Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

SARAH AVERY VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5

SKYLAND

Sarah and Kimi-Lim were resting from their close call with the Azure Slime Behemoth. Sarah was still pretty sure they’d come fairly close to death, no matter if this was a Tutorial Realm or not. She’d wondered in the past what would happen if she died here. Gammon had always laughed it off and called her concern a non-issue, but those slimes hadn’t exactly been interested in tickling them to death.

“What was that laser thing you did at the end there? You completely nuked those slimes,” Sarah asked, standing up from her stretch.

“It was only possible out in the ‘natural’ sunlight for one, and for another, I synthesized my grafts into one that combined their effects. It’s extremely tensa-intensive but when I need to do some real damage, I have to do some pretty creative stuff.” They pushed themselves to their feet, using their silverstaff to help. “Now let’s crack open that case we nearly died to retrieve. Let’s see if it was worth all the effort.”

Sarah looked around, spotting the navy blue metal case stuck in the mud at the edge of the pool. She jogged over and pulled it out of the muck, bringing it back over to Kimi-Lim and setting it down. They both crouched over it, examining the lid.

“It’s locked,” Sarah said prying at the fasteners, “or I just don’t know how to open it.”

“Have a little patience,” Kimi-Lim replied. “I think I can open it with some rune manipulation. See the micro-runes?” They pointed at some knurling on the latch. “No, don’t just look with your eyes. Look with your anima, too.”

Sarah did as Kimi-Lim suggested, examining the case with her anima perception. She could very faintly see a weblike pattern of thin, translucent, chains made of light. “What are these glowing chains? Some kind of locking spell?” Sarah asked, reaching out to touch one, not expecting to feel anything and being a little surprised when she actually could feel a little tingle when her finger passed through where the chain was.

“Something like that,” Kimi-Lim said, studying the latch, “but even more simple. Remember where we are: a Tutorial Realm. In the real world, you’d never find something as crude and basic as this. This isn’t really a locking spell: it’s just meant to make the container difficult to open. Mainly, it’s meant to make it so a monster can’t open it.” They pulled a tiny etching tool from a pocket, bent over the latch, and made a few deft modifications to the runes.

Sarah watched as the faintly glowing chains flickered, then disappeared altogether. “What did you do there?”

“I’m afraid I showed off a bit,” Kimi-Lim said with a roguish smile. “You could’ve opened it by breaking the chain with your anima—monsters can’t use anima at all though they can detect it inexpertly wielded. But I modified the runeweb so that instead of cycling the tensa it’d been provided and forming a feedback loop to power it, I short-circuited the power flow and caused it to eat itself.”

“It’s impressive,” Sarah said noncomittally, “but uh, why?”

“Why do I dance when I walk on the sunlight? Why do anything? Because I can. Sometimes it’s just fun to show off!” Kimi-Lim nudged Sarah with their elbow.

Sarah laughed and shook her head, “That was intense. I can’t believe we’re even alive right now.”

“Slimes are a constant, especially in ruins. They’re one of nature’s most fundamental tensa manifestations—certainly one of the most simple. It’s usually a good sign to see a bunch of slimes in a ruin: it means that there are a lot of infusions in the area. Slimes love infused items and can sense them through just about anything. Their insides are corrosive, so they can usually get to whatever is emitting tensa. Of course, you really don’t want a slime to eat any infused items.”

“Of course,” Sarah said and held up a hand. “Can we spare the lecture and take a look at this whatever-it-is we nearly died to get?”

Kimi-Lim rolled their eyes but nodded and pressed the latch. The latch spun slowly until it went all the way around once, and then the entire case split in half around the upper edge and lifted up, sliding away smoothly and silently. As it opened, pressurized gasses and preservative spells were released in a cloud of florally-scented fog and pink sparks in a dramatic reveal. All that was lacking was a trumpet fanfare.

Secured in molded velvet at the bottom of the case was a black metal bow with a glowing red bowstring that looked, to Sarah’s video game sensibilities, like something that a cybernetic ninja would use. Beneath the bow was a navy blue leather jacket with zippers on the sleeves. Nestled at the foot of the case was a bowman’s bracer made of silvery metal with dark synthetic cloth fittings.

“Ah, just what I was hoping for!” Kimi-Lim exclaimed, pulling out the jacket and holding it up to Sarah. It was a greatcoat whose zippers could be zipped up and pinned. There were armor plates sewn into it and runes stitched into the lining. “This is a perfect beginner’s-level Archers’ Jacket. It should provide a ton of mobility and better protection than your clothes, though that’s about it—don’t rely on it to stop a serious attack!”

Sarah narrowed her eyes at the treasures they’d recovered. “I don’t like it…” She picked up the bow and examined it with her anima perception. It had hundreds of lines of light all over it—not unlike the case did—though these were all different colors and all the chains were slightly different. “This seems like it’s the perfect kit for an archer. Pretty convenient that I just got that Zen Archery graft. Like, what are the odds?!”

“The odds?” Kimi-Lim asked. “Why are you concerned about the odds? This is the Tutorial Realm! It’s designed to help you. Everything that exists here is to your benefit in some way or another and that definitely includes the treasures. They’ll be minor items, but they’ll at least keep you more protected than what you’re wearing.”

“Right,” Sarah said, “I keep forgetting. I guess I should try the jacket on? It looks like it’s going to be a circus tent on me—there isn’t a way to resize magical gear is there?”

Kimi-Lim smiled and shook their head, saying, “Just try it on!”

Sarah put the jacket on and it became immediately obvious that it was made for someone two or three times her size. Then the entire coat rapidly resized itself, snapping into a much smaller size with a rustle of cloth and the clack of zippers. Now the jacket fit perfectly. It was heavy due to the armor plates, but it wasn’t exactly a burden. It also looked pretty stylish, if following an alien aesthetic in design. As she put it on, a text box flashed up from the System.

Vindaari School Archer’s Greatcoat

Rarity: Uncommon

Armor Type: Light Armor

Description: Vindaari School Archers are famed for their deadly aim. These greatcoats were designed by the master archers of the Vindaari School to protect their students and provide plenty of maneuverability.

Special Properties: Self-cleaning, self-repairing, no penalty to movement when using Archery grafts or when using a Bow-type weapon.

“What’s the Vindaari School?” Sarah asked. “This text box popped up and said they’re famous for their ‘deadly aim’. Have you heard of them before?”

“Huh?” The elf was looking at the bracer. “Oh, no, I have no idea. But that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or—if this stuff is actually really old—that they weren’t famous in their day. There are a ton of combat schools of all kinds in pretty much every nation, state, kingdom, principality, province, and whatnot in the world. Whoever they were they certainly had a flair for the dramatic; look at that jacket!”

“You like it?” Sarah spun around slowly, grinning at Kimi-Lim’s reaction. “I feel like a superhero wearing this thing.”

“Is that like a Reborn?” Kimi-Lim asked. “You don’t talk about Earth much.”

Sarah shrugged, picking up the bow. “Earth is gone. I’m never going back because there’s no back to go back to. I guess… I guess I’ve had some time to come to terms with it. As much as anyone can come to terms with it.” She checked the jacket for pockets, finding them to her immense surprise. “Here’s a mind-boggling fact about Earth for you: the vast majority of women’s clothing there doesn’t have pockets. Oh sometimes there’ll be something that looks like a pocket, but no, it’s just a fake one.” She stuck her hands in the jacket pockets with immense satisfaction. “And I don’t really have any idea what Reborn are actually like since you’re the only one I’ve ever met. Like for real.” Sarah examined the bow, not waiting for Kimi-Lim’s response.

Vindaari School InfiniBow

Rarity: Rare

Weapon Type: Bow

Description: The Vindaari School InfiniBow uses bonding technology to link directly into the wielder’s tensa pool for a small tensa investment. This turns on the LightString drive which creates a bowstring from pure tensa. This enables the use of the tensa arrows created from the Vindaari School Bowman’s Brace.

Special Abilities: 250 spark investment activates Bonding and enables LightString. The LightString can fire any conventional or infused arrow, but only a LightString can fire arrows made from the Vindaari School Bowman’s Brace. Once the InfiniBow is Bonded, it cannot be used by anyone but the Bonded wielder.

Note: Do not touch the LightString unprotected! Unprotected direct exposure to the LightString can cause severe injury or even death. Only fire the Vindaari School InfiniBow with the Vindaari School Archer's Brace.

Sarah didn’t like talking about Earth. She didn’t like the feelings it brought up. There were enough problems she had to deal with here. She turned to the brace, deliberately avoiding looking at Kimi-Lim. She couldn’t deal with the sudden wave of emotion that had risen within her, so she examined the last of the items from the case.

Vindaari School Archer’s Brace

Rarity: Rare

Armor Type: Light

Description: The Vindaari School Archer’s Brace is the companion to the Vindaari School InfiniBow. Besides being required protection for a professional archer, this brace allows for Bonding. Once Bonded, the Brace will create arrows for a small investment of tensa.

Special Abilities: Invest 100 sparks to create an arrow from tensa. Arrows created this way are considered Class 2 infused ammunition.

It didn’t take all that long to read the text box and the emotion hadn’t gone away. She needed something to do.

“What’s next, Kimi-Lim?” She said a little too brightly. She cleared her throat and tried again, “That is, now that I’ve got some better gear, is it enough? Can we go and do whatever it is we need to do to Entresis and then get the hell out of here? I’m tired of this place.”

She found a little red button on the side of the bow and, not thinking about it, pressed it. The bow folded itself into a small metal trinket the size and shape of a pack of playing cards with a little red button on the side.

“Okay, now that was cool,” she muttered, tucking the bow into her pocket. When she looked up, Kimi-Lim was smiling at her.

“What?” She asked, a little irritated.

“You’re beginning to look like a proper Reborn, that’s all. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do in the San Tristobel Mountains. I think you’re just about as geared up as we have time to spare. Any other treasures or infused items we find would likely have properties that would be trying to fit you into a different build anyway, and I think this current find plays to your strengths the best.”

“Oh. Right.”

“So let’s go already! We’ve got an AI to defeat and less time to do it in!” The elf skipped back up into the air, dancing and spinning as they went, each footfall landing on a little platform of sunlight.

Sarah followed at a jog, doing her best to cut through the dense jungle foliage with a machete she created. She was glad to get out of there, leaving the waterfall and the destroyed ruin with its slick of burned-up congealed slime still floating down the stream.