It was difficult to believe. He was a part of the Crows Guild… for now. A week ago, that had been some far-off dream, the result of years more work scraping and pinching and hustling, if he was lucky. He also had leveled up his System, finally, and discovered it to be powerful and with significant potential.
Of course, he’d almost died multiple times, lost most of the quints he’d saved up, and had developed an unhealthy paranoia for camouflaged beasts the size of dropships. He still wasn’t convinced he was safe again, not after the non-stop threats he’d survived the last few days, and he wasn’t sure when he would be.
He was alone. After seeing the truck destroyed, Gammon had decided to burn the quints to fly Lief back to Aba and leave Thorn by himself. Trekking out of the forest would take days on foot, and Gammon wanted to get Lief to a medic much faster than that. Thorn had agreed wholeheartedly and asked her to take Korakis as well, even if that left him alone in the woods.
While a novelty at first, Thorn had quickly grown tired of his System ability to “translate” Korakis’s language via the agent he’d implanted in Korakis to regulate his quintessence bindings and prevent him from dying.
The foul-mouthed raven with the attention span of a child tended to vacillate between calling him “bitch” or “worm” or “egg,” depending on his mood at the moment. Thorn didn’t really see how it fit. He assumed it was a bug or glitch in his System’s ability to interpret.
Thorn tried to sleep, but it was impossible. He’d hung his hammock off the ground in one of the enormous conifers, set up his pumpkin shield and made himself comfortable. He was exhausted and passed out as soon as he closed his eyes, but the dreams woke him soon enough. He’d sat up in a panic, activating Concentrate to attack the beasts assaulting him in his nightmare.
After almost blowing himself off the side of the tree, he’d decided to build the fire back up and try to relax instead.
He pulled up his System status and attributes while poking the fire with a stick.
There it was, right in his status: a Recruit. It was official, and it was thrilling to see.
He’d come a long way in the past week, but looking at the numbers, he grew depressed. He hadn’t truly understood the magnitude of how expensive it was to level up a System. The addition of the extra 2,207 quints for his next level up rubbed salt in the wound; it was another price he had to pay for using Splinter on himself.
The amount of quints that he needed for his next level was staggering, not to mention the fact that he still didn’t know what was up with his Body attribute, which had increased drastically from consuming part of the golden pill, but was now stuck and not going higher when he leveled up his System.
That almost made him not want to ask his System about the tantalizing “skill updates available” part. Almost.
It was a lot to chew on. His new Skill option, Record, sounded like a complete waste. And what was he supposed to do with the Concentrate upgrade? He could currently emit quintessence from the palms of his hands. If he limited himself to just one hand, then would his bombs be more effective? If so, was that worth it? He didn’t know. He had more than a sneaking suspicion that there was a lot about that Skill in particular that he didn’t know.
He was much more interested in a few of the others, such as the upgrade for Analyze. But realistically, it was probably going to be a long time before he amassed enough quints to level up, though, so he had the time to think on what his choice would be.
It was also interesting to see that there were no upgrades available for either Integrate or Splinter; that must mean he had not met the requirements. Maybe the requirements were the upgrades of other Skills? or more of that “second order quintessence binding”? Or “third order”?
Or maybe there weren’t upgrades for those skills.
His head swimming with the future possibilities, Thorn brought himself back to the here and now. He wasn’t sure when Gammon would return, but he wasn’t planning on walking back to Aba. He idly wondered if his System would have any flight Skills in the future. He hadn’t seen anything like that in the Skill updates menu, but who knew? Maybe it was possible.
He decided to Meditate while he was waiting; maybe it would clear his mind, and netting a few extra quints was never a problem. He set a timer for himself and eased into the Skill.
His active mind shut down, and the forest around him came alive. The quintessence field in the forest was dense and rich. Individual threads curled in and around the teeming sources of life. The tall conifers shone dully; they weren’t quite on the level of awakened beasts, but they were harboring more quintessence than normal.
Time passed and the sun rose, but Thorn was not aware of the change until brighter spots of condensed quintessence appeared at the edge of his awareness. There were three individuals, one more dense and solid than the other two.
A flick to his forehead brought him out of Meditate. Being stuck in the Skill was a serious weakness that so far, he hadn’t been punished for. That time may have come.
Thorn opened his eyes. Three individuals stood in front of him. One leaned down, staring mockingly into his eyes.
“Grif,” Thorn said.
“My, my, you do remember me!” she called out, her voice oddly loud in the forest. “I’d say I’m sorry to wake you… but I’m not.”
“What are you doing here?” Thorn asked. He glanced at the two goons standing behind Grif. They were the same ones that had given him a beating before, and they looked pissed.
“I like long walks in the woods,” she replied. “A romantic campfire. The creative use of rope.” She paused, but Thorn gave no reaction. She affected a pout before turning out of Thorn’s personal space.
“Why didn’t you reply to my comms?” she asked.
“I’ve been a bit busy,” Thorn said. He stood up.
“I can see that,” Grif said. Her eyes raked up and down, shaking her head at the stained and filthy remnants of his clothes. Only tatters remained after being swallowed by the fincroc. Thorn was certain he smelled bad, despite his best attempts at cleaning himself up.
“A woman doesn’t like to be ignored.” She walked about ten paces away from Thorn and motioned for the two goons following her to surround him.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Especially when you owe her quints. Have you been busy gathering cores?” she asked.
Thorn didn’t reply, and instead looked at the two men closely. They didn’t view him as a threat. The two thugs were unarmed as far as he could tell, but Grif was carrying a holstered sidearm and a short automatic strapped tightly across her chest. Strangely, she carried a small whip, coiled at her waist.
“Hello? Eyes over here,” Grif said. She stuck her lip out again in her pretend pout. Thorn shuddered.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t have the cores, but I have to ask,” she said. “Professional courtesy. And it’s rude not to answer.”
The pout went away as she licked her lips. “You are such a rude boy…”
“I don’t have any cores for you,” Thorn said.
“Well then, a contract it is!” Grif clapped her hands, but the beaming smile on her face turned to a frown.
“Huh. How are you doing that?” she said. “I can clearly see you standing right there, but my System can’t connect to yours.”
Thorn wasn’t about to tell her a thing about his System, or being offline, or what he’d gone through the past week. Although there was one thing he could tell her.
“I think you should turn around and go home. I’m a member of the Crows Guild now.”
Grif laughed. Her little snorts and chuckles echoed around the glade. Her two minions even got in on the action. The one on the right shook his head and spat on the ground. He had a sparse, patchy beard that didn’t fully cover a burn scar. Low on his neck was a tattoo of an exploding sun. Thorn decided to call him “Burns.”
The one on his left was short and bald. Part of his skull had been replaced with metal, either a tech implant or bone repair. One of his eyes glowed with the tell-tale blue hint of machine tech. This one was “Chrome.”
“Nice try,” Grif said. “Might have been believable, even, if you were inside the Crows’ outpost near Aba, and not fleeing four hundred kilometers in the opposite direction.”
“It’s true.”
“No,” Grif said. “It’s not. I checked; you don’t have any affiliations.”
“I do now.”
“And I’m the grandmaster of the Wayfarer’s Guild,” Grif said. “Anyways, I don’t know what you did to disappear from my System, but it’s a good trick. One that you’ll teach me, after you accept the contract I’m giving you.”
She motioned to Burns and Chrome. “But maybe you need a little bit more persuasion.”
The last time Thorn had taken a beating from these guys, it had hurt. They’d pulled their punches, certainly, but they were used to punching down, to preying on the weak and vulnerable.
Burns landed a fist in Thorn’s stomach, intending to double him over.
Thorn took the blow and didn’t even flinch. He surprised himself, but then he remembered he wasn’t just level six. He’d absorbed some of that strange pill, raising his Body attribute to a relative 5x above his baseline, far more than his relative power level would indicate.
Burns took a step back, glanced at Chrome, and tried again. This time he wound up and put some effort into it, twisting his hips and slamming his fist into Thorn’s stomach.
Thorn took a half-step back, exhaling slightly. He’d felt that one.
Chrome came up beside him and decided enough was enough, aiming a vicious kick at Thorn’s knee. All of their moves were telegraphed, their intentions revealed in the direction of their gaze, in the small twitches of mobilizing muscle fibers. All of that information, flowing out of his skill Assess, washed over Thorn in waves.
It was honestly too much information, and he couldn’t process all of it, but so much of it was saying the same thing that he had no trouble utilizing it.
Instead of dodging, Thorn stepped into the kick, bending his knee and taking it on his thigh before it could accelerate fully.
Burns stepped forward, aiming a haymaker at Thorn’s jaw. Thorn blocked the blow with his left arm and stepped inside of Burns’s guard, which was sloppy and low. A quick jab to the nose and Burns was staggering backwards, blood spurting from his nostrils.
Meanwhile, Chrome had recovered his kick and aimed a second, squarely nailing Thorn in the back above his kidney. Thorn saw it coming out of the corner of his eye but couldn’t do anything about it. It was frustrating to see a hit coming but be unable to dodge or block it because his reactions were too slow.
He staggered under the blow; that one was going to leave a bruise. Despite his superior perception and resilience, he was still one guy fighting two, and it was clear these two were more experienced.
Chrome rushed him from behind, pinning Thorn’s arms to his sides.
Burns wiped the blood off his face with a growl. “You’re gonna pay for that.”
“Only if you learn how to punch.” Thorn struggled to free his arms.
Burns stalked over and aimed a haymaker at Thorn’s ribs. Thorn stopped trying to escape Chrome’s grasp; despite his superior Body cultivation, he didn’t have the leverage or the training, or even the raw strength. His bound quintessence seemed to have affected his ability to take damage more than his muscle strength, speed, or coordination.
So he decided to lean into his strength and just take the hit. His ribs creaked slightly, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle. Burns hit him again, and Thorn shrugged it off again.
“Is that all you got?” Thorn said. His arms were pinned behind his back by Chrome, but he had Skills he could use, including a powerful one that required he be in physical contact with another User. He activated Splinter, and a pulse of heat went out through his hands, slamming into Chrome. He felt a tether of quintessence with the other man, and a message appeared in his UI.
No wonder this guy beat people up for a living. With a name like “Sarsaparilla,” he had definitely been bullied as a child.
Chrome…er, “Sarsaparilla” pushed him forward. Thorn landed on his face.
“What was that?” Chrome said. “He was trying something. His hands were heating up or something.”
Thorn didn’t have time to scramble away before Burns was on top of him.
He started up Concentrate and began weaving a tight pattern on Second’s leg.
Burns had been holding out before; he didn’t now. He jumped on Thorn’s back, pinning him to the ground, and began punching Thorn as hard as he could, both hands whaling on the back of Thorn’s head and ribs. The blows hurt, but not near as much as Thorn had expected. They were more like light slaps than full-force punches from a System-User.
Thorn reached behind and grabbed Burns’ leg, starting up Concentrate and weaving a tight pattern.
When he let the Skill go, the explosion was a small one; Thorn couldn’t move away from it, and he didn’t want to hurt himself. But it was enough to knock Burns off his back.
“What the…?” Burns staggered to his feet and lunged after Thorn, but Thorn had been too quick, and was back on his feet.
Thorn blocked the next punch from Chrome and kicked straight backwards. The horse kick connected with Burns, still on his knees and scrambling after Thorn. The blow took Burns in the jaw, knocking him out cold.
Chrome attempted another grab, wrapping his arms around Thorn’s shoulders. A precise fist to the man’s solar plexus doubled him over, and a vicious headbutt to Chrome’s nose knocked him to the ground, blood spurting down his face.
The forest was quiet once more. Thorn looked over at Grif. Her mouth hung open, and her cheeks were flushed.
“Oh, you are in trouble now. So, so much trouble.” She stepped towards Thorn and licked her lips.
Thorn took a wary step back. He wasn’t sure how strong Grif was; he suspected she was a higher level than the goons he’d just fought, and she appeared confident. She had multiple firearms, and she wasn’t concerned after he’d handily defeated Chrome and Burns.
Grif flexed her hand into a fist. She wasn’t angry, fearful, or concerned. Instead, she appeared oddly… excited. That wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. Thorn turned and prepared to flee. He could lose her in the trees and brush; her weapons were short range, and if she chose to use them, he could break line of sight.
He made it a few steps before a stinging whip wrapped around his right leg. He tripped and tasted dirt.
“I’m telling you, you’re making a mistake,” Thorn yelled.
“Keep talking,” Grif said. She pulled on the whip, dragging Thorn back towards her. “I like it when they beg.”
The roar of a dropship’s engines filled the clearing, starting low but soon drowning out all other sound. It descended, its landing gear snapping into position with a sharp clunk.
The pull on his leg from the whip disappeared and Thorn scrambled to his feet. He look at Grif, backing away, and then back at the dropship landing behind him. He made out the stylized image of a crow decorating the back.
The rear hatch of the dropship opened and a familiar face stepped out.
“Am I interrupting something?” Gammon yelled over the noise of the turbines.
“Nope,” Thorn said. “We were just finishing up.”
Grif had a complicated expression on her face: incredulity mixed with immense frustration.
“You sure?” Gammon asked.
Thorn scurried over to pick up his pack, but instead of running back to the waiting Gammon, he took a detour to the two thugs resting in the dirt. He quickly rummaged through their pockets, finding a few pouches that clinked with the satisfying weight of beast cores. Korakis would have been proud.
Thorn gave Grif a mock salute as he leapt onto the ramp of the dropship. It wobbled, and Gammon grabbed him before he fell off. The pilot hadn’t waited for him to get inside before lifting off again, almost tossing him to the ground.
“I leave you alone in the forest for a few hours, and you immediately get into trouble with a woman,” Gammon said. “Some of Lief’s bad habits are rubbing off on you. But at least it looked like you were having a good time.”
“No, not a good time,” Thorn said. “Remember that guy who stole my parking spot? That was the enforcer who-”
“Now, now,” Gammon said. “A real gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Thorn glared at Gammon.
The dropship was moving fast, and they hit some turbulence. Thorn sat down on the bench, leaned back against the wall, and looked for a belt to strap himself in.
Gammon walked to the front and stuck her head into the cockpit, conversing briefly with the pilot.
“We’ll be setting down at the nest in Aba in a few minutes,” Gammon said, walking back from the cockpit. “Put this on.”
Gammon threw a clean jumpsuit with the Crows’ logo on the front at Thorn. He caught it and looked down at himself. He definitely needed a change… and a shower.
“How is Lief?” Thorn asked as he pulled on the clean jump suit. “And Korakis?”
“They’re fine,” Gammon said. “Lief will be laid up for a few days and will need to be fitted for prosthetics before he’s cleared for active missions. Korakis just needs to rest; he’s one tough bird. Despite having his core destroyed and a hole in his chest, he’s probably in better shape than Lief at this point.”
“That’s good,” Thorn said. “Also, thanks for the pickup. I didn’t know I merited a whole dropship.”
“You don’t, but I do,” Gammon said. “Time is tight, and I need you back at the Nest as soon as possible. This is much faster than what I can manage using my Skills.”
“Why is that?” Thorn asked. What could be so urgent? He’d just joined the Crows; orientation or training or whatever could wait a few extra hours or days.
“I’ve lined up your first mission for tomorrow morning, and we have a lot to do in the meantime.”