Chapter 191

After the incident with the crystal fang widow makers, Luke started paying a lot more attention to what was going on behind him. He’d been a sloppy idiot for his first week when he thought there were no dangers to someone with his level in the forest. A hundred spiders, or even a thousand, couldn’t actually hurt him, so he hadn’t been too worried about getting surrounded.

Seeing all those widow makers sitting there staring at him had changed his mind. Most spiders were about as dumb as he’d expect an Earth spider to be. Those guys weren’t, and he found that scared him just a little bit. There was no telling what they might have cooked up to capture him if they decided they wanted to, and the idea of being webbed up in a cocoon of razor-edged ass-wire didn’t strike him as a good time.

That didn’t stop him from going out, of course. The whole point of being in the forest was to gain enough levels to afford [XP Cycle]and, if possible, [XP Reset]. As much as he would have liked to round the set out with [Inflict Status], Luke couldn’t see spending an extra month or so in the forest. The contract they’d made with the Shansakun family was only to get four or five levels, not ten.

As Luke closed in on level 46, he started having to explore farther and farther away from the lodge. It continued to rain incessantly, so much so that many of the spiders Luke was supposed to be hunting disappeared into various hiding places and holes to get out of the weather. The ground turned to mud, and eventually, the whole group decided to just take a break for a few days in hopes that the storm clouds would move on and leave the forest to dry out.

* * *

Luke was sparring with the two trainees in the courtyard between the four buildings, though in his mind it was less sparring and more being a mobile training dummy for them. They weren’t fast enough to overwhelm him, even working together, and they lacked the raw damage output to push through his blocks. He could see frustration mounting on their faces as they tried and failed to hit him over and over again.

So much for their ‘sublime art of swordsmanship.’

He let himself get worked into a position where they were flanking him, forcing him to react to attacks from either side simultaneously. The simple solution was to use [Burst Step] to reposition himself, but it was funnier to see them getting more and more worked up because they were using every trick they knew and they still couldn’t touch him.

If he hadn’t heard quite so many muttered comments about him being an uncultured barbarian lacking in any form of manners or grace or seen all the sneers and dismissive looks on their faces when they saw him using a mace instead of a sword, he probably would have been less of a dick about it. But he had heard the digs and seen the looks, so Luke was letting himself have fun with it.

[Congratulations! Peripheral Awareness has reached rank 3. 1000 XP awarded.]

That was unexpected. He’d just had a skill rank up on its own a few weeks ago, and to get another one so soon, and one at rank 3 even, was a nice little perk. It was a bit of a surprise, but unlike his spar with Hakiro, the trainees weren’t pushing him hard enough that he had to pause the fight to process the change.

[Skill synergy detected between Counter, Peripheral Awareness and Twitch Reflexes. Merge these skills together into new skill: Area Denial?]

Luke came to a full stop so unexpectedly that Asher’s sword smacked off his hip and Sando barely managed to pull his attack in time. Luke didn’t react to either attack, barely even felt it, really. He read the notification a second time, then opened his skill shop to look at [Area Denial].

[Area Denial: React to attacks coming from practically any direction, even if you can’t see them, and punish attackers within range. This skill can function against multiple attacks at the same time.]
[Prerequisites: Counter (rank 3), Peripheral Awareness (rank 3), Twitch Reflexes (rank 3), Agility: 50, Perception: 50]

“Are you alright?” Jalet asked as he moved closer. “Luke?”

Luke blinked and said, “Oh, sorry. Just got a skill up and it triggered a skill synergy notification.”

“Congratulations,” Jalet said with a smile. “That is an excellent milestone to reach. I hope it was something good.”

“Sounds like it,” Luke said. “The prereqs are certainly steep enough. Guess I’ll find out here in a minute.”

He mentally prodded the ‘yes’ option to the prompt asking him if he wanted to merge the skills together. For a second, nothing changed, and then a new awareness snapped into place in his brain. A minute ago, he’d known where Asher and Sando were and had been keeping track of their movements out of the corners of both eyes while he deflected their attacks.

Now, he could practically predict how they were going to move before they even started. He was aware of the squelching of the mud beneath Asher’s heel as he subtly adjusted his balance, of Sando’s hand shifting on the hilt of his sword to angle the blade away from his leg as his arm dropped down to his side, even of Jalet’s unmoving stillness, if for no other reason than the rain pelting down on him.

“Holy shit, that’s trippy,” Luke said. He didn’t quite stagger backwards, but it was an effort of will to hold himself upright while his brain got used to all the new sensory information coming in.

Jalet must have sensed something, because he moved forward and placed a steadying hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Just give it a minute. Sensory skill?”

“Yeah. Kind of. It’s complicated.”

“Advanced skills always are.”

[Area Denial] wasn’t seeing any of them as a threat right now, at least. The skill was making Luke very, very aware of Jalet’s hand on him and what steps he’d need to take to grab hold of the offending arm, put it in a locking hold, and drive the man face down into the mud to pin him. It also had some suggestions for attacking the man’s exposed ribs, but unlike some other skills, the knowledge wasn’t intrusive. Luke could act on it, but the skill would guide him through the motions if he chose to, but it wasn’t screaming at him to move.

Before he could say anything, the sound of footsteps coming down the trail from outside the lodge reached him. They were muffled by the rain, but not so much that Luke couldn’t pick it out. “It sounds like we’ve got a visitor,” he said, turning to look at the gate.

Hakiro was already walking out of the building they were sharing and heading to the gate, presumably having felt whoever it was that was approaching with his own skills. The two trainees exchanged questioning glances and Asher asked, “Is that normal?”

Jalet shrugged. “Probably just a messenger from the main compound. We’ll see what the family wants here in a moment.”

A kid, maybe fifteen years old and only level 14, slipped through the gate and followed Hakiro to the kitchen hall. He was wearing the same uniform the house servants had, except it was stained with soot and torn in places. His mask covered his whole face, judging by his tan lines, but the boy wasn’t wearing it now. Instead, he had a burn mark traveling up his neck onto his cheek.

“Uh, are there any fire breathing spiders in the forest I should know about?” Luke asked.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Jalet told him, a frown on his face.

“Also, that kid seems kind of weak to be sent into this place on his own. Is that normal? I would have figured any messenger they sent in on a solo mission would have been at least level 30, maybe even with a specialized build.”

“No, no it’s not.”

That was a bad sign to Luke. Whatever was going on was outside of normal and expected circumstances, which probably meant an emergency, which on Aros pretty much always meant somebody somewhere was using extreme violence as a lever to get whatever it was they wanted.

“I think I’m going to go pull Zea out of whatever project she’s working on,” Luke said. “I’ll meet you guys in there?”

They parted ways, a troubled Jalet leading his two trainees into the building Hakiro and the messenger had disappeared into, and Luke dashing into the trainer house. He spared a moment to scrape the mud off his boots before heading toward the room he shared with Zea; there was no point in making the work any harder for the servants.

“Hey,” he said, poking his head in, “Are you doing anything that you can’t pause right now?”

Zea glanced up from her worktable, where she had the adjustable arm clutching what appeared to be a length of fine silver chain. The other end was tied to a loop across the table, and she was etching something so tiny he wouldn’t have been able to sort out the individual lines without his high perception.

“No, it’s nothing I can’t walk away from. Why, what’s going on?”

“I don’t know yet. Some messenger just showed up. He’s just a kid, way too low a level to be in here, and he’s beat to hell. But like, not from the trip through the forest. Hakiro is talking to him now, or maybe just getting some food in him. Not sure, but either way, I’m guessing it’s going to be bad news and that it’ll probably be relevant to us.”

“One second,” Zea said. She etched a few more lines into the chain, set the tool down, and scooted backward to get her legs out from under the table. Luke would have entered the room fully and held out a hand to help her up, not that she needed it, but he hadn’t been successful in cleaning all the mud off his boots and the less he tracked across the floor, the easier it would be to clean up.

The pair stepped out into the rain together, with Zea pulling the hood up on her cloak before she left the house and Luke just ignoring it. He was already soaked through anyway. A few more seconds wasn’t going to make a difference. They hustled across the yard into the kitchen hall, where four different tables were set up with a dozen chairs around each of them. The group was filling up half of the one in the back right corner while a servant was busy hustling back and forth between the kitchen to bring out food.

There was an open tube sitting in the middle of the table, the kind that would have a scroll stored in it, and Jalet was frowning as he read from said scroll. Hakiro sat next to him, silent and still. Luke spared a moment to wonder if [Tapestry of the World] even allowed for Hakiro to read. It almost seemed like it had to, but when Luke thought about it, he realized there wasn’t a lot of mandatory reading on Aros and for occasions like this, there were others who could read messages for Hakiro.

Or maybe he’d just already read it and had passed it on to his colleague. That was also a valid possibility.

“So, what’s going on?” Zea asked.

“One moment,” Jalet said as he finished reading through the message.

The messenger himself was guzzling down water and trying to eat his own body weight in cold food, mostly in the form of sandwiches. Luke’s stomach gave an involuntary gurgle at the sight of the food, causing everyone to pause what they were doing and look over at him.

“I’m not apologizing for being hungry,” he told them flatly. Then he turned to the guy running more food from the kitchen to the table and said, “Think I could get some of those sandwiches too?”

“Of course, sir,” the man said. He deposited a plate at the far end of the table and scurried back off for the next load.

“It’s bad news, I’m afraid,” Jalet said as he put the scroll down.

“No shit. Did anyone think it wouldn’t be?” Luke asked.

“We’re leaving in the morning. We need to get back to the city as soon as possible. Hakiro is going ahead tonight.”

“Oooh, shit. That is bad,” Luke said. “But I haven’t finished gaining the last level I need.”

“No choice. Demons attacked the city. Twice. Scouts report they’re gathering up numbers for a third assault. We’ll be fighting in just under twenty-four hours.”