Siege State

Tom awoke to a bright sun hanging low in the morning sky. He groaned, struggling upwards, but found only Darius and Tanya awake.

“Morning, Tom,” Tanya said cheerily. It seemed a decent night’s sleep had done wonders for her energy.

Darius gave him a grin and a nod. “We were thinking it is best that everyone gets more sleep,” he said.

“Morning,” Tom greeted them groggily, “Thanks.”

Rosa jerked beside him as she woke, giving a deep, sharp inhale. “What..? It’s so late! We should be moving!”

“A late morning will make no difference, but being exhausted on the road would. It’s fine,” Tom said, gently rubbing her shoulder. After a few moments, he felt the tension in her release.

“You’re right, of course. What’s for breakfast, then?”

Tanya began to break out the usual fare of bread and cheese and preserves, along with honey for Sesame, hay for Dusty and Coal, and some leafy greens for Granny. Marius woke a few moments later and joined them. He summoned Coro, and the lion, now fully recovered, got a steak big enough to feed four people. Sesame gave it a side-eye.

“I am thinking I must get a storage item. How do you all have so many? I am jealous,” Darius commented.

“We were friends with an enchanter,” Rosa said. She mentioned it casually, but Tom detected the barb in it. She wanted to needle Darius with their good fortune.

Tom understood why she found him so frustrating. His casual arrogance combined with his extreme handsomeness was incredibly off-putting. But Tom found himself liking the man more and more.

Until he had met Cub, he had not had a proper male friend in many years. Scriber was more of a mentor to him, though he did count him a friend, too. Eli was much older, and a little reserved, and Markus, while nice, was also quite shy.

Tom knew he was a quiet person, though he thought that might be slowly changing. It made building any kind of friendship with Markus difficult. But Darius seemed to sense the difference between the two of them, and left Markus to his own devices so as not to stress him unduly.

Tom, though, had found himself drawn into conversations with Darius more and more. As it happened, they found they shared many interests. They both had a background in swordfighting, and both loved discussing martial arts. They both had an interest in creatures and mana-beasts of all kinds, even if they had different reasons for their interests. Darius liked to know how best to defeat them, how best to gain any advantage over them, whereas Tom’s interest was more pure curiosity.

They both loved to travel, and were both proud of their homes. They had spent many hours on their journey telling each other about their respective cities and surrounding wilds. Tom couldn’t wait to see Horizon, and the Monastery.

Tom had resigned himself to Rosa and Darius being at odds. She was dealing with an enormous amount of stress at the moment, with the safety and whereabouts of her family in question, and when the questions were resolved, one way or the other, they would have already parted ways with Darius.

Such was life. He would enjoy the arrogant healer’s company while he could.

“So,” Tanya said, breaking Tom from his reverie. “What the fuck happened with those orcs yesterday?”

The mood dropped as everyone’s thoughts flashed back to the day before, and the huge, strange orcs they’d encountered.

“They are the orcs we have seen in the Proving Grounds,” Darius began. “What I heard matches them.”

Tom nodded at the confirmation. “They’re definitely different to the ones in the Deep. It seems likely there’s another ‘Smith’ leading these ones.”

“I agree,” Rosa said. She tapped a long finger against her chin. “These brutes are far bigger than the ones from back home. They were… quieter too. No, not quiet. They were still rowdy, just not raucous, I think.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. “The orcs in the Deep always seemed a hairsbreadth from complete savagery. These orcs were savage, but…” He waved his hands helplessly, unable to articulate the exact differences.

“We get it,” Rosa said. “We’ve all got plenty of experience with the orcs in the Deep, after all.”

“What was going on with their auras?” Tanya asked. “I ferried reports from hundreds of raids and fights and ambushes from the guerillas, and received just as many from the Guards on the wall. The orcs in the Deep never had anything like that. Some of their Idealists had auras, but they were never so …homogenous.”

Rosa snapped her fingers. “Yes! And where were their normal orcs? These seemed like Idealists, but they were as big as chieftains. But they only had the auras.”

“They had that pulling skill, too,” Markus said, speaking up for the first time. He would well know, too, having almost died because of it.

“It’s strange. There are a lot of discrepancies. For now, it seems safe to assume that this is a completely different infestation, and that they are likely led by something like the Smith. But we don’t know enough. We shouldn’t assume anything else until we know more. Darius, did the monk report them using skills?”

Darius shrugged. “There were rumours, but the Monastery had not taken any official position on these orcs yet. I do not know. It is concerning how far that they have spread, though. The other reports, they were much further north, and not this close to the mountains.”

The western trade road between Horizon and Wayrest lay more to the southern end of the Proving Grounds. The majority of the huge plains lay north of them, completely unbroken until they eventually turned into swamplands in the far north.

South of them, there was the Tavern Alley, a huge river that split the plains all the way from the Barracho Mountains to the Deep Green. Beyond the river was another plains, larger even than the Proving Grounds, if Darius was to be believed. It was different, with shorter, yellower grasses, and, though still flat, it had more variation in both elevation and vegetation. Tom hoped to see it one day. It sounded more interesting than the swamplands or the Rust Sands.

“All the more reason for us to get to Horizon quickly,” Rosa said, unable to completely restrain her impatience.

“We are only four days out now. This one morning to recover is necessary,” Darius said.

Rosa bridled, less at the sentiment and more at the fact that Darius had said it, in Tom’s opinion. Still, she kept any biting rejoinders to herself.

“I’m glad we killed that shadow orc,” Tanya said, shivering. “It gives me the willies thinking it was tracking us for so long, waiting for an opportunity.”

A collective shiver passed through the group. As Tanya had said, the evil thing must have been following them for a long time, waiting for just the right opportunity to strike.

“It’s weird that it followed us for so long. The thing was one of the strongest orc Idealists I’ve seen, and it wasn’t even a chieftain,” Markus said.

“My Hush didn’t work on it,” Tom explained. “Not until it lost that shadowy armour, anyway.”

“It wasn’t taking burn damage over time, either,” Rosa added.

There was another short pause. “Well, it’s dead now, thank Goddess,” Tanya finished.

“You did well in the fight,” Tom said to Darius. “You acted just as a healer should. Thank you.”

“These small unit tactics are making more sense,” Darius said, affecting a casual manner, as if it had been incredibly easy for him. “That is alright. I need you to be alive so that you can speak on my behalf to the monks.” He grinned at them to show he was joking.

“Truly, though, I was quite liking this role. It felt good to protect people in this way. I see what you were meaning about the healer making the group stronger than without them. It is nice to be able to save people. Even if we also lost some.”

The others gave their thanks for his work too, adding a few small praises for his quick adoption of his new role. Rosa didn’t say anything, pointedly looking away across the grass.

A silence fell on the group. There was a slight, awkward pause as the group tried to figure out how to navigate around the tension. As was typical, Darius bulled straight through it.

“So, are you going to be telling us which Ideal you have manifested?”

Everyone’s attention turned to Markus, who Darius had addressed the question to. The quiet man shuffled about uncomfortably on his folding chair.

“Power,” he said, eventually. “When those auras snared me, I’ve never felt so helpless. Team is great, and I wouldn’t trade Coro for the world, but in that moment, when that orc pulled me towards it, I couldn’t even move to defend myself… I wanted nothing more than some way to fight back. I realised that when all is said and done, power is king. And when I woke up…” He shrugged.

“That’s great!” Tanya said, and everyone added their congratulations.

“That was you, then, with the snake?” Tom motioned vaguely above his head, referring to the ball of light that had appeared and begun firing beams during the fight.

Markus nodded. “I got two skills, that miniature sun that fires beams of light, and another one, too.”

Markus began to search around himself, and eventually found a decent sized rock nearby. He picked it up and clenched his fist around it. There was a pause for a second as he strained then, with a sharp crack, the rock split down the centre.

“Passive bonus to strength,” he said proudly, dropping newly split rock and dusting his hands.

Everyone was suitably impressed. Markus was going to be a fearsome combatant the further down his path he walked. He would be a potent addition to any team, and that was not even counting his empty spot for a third Ideal.

“So, who else has gotten something from this fight? We were close to the line; there is no better time for uplifts, I think,” Darius grinned at them.

They could all see who had gotten uplifts via their party interface in their wisps, but they’d all been exhausted and running for their lives. Plus, there was no point reading when you could just ask.

“Nothing for me,” Tanya said. “But I didn’t do much.”

“Nonsense, that firing rod is fearsome. You killed more than Darius,” Rosa told her.

A cloud passed over Darius’ face. If there was a sure way to get under his skin, it was to imply he was not brave or skilled.

“I am a healer,” he said, eventually. Then he turned his nose up at her.

“The rod will take another couple of days to recharge, I think, if it’s not completely broken.”

Tom grimaced. They would need all the advantages they could get.

“Well,” Rosa said. “I have good news, at least. My Smoke Shroud has uplifted.”

Tom clasped her shoulder and smiled. Rosa beamed back at him.

“Yes, for once, Tom Cutter, I have gotten an uplift and you have not. So fuck you,” she said cheerily. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

Her wisp floated over. Her eyes flicked back and forth as she read from it.

“Fuck’s sake, Tom!”

“I haven’t uplifted anything!” he protested. “I swear!”

“Well, that’s good. I guess I am just fucking blind or stupid then! Is that it!?”

Tom glanced at her wisp, then confirmed with his own. He had indeed uplifted a skill.

“I didn’t know!” he said.

“Oh,” Rosa said, her voice dangerously low. “That is okay then. You are just uplifting skills in your sleep these days, then.”

Tom sputtered helplessly. Darius roared with laughter.