sliced through flesh and bone, felling two stalkers at once with the power of the strike. Sarah was really getting used to having what felt like super-strength to her. She strained a little, surging her tensa through her pathways even faster as she pushed the attack, her blade going faster and faster.

She advanced on the remaining monsters, sword whirling around her in a blur. The Deathshead stalkers backed away from her with wide eyes, claws scrabbling against the asphalt. It seemed like they were afraid, but Sarah knew this was just an act to lure her into another reckless attack. So she deliberately stepped forward and stabbed at one with a thrust that seemed to make her overextend.

One of the Deathshead stalkers took the bait, lunging in with a blood-curdling roar. She made her claymore disappear and in its place, a punch-dagger appeared over her left fist. She punched the weapon directly into the stalker’s mouth as it closed down around her wrist. The teeth didn’t even scratch her before the strength went out of the monster and it sank to the ground. Sarah had already spun away though, not bothering to recover her weapon.

The six remaining stalkers all rushed her at once then, each one targeting a different part of her. Sarah acrobatically leaped into the air a full two and a half meters directly up from standing. As she jumped, she formed her anima into the largest weaponform she could: an enormous battering ram. It was far too heavy for her to wield with any kind of precision, but all she needed to do was act as a fulcrum. At the height of her leap, she bent her body almost in half using all her strength to swing the battering ram down into the mass of monster bodies directly below her.

The battering ram slammed into the group with bone-shattering force, scattering them like bowling pins, then disappeared as Sarah landed. She spent the next couple of minutes dispatching the monsters who were still alive but too injured to fight anymore. She was barely breathing hard by the end of it.

Even though the fight had been quick and she’d performed as well as she could have expected, something was missing. She hadn’t even used her graft. Gammon came out of the training hall, clapping as he went, the applause echoing through the empty parking lot. As he walked closer, the golden light of the sun was hidden behind the clouds again, once more making the empty parking lot look just as depressing and lonely as every empty parking lot looked.

“Excellent job, Sarah! Truly a marvel of grace and precision. I daresay you’ve become the poster child for the training the Tutorial Realm can offer.” He caught her expression as he got closer and frowned. “Your discontent could not be more obvious.”

Sarah kicked at the severed limb of one of the stalkers, sending it flying into the redgrass field out of view with a spray of blood. She wiped her face, smearing blood around more than cleaning it off and spat to the side. “Fuck, Gammon, that was easy. I think I have this Reborn shit down.” She paused. “I think it’s probably time I get the hell out of here and start doing my own thing. Find Griffin. Make my way in the world. How long have I been training anyway?”

“Only eight years,” Gammon said. “You have plenty of time left and there is far more to teach you.”

“Of course you have more to tea—wait, do you say eight years?!” It hadn’t felt like eight years had passed. Though some days had certainly seemed interminable, she wasn’t prepared for the revelation. “Ninety-six months? Really? Are you sure?”

Gammon laughed and nodded, “As I said, you’ve made remarkable progress, but you still have plenty of time to improve. A dozen low-ranking monsters you’re familiar with fighting are not the same kind of threat you’re going to be facing in the wilds. You still need lots of work.”

“But I can’t even use any of my other Attributes!” Sarah exploded. “I only have Dominion unlocked. I only have 1.2 kilosparks of tensa in my tensa pool and that means I have to spend time gathering pretty much every time I use the only graft I have. If I don’t expand my powers then I’m gonna be well and truly fucked by literally anyone who has more than a single graft.”

Gammon sighed and crossed his arms over his wide chest. He stroked his chin as he narrowed his eyes at her consideringly. “I had a feeling this might happen,” he said at last. “You’re not wrong about your predicament, but you won’t like the answer I have.”

“If it’s gonna be ‘keep training’ then yeah, you’re spot on,” Sarah griped. “Have you ever heard of something called ‘diminishing returns’? I think that’s where I’m at now and more training isn’t the answer. Maybe I can defer the rest of this Tutorial Realm thing for a stint of a couple of months on Nolm and then I can pop back here to finish my training once I have the rest of my Attributes unlocked.” She kicked the corpse again, her foot making a meaty thwack against the unresisting flesh.

Gammon put a hand on her shoulder and Sarah looked up at him, frowning. “Don’t get overconfident,” he admonished, tapping her gently forehead with one knuckle. “You’re like a child who’s just discovered how to walk announcing she’s ready for a marathon.”

Sarah looked sharply at him and scoffed. “Come on, Gammon, who are you trying to fool? This was never about getting me in ‘marathon’ shape.” She spat again, hating the taste of deathstalker blood on her tongue. “This was a Tutorial to help me get used to my one graft. I think I’ve got it now.” She gestured at the corpses all around them. “I mean, am I gonna beat any monster out there? No, but that wasn’t the assignment. And besides, I think I could give just about anything a run for its money about now.”

Gammon was quiet for a long time, watching her. She stuck her chin out at him pugnaciously, refusing to back down. She was tired of this. She wanted to get on with her life. After a long couple of minutes, Gammon took a deep breath and sighed. He made an odd gesture with one hand and a System message popped up in front of Sarah.

System Message

New Quest Alert! Claim the Prize

Details: Claim the Prize hidden on the floating Skyland above the Tutorial Realm.

Optional Objective 1 of 2: Fight Entresis the Guardian and claim its treasure trove.

Optional Objective 2 of 2: Claim the Jade Key from Entresis and present it to Gammon.

Rewards: 4 ethershards of Common to Epic quality.

Additional Reward: Entresis’ Treasure OR Class Guide

Accept?

Yes / No

“What’s this?” Sarah asked suspiciously. “And what the hell does it mean by ‘claim the Prize’? Who or what is Entresis the Guardian? Is this for real?” As she read through the notification a few times, her questions got more and more excited.

“It’s a Quest,” Gammon replied. “And one that you could only get by asking for it.”

“But I didn’t a—” Gammon’s raised eyebrow stopped her automatic response and she blushed. “Right, shutting up now.”

“You’re right about where you are in your training,” Gammon started but held up a hand to forestall her as she opened her mouth to respond. “Let me finish! You were right about needing to unlock your Attributes to get the most out of your training. And that means absorbing ethershards. But the Skyland is outside of my control and I can’t join you there: it’s outside of my System-assigned zone. It’s dangerous up there.”

Sarah looked up at the huge vine that grew out of the roof of the strip mall and curled way up overhead. The Skyland was invisible through the dense cloud cover, but she knew it was there—how could you ever forget about a magical floating island attached to the earth by a real-life beanstalk that Jack the Giant Slayer would approve of? Gammon had never discussed the Skyland before, always deflecting when she asked about it. She’d begun assuming it was just for show: a bit of magical theater to lend the setting an air of mystery.

Gammon continued, “As for your other questions, I don’t know. As I said, I am unable to leave my assigned area. No other Reborn I’ve taught who has accepted this Quest has returned to tell me about it. I hope that means that they were successful, but…well, not everyone I have taught has your knack or perseverance. I doubt they lived.”

Sarah gulped nervously. He thought they died. That didn’t seem like it should be possible in the Tutorial Realm. “What…How do you know? I mean, maybe they all got the Prize?”

“I know when the Prize is claimed,” he replied. “And not nearly everyone who accepts the Quest claims the Prize. Outside of my assigned area, the Tutorial Zone becomes dangerous, almost as dangerous as the real world. Your tensa will never be empty in the Tutorial Realm and even your healing factor is increased while you’re here, but other than that, the Skyland pulls no punches.”

“And who’s this Entresis the Guardian dude?” Sarah asked. “He sounds like he means business. Do you know what kind of treasure he has?”

Gammon shook his head in the negative. “No, I do not know what Entresis guards. I suspect that Entresis is the entity that keeps this Tutorial Realm active, but I don’t know for sure.”

Sarah read over the Quest notice a few more times before she accepted it. It’s not like she’d have ever decided not to accept it. I was just what she needed to push her over the hump she was in now. Gammon just nodded when she did.

“Very well. Then you’ll need to prepare. There are a few supplies I can give you, but after that…well, you’ll be on your own.” Gammon looked up at Sarah and smiled. “I’m proud of you, Sarah Avery Vasilias. You have come far in your time here. This Quest will push you to your limits. I only hope that you can exceed those limits.”

Sarah grinned cheekily and crossed her arms. “Try me, short-stuff. I’ll get the Prize and kick Entresis’ ass and then when I get back, I’ll rub your face in it over a tasp.”

Gammon laughed again and clapped Sarah on the back. They both walked slowly up the path to Gammon’s house, deep in conversation as Gammon outlined all he knew about the Quest and what he’d managed to figure out about the Skyland. Sarah’s nerves made that night’s sleep an impossibility, so she just stared up into the blank ceiling in her room, imagining hordes of phantom monsters, heaps of glittering treasure, and trying to picture whatever weird plants might exist on the Skyland.