Ranthia felt much more like herself as she continued Ranger Team 13’s round. More than a few cities and towns seemed to struggle with the concept of a solo Ranger on foot, but no one pushed their challenge. One major benefit to being [Warrior]-tagged was she no longer had to ‘blow her mana’ before she was allowed to enter any town. Not that she had ever reduced her mana much as she got older, but the ridiculous process was required to make the guards happy back when she was [Mage]-tagged. Though honestly, now that they just waved her through, she had even less respect for the inane process. Having a non-[Mage] class wasn’t exactly unheard of!
Pretty much every decent-sized town mandated that she had to let a [Healer] poke her before they let her in, of course. But that bothered her less, even if she did have to step in to restrain an angry villager and let them screen him before the idiot got himself killed outside one town.
Each town she arrived in, she claimed space near the guard facilities to perch atop her crate with the Ranger banner hung up. Being solo meant she had to man the ‘desk’ to see what problems she could help with. Strictly speaking, she helped with numerous things she shouldn’t have bothered with as a Ranger, but even the little tasks helped someone. And doing a bit of good helped offset some of the guilt she still carried.
She felt better, but she wasn’t absolved. Not yet.
In one town she helped the local guard take out a rogue would-be classer who had decided that murdering travellers was the ticket to whatever his goals had been—Ranthia had knifed him while he was monologuing. After that, she helped a little boy find and retrieve his lost kitten.
In another city the only thing she accomplished was that she spoke to a young person that hated their female body. She talked to them about short hairstyles and her favorite styles of men’s tunics. She talked to them about how to hold their posture and body in a more masculine manner (hey, look at that, the time she wasted on her Amaus mirror image paid off a little). She also gave them advice on classes that might help them see something different in the mirror. They seemed to feel better by the end, not that Ranthia truly changed anything about their life.
She loved being a woman, but she wasn’t quite so narrow-minded as to believe that others had to follow suit. Everyone had their own ideals and comfort. The advice she gave was the most she could offer, but the youth had her support.
There was one city where she was unable to help, at least not directly. They didn’t need a single, powerful classer. They needed a prolonged program to help them reduce the number of predators—monsters and beasts, this time—in the area. Instead, she helped them set up a bounty system with the local chapter of the Adventurer’s Guild, bolstered by the mark the Ariminum Guildmaster had given her to increase payouts. …Not, strictly speaking, exactly what he meant it to be used for, but she suspected he would be fine with it in this situation. Probably.
If not, that was his problem.
In another tiny town there was nothing they really needed her help with, but they asked her to lead their morning town exercises while she was there. She had more fun than she expected with that and helped several people with their forms and routine. It was a cute little showing of community.
Almost every town, she stayed a little longer than she was supposed to. There was just so much she could do to improve people’s lives, and every positive mark helped balance out her shortcomings. She strived to make it up on the roads, but this left her almost chronically behind schedule. Every time she started to even things back out, a bigger delay held her up for a little longer.
She also went through sandals at an alarming rate. She had wildly underestimated how well-made her Ranger-issued sandals had been. Civilian ones hated her dancing motions and broke constantly. She was forced to dig into Ranger Team 13’s coin stores meant for team use, since her personal funds were depleted. She refused to count what was left, she didn’t want to deal with the what-if. If it ran out… well, she adamantly refused to touch the stored away remaining personal coin of any of her fallen teammates.
Spring returned. She celebrated by spending two weeks trying to hunt down a dinosaur that had terrorized the area. When she finally found and killed it, the beast was only level 214. It wasn’t even a fight; she ended the battle within moments, at the cost of three of her dwindling supply of knives. It was an anticlimactic finale to a remarkably frustrating hunt through rain that seemed to refuse to quit. Once again, she was behind schedule.
Ranthia’s 23rd birthday came while she literally carried a young woman back to the town she had left prior to reaching the city she met the woman in. The woman had just learned that her childhood best friend was very pregnant with twins and would soon give birth, alone. Her husband had died—or cheated on her and left and/or was killed over it; the story changed a few times while they journeyed. This young woman desperately wanted to get back to her friend but couldn’t afford to hire anyone to take her to such a small town.
Ranthia helped her for two reasons. The first was that no one should be alone and left unsupported due to the actions of someone else. The second, of course, was that she could easily tell that the young woman she assisted had… feelings for her childhood friend. So yes, Ranthia felt like a matchmaking heroine from a [Bard]’s tale as she ran the roads, carrying a total stranger in her arms!
The thought raised questions that she quashed, of course. Yes, she was aware and—more or less—accepted that she was probably in [Bard] songs again. A certain piece of her was curious about what the songs were like, but she also knew that—at best—the songs would be bittersweet for her to hear. It was all but impossible to have much enthusiasm for the prospect. And, yes, there was also a real chance that some wealthy idiot that owned much of the wrecked part of Massilix would try to use [Bards] to smear her name and blame her—and worse, the other Rangers—over the devastation. And she wasn’t sure if she could react kindly.
And yes, Ranthia actually ran. Sadly, it would have been quite rude to make her cargo passenger dizzy by twirling and dancing about like a lunatic while she carried the young woman. On arrival, she enjoyed watching the happy reunion until she realized that she was being a voyeur, shamelessly watching what might be a happy couple’s reunion, at which point she quickly made herself scarce. No thanks were necessary, and the backtracking had cost her precious time.
Of course, her final stop for the round had to be a major problem.
It was never a good sign when one arrived at the town gates to find dead bodies. That was fairly obvious, as far as observations went, but only a few were normal people—a dozen or so of the bodies were guards in full drab gear. Worse, once she got closer, it was clear that they had been killed by the acts of men, not monsters. The wounds were caused by arrows and other weaponry, though the arrows had been plucked back out of the bodies.
Ranthia went into the woods a ways and hid her crate, with the Ranger banner set over it, in some bushes. Hopefully it was well out of sight, but if anyone found it, she wanted them to hesitate as much as she could make them.
In terms of gear, she was in decent shape. The arcanite in the remnants of her vest had recharged and was available, as was her choker’s bit. She was tempted to grab the slab of arcanite that had been in the wagon, but there wasn’t a great way to secure it and she still hadn’t attuned it—she had no idea if that would make it problematic for use for future Rangers and wasn’t delusional enough to believe that she’d be allowed to keep it. Knife-wise, her belt was stocked and she had half a belt’s worth of spares in the crate. Which wasn’t much and she wished she had time to rig up something to let her carry her spares.
Minimal Void use it was! A terrible decision, but she had no idea if the situation was hot or cold; she needed to get moving.
Inside the city, things seemed grim. It was late afternoon, yet every door was sealed shut. No one was out on the streets. The market was abandoned—seemingly while the stalls were in the midst of setting up, goods left scattered about in the open. The city was eerily quiet.
But thank Xaoc, Ranthia had enough vitality that she could hear fearful voices deep within buildings. A child cried about her mother’s absence. A bartender cursed his decision to seal up an old smuggling tunnel his grandfather had kept. A father whispered comforts to his children and begged them to keep quiet. The people were alive, but this also meant that whatever was happening was probably ongoing. Or at least fresh.
There were more bodies too, as she progressed. More city guards, a few civilians that got caught up in the mess or tried to fight back against whatever force entered their city. The first courier shop she passed blazed merrily in the sunlight and the inside reeked of the scent of charred meat. So, they were trying to prevent messengers from seeking help, that was actually promising. It meant that whatever force did this wasn’t so overwhelming they had confidence in their ability to hold if they were caught before they could entrench.
Xaoc willing, a level 301 Ranger was one of the things they feared. Not that solo Rangers were the norm, she was supposed to have returned to Ariminum after all—but helping others was too important. And maybe it was for the best; it had her where she needed to be (oh Xaoc, she hoped so, at least).
Ranthia continued to progress deeper into the city, hands held ready to draw knives in an instant. She walked—no dance, no run—while she surveyed the situation and kept her senses on high alert. Rushing was foolish in a situation like this; the best case involved making an even worse mess out of the situation if she rushed into things. Everything beyond that risk was so much worse.
It chilled her that she never found anyone wounded or in need of help. Only the dead and those safe, hidden from view. A thorough enemy painted a bleak picture for the situation.
Near the governor’s estate, she finally found people out in the open. The remnants of the city guard surrounded the mansion and shouted back and forth with someone inside. There were no immediate sounds of combat or slaughter, so she ducked into a side alley and waited while she listened.
The guard were probably on the side of good (ugh), but there was always a risk that they were trying to overthrow the governor in some short-sighted power grab or something. She needed information before she made her move.
Thankfully, the situation revealed itself in short order. A group of self-proclaimed anti-imperial freedom fighters had smashed their way into town and killed their way to the governor’s estate. Now they held him and his family and staff hostage. The fools had an endless stream of improbable demands, from a million rods to impossibly speedy carriages.
Seriously, even if there were horses at that high of a level, the fancy wagon would shake itself to bits. They’d had enough trouble with the overbuilt Ranger wagon when they had to rush! And they’d never had horses even close to that level.
The situation seemed stable, so Ranthia chose to wait. A bit of darkness would make things a lot easier on her since she didn’t have backup. Fortunately, late in the evening their ‘negotiations’ broke off, which meant it was a great time to quietly approach the guardswoman that seemed to be in charge. Especially since the woman had stepped away to take a moment to herself; Ranthia wanted a minimal reaction to her presence, lest the idiots learn something was up.
There was no avoiding it, but Ranthia still cringed when the woman jumped with fright when Ranthia approached. At least she didn’t shriek.
“Apologies, I’m with the Rangers. I wanted to speak to you alone before any of those lunatics learn a Ranger is in town.” Ranthia spoke quickly, angling her chest to make her badge more prominent.
After a moment, the guardswoman recovered and introduced herself, ignorant of how pointless that was with Ranthia.
“I was just a regular member of the guard yesterday, but the captain and most of the senior guards are dead. I just kind of ended up in charge because nobody else stepped up.” The woman admitted.
For a nice change of pace, the guard seemed to not second-guess Ranthia’s status as a Ranger for a single moment. That or she was just relieved to see a classer at twice her level that she could nominally trust.
“You’ve done great. Give me a quick overview of the situation. Do you already have a plan you’re working towards?” Ranthia asked as she closed in a bit more so they could talk more quietly.
“Thanks, Ranger. This lot showed up last night while the gate was closed. They seemed content to wait, but they kept shouting about how they were going to recruit our citizens to fight the empire and how we should be honored that our city would be ground zero for the great rebellion. The governor ordered us to keep the gates shut. Come dawn, when the gates didn’t open, they attacked. They got classers over our walls who opened the gates from the inside. The guards at the gate, along with the other travelers that had queued up to get into town, were butchered. The captain set up several defensive choke points while the rest of us got people to hide. The choke points barely slowed them down. There were 52 of them, at last count. They went straight for the governor’s mansion and smashed their way in. I don’t know for sure what happened in there, but they claim the governor and his family are alive. For now.
“We don’t really have a plan. The best I’ve been able to do is to try to keep them talking. If we charge the mansion things will get very bloody…”
Ranthia was silent while she digested the information.
“How many of your squad are here, Ranger?” The guardswoman asked, in a hopeful tone.
“…It’s… It’s just me.” Ranthia replied uncomfortably.
“Oh…” There was a lot packed into that quiet response.
The silence lingered for several long moments.
“I’ll go in after dark. If I’m stealthy enough, maybe I can free the governor and his family before they figure out something has gone wrong. For now, let’s keep the other guards ignorant that a Ranger is here, so they don’t make a commotion and put the rebels on high alert.” Ranthia decided.
The guardswoman nodded and led Ranthia to the far side of the alley. She knew somewhere where they could wait, she said, just before they stepped out of the alley.
“Guards! One of the vile fiends has captured our leader! Arrest him!” Someone cried out almost immediately.
Ranthia just groaned, as several men tried to ram into her and pin her down.
“Even when I’m wearing my damned Ranger badge? Seriously? I still can’t get through an interaction with guards without someone trying to arrest me?” Ranthia grumbled and cursed while she stood there, effectively rendering their efforts to pin her down entirely ineffectual.
The tyranny of stats—as she well knew—was an absolute beast.
Darkness fell.
The guardswoman had talked her fellows down before Ranthia had to hurt anyone. And soon Ranthia would have to try to figure out how she was going to deal with 52 thugs—many of whom were classers—with less than half that many knives.
Still, Ranthia was glad she had hidden the crate. The remaining guards didn’t strike her as especially trustworthy—the arcanite slab alone was worth a fortune, assuming they could find a buyer. Without it, she was able to move far more stealthily as she carefully crept through the shadows toward the governor’s manor. She still had to bite down the absurd urge to dance through the shadows, but so long as she moved carefully the gloom should make her less visible.
[Vision of the Void], of course, let her see quite well, so she carefully watched the roof, windows, and yard for signs of patrols or individuals on guard duty. The city guard had been convinced they were all holed up inside, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were stupid enough to skip basic precautions.
[*ding!* You have unlocked the General Skill [Stealth]! Would you like to replace a skill with [Stealth]?]
[Stealth]: Sure, your footfalls make no noise, but you do realize that there is more to stealth. Right? Instead of putting lives in needless danger, take this skill and embrace a skillset that you have literally no formal training for and limited experience with.
Ranthia was giving the system no small amount of mental side-eye (she had experience with stealth!), but she dropped [Whistling] and took the skill. [Ranger’s Lore] and [Rhythmic Grace] were already helping a little—though she refused the temptation to try to invent a way to dance stealthily, the skillsets seemed to be diametrically opposed—but the new skill actually pulled its weight immediately. It helped her find better shadows to move in and the correct visual angles to stay at to make her harder to spot. It was a brand-new low level skill though, so it wasn’t like she trusted it implicitly. For example: yes, that shadow was a bit darker, but it was literally in the opposite direction, so no.
She stalked around the perimeter of the manor until she found an open set of shutters with one of the idiotic rebels against the windowsill with his back to the open sky. Carefully, Ranthia climbed up the wall and peeked around him. It was a perfect point of entry; she saw nobody else in the room.
She braced her body, then sprang up and grabbed the man by the side of his head (should have had shorter hair, idiot), then pushed herself off the wall with her feet to pull him out from the window. She kicked off the wall at the last moment and used the momentum to flip through the air and swap their positions. He needed to hit first.
The rebel’s head slammed into the ground, and she landed on him. The sickening crack beneath her suggested that she’d broken bone somewhere on him, but she had extremely limited sympathy. The more important thing was that he was out cold. And there wasn’t even a kill notification!
She climbed back up to the room only to find… another man, unconscious. His nose was broken from a kick to the face and a little blood—not his—leaked from his mouth. She looked between him and the man she had left in the shadows behind the house. He had clearly gotten kicked in the face when her panicked victim thrashed, which meant at the time he was on his knees and…
Seriously? Indulging in pleasures after you took part in murdering dozens of people and while holding more lives hostage? Ranthia openly judged them harshly. She did stop to bind and gag the unconscious man with the broken nose before she dragged him behind some furniture. The one she left outside would just get grabbed by the guard if he made much noise, so she hadn’t worried about binding him.
Ranthia moved into the manor’s halls and carefully crept around. [Stealth] levelled quickly between its newness and the high stakes involved in the situation. Over 50 opponents at once would be dangerous, even with most of them closer to a third of her own level (thank Xaoc for Remus’ shit level averages). Sure, odds were most of the rebels weren’t classers—yet—but there was real danger, nonetheless. Plus, the real risk was to the hostages, those she was dutybound to save.
Death was for those that deserved it. If she had anything to say about it, Black Crow was done with the innocents of the city.
As much as she liked the idea of eliminating enemies as she went, she was smart enough to avoid the rebels for now. If she took out more than a few there was a real risk that they’d notice, at which point the hostages were in immediate danger. Plus, no matter her darker inclinations; she really, really didn’t want to start openly butchering swaths of people that were weaker than her. …Especially since that practically promised to end in them trying to swarm her, and she wasn’t fond of her odds if she had to fight the bulk of the group at once. Overall, it was much easier to duck into rooms or hide in shadows and let individuals and small groups pass.
The rebels seemed to be milling about directionless and bored. They weren’t performing patrols, instead they were putting in transparent efforts to find small pocketable treasures that someone else hadn’t found. There was no thorough screening of rooms, just a quick peek for shiny stuff or maybe an opened drawer or two before they moved on. Which was for the best. Things would get bad if they found the man she left tied up behind some furniture before she found the hostages.
If only she had any clue whatsoever about where to look. She had never even been inside of a manor anywhere near this scale before—her peek into Aquiliea’s governor’s smaller estate didn’t count. By the windows visible from outside there seemed to be three levels to the building, assuming nothing of merit was underground.
Most of the rebels she bypassed were quiet or spoke of nothing interesting. The rarer ones that conversed about the situation were worth the risk of shadowing within earshot for a time. Well, earshot by her standards, anyway; her vitality was still hard to believe. [Vision of the Void] had gotten strong enough that she could, just barely and somewhat dimly, see through certain thinner interior walls of the mansion. Score one for the wealthy being cheap on the important stuff. It allowed her to see into most of the rooms to some extent—enough to confirm there were no hostages, at least—without having to risk opening every single door she passed. There were rooms with one to three people sprawled out on nice furniture—probably just asleep—but she sorely doubted they were prisoners given the lack of security.
The Skill also let her see some sights she wished she hadn’t from other amorous rebels and painted a somewhat bleak picture of the character of the governor. The rooms used by the servants were very minimal, with multiple low-quality cots stuffed into small rooms. There was no trace of creature comforts, and they were never in rooms with windows. Slave labor that was provided with the bare minimum, without dignity. All so the governor could have like fifty-six sitting rooms. Gods and goddesses, how she hated men like that.
Not that she was in any danger of siding with the rebels, no matter how terrible the governor was. Most of the rebels were loudly gloating about the treasures they had plundered, the kills they had made, or how the Empire would learn just how serious they were. Or claiming that they owned the city now, which was almost adorably na?ve.
A rare few that she overheard seemed upset over the bloodshed and had serious doubts about their cause. The phrase “not what I signed on for” was bandied about by these few in various forms. The fact that they were the quietest conversations suggested they feared their fellows though, so the problem was unlikely to solve itself.
Unfortunately, none of them discussed the location of the hostages for no reason. It would have made her life so much simpler if the thugs had been that convenient.
When she came to a stairwell, she went up to the third level, rather than down to the first. The stairs themselves creaked noisily, which forced her to scramble up the banisters instead.
There seemed to be fewer rebels that milled about on the third floor. The few she found stood in fixed positions—effectively screening off part of the floor—and were at a higher level. Before, every rebel she had seen had been level 120 or less—some barely half that number. Up here, every rebel she saw had passed their level 128 class up, though typically in only one class. And instead of being [Laborer] or [Artisan] tagged they were all [Warrior] or [Ranger] tagged, with a rare [Mage] here and there.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Ranthia explored what she could. [Stealth] leveled even faster, as she crept carefully through the halls without fixed sentries. She thought she was doing well, up until she encountered her first actual patrol. She was forced to duck into a little sitting room—always with the empty sitting rooms—and hide. Frustration gnawed at her, at least until there was the sound of a door being slammed through the far wall, followed by raised voices.
“I can’t believe you killed him! The bastard was our hostage! Our only real hostage! My mother and the slaves we locked in the cellar aren’t going to stop the guard or the 3rd Legion when they arrive!” A young woman’s voice shrieked.
“Hey, back off! You’re lucky we let you join up with us. We’ll make this work; nobody knows he’s dead other than the three of us. We keep it from our men, we keep it from the guards. We can make it work.” Another woman’s voice replied, more mature and composed than the first.
“It wasn’t my fault! I didn’t think he’d die that easily!” A man whined.
“Shut up, both of you! Here, give me your dagger. We’ll cut off one of the body’s ears while it’s fresh, throw it out to the guards. Tell ‘em we cut it off one of the slaves we caught. Tell ‘em we’ll keep sending ‘em the hostages in pieces until they meet our demands. And let’s make some real fucking demands—stop letting those idiots use you as a mouthpiece. Seriously, who ever heard of a flying ship? We sound like total idiots when we make demands like that.” The older woman snapped.
“Oooh let me cut the ear off. I’ve hated that bastard my whole life. You took the kill from me, but it’ll still feel good to cut pieces off of him.” The younger woman all but purred.
Ranthia tuned out the rest of the enthusiastic bloodlust. So, the governor was dead. Someone from the manor had joined with the rebels, very plausibly the governor’s daughter given some of what was said. And the rest of the hostages were in the cellar. Which meant that needed to be her next destination; she needed to free the hostages before she could confront the group.
It took time as she dodged patrols and skulked about, but finally Ranthia made her way back to the stairwell and slowly proceeded down to the first floor. The rebels down there were more sedentary and practically everything that looked valuable that wasn’t nailed down had been taken. The telltale sight of toothmarks and a small smear of blood suggested that some enterprising fool had even attempted to chew the gold disc free from its heavy wooden frame, it seemed.
Ranthia still took care as she crept about until, finally, she found a room that housed a single rebel and a thick, sturdy door recessed into the floor. Even better, the guard seemed to have passed out; the man was snoring, one arm still hanging inside an open wine cask that he had set next to his plush chair.
Ranthia just smiled to herself and tied up and gagged the drunken fool, unchallenged. Ranger Academy had taught her how to properly tie up even [Warrior] classers like this guy; the trick was to use bindings that prevented them from leveraging their full strength to free themselves. Using their fingers worked best, though it was rare she had quite so much impunity to do such an elaborate setup. Still, she couldn’t risk this guy getting free. It was even worth cutting up her good rope.
Once he was secure, she liberated the key from him—when had she gotten numb to something as wastefully extravagant as indoor locks?—and crept down the few steps to carefully unlock and open the cellar door. Below, three men and ten times as many women were huddled. The idiots hadn’t even bothered to tie them up.
The prisoners recoiled back as Ranthia approached.
“Try to keep quiet! I’m Ranthia of Ranger Team 13. I’m here to help but I need everyone to stay very quiet and do exactly what I say. I snuck in, these crazy idiots are still active up there.” Ranthia quietly spoke.
Ranthia repeated herself several times as she moved through the prisoners to check on them. Several had wounds and some of the women had clearly been… abused, but nothing was life threatening or needed urgent treatment. She did give away her bandages though, two of the slaves claimed to know some basic first aid.
Almost every one of the hostages had to touch her, to assure themselves that she was real. She tried to stoically tolerate it; she knew they were terrified. The woman dressed in once-fine tattered clothing, the governor’s wife, helped to reassure and calm them down. Paradoxically, she seemed a decent person, despite her husband and probable daughter.
“Okay, I’m going to leave the door open but please stay down here. Don’t try and come up. I want them to assume I got all of you out if anyone pokes their head into the room upstairs. If they don’t think they have any prisoners, we Rangers will be able to take them out. If any of you are seen, the danger increases for every one of you. Understand?”
Ranthia watched them all nod. She could only pray they obeyed. Odds are someone would panic and try to make a run for it, but…
Godsdamnit, there was only so much she could do. They might be safer if she locked the door and took the key with her, but she had no idea if there were other copies of the key or any lockpicks among the rebels. Plus, there was a real risk that someone would set the manor on fire out of desperation, and she needed to believe the prisoners had a way out.
She returned to the room with the drunken idiot, then removed her ranger badge and wrapped her blindfold around it before she tucked it into a pouch. With that done, she loosely set rope around her feet and wrists to make it—hopefully—look like she was another rebel in slightly better gear that had been knocked out and tied up too. Once she was done, she shut her eyes, threw out a mirror image, and shifted to it.
Dawn would come soon. She was up against roughly fifty opponents. Going straight for the leaders was dangerous, the best case scenario there had a heavy risk of the other rebels becoming desperate and doing something stupid. The worst case would have her rushed by every rebel at once as they fought to save their leader.
Picking them off one at a time still was a non-option. They were sloppier than she expected, but she wasn’t [The Final Knife]—or whatever its evolution would have been. She chose [Blade Dancer] and became [She who Dances with Chaos]. She was no master of stealth that could rapidly take down fifty opponents in rapid succession before anyone noticed.
No, there was only one viable strategy that came to mind, and it made her heart sing.
She would cause chaos.
She would be chaos.
She no longer had quite as much arcanite as she used to carry—not with her vest half destroyed—but Ranthia was in her Adventurer armor. She had access to its arcanite once again. Not that she always needed to shift; she found that she got an incredible amount of use out of throwing out an image and using [Echoes Reflected] to laugh or whisper an insult before she dismissed the image. The image was only there for a moment, and she was able to get rid of the image before the slow rebels noticed it.
Until one did—and freaked out about a ‘ghost’! Gods, that was brilliant and gave her ideas.
First, some of the more jumpy, skittish rebels began to report that they saw a scary-looking, bloodied spirit wearing armor with unholy, soulless eyes that whispered that they had invoked the ire of the dead. That had annoyed their leadership.
Then, on the heels of the ghost rumors, brawls broke out across the mansion. Rebels would find personal belongings or pillaged treasures sticking out of the pockets and pouches of their comrades. Or they gleefully retaliated over an attack. Sometimes it was insults that were whispered too loudly getting punished. The problems were many but the brawling rapidly worsened, especially as fighting groups collided with one another.
Then, those that avoided the brawls rapidly reported more and more ‘ghost’ incidents. Laughter heard from rooms that turned out to be empty. Screams or cries for help from dead ends.
Nerves frayed amongst the rebels as the sun came up. Allegations ran rampant among them. Order was always thin for a group that came together like a mob, but problems bloomed faster than anyone could have possibly hoped to deal with them. The leadership was challenged in whispers and glares as they tried to use threats to get things under control.
Unconscious rebels began to be found scattered across the mansion.
Then a panicked rebel reported that the level 148 guard was found unconscious, tied up with a woman, and the prisoners had escaped.
That report had come in very loudly and things broke down even further as far, far too many ears overheard the woman. Whispers of the 3rd Legion’s approach had begun to circulate too (that rumor Ranthia couldn’t even take credit for; scared rebels came up with that one all by themselves).
The once barely cohesive group shattered into factions shortly after the sun rose. One faction was comprised of those that wanted to surrender. Then there were those that wanted to go out and fight the guards and try to escape the city before the 3rd Legion arrived. There were, of course, those that trusted their leaders implicitly—often for lack of any personal will to do anything without orders. But the biggest problem—for everyone involved—was those that wanted to be in charge and felt they could do better, each creating their own little factions.
Of those final groups, one of the lower level, but cleverer would-be leaders disappeared. Rumors circulated that another faction that favored strength over everything had captured him. When his followers broke into the territory of the mansion that the alleged captors controlled, they found their leader bruised and unconscious in a room that had a chair braced against the door. They attacked.
In-fighting grew more and more savage as factions clashed and assumed grudges turned into true hate. Throats were slit and weapons were turned against former allies. All the while others who tried to restore order disappeared.
By lunch time, the leadership had gathered their handful of trusted, loyal minions and barricaded themselves upstairs with the body of the governor. By then they had finally accepted that every time they sent a man or three to investigate, their agents never returned.
For what felt like the eightieth time, Ranthia popped back into her real body to ensure it was still where she left it. Fortunately, she seemed to have caused enough chaos that nobody was bothering to mess with anyone unconscious. They also hadn’t yet actually gone into the cellar either, thank Xaoc they did as she hoped—they were half-assed enough to just assume the open door meant that the prisoners had somehow escaped.
Ranthia never quite was able to trust or believe it when a plan went exactly as she hoped. It left her feeling like she was waiting for something she missed or couldn’t plan for, something that was going to ruin everything. The longer everything went right, the worse the feeling got.
At that point she had put down nearly half of the rebels—not counting those that had been knocked out or killed by their fellows—and was ready to focus on the leadership. She sent a prayer to Xaoc and, once again, dedicated the chaos she had wrought to her patron deity. Then she settled her true body into the awkward, limp position that made it look unconscious and shifted to the mirror image she had left hidden inside a wardrobe on the third floor.
The leadership had barricaded themselves into the governor’s office and its connected rooms. First, there was the sitting room with four guards (thank you, whichever idiot kept saying “the four of us”), then past it was the office proper, where an unknown number of individuals waited. Of course, the office itself just had to have thick wooden walls that [Vision of the Void] couldn’t see through at all. Even with her vitality it was soundproofed enough that she couldn’t make out voices well enough to tell what they were saying or how many people were in there. When she’d overheard the three before, they had relocated to a different room to argue, but that room was abandoned now.
From here, she wouldn’t be able to hold back. Ranthia had been trying to just knock out the rebels—many of them were just caught up in the leaders’ plots—using what she had learned in the Hand-to-Hand Combat course at the Academy. But she wasn’t stupid enough to fight their higher level classers unarmed. There was some merit to taking them alive so they could be questioned, but they were the ones who had allowed so much death to visit the people of the city; she wasn’t going to lose sleep over killing the leaders and their inner circle.
She spared a moment to mentally brace herself, then boldly walked up to and knocked on the barricaded door.
“Message from one of your scouts you sent downstairs.” She tried to rely on her old voice training to sound masculine. She was rusty, but she hoped it would pass muster. She also had no idea if they had any sort of code phrases set up, so she went with a fairly broad and curiosity-inducing hook.
A few whispers, then the telltale sound of furniture being moved away from the door. Shortly thereafter, the door unlocked and a head poked out.
Ranthia calmly triggered [Void Edge] and deposited a knife in his eye socket before he had time to react.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Hero of the Revolution] (Wind, level 131), [Apprentice Woodcutter] (Wood, level 66)!]
Ranthia kicked the door open and threw mirror images into the room as fast as she could create them, having each lunge at one of the three remaining men in the room. They weren’t her best work, she was more than a bit distracted from controlling them, but it created an ample amount of confusion. Ranthia followed her images in and went for two of the rebels that had backed against a wall side-by-side.
She waited for them to hesitate when they realized the images broke when they touched them. Then made her move and drove fully empowered knives into the hearts of both men.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Revolutionary Leader’s Trusted Bodyguard] (Metal, level 158), [Swordsman] (Metal, level 129)!]
[*ding!* You have slain a [Rebel Without a Cause] (Earth, level 140), [Kill the Weak] (Water, level 129)!]
The last man screamed—damnit—as he continued to smash mirror images with his iron club. There was no more point in stealth, Ranthia allowed herself to slip into the natural rhythm of a dance and twirled up to him. The images stopped moving as she neared the man.
The man stood ready; his eyes locked on the strange moving version of the same woman. And that was when she had one of her images lunge at his unprotected side. The man spun in a panic, swinging his club for it.
More or less at the exact same moment he smashed the image, Ranthia swept her Void-infused knife through the back of his head.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Crush Them Until They Stop Moving] (Earth, level 171), [Hold Her Down] (Forest, level 130)!]
Ranthia took a moment to spit on his corpse, once she processed that kill notification.
It was always nice when bad guys managed to be so excessively evil that they erased any trace of doubt or guilt Ranthia might have had over killing the rebels. It also spoke volumes that the inner circle of the leadership had included not only a murderer and a rapist, but individuals that were so obsessed with those acts that they clearly had entire classes devoted to them.
Four knives down, she was fine. And there was no time to waste either, not after the last man had managed to call out a warning. Ranthia charged straight at the door to the office proper and kicked it open. The door was pretty, but it wasn’t sturdy.
[Combat Awareness] and [Rhythmic Grace] saved her life. Even as the door smashed open, her Skills desperately insisted that she needed to get clear of the door. She dove to the side and released the channel she’d been holding, starting the process of shifting.
Searing agony from her side filled her consciousness—had she not already released the channel an instant before the attack hit she might have lost the channel. Ranthia’s shifting process completed and she got to watch the thick beam of radiance shatter the scorched body she had just vacated.
Ranthia cursed in her mind. Of fucking course one of the leaders just had to be a trice-cursed Radiance [Mage]. Common sense said that she, as a Mirror [Mage] could utterly wreck them; Mirror [Mages] were the natural predators of Radiance [Mages] after all. Radiance [Mages] famously were unable to touch a Mirror [Mage]. There were tales of Mirror [Mages] that were many, many levels below their opponents killing Radiance [Mages].
…Of course, she was probably the only Mirror [Mage] in Remus’ entire gods-cursed history that had nothing in her class that could counter Radiance! Instead, it was one of the worst matchups possible. Radiance [Mages] could fire beams of painful death at speeds that were far beyond her ability to react. Her only possible countermeasure was to identify the angle of attack and evade or counter it before the [Mage] loosed it.
Put in less flattering terms, she was wholly reliant on her opponent being a complete idiot. Because she was at a severe disadvantage against Radiance [Mages]. Which meant that it was time to be creative.
It was time to bluff.
“I am Sentinel Mirror; you are all under arrest! Surrender and come quietly, or you leave in a bag after someone scrapes you off the wall!” She called out.
Footsteps. Ranthia stood ready, one knife held loosely in case she needed to throw it.
A man stepped around the corner and came into the sitting room, his hands held above his head. He looked her over and smirked.
“Stupid Ranger.” He taunted.
Too late, Ranthia realized her error. His hands were up, yes, but his finger was pointed at the center of her face. There was no time. She hadn’t even begun to channel and her mana was getting worryingly low—she’d even drained her arcanite unleashing chaos and checking on her true body! There was no time to duck and get her head clear, not with Radiance.
[Rhythmic Grace] was her only hope. Ranthia put all her hope into the skill’s guidance and moved with it, a graceful, simple little dance. [Void Edge] activated in her knife. [True Grace], [Flowing Momentum], and even [Echoes of Devastation] kicked in.
The Radiance beam didn’t just come. The damned element meant that the attack arrived instantaneously. Void-touched knife met Radiance beam. For a few precious instants the Void consumed the Radiance—and the knife. It stalled the attack just long enough for her to twirl her head clear of the beam’s path. Then the Void consumed the knife and dissipated.
Her imminent death became a clean dodge.
Hurriedly, she threw mirror images around the man as fast as she could manage; she had to get him on the back foot before he could unleash another attack. [Reflective Motility] animated them and [Mirrored Moves] let them attack like she would.
The rebel responded with another skill. A ring of Radiance formed around his waist. The mirror images were destroyed when they got too close. Thank Xaoc, he was stupid enough to be one of Remus’ standard [Mages] that thought he had to point at his targets. Beams of Radiance—thinner than before—burst from his fingertips. Only one beam at a time though.
With his ponderous gestures, Ranthia was able to dodge while she danced around him. The man had a pattern, which meant that he was predictable.
[Mage – Radiance] level 237, [Leader – Sound] level 135.
Speed had to be his worst stat, the man was positively glacial compared to her. The problem was his spells were practically instant, which evened the playing field more than she liked. She could dodge him with a bit of range, but if she closed in the timing advantage favored him.
Fortunately, the man lacked vision; he was touched by order. His pattern of attack was simplistic and very predictable. It was either the most bizarre life-risking attempt to trick her into thinking he was predictable, or he was unaware that he kept alternating through the exact same pattern of four attacks over and over. So yes, it could be a trick, but she was willing to gamble, especially since she was gambling on chaos besting someone deluded by order.
Ranthia started to channel—yes, honestly, she should have started the process sooner, but she had hoped to conserve mana—while she waited. Then she had to hold it until, at last, the time was right. He was just about to reposition before he started his pattern again. She sent a mirror image right in front of him and began the process to shift into it, even as she had it lunge at him. The instant before it hit the wide ring of Radiance he still had around his waist—that had been the hardest bit of the timing—she slipped into the image.
It burned, but agony was an old friend thanks to the duel with the kraken. Without that unwanted experience, she might not have considered such a reckless and self-destructive plan.
Ranthia’s knives were already at the perfect height as she pirouetted. The Radiance hurt, but her vitality was high enough—compared to his magic power—that she wasn’t being vaporized, just burned. One knife passed through his throat, guided by [Flowing Momentum]. [Void Edge] erased a large chunk of it. [Echoes of Devastation] deepened. Then the second knife slashed through what was left.
[*ding!* You have slain a [Radiant Figurehead] (Radiance, level 237), [Charismatic Speaker] (Sound, level 135)!]
His body collapsed almost immediately, just before his severed head hit the floor and rolled. The impact knocked away the cocky grin he had worn in life.
It was a bad move, but Ranthia ground her teeth until she finished her channel and shifted to an intact image. Her flesh was restored, but the skirt of her Adventurer armor was little more than smoky scraps of brittle ash. From the right angles she was already indecent, and more pieces flaked and crumbled by the moment. She had better things to do than worry about indecency though.
She was under a thousand mana, but she still held her head up high, drew two of her precious few remaining knives, and calmly walked into the office.
The two women that were inside looked at one another. Then the older one, a surprisingly plain and ordinary-looking blonde woman a bit older than Ranthia, sighed and knelt while she put her hands behind her head. The younger cursed colorfully, but followed suit, even as she began to try to throw everyone else under the proverbial wagon, insisting on her own innocence.
After the women were securely bound, Ranthia stole a blanket from one of the bedrooms on the third floor, returned to her true body, then went outside to retrieve the city guard. They rushed in and subdued the still skirmishing remnants of the rebels in short order, while Ranthia and a few ‘elite’ guards went to the cellar until the bulk of the guards were done securing the rebels. After that was finally in control, Ranthia led the acting guard captain woman with her ‘elites’ upstairs to where she had tied up the two female leaders that had surrendered.
“Thank you, Ranger Ranthia. I greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter.” The guardswoman announced with a bright smile, while her people freed the women enough to let them walk.
The older woman started to scream into her gag and thrashed, but one of the guards clubbed her with his baton and dragged her off without stopping. The younger woman went quietly, subdued. One of the guards even carried the head of the Radiance guy, seemingly without regard to the fact that it was still leaking. The governor’s body was in the corner where the rebels had left it, and no one quite seemed to know what to do with it.
Ranthia was impatient to continue her journey and it showed. Finally, the next day, the guardswoman said she believed that was all that ‘the Rangers’ (as if there were more than just Ranthia) could do in the city. A short goodbye later, Ranthia was off.
She was late. The Summer Solstice was getting dangerously close.
And she had another stop to make.
She paused only to retrieve her—thankfully unmolested—crate and change into a men’s tunic with the remnants of her armor worn awkwardly over it. It was uncomfortable, but at least she wouldn’t get any more exhibitionistic levels out of [Sexy].
Speaking of levels, she felt almost disappointed when she reviewed them while she moved as quickly as she could for her next destination.
[*ding!* [Echoes Reflected] has leveled from 119 to level 163!]
[*ding!* [Mirrored Moves] has leveled from 101 to level 105!]
[*ding!* [Distorted Likeness] has leveled from 88 to level 90!]
[*ding!* [Void Affinity] has reached level 294!]
[*ding!* [Vision of the Void] has leveled from 104 to level 109!]
[*ding!* [Ranthia’s Covenant with Xaoc] has leveled from 88 to level 90!]
[*ding!* [Stealth] has leveled from 1 to level 73!]
[*ding!* [Combat Awareness] has leveled from 295 to level 297!]
[*ding!* [Fast Learner] has reached level 221!]
[*ding!* [Image Recall] has leveled from 175 to level 178!]
Realistically, she knew not every pitched battle could provide absurd levels, but it was still disappointing to only get a few skill levels out of the mix. Especially considering that she had no plans to keep [Stealth], so its level gains would just increase the nausea she got to experience when she dropped it.
“Vert!” Ranthia called out.
She had been worried that the young woman wouldn’t still be there. The sun was up fully, and she was days late. Plus, there’d been more than a small chance that the young woman would have decided to not try to become a Ranger—or that she’d been scamming Ranthia the entire time.
Gods, even Ranthia had second-guessed herself on visiting. After her round, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to subject the kid to life as a Ranger.
But there she was. No longer scrawny and filthy, but lean and clean. She had the physique of someone that exercised regularly—both athletic and powerful. It hadn’t quite been two years yet since they last met, but the young woman was barely recognizable! Gods and goddesses, what some people could become if they were given regular meals and a goal.
…Why was she surprised, again? She herself knew this better than most people!
“Ranger! I… was worried you had changed your mind!” Vert’s face twisted into a vibrant grin.
“Sorry, sorry! This round’s… been a lot. Unfortunately, I don’t have the wagon anymore, can you run?” Ranthia replied.
“Of course!” Vert flexed her arms—okay seriously, it’d only been a bit less than two years, what the fuck.
“Er, I mean like all day and fast. We’ll need to run to Ariminum, ASAP.” Ranthia clarified.
Vert grimaced briefly, but then she nodded.
“I’ll do my best, ma’am!”
Ranthia let Vert pretend until they were out of the city, then they readjusted. Vert strapped the crate onto her back, after stuffing her own bags into it too, then climbed onto Ranthia’s back and… well, thank Xaoc for dexterity. And vitality. And Ranthia still sorely wished she had free stats to burn on strength.
They talked while they moved. Ranthia shared a… highly edited version of the key events of her round. Vert discussed her training regimen and how she had changed her Skills around. Ranthia gave her advice for further tweaks to make and cryptically suggested that she save any free stat points she had left for use at the Ranger Academy when she found a need for them.
Ranthia waffled a bit in her own head, but ultimately she decided not to elaborate on the Ranger Academy, except to say that when instructors or other experienced personnel gave her advice there, she should seriously listen to it. They had decades of insight into class builds and how to hone promising people into true elites.
The hell months probably worked best as a surprise, but she had a lot of faith in Vert. Her workout routine sounded surprisingly punishing. Even if her speed sure as heck wasn’t up to Ranthia’s standards. Vert really had grown into a fine young woman, Ranthia had full confidence that she would do well in the Academy. A better diet had filled out her previously hollow face some, and she looked much prettier.
…Nope! Ranthia brutally stamped down on that thought train. She adamantly refused to feel even the tiniest spark of attraction to a younger woman that was her own disciple. …Sort of disciple. As close as she would ever get to a disciple, anyway.
Speaking of.
“So, tell me, what do you think the first rule of combat is?” Ranthia prompted.
“Kill the other guy?” Vert replied in a sarcastic tone.
Ranthia chuckled but shook her head.
“No, seriously. Give me your best guesses.” Ranthia replied.
“I ‘unno! Think twice ‘fore you fight? Always ‘ave backup? Dun grab t’ pointy end?” Vert grumbled.
“Well, the first two aren’t bad. There’s no one first rule of combat. The first rule of combat is any rule that keeps you alive and lets you walk away in the end. Situational awareness, keeping your own equipment in good condition and ready for use, things like that. The first rules of combat might even differ depending on what sort of combat you’re facing—dinosaurs need a very different approach than a gang of thugs.” Ranthia began.
They travelled through the night without stopping. Vert sometimes nodded off and Ranthia always let her—for however long the young woman could manage to sleep on Ranthia’s back. Ranthia refused to rest though.
Because, soon enough, she would have Hexara in her arms again. She was so close to Ariminum.
While Vert dozed, Ranthia had time to plan her proposal.
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Nozomi Matsuoka.
Sarah "Neila" Elkins.