Kimi sat on a rock high in Montañas del Dragón, a mountain range in the Eastern continent. Far below she could see a small village. According to her ghost, it contained one of the keys to their salvation.
I told you to stop calling me a ghost, her ghost said to her. Well, perhaps it was more like he thought it at her. She wasn’t sure how Morgan communicated with her, and when he tried to explain her brain got all fuzzy and she starting trying to take a nap. Hopefully because it was so boring, rather than a side effect from her spectral hitchhiker.
“You know I can hear what you’re thinking, right?” Morgan said. Kimi decided that worrying about the technicalities of saying something versus thinking it was beneath her attention. As for her ghost.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Kimi said. “I got the gist of it, but I’m going to keep calling you a ghost. I’ll reconsider if you can come up with a better word to describe a five hundred year old guy trapped in a body made out of malhahons.”
Morgan remained silent for a moment, then said, “Oh, fine, we have more important things to worry about. You do remember what we’re doing here, right?”
“Uh, give me a minute.” Kimi was having trouble keeping track of everything going on. One of those side effects. She had to constantly revisit everything that happened since last night.
Nanji— no, the Colonel—had taken Kimi to see her commanding officer, Major General Saburou. He was the head of the Seitojin Special Forces, supposedly the Left Hand of the Emperor himself. He would make an odd pick for a Left Hand, but the Imperial family had a lot of privileges over the noble houses. Or at least that’s what the gossip said at the academy.
“Do we have time for trivia?” Morgan said.
“Hey, you stop melting my brain and I’ll stop having to patch it back together,” Kimi said.
“I told you, it’s not my fault, my—“
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Betrayed by your acolytes, cursed to wither and rot for four hundred years, the only way to escape is to hitchhike in someone else’s body. Except oops, turns out it’s contagious.”
“You knew that when you agreed to help.”
“I didn’t say I cared,” Kimi said. “Now do you mind, I really do need to put my head straight. I’ll stick to the highlights. Not like the little stuff will matter soon anyway.”
Kimi sensed Morgan wanted to say something, but he managed to bite his tongue. Now where was she?
The General decided the episode with Kira proved her particularly suited for a special mission. Their hated enemy had for too long monopolized the great Malhahonic Spirit. Why the city state of Duroterra was our chief opponent rather than something more pressing like starvation, overcrowding, and metafauna was a mystery to Kimi.
In any case, she was chosen to infiltrate the Black Temple and extend an offer of freedom to the captured god. And if that chance of freedom was refused, then Kimi was to deny their enemy the continued benefit of his power.
The adventure leading to Kimi’s encounter with Morgan was probably worth the telling, but she didn’t have time to think it over, and besides, there was no one to share it with anyway.
What matters is that it went well, up until Kimi slipped into final chamber of the elaborate prison at the heart of the Black Temple. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but it definitely wasn’t a dark room with a lab coat floating in it.
“Hello friend,” Morgan had said, back when he was still saying things rather than thinking them. “It’s so rare for me to see a new face, how can I help you?”
It took Kimi a minute to realize the voice came from the floating lab coat. She supposed, once her eyes adjusted to the dark, it looked like the lab coat was being worn by a man in a black suit. Perhaps another agent made it in before she had.
“Hi. I’m looking for…. I mean, I was told to go to the room with the god in it.”
“Oh, is that so.”
“Yes. I’ll be going there, now.” Kimi didn’t see anywhere else to go but the exit, but she also didn’t see how there could be an even better protected area than the room she was in.
“It seems like this wasn’t what you were expecting,” the lab coat said. “Pretty sure a god isn’t supposed to look like this? Then I have good news for you. I’m no god, though I suppose I am who you are looking for.”
Morgan introduced himself. And then launched into one of his speeches that made her brain all fuzzy. The gist was he used to be the leader of the Black Temple, but when their interests diverged the Arteficers struck him with an arte that trapped him in a half formed state.
When he finished, she asked, “Why did they keep your around?”
“They wanted to dance at two weddings,” Morgan said. “I invented artes, and they couldn’t give up access to my experience.”
“So, they lock you up, and you spend the next four hundred years working for them?”
“Not quite,” Morgan said. He didn’t have a proper face to smile with, but sounded quite pleased. “I might have set up a few things here and there.”
“And that’s what we’re here to get,” Kimi said, back in the present.
“No, this is the other one, that Alvina made,” Morgan said, but back in the thinking way again. “We’re going to use this one to get the one that I designed. Then we’ll be able to—“
Kimi missed it when her ghost could only say things to her.
“Can we please focus on this right here, and worry about all that other nonsense later. And make names for things, while we’re at it.”
“Yes, we’ll get right to it, but first we have a complication.”
“It’s no big deal,” Kimi said. “We can wait them out.”
Kimi sensed one of those Morgan speeches brewing, but he restrained himself at a sharp glare from her. Instead he said, “I… don’t see the point of waiting. I know a few tricks we can use to speed things up.”
The large truck rumbled across the open plains, a cloud of dust lingered in its wake. Strange creatures watched from a distance, their bodies obscured by the tall grass.
Inside this vehicle, known as an Armored Carrier, were Hitori and his team. Normally they would have traveled by foot, especially since they didn’t have anything in the way of cargo.
Of course, normally every member of his team would know a Longstrider Tech. In fact, every member of his team would actually know how to do techs at all. Hitori glared at Elvira. She was too busy clinging to the handrails and slamming into the walls of the cabin to notice.
The truck was Gordon’s idea, after Elvira revealed that she didn’t even know what they meant by techs, let alone how to use one. They were lucky the school had one today, normally ground vehicles stayed at Firestorm’s auxiliary base.
Hitori cursed Ms. Athens. He had no idea why she decided to dump the total novice on his team. The girl wasn’t practiced enough to stay steady during the trip, so he couldn’t even spend the time telling her what to expect when they arrived.
At last, they finally got within view of their target. Gordon lumbered the Carrier into a patch of short grass well away from the tree line. Elvira tumbled out of the back as soon as the ramp went down. The rest of the team filed out, sharing furtive glances between them.
Hitori stopped at Elvira’s feet. She had taken a seat against one of the massive tires. Her body had a few slowly fading bruises. After repeated minor injuries Vital Net’s would usually stop healing things immediately. This conserved energy, and also brought back a persons pain signals to full strength to discourage them from doing whatever that was hurting them.
Elvira had her teeth clenched, her eyes locked onto a non point a short distance away. Hitori sighed.
“It helps if you walk it off,” Hitori said, offering her his hand. Elvira took it, and pulled herself to her feet. She winced.
Still holding his hand, she looked up into his eyes. “Sorry.”
For being useless?
Hitori furrowed his brow and shook his head. As team captain it was his job to bring out her best. There was no point whining about it. “What on Esper do you have to be sorry for?” he said.
“I didn’t know I was so far behind, and now all of you have to deal with me. I should quit.”
“Hey, none of that. I’m still excited about your potential. It’s just going to take a bit more work than I hoped.” Hitori grinned. “And none of that either. Here, walk with me a bit and I’ll get you up to speed.”
Elvira followed. She took a sharp breath with every step, but otherwise didn’t complain.
“We might as well start with Wychwood,” Hitori said. “Its history is a good case study on metafauna. That could be useful on the written exams, so I hope you don’t mind if I go into detail.
“The first thing you need to understand about Wychwood is that it is one of the most dangerous places on Esper. There are only about six or seven other double S ranked locations, depending on how you map them out, and the ocean is the only place that can definitely be said to be more dangerous.”
“The oceans?” Elvira said. “Those are dangerous because of Leviathans right?”
“Yeah, and a few other terrible beasties. That’s why they move cargo with airships instead of boats.”
“Okay, I get the oceans are bad because the animals were already huge, but how’d this forest get so dangerous?”
“In short, because Tag hunting.”
“Tag?”
“Oh, I guess that’s more of a mercenary thing. Do you at least know about Organically Deposited Artes?”
“ODAs? Yeah, those are naturally occurring artes you find inside metas. Technically arteware?”
“Yes, but you’ll most commonly find them in metaflora.”
“You mean plants?”
“Specifically ones with active vital nets. It’s pretty rare, but occasionally you even get some that pass their active net to seedlings. Three strains happened to form in the Wychwood, and they’re pretty useful as well. That’s how the forest got the way it is.
“This bounty of rare tags was discovered about a hundred fifty years ago, and Hunters swarmed the place. One thing lead to another, and they triggered something future metazoologists would later call a ’Steady State Augmentation’.
“I’ll explain that in detail later, but the short of it is kill the weak, train the strong. You do that enough and the whole ecosystem gets more dangerous.”
“This is a lot to take in,” Elvira said. Hitori gave her a minute to think. “So tags are a mercenary term for ODAs?”
“Sort of. Technically they are body parts used as proof of a kill. When it turned out metafauna contained valuable resources the term migrated.”
“Is that what we’re doing here then? Killing spiders and stealing their legs or something?”
Hitori laughed. “No, no, Nova mercenaries generally won’t do tag hunting, not unless there is some particularly powerful and troublesome creature. In fact we led the push for an addition to the code specifically to prevent another Wychwood.”
“Oh,” Elvira shifted her eyes down.
“You don’t actually know the Mercenary Code, do you?”
“I know there is a code," Elvira said helpfully. Hitori was unimpressed. "It’s on my list."
“I’ll give you the abridged version: If you can kill them, you shouldn’t, and if you should kill them, you can’t. You can apply that to metafauna too and it’ll keep you out of too much trouble."
"That sounds a lot… nicer, than I expected, to be honest."
“It’s good for business to have friendly relationships with your competitors slash customers.” Hitori shrugged. “That’s easier to do if they aren’t dead.”
“Isn’t that kind of tricky? Like, that hit you gave me at school, how’d you know that wouldn’t kill me?”
“Oh man, I really hope Ms. Athens has been teaching you that, at least.”
“We’ve covered it quite a bit,” Elvira said. “But hearing about something and seeing it in action…”
“That’s fair,” Hitori said. He looked off and hummed, reeling his hand. “Alright, I’ll walk you through the evaluation I used on you, then explain our training plan.”
There’s was something strangely beautiful about the Eastern language. It had a wonderful cadence that reminded him of his native tongue, now forgotten on Esper.
Morgan didn’t find it quite so beautiful when it was being yelled into his face, or rather, Kimi’s face. He could sense the object he was looking for, but after getting within a short distance they discovered it was beneath a concrete slab in the center of the village.
Kimi tried to enter a squat brick storehouse in the middle of the town square, but a pretty, fierce looking woman grabbed her by the collar and tossed her to the edge of the clearing. She followed up by leaping after her, dragging Kimi to her feet, and then laid into her with what was certainly a thorough dressing down.
“I think we might have pissed her off,” Kimi said, but in thought.
“Yes, quite. It’s a shame neither of us can understand the language,” Morgan replied.
“How long do you think she’ll keep yelling?”
“I’m not sure, perhaps if you tried looking apologetic.”
Kimi bowed her head and mumbled a few words of apology. The woman was carrying a strange type of circular sword. Kimi had never seen anything like it, but anyone that age carrying an exotic weapon was bound to know how to use it. The best course of action was to play up her youthful features and pass herself as a child.
It was nice acting cute and innocent without getting her hands dirty after.
The woman eventually calmed down, and started speaking in a gentle singsong. Kimi bowed several times and ran off. She’d somehow managed to get a little water on her face. Perhaps those looming clouds were ready to burst.
“Good work,” Morgan said.
“Oh, forget it you old ghost. I guess we’ll have to go get your magic trinket sometime tonight.”
“I told you it isn’t a magic— oh, never mind. In any case, I got what I needed. Now we need to find somewhere quiet so I can work.”
The large truck rumbled across the open plains, a cloud of dust lingered in its wake. Strange creatures watched from a distance, their bodies obscured by the tall grass.
Inside this vehicle, known as an Armored Carrier, were Hitori and his team. Normally they would have traveled by foot, especially since they didn’t have anything in the way of cargo.
Of course, normally every member of his team would know a Longstrider Tech. In fact, every member of his team would actually know how to do techs at all. Hitori glared at Elvira. She was too busy clinging to the handrails and slamming into the walls of the cabin to notice.
The truck was Gordon’s idea, after Elvira revealed that she didn’t even know what they meant by techs, let alone how to use one. They were lucky the school had one today, normally ground vehicles stayed at Firestorm’s auxiliary base.
Hitori cursed Ms. Athens. He had no idea why she decided to dump the total novice on his team. The girl wasn’t practiced enough to stay steady during the trip, so he couldn’t even spend the time telling her what to expect when they arrived.
At last, they finally got within view of their target. Gordon lumbered the Carrier into a patch of short grass well away from the tree line. Elvira tumbled out of the back as soon as the ramp went down. The rest of the team filed out, sharing furtive glances between them.
Hitori stopped at Elvira’s feet. She had taken a seat against one of the massive tires. Her body had a few slowly fading bruises. After repeated minor injuries Vital Net’s would usually stop healing things immediately. This conserved energy, and also brought back a persons pain signals to full strength to discourage them from doing whatever that was hurting them.
Elvira had her teeth clenched, her eyes locked onto a non point a short distance away. Hitori sighed.
“It helps if you walk it off,” Hitori said, offering her his hand. Elvira took it, and pulled herself to her feet. She winced.
Still holding his hand, she looked up into his eyes. “Sorry.”
For being useless?
Hitori furrowed his brow and shook his head. As team captain it was his job to bring out her best. There was no point whining about it. “What on Esper do you have to be sorry for?” he said.
“I didn’t know I was so far behind, and now all of you have to deal with me. I should quit.”
“Hey, none of that. I’m still excited about your potential. It’s just going to take a bit more work than I hoped.” Hitori grinned. “And none of that either. Here, walk with me a bit and I’ll get you up to speed.”
Elvira followed. She took a sharp breath with every step, but otherwise didn’t complain.
“We might as well start with Wychwood,” Hitori said. “Its history is a good case study on metafauna. That could be useful on the written exams, so I hope you don’t mind if I go into detail.
“The first thing you need to understand about Wychwood is that it is one of the most dangerous places on Esper. There are only about six or seven other double S ranked locations, depending on how you map them out, and the ocean is the only place that can definitely be said to be more dangerous.”
“The oceans?” Elvira said. “Those are dangerous because of Leviathans right?”
“Yeah, and a few other terrible beasties. That’s why they move cargo with airships instead of boats.”
“Okay, I get the oceans are bad because the animals were already huge, but how’d this forest get so dangerous?”
“In short, because Tag hunting.”
“Tag?”
“Oh, I guess that’s more of a mercenary thing. Do you at least know about Organically Deposited Artes?”
“ODAs? Yeah, those are naturally occurring artes you find inside metas. Technically arteware?”
“Yes, but you’ll most commonly find them in metaflora.”
“You mean plants?”
“Specifically ones with active vital nets. It’s pretty rare, but occasionally you even get some that pass their active net to seedlings. Three strains happened to form in the Wychwood, and they’re pretty useful as well. That’s how the forest got the way it is.
“This bounty of rare tags was discovered about a hundred fifty years ago, and Hunters swarmed the place. One thing lead to another, and they triggered something future metazoologists would later call a ’Steady State Augmentation’.
“I’ll explain that in detail later, but the short of it is kill the weak, train the strong. You do that enough and the whole ecosystem gets more dangerous.”
“This is a lot to take in,” Elvira said. Hitori gave her a minute to think. “So tags are a mercenary term for ODAs?”
“Sort of. Technically they are body parts used as proof of a kill. When it turned out metafauna contained valuable resources the term migrated.”
“Is that what we’re doing here then? Killing spiders and stealing their legs or something?”
Hitori laughed. “No, no, Nova mercenaries generally won’t do tag hunting, not unless there is some particularly powerful and troublesome creature. In fact we led the push for an addition to the code specifically to prevent another Wychwood.”
“Oh,” Elvira shifted her eyes down.
“You don’t actually know the Mercenary Code, do you?”
“I know there is a code," Elvira offered helpfully. Hitori was unimpressed. "It’s on my list."
“I’ll give you the abridged version: If you can kill them, you shouldn’t, and if you should kill them, you can’t. You can apply that to metafauna too and it’ll keep you out of too much trouble."
"That sounds a lot… nicer, than I expected, to be honest."
“It’s good for business to have friendly relationships with your competitors slash customers.” Hitori shrugged. “That’s easier to do if they aren’t dead.”
“Isn’t that kind of tricky? Like, that hit you gave me at school, how’d you know that wouldn’t kill me?”
“Oh man, I really hope Ms. Athens has been teaching you that, at least.”
“We’ve covered it quite a bit,” Elvira said. “But hearing about something and seeing it in action…”
“That’s fair,” Hitori said. He looked off and hummed, reeling his hand. “Alright, I’ll walk you through the evaluation I used on you, then explain our training plan.”
There’s was something strangely beautiful about the Eastern language. It had a wonderful cadence that reminded him of his native tongue, now forgotten on Esper.
Morgan didn’t find it quite so beautiful when it was being yelled into his face, or rather, Kimi’s face. He could sense the object he was looking for, but after getting within a short distance they discovered it was beneath a concrete slab in the center of the village.
Kimi tried to enter a squat brick storehouse in the middle of the town square, but a pretty, fierce looking woman grabbed her by the collar and tossed her to the edge of the clearing. She followed up by leaping after her, dragging Kimi to her feet, and then laid into her with what was certainly a thorough dressing down.
“I think we might have pissed her off,” Kimi said, but in thought.
“Yes, quite. It’s a shame neither of us can understand the language,” Morgan replied.
“How long do you think she’ll keep yelling?”
“I’m not sure, perhaps if you tried looking apologetic.”
Kimi bowed her head and mumbled a few words of apology. The woman was carrying a strange type of circular sword. Kimi had never seen anything like it, but anyone that age carrying an exotic weapon was bound to know how to use it. The best course of action was to play up her youthful features and pass herself as a child.
It was nice acting cute and innocent without getting her hands dirty after.
The woman eventually calmed down, and started speaking in a gentle singsong. Kimi bowed several times and ran off. She’d somehow managed to get a little water on her face. Perhaps those looming clouds were ready to burst.
“Good work,” Morgan said.
“Oh, forget it you old ghost. I guess we’ll have to get your magic trinket sometime tonight.”
“I told you it isn’t a magic— oh, never mind. In any case, I got what I needed. Now we need to find somewhere quiet so I can work.”
“Gosh darn that’s a lot of stuff you went through,” Elvira said. “How did you have time to think through all that?”
“It’s more a question of practice,” Hitori said. “As you gain experience in fights and duels you should get the hang of it. I’ll try to get us a spot in the Training Center tomorrow so we can do a crash course.”
“Yay… more training.” Elvira smiled. The pair had taken a wide loop away from the Armored Carrier, and were just returning.
“Eventually you’ll know every room in that building better than your own family,” Hitori said.
“Yes. Good. So what are we doing out here then?”
“No need to be nervous,” Hitori said. “Today we’re going to teach you the Omega team super secret strategy.” He was grinning like a skeleton.
“Should I be worried.”
“Perhaps.” Hitori leaned in. He continued in a hushed whisper, “It’s the ancient and powerful technique known as… not dying.”
“What.”
Hitori laughed.
“He means running away,” Gordon said flatly. “Likes to pretend he’s some tactical genius.”
“Hey, how dare you mock the legendary ‘Kite and Fight’ technique,” Hitori said. “It’s gotten us through literally every field exam and class tournament.”
“Legendarily annoying,” Gordon said.
Hitori poked his tongue out at him.
“The gist is never fight the guy in front of you,” Gordon said.“That is a gross oversimplification,” Hitori said. “Even for you.” Gordon shrugged, an innocent grin on his face. “It’s about divide and conquer. We aren’t really the strongest team, so I had to get a bit creative.
“Thankfully we have two ranged fighters, so by keeping everyone very mobile we can wear down opponents. It’s a slow process though, which is why we’ll probably need a few Dragon Stims.”
“So that’s what we’re doing here today,” Elvira said. “Practicing this ‘Kite and Fight’ thing?”
“Basically,” Hitori said. “We’re going to start a few fights with the sentries here and have you try out different positions.”
“Positions?”
“Yeah, these aren’t official names or anything, at least until I publish a paper on it.” Hitori grinned. “But the strategy calls for three positions. Kite, Fight, and Pivot. Kite is ranged attackers, who keep a safe distance and engage targets of opportunity. Fight is melee attackers, where I’ll cut off anyone chasing down Kites and try to distract people. Chandra’s our Pivot, where she acts as the loose center of our formation. We circle back around to her when we need a refresh.”
“It sounds simple enough,” Elvira said. “What’s the catch?”
“It’s slow and finicky,” Protius said. “And it’s surprisingly hard to coordinate while five angry badasses chase you about.”
“It’s like a deadly game of tag.” Hitori smiled. “Though I’m not sure if it scales well. It works on a small group of targets, but against large numbers our opponents could trade out weakened members.”
“How do the other teams do it?” Elvira asked.
Hitori hummed, then said. “There isn’t exactly a standard, but most of the others rally around an ace while the rest of them play defense.”
“An ace?”
“Someone like Bridget, who can go one-on-one with any of our classmates.”
“I had the impression Protius was really powerful,” Elvira said.
“Aw thanks,” Protius said. “Unfortunately I’m a bit of a glass cannon.”
“If you practiced more you wouldn’t be,” Hitori said.
“Hey, if they wanted me to be a melee fighter they’d have tested me on it.”
“They did, you torched the poor bastard before he could do anything.”
“Yeah,” Protius smiled, staring dreamily off into the distance. “Mmm, Flame Thrower Arte.”
Elvira waited a moment, looking over her teammates. Gordon was teasing Protius, while Hitori rolled his eyes at the pair of them. Meanwhile, Chandra was standing a little outside the group. She kept quiet, but her eyes followed the conversation.
“So, Chandra,” Elvira said. “I get the Kite and the Fight bit, but I don’t know about the Pivot. Are you like the other side of the pincer or something?“
Hitori tensed. He started to shuffle away, grabbing Protius as he left. Gordon meandered back towards the truck.
“Not exactly,” Chandra said. She dropped her gaze a little. “I guess I’m more like the bait.”
“Wait, what? Can’t you fight?”
“Well, I’m a Paladin…”
“Didn’t Li tell me….” Elvira pursed her lips. “Nova got some kind of special privilege to train you guys. Is that right?”
“Yeah,” Chandra said, “but I actually came in about a year late, and I’ve had a lot of catching up to do. We’re not the best fighters, usually, so Nova likes to train Paladins in other skills.”
“Ah, so you’re kind of like me then,” Elvira smiled.
“Not quite so bad, I think,” Chandra said. “But a bit.”
“You know, I don’t mean to pry,” Elvira leaned in a little. “But I get the impression Hitori doesn’t like you.”
Chandra blushed. “It’s not that, not exactly. I think he was hoping I’d be more like Seht.”
“The Paladin on Bridget’s team, right?”
“Yeah, and he’s something else,” Chandra said. “Seht was always stirring up trouble back at the Temple, running into town and getting in fights. He likes playing the hero.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Oh, I stuck to myself. Buried in my studies, you know.”
“I meant why’d you join Nova? I can see why some would, but you don’t seem like the adventurous type. Not like that’s a bad thing, but I have a hard time seeing you volunteer for this.”
“The High Chaplain, uh, suggested I’d be a good fit.”
“Ah, that’s basically what happened to me too,” Elvira smiled. “My uncle put me up to this. We’re pretty desperate for sponsors to support the Grey Order, and he thought Nova might like seeing someone who could compete with the White Temple.”
“Kind of a last minute thing then?”
Elvira laughed. “Yeah, I’m what you might call a ‘prototype’. If we were sensible we’d have waited for the second generation before trying to make a sale.”
“A… sale?”
“Oh! No, no. I’m mixing my metaphors here,” Elvira giggled. “I wish I’d practiced Mairtalan a little more growing up. I guess my dad had a point….”
“The Grey Knights don’t have a language plan yet?” Chandra grinned.
“Hah, I’m not sure they have much of any plans. The Order might just be a collection of nerds. Anyway, I was talking about bringing in stakeholders. I think I’m still the only Grey Knight, so I’m not sure we’re ready to look for partners.”
“I see Hitori tapping his feet over there,” Chandra said.
“Right, training. I almost forgot about the spider legs,” Elvira said. Chandra peered at her for a minute before Elvira grinned.
Chandra rolled her eyes. “Well, you’re fitting right in.”
