Healer Book 5 -- Chapter 33

Chapter 33

“Die!”

Thaden sighed.  “Please, just stop.  Seriously.”

None of the Wardens listened to him, of course, and he killed them all – again.  This was the eighth time in a row that they had immediately attacked, and he was forced to kill them.  Thankfully, his 30-second counter on killing another target for his bonuses to keep going on his equipment was reset each time he killed the powerful Charee, but this time he decided to wait it out.

“This is going from bad to worse, isn’t it?” he asked Sadia as he stared at the three corpses arrayed in front of him. 

His squirrel companion nodded.  “Perhaps just the Support Class?”

Thaden figured it couldn’t hurt, so he Resurrected only the Support Class Warden, whose name was Batrite, a male Charee who had looked no less bloodthirsty than the others whenever he brought them all back together.  This time, as soon as Batrite was revived, he turned toward his fellow Wardens and started casting.  “Foul Adversary scum!  You do not belong here!”

“Alright, now hold on just a moment—”

In less than 5 seconds after he started casting, the Support Class Charee finished his spell, and a light flowed over the two deceased bodies, revitalizing them with life. 

“Oh, come on – is that some sort of Mass Resurrection spell?” Thaden complained.

“You will die now!  We won’t let you unleash another corrupted monster army upon this developmental world!” Batrite shouted, even as the others came to themselves after their Resurrection.

“Huh.  Well, I’m not even sure what to do now,” he told Sadia, even as the other two Wardens immediately attacked as soon as they could.  He put them all down again.

He’d already tried to talk to just Ghareta by herself, and then the other Warden, Harbee, but they were blinded by what they thought they saw in him. 

“It’s your shitty Personality, buddy,” he suddenly heard before he looked up, only to see no one nearby.  He’d fortunately made sure to cancel his Leach spell just in case one of the Contenders in the distance approached him, and that was apparently the right move, as an older man appeared out of nowhere, his body covered in leather armor in muted greys and blacks, and he had what appeared to be a pair of Wolverine-like gloves with four knives sticking out above his fist.  The man’s face and head was uncovered, and he had the appearance of an old hippy, with greying blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and a scraggly beard covering his face.  A quick peek at his nametag was all it took to see that he was unlikely a threat.

Barry

Human

Level 181

“Uh, what?” he asked, unsure if he had heard Barry correctly. 

The sudden arrival pointed at him as if it should be obvious.  “Your Personality is in the dumps, man,” he said in a slow way that was a bit off-putting.  “I can feel it tugging at me, making me want to be disgusted with you, but I don’t listen to none of that nonsense, buddy.”

“Ah.  Yeah, I suppose that would do it.”

Looking down, he realized that he was still wearing his solo Growth gear, which had already been reducing his Personality stat when the items first started Leveling-up.  He hadn’t really paid attention to their growth after that, however, as he’d been too intent on eliminating the Ogres to check – and he wasn’t going to spend time going over them now.  Instead, he quickly swapped out his gear for his Lucky Vagabond set and its random accessories, and Barry looked at him again with a thumbs-up.

“That’s much better, man.  Now it doesn’t feel like I should be spitting on you.”

Does it really feel like that to other people when I have a crappy Personality stat? 

“Uh, thanks, I guess.  But I’m not sure if they’ll be any more inclined to stop attacking me, however.”

Barry chuckled, waving his claw-like knives at the bodies of the Wardens.  “Eh.  We’re probably better off without them, man.”

Taken aback, Thaden asked, “Huh?  Why?”

“Them bastards organized us all into that big group over there to defend against these Ogres, which we all thought was a good idea.  At least at first,” he responded lethargically, before his tone changed to one of anger.  “But when things started falling apart, they abandoned thousands of us as they retreated, calling for us to sacrifice ourselves for the so-called ‘greater good’.  Bunch of horseshit, man.” 

“Wait, they left you?” Sadia asked, stepping forward.  Barry raised his eyebrows as she spoke, seeming to look at her for the first time.

“Whoa, that is wild, man.  A talking squirrel; I feel like I’m on a trip right now.  Good or bad, I’m not sure yet.”  He didn’t answer her question, though, but it also seemed unnecessary by that point, as Thaden figured something like that had happened.  Though he hadn’t thought that the Wardens were the ones to abandon the field of battle, leaving thousands of Contenders to their fate of being eaten by the Ogres. 

Then again, considering what little he knew about the Wardens, they seemed to hold the entire world of Tarth in higher regard than the Contenders who arrived there.  Their act wasn’t cowardice because they feared for their lives, nor vindictiveness against the Contenders, but something perhaps even worse.

Indifference.

They didn’t necessarily care how many Contenders died, which was something he’d learned from the native Charee, but also the System.  As long as the rest learned from the mistakes of those that died and became stronger as a result, then just about any deaths were acceptable.  The only time the System had stepped in was when the Contenders were killing each other too much, which wasn’t necessarily a learning opportunity they could use to get stronger; that was why the whole “black aura” thing came into being, as it was meant to get the Contenders back on track to what they should be doing.

Namely, only dying when it was appropriate, such as to teach someone else what not to do in a certain situation – or in this particular case and others similar to it such as the Anchor Dungeons and the monster attacks afterwards, for the purpose of defending each other and Tarth as a whole.

To the Wardens and the System, the Contenders who died here were defending the Region against a monster army, so it was an entirely proper sacrifice.  Thaden didn’t agree in the slightest; in his opinion, the whole sacrifice thing was stupid, as the Contenders should never have been in harm’s way in the first place.  They were entirely outmatched by the Ogres, after all, so the Wardens had essentially thrown their lives away.

And for what?  A total of 8 dead Ogres?  It was ridiculous…

…and yet, he could somewhat understand the reasoning, even if he didn’t agree with it.  The only ones with any chance against the Ogres were the Wardens, but they would overwhelmed if they stood alone against the army – there was very little doubt about that.  So, with a little help, perhaps something to act as a distraction, then the Charee Wardens might be able to slowly whittle down the Ogres’ numbers, thereby eventually gaining the upper hand.

At the expense of tens or hundreds of thousands of Contender lives, of course.

Fortunately, it didn’t have to come to that, as Thaden had arrived and wiped out the rest of the Ogres for them.  Unfortunately, instead of being grateful, the Wardens were extremely hostile toward him, which he had been expecting going into it.

“Sadly, I can’t let them stay dead, as much as it would make things easier – and satisfy your anger over being abandoned to die,” he told Barry, looking at the bodies once he’d fully changed his equipment.  “They’re… kind of important, I guess?  It might not look like it from your point of view, but they’ve been helping to make this place safer; if not for their efforts, these types of things would’ve happened a lot more often.”  He wasn’t necessarily stretching the truth, but it was difficult to share the kind of information necessary for a better understand when the System didn’t want the panic that came with sharing it. 

Barry grunted in disbelief.  “Man, that’s a crock of bullshit.  I’ve never even seen anyone that high of a Level around here before.”  He looked at Thaden again, as if seeing him for the first time.  “Come to think of it, how do you know so much about them – and how are you so powerful?”

The Omenic Drifter shrugged.  “It’s a long story.  Suffice it to say, I’m basically just along for the ride right now, as I have a particular set of skills that they’re having me use to solve a certain crisis.”

“Alright, man, keep your secrets,” Barry said with a chuckle.  “You deserve them after what you’ve done for us today.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to get here faster.  Eliminating the rest of the Ogres that broke out of the Warpath Dungeon took a lot longer than I thought to track them down.”

“Warpath Dungeon?  These thing broke out?” the other Contender asked, seemingly thoroughly confused by what the Omenic Drifter was saying.

Thaden was confused now, too.  “You know, like what the SPECIAL Quest said—”

“What SPECIAL Quest?”

His mouth dropped open at the question, as he immediately realized what happened.  “Oh, you’re a bastard, System,” he muttered under his breath.  Waving away the man’s concerns, he said, “Oh, nothing; it must’ve been my imagination.  Anyway, the threat of these monsters is over for now, so we should be safe for the moment.”

“Thanks to you, man!  Who would’ve thought that there would be roaming monsters this high of a Level out there – it looks like we’ll have to work extra hard to Level-up from now on.”

Anger at the System bubbled up, but he kept his mouth shut rather than start ranting about it toward someone who obviously didn’t know how much he’d been screwed over.  Barry left quickly after that, disappearing as fast as he had originally appeared, leaving Thaden with a set of dead bodies and a fuming mind.

“I… can’t believe the System erased the Quest from the minds of everyone involved,” Sadia said once Barry was gone.  “I know that you’ve seen it happen before, but this was the first time that…” she trailed off, unable to finish it.

“I know.  What kind of fairness is that?  They fought and died for this, and they should at least get the reward, right?  I mean, this wasn’t like the appearance of an Adversarial entity that it wants to hide – these were monsters that attacked them out in the world.”  He thought about it for a moment.  “Then again, it probably knows that these monsters broke out because of the Adversary, so that might be why it erased everything again.  I don’t know the exact reason, nor do I think it matters even if I do,” he added, shaking his head at the insanity of it all.  “But why didn’t it reset everything out here and bring back the Contenders who died?  I understand what happened in Darkwood Vale being different as the System was essentially blind, but this...” he said, waving around at the area.

“I… I don’t know.  None of this makes a lot of sense to me right now.” 

Thaden couldn’t do anything but agree with that statement. 

There wasn’t much he could do about the situation with the Contenders and the Quest that they got screwed out of, but there was something else he might be able to do with the dead Wardens at his feet.  Changed out of his Personality-draining Growth items, he thought he might have better luck with this next round of Resurrections.

A minute later, his “better luck” turned out to be a bit presumptuous as he stared at Ghareta, again lying dead on the churned-up ground, face-first in the dirt.  It seemed as though even more than 5,000 in his Personality stat couldn’t make up for having the taint of the Adversary in him; having killed the leader of the Charee Wardens multiple times by that point probably didn’t help, either.

At a loss of what to do, other than let the Wardens beat on him for a while ineffectually until they gave up, which he really didn’t want to stick around to do since he wanted to clear the Warpath Dungeon of the Legion Commander he was likely to find in there – sooner rather than later – he decided to give his options some thought before he Resurrected them again.  He had plenty of time before they couldn’t brought back, after all, so he was in no rush as far as that went; only the Warpath Dungeon was on a timeline that he wanted to reach before it was too late. 

Not immediately thinking of anything, he switched his equipment again, something he was getting fairly adept at with all of his practice, and brought back his solo-focused Growth gear even as he watched the Contenders in the distance disperse, leaving the immediate area.  Thankfully, none of them came towards the battlefield, as if they didn’t want to have anything more to do with the place where so many of their fellow Contenders had died.

Or they were steered away from the area by the System.  Either way, he was left alone for now.

With his Growth equipment on, he opened his message feed and felt a massive stream of PICK enter into him and disperse through his items, each of them absorbing enough that he could practically feel them getting stronger as he wore them.  If he was judging it correctly, the amount of PICK was considerably more than his first battle against the Ogres, which made sense considering that they were a higher Level than the others; but it was also because he had completed a Quest.

You have completed the full requirements for your assigned SPECIAL Quest!

You have received 3,000,000 gold, 9,000,000 PICK, 300 Rank Progress up to Platinum Rank, and (300) Consumable Free Stat Stones!

Omenic Drifter Class trait activated!

You have received 4,500,000 gold, 13,500,000 PICK, 450 Rank Progress up to Platinum Rank, and (450) Consumable Free Stat Stones!

Unkillable I Achievement activated!

You have received 4,500,000 gold, 27,000,000 PICK, 450 Rank Progress up to Platinum Rank, and (450) Consumable Free Stat Stones!

The Growth items took a while to calm down after absorbing so much PICK in such a short amount of time, but after a few minutes he felt safe enough to take a look at the changes that had been wrought in them.  However, before he could do so, he felt a brush of the System’s authority nearby, and he quickly looked at the Charee Wardens in shock.

No, it didn’t seem like they had miraculously revived from the dead without any outside intervention.  Shaking his head at the thought, he dismissed the brush of System authority as his imagination, but it happened again – and this time it was stronger.  Thaden suddenly looked up instead of down, and he immediately knew what it was. 

The Aelveen Wardens had arrived.

“Ah, they’re finally here.  Perhaps they’ll know what to do about… this,” Sadia proposed, waving at the Charee Wardens.

“I certainly hope so.”  With disappointment, he changed once again, knowing that he was going to need as much Personality as possible when dealing with the Wardens, even though he was already on fairly good terms with the ones that he could see were even now incoming.

“You didn’t leave any for us,” Tac admonished as he landed across from Thaden, and the Omenic Drifter wasn’t sure if he was joking or not.  The serious expression on his face when he saw the Charee Wardens made it clear that he was past the point of joking around, however.  “So, tell me, what exactly happened here?  Or can I guess?”

“Ha.  Be my guest.  I’m sure you’ll hit the nail right on the head….”