Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

"It should be some distance that way," Mia said, pointing ahead. "Camie heard some faint noise coming, so I doubt it's more than a kilometre away."

"Understood," Kruger said, nodding curtly. He had been the picture of professionalism so far, so despite his close association with the troublemaking beastkin, Mia saw no reason not to return the courtesy. "I'll be confirming the settlement's existence first and return after getting a quick look. I'd like to ask you to head back to camp after that so I can scout deeper without worrying about endangering you."

"Wouldn't having some backup nearby be helpful?" Mia asked, raising an eyebrow and she looked back at her team for support. Most of them nodded along with her.

"I'm a dedicated Scout by Class," Kruger stated. "I am fast, and my Skills make me elusive. I might not be able to outrun the Iron Wolves out in the open, but I am certain I can lose them in this forest. You needn't worry about me."

"Alright," Mia said, still a bit doubtful but deciding to take his word for it. Kruger clearly knew what he was doing; it wouldn't have surprised Mia if he'd been some special ops guy or something similar in the old world. "I'll take your word for it. We'll wait for your initial report here, then bring it back to camp. Agreed?"

She asked the last question of her team and Sebastian's team, who were behind them.

"Four hours of hiking through this shitty forest and we don't even get to see what we found?" Rachel complained loudly, a scowl lining her face.

"Let the scout do his job," Sebastian said. "We have our jobs, jobs we are well suited to, and he has his."

"It's a bit vexing," Jasmine said, sighing as she shook her head. "But that's life."

"We'll wait for you here," Mia said, turning back to Kruger. "Unless something nasty pops up, then we'll retreat back to camp."

"Understood." Kruger nodded. "Anything else I should be aware of?"

"No, I don't think so," Mia said, shaking her head. "Good luck."

Kruger just nodded and turned away, pacing into the lush undergrowth as his body morphed into that of a wolf. His form disappeared from view in seconds, only the rustling chime of the leaves above ringing in Mia's ears.

"Can you hear him?" Mia whispered, glancing at Camie.

"Not anymore," the vampiress said, shrugging. "He's quick and sneaky."

Mia nodded in agreement, slightly bothered by how quickly she lost track of the Shifter. If he could disappear from her senses just a dozen metres away from her, he could sneak up on her just as easily for an ambush.

Let's hope it's just the miasma messing with my Spirit Sense. Mia thought to herself, though she had to admit her supernatural hearing had been annoyingly easy to fool. A film of air wrapped around oneself, and she'd be none the wiser of the person's presence without her Spirit Sense feeling the surging mana in the spell. I need to be careful. Even more careful than usual. This Rift is nasty.

There weren't many more precautions she could take than to have her Familiar on hand and her vampire close by. Not if she didn't want to be a deadweight on the Raid team. Something she'd resolved not to be.

"I suppose we sit tight and wait now," Mia said, turning around to her team. "Let's keep watch. We don't know whether something can sneak by Carmilla's and my senses, but it would be better to have a few pairs of eyes on the lookout, too. If what Kruger is scouting really turns out to be a Wolfling settlement or nest, we can't be too vigilant."

That's exactly what they did. Mia sat on a low-hanging branch, eyes closed and senses spread far and wide. This time, she didn't make the mistake of limiting her perception to a small horizontal slice, instead trying to keep the whole sphere of her Spirit Sense in focus.

They hadn't seen any monster dwelling in the forest's crown, or in the air above, but discounting the possibility would have been foolish. Idiotic, even, considering the moles made the existence of new types of monsters readily apparent.

She'd helped set up a rotation, four people would be on lookout at any one time in addition to both Mia and Camie listening for anything suspicious through it all.

Not that Mia would be able to keep her focus had that been the only thing she was doing. No, she dug up a rather specific meditation exercise from among the dozens she'd memorised that temporarily boosted the effectiveness of mental skills.

Multitasking was already one hell of a skill, especially with it scaling proportionally with her skyrocketing Cognition. With the meditation exercise active, it lets her subconscious take care of keeping watch while her active consciousness maintains the exercise itself. It was almost like having an entire secondary thought-stream, but not quite; that would have been the purview of the Parallel Mind skill she had chosen not to take.

A choice she was starting to feel a bit sour about lately. Maybe the next time she had open secondary skill slots, she'd pick it up.

Anyways, what she'd managed with the Multitasking skill — keeping watch and meditating at once — would have had little practical use had that not triggered the Meditation skill and consequently boosted her mana regeneration.

She'd spent half of her reserves since entering the Rift — six Wards and the occasional spells she had to sling at monsters had been a constant drain — and had little time to recover them. She was hoping she'd be able to do so now before Kruger returned with his report.

Mana potions were nice to have, but the way they strained the Spirit as they did their work was something Mia liked to avoid whenever possible. The strain was negligible with System potions, but she wasn't going to waste those just to recover mana faster.

Meditation didn't cause any such strain; if anything, it relieved some of it. What it cost was just some time and focus.

I've been slacking in my training. Mia thought, feeling a knot of guilt in her stomach. Just days before, she'd decided to follow the training manuscript and its timetable like it was the Ten Commandments, and then she'd given up on most of it just days after.

In her defence, she was somewhat preoccupied with trying to help stop the city from being wiped off the map by the Rift outbreak. The push had been gruelling, and she'd barely gotten enough sleep in between shifts of slaughtering monsters.

A bit of that guilt fled as she felt the vibrant mana course through her channels. Her mind was sharper now, her will stronger and her spiritual grasp was both firmer and dexterous.

I might be able to handle some of the more complicated Apprentice-grade exercises now. Mia thought happily, an absent smile playing over her lips.

It was only because of her heightened focus that she noticed the disturbance this time. It was tiny, a single flickering ember of light barely shining through the viscous ocean of miasma filling her Spirit Sense.

Mia's eyes shot open, and her head snapped to the side with a painful crack. Forty metres out and closing in quickly, shooting towards them in a zigzag between the trees like a missile.

"Incoming!" Mia shouted, getting her spells ready and aiming at the approaching presence. "Likely a non-monster, but stay vigilant!"

Monster magic didn't feel like that; they used broken mana to fuel their spells, and this one felt blessedly free of that taint.

The people below readied for battle, not with the frantic haste they had shown the first few times Mia had alerted them of an enemy on a far too short notice. They were prepared, weapons within arm's reach, easily grabbed as they dropped whatever they had been holding before as they sprang to their feet.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It's Kruger," Carmilla said in a clear voice a second later, calming the hasty battle preparations.

"Oh, okay," Mia said, her battle readiness fading somewhat. She didn't waste any time doubting Camie's words; the vampiress could feel the unique lifeforce hiding inside people. There was no way she'd mess up something like this. "Alone? I can't hear pursuers."

"Alone, yes," Camie said just as the mangy wolf leapt over a dead bush, landing on his human feet as he Shifted Mid-flight.

Despite having such a professional, nonsensical personality on the surface, he really did love showing off, didn't he?

The man rose to his full height, and Mia caught a strange look on his face, a hint of something seeping through the man's professional mask. Was it fear? Confusion? Doubt? She couldn't quite tell, but it couldn't be a good sign.

"What did you find?" Mia asked, hopping down from her perch and landing softly on the ground. The others gathered up behind her, only Rachel among the four currently on watch, bothering to still keep her eyes on the forest even as she listened in.

"It's easier to show you," Kruger said, extending a hand forward as if for a handshake. Mia gave him a raised eyebrow, not understanding what he was getting at or why she should shake his hand. A paranoid part of her even considered the possibility of betrayal, something that the beastkin's perceptive gaze picked up on. "I got a Quest. It says I can share it through physical contact, thus: a handshake."

Before an awkward and slightly embarrassed Mia could reach out and grab his hand, Camie brushed past her and grasped the smaller man's hand in a vice-like grip.

Kruger stilled for a moment, but seemed to give a small shrug. Then it was the vampire's turn to go still. She tilted her head, scarlet eyes staring absently into the air in front of her as she read through something visible only to her. She nodded then, releasing the Shifter's hand and stepping back without even a hint of an apology.

Mia almost asked, 'What was that about?', but stopped herself in time and spared herself the embarrassment of looking like an idiot. She knew exactly what that was about; she had the same doubts about just how far they could trust the beastkin after all.

Camie is supernaturally good at reading people. If she doesn't trust him to shake my hand, she likely has reason to feel that way … or maybe she is just being a possessive vampire. Casting a suspicious glance at her girlfriend, Mia couldn't discount the idea of the latter, but decided to trust it was the former for the sake of her mental health.

"You got the quest from him?" Mia asked, and Camie just nodded, then playfully poked Mia's nose with an index finger.

[User 'Carmilla' shared a Rift Quest with you!]

***

[Rift Quest: 'Dark Effigies']

Objectives:

Destroy the three dark effigies guarded by the Guardian's three Lieutenants. ( 0 / 3 )

Bonus Objective:

Kill all three Lieutenants before challenging the Guardian of the Rift.

Rewards: The loss of the three effigies will weaken the Guardian, robbing it of its dark magic.

Bonus Reward: The Rift will remain stabilised at Rank 1 as a Raid for an additional 12 hours.

***

[{Newcomer}'s Note: You may share this Quest with anyone inside the Rift through physical touch.]

"That's interesting," Mia mused, her eyes narrowing to slits as she read the magical script of the System. This Quest was strange, not giving any direct rewards by itself but acting more as a guide to let them know what to do. She turned to Nikki first, brushing her hand up against the Ice mage's hand and instinctively willing the Quest to be shared. "Is this … unusual?"

Nikki's eyes darted around quickly, absorbing the texts. "Pretty much. The main objective and rewards match with what I know of higher-ranked Rifts. The Bonus Rewards don't … that's usually just increased rewards at the end of the Rift, but I suppose this being a Raid was inevitably going to influence it."

"Makes sense." Mia nodded. "Thanks."

"I'm glad to have been of help," Nikki said with a polite smile.

"Spit already," Mark said impatiently. "What's the Quest's about? Better yet, share it already."

Mia rolled her eyes and then went about quickly shared it with everyone. As she did, she considered the weird Quest.

So far, every Quest she'd done was simple: do tasks, get goodies. The first part held up still, but the second was a bit stranger. Instead of getting new weapons, treasure or books, they were getting … help from the System? Is that what the increased time on the Raid's countdown was, or was it a natural consequence of the described objectives?

Did killing the three Lieutenants somehow stabilise the Rift, robbing it of the energy it needed to advance and forcing it to spend another half a day to recover?

Mia could see it working both ways and couldn't come to a decision. Then she remembered another Similar Quest: the Realm Quest which had the continued existence of the universe listed as its primary Reward.

While that's interesting, I have a job to do. Mia admonished herself, breaking out of her thoughts.

"Alright, people." She clapped her hands, gathering attention to herself. "We are heading back. This could be huge, so let's make haste. Kruger, will you go for another scouting run as discussed or come back with us?"

The Shifter uncharacteristically hesitated for a moment.

"I'll proceed as discussed," Kruger said. "There will be an assault on the monster nest, tell'em I'm doing preliminary scouting for that and that I'll try to find where that Lieutenant is hiding."

"Isn't the effigy thing more important?" Mark asked, butting into the conversation.

"That needs little finding," Kruger sniffed. "I got the Quest the moment I laid eyes on that monstrosity. An ugly statue made of nails, standing as tall as these trees at the centre of their settlement."

"Nails?" Mia frowned. "That's going to be annoying to destroy."

"It didn't seem structurally sound," Kruger said, shrugging. "A few well-placed explosions should bring it down easily enough."

I was sort of hoping that throwing a tiny matchstick at it from afar would do it. Mia grumbled inwardly, cursing the monsters for not being accommodating and building their effigies out of flammable twigs like all primitive savages did in TV shows. Also, I wonder what counts as 'destroyed' for this Quest? Is it enough if it falls over, or will we need to melt it all to slag?

"Alright," Mia said, turning to the people behind her. "Let's get moving. I think we can get back in 40 minutes if we hurry a bit."

*****

Agent Xir rubbed his palms down on his pants, trying to clean the sweat gathering on them.

"If I may, ma'am?" He said, nervously glancing at his superior standing nonchalantly to his side, peering through a telescope. She nodded slightly, which Xir took for permission to continue. "I would be remiss if I did not raise my concerns about your plan going forward. I don't believe it is wise to expect our enemies to be … " —he searched for the proper word for a moment—"imperceptive enough to fall for your ploy."

"I am not expecting them to be," Agent Stephanie Graham, his new direct superior, said mildly. "I expect them to put their suspicions and gripes aside nonetheless. They will need help, and we will be there to give it. They will take it, even if they suspect one of us was behind the attack on their elite mages."

She huffed then, lowering her telescope and turning to level a piercing glare at him. "Not that I'd have to worry about that had you not been so careless. Using deranged thugs to assassinate combat mages? Really? But by far the worst part is that they knew about you and who stands behind you. That is a fundamental failure on your part as an operative of the Order of Shadows."

They were not supposed to know. Xir thought sourly, only able to lower his gaze in shame. But what could he do? He hadn't been trained for this shit, he was a scout, a grunt, not whatever Agent Graham was.

He also knew that he had severely underestimated the vampire. The only similar creature he'd faced before was a Blood Thrall, a regular human twisted into a slave. A broken thing hungering for the affection of its dispassionate vampiric master.

It had unnatural healing, but magical damage counteracted it somewhat, and an arrow through the eye finished the monster off for good. Maybe the vampire would have died the same way if the 'sniper' he'd sent for the job could actually aim and send the bullet through the vampire's skull instead of her jaw.

I did what I could with what I had available. Xir consoled himself, but knew his superiors wouldn't see it that way. He'd been sent into a trial by fire, and he'd been burnt; he could forget about a promotion anytime soon.

"I cannot fault your choice of objectives here at least," Agent Graham continued, a grimace audible in her voice. Xir didn't dare make eye contact. "From your perspective, it probably seemed like weakening the native military's grasp on power here would serve Starhaven's interests. I can see why you thought so, seeing as you've likely not been educated in wider inter-Realm politics. I will make sure that is clear in my report, so you need not be so despondent."

"Thank … you?" Xir said, blinking in surprise. Graham did not seem like the kind to put her neck out for those under her. "I appreciate that, ma'am. May I ask what it is that I've failed to consider?"

"Beastkin, you have been aiding beastkin," Agent Graham spat, though her distaste was at least not aimed at Xir. "Worse yet, a Wolf. Many of their kind are disparate and unorganised, but not the Wolves. If this city is in the hands of an Alpha Wolf Shifter by the time the barriers fade and inter-Realm travel is reestablished, the Wolves of the Beast Realm will gobble it up in a day. They have hierarchy beaten into their blood; this little pup will show its stomach and swear its fealty to the first meaner Wolf that it meets, and any rapport we'll have built with them will be a thing of the past. Another will harvest the fruits of our labour, and all our work here will be for nought. We cannot allow that to happen."

"You think the native military will be more amenable to the idea of coming under the rule of Starhaven?" Xir asked.

"What they want matters little," Agent Graham shrugged. "What does matter is that they won't have a horde of Rank 5 Wolf Lords ready to travel here to rip out our throats on their behalf. The native government has no benefactors, known or not, in the other Realms. There will be no one helping them resist our conquest when the time comes."