The Fusionist Book 3 -- Chapter 32

Chapter 32

It took a few minutes for Karley and the rest of the group to regenerate enough of their Mana and Stama to be ready to go, or at least for most of them.

“This is going to take a bit longer than I thought,” Deivin explained, looking down at the mess that was Rhylla’s leg. “Her Body Regeneration has already stabilized her, but there’s more damage to her limb than just a broken bone.”

“Hey, I’m right here! Stop talking about me as if I can’t hear you,” the Silent Blade snarled, the pain causing her to lash out. Thankfully, it was only a verbal lashing and not one with her knives, which would’ve been a bit more serious to the Combat Healer.

Deivin ignored her. “Regardless, it’s going to take at least 15 minutes or longer to get her to the point where she can be moved without making things worse, and that’s if I devote all my regenerating Mana into her healing.”

As a Combat Healer Specialization, Karley knew that he had split his focus between offensive spells and healing spells, which meant that he wasn’t the best at either of them. Most of the time, that didn’t matter, because having the versatility to swap between roles was more beneficial than having a dedicated healer, but it was times like this that she wished he had picked one or the other. In this case, being a full Healer Specialization of some kind would’ve been better, but that also would’ve made Deivin less useful when fighting for their lives a short time ago.

“Stay here and work on her, then; we’re moving ahead to see what we can do to help,” Zorey announced. “If you see them coming back… run. Leave her if you can’t carry her, but don’t stop until you’re back at Whittleton.”

The Combat Healer nodded along with the Silent Blade, who agreed with the assessment. If she had been dedicated to staying before, even when it seemed like it was the end for everyone else, that resolve had only deepened when their only healer was staying behind to help her. Granted, Karley could use a few simple healing spells, the three that were necessary to gain the Healer Specialization, but that was only really useful for minor wounds and lesser injuries. Healing spells had never been her focus, and she only knew them because they were required to graduate from Copperleaf.

Returning her attention to the matter at hand, Karley looked at the field of dead Dechonabras that she and her group had left behind when they were slowly retreating from the horde of tall, furry monsters, but past them were at least a hundred more congregating around something in the distance. She could still feel the use of magic coming from where they were heading toward, and she could only assume that they were still alive; for how long, though, she wasn’t sure. Unless they had a full assault group of 20, a standard that had come about due to the changing situation with the Scissions to deal with the threat of larger or more dangerous monster hordes, they were done for.

She couldn’t help but wonder who they were, though, because she wasn’t aware of any other patrols out this way other than Swanek that day, and a town like Whittleton didn’t boast more than 60 SIC members in the first place. They had one dedicated assault group that was stationed in town and was able to respond to any of the larger threats nearby, while the other 8 patrolling groups of 5 were sent out on a rotational schedule to keep the roads clear. As a result, no one should be out here… unless they somehow got word of her group’s plight and came to help, but then they likely wouldn’t have been coming from the southwest.

Whoever it was seemed to be holding their own as Karley, along with Zorey and Barlin, rushed ahead to help thin out the numbers attacking their saviors. As soon as she was close enough the Elementalist cast a Pyroblast that killed 5 of the monsters and set another half-dozen on fire; she was lucky that they were bunched up together as they worked against each other to reach their target ahead, and she capitalized on their impatience. The two Martials braced themselves for the anticipated counterattack from her spell, as causing that amount of death – along with those actively burning – was more than enough to force their attention to the one that was death-dealing.

The two armored SIC members of her group stood there awkwardly when they completely ignored the source of the devastating attack.

“What the—?” Barlin said, scratching his head at the sight.

“I’ve got no idea,” her group leader said, before calling back to her. “Hit ‘em again!”

She wasn’t going to argue, especially since they didn’t seem to be reacting to her spellcasting. Another Pyroblast exploded along the edge of the horde, tearing through another 4 of the Dechonabras and lighting another 5 on fire. Those that were on fire from her current and previous spell wouldn’t necessarily die straight-out from the burning flames, but they would be injured severely and potentially crippled from it as their hair was burnt off – making them easy targets for the Martials to finish off.

Which is exactly what Zorey and Barlin did as soon as they saw that her spell did absolutely nothing as far as retaliation went. Cautiously, they approached the back line of monsters and attacked those that were still burning. It was only when they were within striking distance did their victims turn around and attempt to attack the two Martials, but they were already injured and were completely unsupported by any of the other monsters nearby. It was as if they were blinded by something more important to them than Karley and her group, and only when they became extremely bothersome and in their face did they react to it.

It was both exhilarating to be able to attack with impunity and oddly hurtful to be dismissed so thoroughly. As if they weren’t worthy of any attention from blood-thirsty Scission monsters, like a new puppy that lavishes all their loving cuteness on a stranger while they were in her own house.

For the next minute or so, Karley lavishly spent her Mana, only keeping a small reserve just in case it was needed. After that minute, she went ahead and went all out as she realized that there was no need to hold anything back, because there were less than 30 of the Dechonabras alive – and they were being massacred by whoever had come to help them.

She caught her first glimpse of their saviors through the mass of bodies, which were barely able to be seen over the mounds of corpses that had built up like a wall of fur, flesh, and blood that made their previous fight against the monsters seem like a friendly bout between enemies. Karley had seen a lot of death over the years, but the amount of carnage concentrated in one place sickened and confused her a little. The reason for that?

Because it was created by a group of what appeared to be 8 individuals, all of them young enough to still be at an Academy or Fort, with not just one, but three wearing the grey robes that marked them as early-year students that hadn’t chosen a Specialization yet. As the numbers of monster thinned out even further, she began to get a better look at them when she stopped casting her own spells in fear that she might hit one of them, and even Zorey and Barlin backed off when it was obvious they weren’t needed.

Along the back line of the group that had saved Karley and her group appeared to be a Pyromancer from the Kingdom in his tell-tale red robe, young enough that she thought he might be a fifth or possibly sixth-year student. Next to him was a young woman with reddish-gold hair that he recognized as being from Tyrendel, a land to the east of the Kingdom. Or was it west? She hadn’t seen one from that land in a long time, as they were rare in the SIC, and she couldn’t recall the exact details from her days at the Academy. What was even stranger was that there were two of these individuals from Tyrendel, as there was a young boy in a grey student robe standing next to the woman in a green Naturalist robe, and they looked enough alike that Karley suspected they were siblings.

Further adding to the strangeness of the group was another young boy in student grey, but this one was from… the Dyran Hearthwood? She thought that was what his appearance indicated, as he looked like a young tree come to life – and not one of the deadly Treedins that spawned from a Scission, either. She’d never met anyone from the Hearthwood before, but she at least remembered the description from her Academy days.

On the opposite side of the back line from the Pyromancer was a Martial woman in dark leathers, holding a bow that was delivering death to the Dechonabras by the second. From the Kingdom by her appearance, she and the Pyromancer were probably the most “normal” of the bunch, though the other Martial on the front line was similar. Younger than she would expect of someone fighting against monsters outside of a training stint on the walls of a Fort city, the shield and spear-wielding Martial was somehow holding his own against the much larger monsters, and he didn’t even seem to be injured despite taking multiple hits on his shield – though those hits just seemed to slide off half the time rather than impact its wood and steel construction. She’d have to ask Zorey later if that was some sort of Battle Art she hadn’t heard of, because it was highly unusual.

Opposite the young man with the shield and spear was a woman with blue hair and dark skin – and she had no idea where she was from. Never having seen anyone with that hair and skin coloring before, she suspected the woman was from a southern land, but couldn’t exactly be sure; if she had learned about her homeland at the Academy, it had slipped out of her mind at some point. Regardless, the woman was wielding her oversized sword like it weighed nothing and was purely an extension of her body, as it cut through the approaching Dechonabras with an ease that was hard to believe.

But the strangest person of all was the one that caught her attention immediately. It wasn’t his height, even though 6 feet was certainly tall, or his large, intimidating frame that made even Barlin look like an adolescent. No, it was none of that, even if it was unusual.

It was the fact that the large man was wearing a grey Academy robe and was dual-wielding a Mage’s staff and what appeared to be some sort of woodcutting axe.

Her mind screeched to a halt at the purest form of discrepancy she had ever seen, especially when she saw him tearing through the monsters ahead of him with a swipe or chop of his axe, taking off limbs like he was trimming the branches off a fallen tree, only to back up a step and launch what appeared to be an overcharged Stone Fist spell at another Dechonabras without any sign of him forming a spell pattern. In fact, it wasn’t just him that was casting spells that quickly, but the four Mages in the back were also doing the same, launching Fireballs or Ice Spikes that were larger than they should be, and she thought she even saw a Water Jet a few times. That was in addition to some larger spells being used, such as a Flame Wall blocking off the edge of the approaching line, or what she suspected were Binding Roots temporarily halting the advance of a few others.

It might have been the exhaustion of the day kicking in, but at one point she swore she even saw the young Martial with the shield flip his spear around and launch an Ice Spike from the end, before flipping it back around and stabbing his target with the spearhead. Impossible. I must be hallucinating.

If things couldn’t get much stranger, the Dechonabras all seemed to be striving to reach the large student Mage wielding a staff and a woodcutter’s axe, though she could only tell that because the piles of corpses were thicker around him. She couldn’t understand why they were so engrossed in reaching the strange grey-robed Mage, though she thought that he was perhaps using a new spell that drew their attention to him? But why would he do something like that as a Mage?

Being able to defend oneself when out of Mana wasn’t a new concept, and Karley had met a few that had taken a fancy to lugging around a sword or even a spear in replacement to a Mage’s staff, though they were never quite as good with the weapons as even a second-year Fort trainee. They just didn’t have the training and stats to pull off what was needed to wield them effectively, though she had to admit that being able to defend herself with something other than what was effectively a large stick sounded better than dying soon after she ran out of Mana. That was proven just a short time ago when it appeared as though their entire group was going to die and she was virtually defenseless.

But actually being strong enough to stand on the front lines as a Mage? It wasn’t just unlikely, it was suicidal.  Yet, somehow, this man had done it – and she was intrigued to find out how and why.

As the last Dechonabra fell with a barrage of spell projectiles through its face, the silence that fell over the corpse-filled and blood-soaked battlefield as the two groups stared at each other was heavy, especially when she realized that the three front-line members of the other group didn’t appear to be injured in the slightest or even exhausted from the fight. Naturally, their breathing was a little hard because they had just fought hundreds of the powerful Dechonabras, but there was no visible sign other than splatters of blood over their robes and armor that seemed less than it should’ve been, considering the complete carnage around them.

“Hello!” the large robed man suddenly spoke, his loud, deep voice startling Karley and her groupmates. “We thought you might need some help, and seeing that we were just passing through, it was easy enough to step in.  I hope that was alright?” he asked, seemingly unsure of himself. “If not, then we apologize.”

Karley was at a loss for words; the pure fighting aura that had practically exuded from the tall man during the battle against the Dechonabras was gone, replaced by an expression that she could only place as shy and containing a clear lack of confidence.

Thankfully, she wasn’t the leader and didn’t need to respond, so Zorey took the initiative. “Well met! We certainly did need your help, I won’t deny, as we were in danger of being overrun,” the Defender said, before slumping slightly in place as the exhaustion of the last hour caught up with him. “If you hadn’t arrived, I’m not sure that we would’ve survived; it was fortuitous that you arrived when you did.  Though, like us, you were a little late to save Swanek’s patrol, though we valiantly attempted to extricate them from their predicament. Were you sent by Major Proach out of Whittleton?”

Karley nearly said something, but held her tongue. There was no Major Proach or anyone by that name in Whittleton, so she suspected that Zorey was playing one of his stupid “Noble” games with these people. She was tempted to tell her group leader to leave them alone, as they had just saved their lives, but didn’t want to get on his bad side. Keep your head down and just do your job, she thought to herself.

It wasn’t the man that answered this time, but the young Martial wielding the sword and spear. Stepping forward, he put the butt of the spear on the ground and leaned against it casually. “No, we’re coming from Dracefell via a stopover in Thanchet. We were forced to flee so that we could finish our mission when a Scission opened up in the middle of the Fort there – have you heard about that yet?”

What? A Scission opened in the middle of the Copperleaf and Pinevalley?

“Seriously? The way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise me if these things starting opening up in the capital any day now. Thankfully, that’s where the greatest of us are located, so there shouldn’t be any problem, right? I just wish things would settle down and we could go back to how it used to be.”

The Elementalist was now thoroughly lost, as it seemed as if Zorey was talking nonsense now. He should be freaking out – like she was – over the news that a Scission opened in the middle of a city like Thanchet, as it was one of the largest cities in the southern part of the Kingdom and was responsible for holding things together throughout the increasingly more dangerous countryside.

“I agree, but we can only do as we’re told, right? Anyway, are any of you injured? We could definitely use an escort to Whittleton so that we can resupply, after having to leave Thanchet more quickly than expected, and want to move quickly. We can quickly heal anyone that needs it.”

Karley’s group leader nodded. “Yes, one of our number suffered a nasty break, though our healer should hopefully be finishing up within a few minutes.”

The tall man suddenly reached into the bag that she just realized was on his back the entire time he had been fighting, and after a second, he withdrew something that was swallowed up by his huge hand. A second later, he tossed something toward Karley and she instinctively moved to grab it, seeing that it appeared to be some sort of wooden bracelet. “That has one of those new healing Fusions on it that are designed for Martials. That will fix your injured group mate quickly once it is activated, but don’t let it stay active for—”

“—too long, I understand. This is… thank you,” the Elementalist said, before running back to Rhylla and Deivin. Having to dodge around the furry mounds on her way back to them, she couldn’t help but look down at the open circle of wood in her hand, her awe at actually holding one of the powerful Fusions she’d only heard about nearly making her trip when she wasn’t watching where she was going.

It was only a few months ago that she had heard about a new healing Fusion that some insanely powerful Fusionist had come up with, but she never thought she would see one. A high-Level group of SIC members had passed through the month before, boasting about not only possessing one of these Fusions, but also an impossibly strong stat Boost Fusion on their weapon, but they were gone before she’d gotten a chance to see either of them. From all the reports she heard, they were extremely difficult to get because not only were they in short supply, but they also cost hundreds of gold a piece. Even after saving her pay for years, that kind of thing was too expensive for someone like her.

Before she knew it, she was approaching the wounded Rhylla and their Combat Healer, who had made some progress on the Silent Blade, but Karley could tell he would need at least another 10 minutes. It appeared as though the unfortunate Martial’s leg bone had shattered and tore up her upper thigh as the bone shards pierced through it upon impact with the ground, which was a bit more serious than just a broken bone.

“You can stop, Deivin,” she said, kneeling down next to the panting Martial. Deivin was forgoing any type of pain relief as he worked as quickly to get her healed and up so she could move, so she was having to endure the additional pain that his healing generated as she was put back together.

“What? Why?” he asked, letting his spell go.

Instead of answering, she gave the wooden circle with the Fusion on it to Rhylla and told her to activate it. Instead of arguing, the Silent Blade did as instructed as the Elementalist and Combat Healer looked on.

“Is that—?”

“Yes.”

That was all that was needed to be said as they saw the effect from the Fusion in action. Within seconds, her leg had finished up sealing all of the external signs of damage, and as the Silent Blade cried out at the intense spike of pain that ripped through her as her leg bone rearranged and fused back together, Karley could also see the smile on the woman’s face. In less than 15 seconds, she was as good as new, if it wasn’t for the blood still painting her upper thigh and the ripped leather of her armor.

Deactivating the Fusion a few seconds later, the Silent Blade sat up and swayed a little, but offered up the wooden bracelet back to Karley. Before she could take it, Deivin snatched it up and stared at it with awe on his face. She couldn’t blame him, because she felt the same way. It was one thing to hear about something like this; it was entirely different seeing it herself.

It wasn’t long until she heard noises from behind them, and as she turned around she saw the rest of her group and the newcomers heading her way. Getting to her feet, she was going to help Rhylla up, but the Martial got to her feet just fine – if a little wobbly. Healing can take a lot out of a person, even if it was from a Fusion, she noted.

“Is she good? Alright, let’s head out,” Zorey announced, and she fell in behind the group, bringing up the rear with Rhylla and Deivin by her side. As she watched the others move ahead of them, she couldn’t help but look closer at them, and found that her earlier assessment was fairly accurate. In other words, they were young; a few of them looked like they might be recent graduates, but the others should still be at an Academy or a Fort. She knew that she wasn’t the only one looking at them, as her groupmates were also checking them out as they walked behind, but Zorey acted as if everything was normal with them.

Is it just because he is grateful for their help and doesn’t care how strange their group is? Or is it something else?

The mystery was eating her up inside and she nearly started asking questions, but again held her tongue. She figured they would find out more once they got back to Whittleton, and after the day they had, she was more than looking forward to getting behind the town’s walls, where she could feel a measure of safety that had been absent over the last few hours.