Last Command of the Witheld Arc 1: Rebirth

GRIFFIN TUCKER VASILIAS, GREAT HOUSE SCION, REBORN LVL 5

MT DISCOVERY, PROVINCE OF ARAGONIA

Griffin blinked slowly, Culvis’ face slowly coming into sharper focus. He was an older man with a broad, bluff face that had one of the most impressive mustaches he’d ever seen. He reminded Griffin immediately of Ron Swanson from that mockumentary series, Parks & Recreation, but without the full head of hair. This guy was entirely bald except for that enormous manly mustache.

The big man offered a hand to Griffin, helping him to his feet. As Griffin was reaching for his hand, a shot rang out over the din of the battle still going on. Griffin was pulled to his feet while he was still looking wildly around for what had caused the shot.

“Don’t bother,” Culvis said casually, examining Griffin’s leg critically. “It was Braedes and that means you won’t see her unless she wants to be seen. She has that huge honkin’ pulse rifle…plus o’course she’s a Psi-Scout—damn near an Assassin if you ask me, but no one ever does—so she’s a terror for big meaty targets.”

The plasma cybercentipede Mother Jessaline had been shooting at was the same one Culvis had been shooting at and missing. She didn’t miss. Each shot made meter-wide holes in the Mother. The monster fell off the wall, thrashing and crashing into the stone, crushing a few stalagmites in its wild death throes.

Zahara retreated behind a stalagmite, crouching down with her djevek as she continued her tune. Her tensa was running way too low despite her much deeper tensa pool. She’d been using her Class powers and grafts nearly constantly in the battle and it was beginning to wear on her. Her gathering technique required her to keep playing as she sent her anima out along the same vibrating path as her music. This was a perfect technique for a performance, but it was terrible for combat since it filled her tensa pool up so slowly.

The other Mother darted forward, scissoring its mandibles in a lightning strike at Xander while at the same time firing a blast of plasma at Salyyb. The ginpaari Botanimeister took the blast full in the chest, engulfed in flames immediately.

Salyyb didn’t flinch; he kept his focus and poured tensa into his Revitalizing Mist graft, dousing the flames with healing fog. Xander managed to parry the bite, holding the Mother off with one hand. He held the Mother in place with superhuman strength, straining against the monster as it bent all its efforts into cutting him in half with its jaws. With his other hand, he slammed his hammer into the side of its head.

At first, the blows didn’t seem to do anything to the monster, but with each strike, the hammer blows grew heavier and heavier, the air warping around the head of his hammer. He picked up speed until he was raining booming blows down onto a slimy mess of ichor, cybernetics, and chitin. The Mother’s struggles continued for several more seconds, its cybernetics still firing off with murderous intent, but Xander held the thing back until it finally gave up the ghost and stilled.

Griffin watched the whole thing in stunned silence. He’d never seen such incredible strength before: it was like something out of a comic book! Kismet flitted around in front of him, her look of worry immediately cutting through the fanboy outburst just itching to burst out.

“Griffin, you need to focus,” she warned. “Culvis, Jessaline, and the others are all with House Vasilias: your House.”

“My house is in Bernouse,” Griffin replied, “or maybe it’s spread across most of the Solar System by now? Hard to say. But either way, I don’t know any of these guys—sorry,” he broke off and faced Culvis, “Culvis? Thank you for saving my life. Sincerely. Like, from the bottom of my heart.”

Culvis shrugged, shoulder pauldrons clattering a little with the motion, “I’m a Healer, it’s my job. But still,” Griffin thought he smiled, though it was hard to tell under the mustache, “you’re welcome. I’ve never heard of Bernouse, but if that’s where a Scion of House Vasilias has been hiding, then it was quite the neat trick. Whereabouts is Bernouse?”

“Not too far outside of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.” Griffin stood carefully on his newly healed leg, not feeling even a twinge of pain. “This is amazing! I mean a literal minute ago, my leg was shattered, and now? Magic is fucking rad.”

Culvis snorted, “Don’t call it ‘magic’, son, makes you sound like a morog. Now that you’re standing let’s climb out of here; we still need to harvest these Mothers ‘fore their babies all come back.”

Griffin shuddered involuntarily and nodded, “I cannot tell you how long I’ve been waiting to hear someone say that. Hang on, I need to put my armor back on since I finally have my reserve back.”

He concentrated for a moment, summoning his DEEP Suit once more and feeling it enclose him in its protected, powered shell. He turned his Advanced Sensor Suite back on as well, information flooding in from the HUD. The most eye-catching alert was that the entire body of the Mother he’d frozen and killed was flashing red and white with a label that read:

Target valid for: Dread Consumption [Void] OR Monster Rendering [racial gift]

“I wonder what kind of temporary graft I’d get from the Dread Consumption,” he muttered as he read the label.

Still, maybe it’s a good idea to keep some of these powers to yourself, he thought. After all, you have the much less creepy Monster Rendering that you still haven’t tried.

He was shaken from his reverie as Culvis took his arm and pulled him along out of the tangle of dead monster limbs and frozen carapace. Griffin let himself be led, realizing Culvis was taking him back to the rest of his team.

Jessaline Braedes rappelled down from the ceiling on her grappling line, landing right next to him. She had a rifle about as long as she was tall that looked like something out of a cyberpunk videogame that she stowed in her Inventory, but to him, it looked like a magic trick: now you see it, now you don’t! She just held out her hand and the rifle wasn’t there anymore.

The rest of the team gathered in close and Griffin was suddenly the center of attention. Kismet hovered next to him, feeding him information about the people in front of him, piping it directly into his HUD.

He took a deep breath and said, “Uh hi?” He realized they were all looking at him strangely and tried to run a hand through his hair, getting stopped by the all-encompassing helmet he was wearing. “Right! The helmet! Shit, hang on a sec.” He gave a mental command and the helmet retracted, though the HUD remained superimposed over his view of everyone.

To the group of assembled Reborn, he must not have looked too impressive. He was average height with a shock of brown hair that stuck out everywhere, had what might be charitably called a “dad bod”, and was wearing magical powered armor. He’d been practicing and working with Kismet on his grafts for so long, alone in his room that he thought he’d made some great progress. Now he felt like an out-of-shape Power Ranger.

The people staring at him, in comparison, looked exactly like what they were: a fantastical group of badass warriors equipped with insane magical powers and equally impossible weapons. The leader, Xander Vasilias, was just north of two meters tall and had the physique of a superhero encased in form-fitting navy blue armor that glowed with neon blue light at the joints. The armor plates seemed to accentuate his musculature and he was casually holding a hammer with what looked like a black hole in the middle of the hammerhead.

Xander took off his helmet by pressing a couple of invisible buttons, causing the visor to retract into two small metallic disks on his temples. Without his helmet, Xander looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties with light brown skin and black hair that he wore cut to his shoulders. His face was as ludicrously handsome as the rest of him. He had dark eyes and a close-cut beard, and Griffin had to do a double-take.

As a longtime fan of Bollywood and Tollywood movies, he’d developed a few favorite actors and Xander Vasilias looked exactly like Prabhas, from his favorite movie: Baahubali. It was uncanny. He reached a hand out, smiling slightly, giving Griffin the once-over. Griffin shook hands in the same way Jessaline Braedes had shaken his: grasping the forearm and giving one firm shake.

“So you’re him, the Scion who catapulted our House to greatness?” Xander shook his head, “You’re not what I expected—not what any of us expected! A Scion of House Vasilias stored away out in the middle of nowhere—” He looked Griffin up and down again, still shaking his head in disbelief, “You’re actually here! And human! Where are you even from?! You aren’t even Stone rank yet are you?”

“He isn’t Stone rank yet,” Kismet said, “but he’s been training.”

“She’s been running my training program for months!” Griffin chuckled uneasily. “But I’m not from here.”

There was a moment when he considered trying to pass himself off as a native. He’d discarded that idea the moment he’d met Jessaline Braedes and had a little trip through her memories. Everything she’d been familiar with had been absolutely foreign to him: the competition, the striving for power, the ambition. It had all felt very Wolf of Wall Street or Glengarry Glen Ross with a dash of mystical kung-fu thrown in. He was used to solving complex computer problems for customers using a cloud-based identity provider.

But he wouldn’t tell them about Earth. That would probably blow their minds. Griffin eyed them and decided to try to throw them off the scent. “Like really not from here. I—well my home is gone. It was wiped out. By, like, an earthquake.” Nailed it.

“That is truly fascinating!” Another ginpaari Griffin didn’t recognize said. “I’ve never actually seen a System eidolon in use!”

Startled by the abrupt change of subject, Griffin shot Kismet a look and shrugged. “Uh, yeah. Kismet’s been amazing. She’s an incredible teacher and she’s been my only friend since I arrived here.”

The ginpaari who had spoken had a big white flower where its head should be, but was otherwise very similar in outward appearance to Tolochi, though maybe this new one was thinner and a little more nervous. It was hard to tell with a plant. This one gestured with an elaborate staff, complete with a glowing set of crystals on the end.

Its voice was a little thin and reedy with a scholarly cadence, “You’re a human, clearly—the System doesn’t make mistakes—but you’re not from this planet.”

“Uh, no… I’m not from…another…” He looked around at the group and they looked entirely unconvinced. He sniffed at his armored armpit, “What, do I have an alien smell or something?”

“Bees told him,” Jessaline said, sitting on a rock and making an adjustment to her telescoping site.

“Bees told him,” Xander said at the same time.

“Bees told him,” Culvis said in tandem with the other two.

“Bees…?” Griffin asked. He noticed the swarm of crawling bees on the ginpaari’s chest, crawling in and out of the plant man; they weren’t little bees—they looked to be about the size of mice. “Right,” he said. “Bees. Uh, nice to meet you…?”

“Salyyb,” the bee-filled ginpaari said, “Botanimeister of House Vasilias, at your service, Scion.”

“Right yeah, um. Thanks?” Griffin said. “I’ve already met Jessaline, Tolochi, and Culvis. Wasn’t there a musician? I’m pretty sure I saw a pretty lady with red hair playing a guitar.”

The woman in question stepped out from behind a stalagmite. She was more than pretty, she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her flaming-red hair fell in coppery waves to her waist, perfectly framing her heart-shaped face. She was lithe, graceful, and confident. She crossed the cavern to Xander’s side and leveled her gaze at Griffin.

When she spoke to him, her voice was laden with scorn, “It’s called a djevek, Reborn.” There was real acid in the word and Griffin had no idea where it came from. Weren’t they Reborn too? She’d turned back to Xander and asked, “Are you sure this is really the Scion?” She asked. She sounded skeptical. “I see what the System says too, but still… This…person? I’ve heard that there are datamancy grafts and Class powers that can mimic a System entry.”

“Zahara, I’m certain it’s him,” Xander replied. “Look at him! He fought the Mothers too—killed one on his own!”

The redhead—Zahara—rolled her eyes but didn’t argue the point. Griffin chuckled nervously and Zahara shot him a cold look. Great, this is going just great, he thought. Just try to be yourself. That’s what everyone always says, right? Be yourself.

He cleared his throat and tried again, “Uh, I think there must have been some kind of misunderstanding or something. Why are you being so hostile?”

The frank question seemed to catch Zahara off guard, especially when she realized that her suspicion and derision weren’t shared among the rest of the party. She glared first at Xander, then at Griffin, then turned her back on them and walked away. Griffin saw a significant look pass between Jessaline and Xander, but he had no idea what it meant.

“He is from a planet called Earth,” Kismet cut in, flying in front of Griffin, “and his chrysopotheosis was performed by your ancestor, the Ascended August Vasilias.”

Zahara’s back stiffened and she stopped walking away. She half-turned to stare at Griffin, but she didn’t rejoin the rest of the group. Into the awkward silence that followed, Griffin said, “August told us that Earth was…well, that Earth was going to be destroyed. He saved me and my… well. Me and Sarah. We were going to be married. In fact, I’m fucking thrilled you guys showed up when you did. Can you help me find her? She uh, she looks like Kismet here.”

“She came with you?” Xander asked sharply. “Did August Vasilias also oversee her chrysopotheosis?”

“I have no idea. The last time I saw her, we were flying in an airplane while August Vasilias told me that the world was going to be destroyed. I’ve been stuck in this place since I got here.”

Salyyb, the ginpaari with the bees crawling in and out of his chest put a gentle hand on Griffin’s shoulder. The white flower that turned to face him had beautiful splotches of red, black, and silver running throughout it. “You’ve been through an incredible amount of stress; I’ve always heard of human adaptability in the abstract, but this—well. I’m glad to see that you’re doing as well as you are.” His voice buzzed and droned, just like the bees he housed. Griffin felt oddly comforted by the gesture.

“I am sure you would have eventually made your way down to Heldon, always assuming you didn’t get eaten by the Plasma Cybercentipedes,” Tolochi added, his deep voice reverberating off the cavern walls. He turned to Xander, his voice going all business, “Now as for the matter of the Quest?”

Xander nodded briskly, “Of course, Tolochi! You’ve been an incredible assistance and you’ve gone above and beyond the requirement—as I would expect any OA representative to do. Consider the Quest complete, with a bonus for helping to defeat four Class 2 Boss Monsters. You’ll get the Great House Boon, plus I’ve approved a one-time requisition from the House Vasilias ethershard store—the private one, not the public one.”

Tolochi released a puff of pollen in surprise, “My thanks, Lord Xander Vasilias, your generosity is greatly appreciated! I suggest, though, that we leave immediately, before the brood returns.”

Xander nodded reluctantly, “Right, business before business. Griffin, do you have a harvesting graft?”

“Now would be a good time to mention your Dread Consumption graft,” Kismet said in Griffin’s ear. “Harvest powers aren’t exceedingly rare, but they’re all useful and you’ve got two kinds.”

“I don’t know, Dread Consumption is really fuckin’ gross. I don’t want my hand to eat a damn cybercentipede again. Why not use my Monster Rendering racial gift?” Griffin asked. “You were caught up on me using it before.”

“Once you understand how to use it, I can show you how to automatically assign raw harvested monster parts to the public auction houses for Inventory transfer. You’ll be able to quickly source out the materials you don’t have a use for and make important contacts at the same time.”

“That’s incredible!” Xander couldn’t contain himself anymore, “You’re getting actual advicefrom the System?” He studied Kismet more closely. “I’ve heard of System eidolons, but I’ve never actually seen one in use. You said that the eidolon’s been training you?”

Griffin nodded, suddenly feeling even more self-conscious. “Yeah, Kismet’s been training me and helping me get the grafts I need and even formulate a plan to get out of here. That plan was going great…until it wasn’t.”

“It’s the nature of plans for them to go awry,” Xander said and Griffin nodded with a chuckle.

“You’re not kidding,” Griffin scratched the back of his head in embarrassment. “I’ve been crawling around this facility for weeks. I really cannot wait to get the hell out of here.”

Zahara finally rejoined the group and, though she didn’t say anything to Griffin, her hostility seemed to have diffused somewhat. I guess I’m supposed to just ignore how much of an asshole she was, Griffin thought a little sourly. Still, in the name of diplomacy and self-preservation, I think discretion is the better part of valor here.