Rising Kite - A story from the world of HWFWM

While Kite did not possess any particular skills in stealth, standing very, very still with his aura retracted behind a stone outcropping was at least within his area of expertise. Amica waited near another similar cluster of rust-red stone, leaning back and levitating a trio of rocks over one hand, the small chunks spinning through intricate formations. From their time spent together so far, Kite had learned to expect that something would always be floating in her vicinity if she had her way. Apparently sensing his attention even though Kite wasn’t looking her way, Amica winked at him but at least remained silent.

Kite knew that both Sztyka and Gray Sky were near as well, but his retracted aura kept him from knowing their exact locations. But his own aura perception was actually less important at the moment, as all of the group’s focus rested on the bright mark which they could all feel from afar.

“It is rather strange that I cannot see the mark, but still have the distinct feeling that it is blue,” Kite mused silently, smiling slightly at yet another proof of the oddities of magic.

Said mark came from one of Emilio Cardenco’s essence powers, allowing both the elf and his teammate to feel the direction and relative distance of the target, as well as its general status. For now, the mark gave off a sharp, alert feeling.

“It is alert but unaware,” Kite thought, having learned to recognize the sensation over the past two weeks. “But soon-”

He had barely finished the thought when the sensation from the mark flared with alert and fury, all calm gone as a few hints of echoed pain followed shortly thereafter.

As one, Kite and the other moved. Amica flew into the air, reaching out to grasp Kite’s hand as he leapt toward her. He kept his aura retracted as her spirit enveloped his, clamping down as her telekinesis took hold of Kite to lift him along in her wake. It was a bit uncomfortable but necessary, as Amica could carry Kite a lot quicker than if he ran himself.

“See, it’s not so bad? Even a bit exciting, no? You know the offer still stands. I have so many tricks I can show you with-” she began, but Kite quickly cut her off.

“This is clearly not the time,” he retorted, keeping his attention on the flashes of magical projectiles which could be clearly seen from between the craggy cliffs just ahead of them. Through his expanded vision, Kite saw Sztyka close on their heels, with Gray Sky not far behind her.

The ever serene leonid woman, Sztyka Markow, was carried forth on a huge, conjured clawed hand of swirling dust, its color as gray as her fur. She easily kept pace, and Kite could see her conjuring more such floating appendages in preparation for what was to come. Behind her, Gray Sky was pushing himself not to fall behind. Like Kite, the runic man did not possess any innate flying power, but through his snake essence he transformed the lower half of his body into that of the essence’s namesake. The transformation had proved to be able to reach impressive speeds, and would easily overtake Kite had he been on foot.

Amica pouted slightly at Kite’s rejection of her offer, one of many more such direct propositions in the past weeks, but she too shifted her attention to what was to come.

“Ready in one!” she called, and Kite braced himself. Soon after, the invisible force tugging him along instead launched him forward. Directly towards one of the rocky outcroppings still blocking line of sight to the fight ahead and the group’s targets.

Kite kept his composure as the stone rushed toward him, and didn’t even blink as he impacted. A surge of mana left him as Implacable Motion carried him straight through the meter or so of stone, and Kite entered the small fight ahead screened by a barrage of stone ripped from his passing.

The group’s targets, a pack ten of Desert Devils, at least registered a look of surprise on their leathery and craggy faces. They were long, sinewy humanoid-adjacent creatures with long tails and horns as well as three pairs of multi-jointed arms and legs. The silver-ranked monsters were cunning, stealthy and ruthless. They were the next of a slew of such hunts Kite and the group had completed lately as the supervisors were upping the complexity of their targets. And the moment of slight hesitation cost one of them dearly as twin discharges from empowered wands hit the monster in the side of its face.

Emilio Cardenco, serving as the group’s scout and harasser, continued his onslaught by teleporting into the midst of the surprised devils, his arrival unleashing a dimensional distortion which slowed all nearby enemies for a short but critical moment. A glowing wand in each hand, the elf shot a barrage of blasts around him, dancing through the pack of monsters like a manic conductor before vanishing again in a similar burst. By now, Kite had learned to note that the torrents of projectiles weren’t directed without care. While the burst may have looked haphazard and hurried, the elf had fired just enough to distract as many as possible while the bulk of the magical bolts had struck the most wounded of their number.

The scout had moved away just in time too, as the stone shrapnel around Kite took on a life of its own as Amica caught up, speeding up greatly to further injure or stagger the pack of elusive foes which they had currently pinned down. One of the devils looked to have recovered its wits first, and its form started giving off a slight glow which Kite knew heralded trouble. So he stopped it.

The trio of vortices from Spirit Singularity snapped their attention to the devil just before it tried to teleport away, stopping it in its tracks before one of Kite’s own projected attacks hit it just a moment after. Another two monsters started preparing their own shifts, and Kite switched to block at least one of them, utilizing the fact that switching the vortices’ attention was almost instant.

This had been one of the first things which the supervisors and group had noted as an unused possibility, and Kite had to agree as he landed and started to block teleportations left and right. He could only target one at a time, so it wasn’t perfect, but it at least left more than a few monsters hampered while their usual hit-and-run tactics were disrupted. The telltale glow and surge of mana before they teleported was enough to forewarn their intention and block them.

A few managed to blink up onto nearby cliff walls, but six were still left in the open as both Sztyka and Gray Sky struck. The eyes of the runic and all of his snakes lit up in what Kite had learned was the iconic special attack of the gorgon confluence, based on a magical creature which was apparently quite well known in other parts of the world. The affected devils suddenly started slowing down greatly as stone started growing over their already craggy exteriors, the effect increasing as the monsters started to try and escape. Kite blocked what teleportations he could, with Amica throwing one monster at a time back into the petrification field along with Sztyka’s dust hands doing the same.

Then came the impromptu team’s main attack, as the leonid chanted a spell, her voice calm.

“Exhalation of Wilting, thine Corpus consumed.”

A fanged maw made from swirling, shuddering motes of darkness was conjured in the air above Sztyka, its jaws opening and exhaling a steady stream of death. The substance was like a vapor and light somehow mixed into one, and it spilled over the now almost completely immobile monsters. At first, the damage was minor for a silver-ranked attack, but Kite had already moved on to help Emilio and Damica hunt down the rest of the scattering pack, because as the Desert Devils were stuck as they were, their fate was sealed.

Even while Kite sent rippling attacks out in all directions with the help of his mantle, his extended vision still revealed the rather disconcerting sight of the monsters withering into husks, the pace only increasing for each moment the leonid kept channeling her spell. While the attack could not be redirected once cast, having both Gray Sky and Damica there to help her keep her foes in place, Sztyka had plenty of time to bring down the otherwise elusive foes in short order.

During their training together, Kite had learned little of the leonid as a person, as she had kept to herself and spoken little outside of training. But he did know that she possessed the dust, hunger and zeal essences, resulting in the desolation confluence. It was the latter which had given her the spell she had just used to finish off half their enemies, and that she had at least three other similar spells of different types made Kite glad they were on the same side.

The remaining Desert Devils finally had time to scatter a bit and start mounting a proper counterattack. The slim, craggy humanoids partly scattered into swirling sand, lending them a semi-incorporeal state as they started to swiftly move around the cliff gorge to target the channeling Sztyka, but this was something which the group had prepared for. Both Emilio and Kite shifted targets, the elf teleporting back to join the two casters in sending barrages of attacks towards the incoming swirls of half-solid monsters. Kite brought up the rear, coordinating with the ever shifting mark of Emilio for targeting.

When his Disrupting Strike hit one of the monsters, it was forced back into a corporeal state and much more vulnerable to most sources of damage, and as Kite’s mantle allowed him to essentially harass three of them at once, sweeping up the rest of the monsters became a matter of swift, brutal work, the skirmishing devils not getting to employ their most potent means of fighting.

Kite did draw an inward sigh of relief as the last devil fell and the battle calmed down. Keeping track of the combat, throwing out the occasional barrier, trying to launch attacks towards three shifting foes at once while blocking what teleports he could strained his mind to the limit, but it was with some pride that he could admit that this fight had been the most successful one yet in that regard.

The world soon started brightening, fading into dull white as the mirage chamber’s scenario came to a close. Having spent over two weeks in this training facility, taking on multiple challenges each day, Kite had quickly become used to the sensation of coming back to the real world even though he had technically never left it. He had also become used to what would come next.

“A bit slow on the uptake there. I thought that I would have time to pick all of them off myself,” Emilio called as he teleported out into the room to stretch. The words were technically directed at all of the others, but by now Kite knew who their intended target was.

“Then maybe we should let you take the next pack on yourself, and let Fortune herself be the one to knock you down a peg or two, as your imagined reality sure seems unable to do so,” Gray Sky countered, the guild rivals butting heads as usual.

Ryker, Mtanga and Christine, their ever present overseers, had become quite used to it as well, as Ryker silenced both of them with a surge of aura.

“With the speed of which you cleared the scenario, it is clear that these will no longer be a productive challenge. It is time for us to move on to the essence users,” the dour supervisor said as he did his best to level a stern glare at each of them. “We will take a day of rest, and I recommend that all of you take some time to wind down. Because while the Desert Devils are cunning monsters, they still aren’t people. Not even close. What is to come will be something quite different, but at least you have the rudimentary team cohesion required to properly take them on. You are all dismissed, for now.”

Amica, ever quick to leave the confines of the chamber, gave Kite a suggestive wink before floating out of the room, quickly followed by Sztyka and Gray Sky. The latter threw one last many-eyed glare at the elf before the doors shut behind him. Emilio made to leave too, but stopped and gave Kite a half-glance.

“I suppose that at least someone in the group did a good job,” the elf said, the compliment tumbling awkwardly from his lips.

“You performed very well yourself,” Kite said, bowing slightly to hide his slight smile. “May your path continue to take you towards the heavens.”

The elf remained awkwardly for another second before finally blinking away.

Only then did Kite hear a snort from where the three supervisors stood looking at the screen of the mirage chamber, before Christine burst out into laughter.

“Oh, dear. Junior brother Kite, it seems that our little lordling doesn't really know what to make of you now. I must admit, Ryker, having those one-on-one duels between the team a week ago sure made more ripples than I thought. Especially as you keep being so darn nice about it Kite,” she said, wiping at imaginary tears.

“I agree,” Mtanga chimed in. “Had you gloated or acted superior, things would probably have ended up like between Emilio and Gray Sky. But all those bows and compliments you gave him afterwards… Even his social training seems stumped. I am not sure if he is impressed, embarrassed or even a little afraid of you, Kite.”

Said duels had taken place six days ago. The first week of training together had gone decently well, at least in Kite’s estimates, but Ryker had seemed less than pleased. Emilio, though, had seemed especially smug when the supervisor had sprung the shift in exercise on them. The elf possessed the magic, dimension and hunt essences, resulting in the skirmish confluence, and his hit-and-run, hyper mobile fighting style let him run circles around most opponents. That was indeed what had happened, with only Amica threatening his dominance with her strong aura and telekinesis. And then, Emilio had faced Kite.

It turned out that when the elf was robbed of most of his teleportation alternatives and was forced to evade both steady pursuit and projected attacks, battle became quite the different prospect. The skirmisher did have a boon which, among other things, increased resistance to anything trying to impede dimensional movement, but he was swiftly introduced to the rather lackluster benefits of magical improvement when facing someone like Kite.

On his end, Kite had been expecting just what Mtanga had described as a result of the duel no matter what he did, and he was still rather surprised at the elf’s shift in demeanor. This was made especially true after learning the Emilio was noble born from some prominent family. Sure, it was only when most of the others weren’t around that Emilio spoke to him directly, and it was always quite awkward, but still significantly better than the result of most bruised prides which Kite had seen, or caused, during his adventuring career.

“I figured that it might be good to let them actually get a feel of things,” Ryker added, a hint of satisfaction to his dour tone. “Bluster becomes a lot less relevant when you actually know the power dynamic.” He then looked to Kite, his semi-scowl returning. “You should go too. We have things to prepare, and you have some rest to get to. Even we silver-rankers need to wind down, unless you hadn’t noticed. So go, see the sights, sleep through it all or whatever else catches your fancy. Just be back at the usual time the day after tomorrow.”

“Understood, Sir,” Kite said, unable to help giving at least a short bow before leaving. As the doors closed behind him as well, he turned to Glint who had floated up from her bottle, stretching as she was usually a bit bored when not being allowed to join the mirage chamber missions.

“Well, little beauty. In some ways, this place sure feels just like home,” he said, thinking back to the way Emilio and Gray Sky continued to clash outside of their trials in the mirage chamber. “But if I didn’t know better, I might suspect that our dear master Ryker back there is actually starting to warm up to me a little.”

Glint took some swirling laps around Kite, managing to give the impression of a questioning look.

“It’s all in the scowl, little beauty. It was noticeably shallower today. At least by a full centimeter. It seems we might be doing something right. Now, if we can only manage to evade a certain persistent teammate, would you mind accompanying me out for a day of sightseeing and exploration? We have a whole new city we have barely set foot in up there, after all.”

“So,” Ilmaril Thenston, overseer of this current trial for Task Group Gauntlet, said as he stacked the report together. “It seems that things are moving on better than expected. I would have expected at least another week to iron out proverbial wrinkles. Are you sure that they are ready?”

“As certain as we can be, Sir,” Ryker responded. “Honestly, I personally deem it an even bigger risk for the difficulty to start dwindling. As things stand, we have been pleasantly surprised as both Emilio Cardenco and Gray Sky have kept their prideful verbal sparring to outside the missions, cooperating surprisingly well while in the thick of things. At first, their demeanor had me worried about the integrity of those that recommended them, but they have proven to be able to at least act professionally when needed. So I strongly suggest keeping them busy with increasing challenges so as to not leave room to think too much.”

“Some eccentricities are always expected when dealing with the elites,” Ilmaril agreed. “From your report, those two should be able to work things out well enough. We don’t need them to like each other, but do the contract and not let outside things such as guild memberships interfere. What about the rest? I saw nothing about the Hua-Xian causing trouble.”

“No, Sir,” Ryker agreed. “Kite, along with Sztyka, has been the least disruptive. While the latter is a bit of an isolationist, the former is polite and respectful in most cases. Almost annoyingly so.”

“Which I may add is a rather excellent addition to take some of the strain from the rivalries of the others,” added Mtanga, the one supervisor working the most with the mental and interpersonal aspects of the trial. “Both Emilio and Gray Sky are proud men, and Kite acting nice and polite actually mellows them down a bit as they are self-aware enough that acting out too much will look even worse by contrast.”

“And they haven’t turned it against him? Insecurity is often remolded into directed ire,” Ilmaril noted, lifting a page to glance at that part of the report again.

“You might think so, uncle-,” Christine said, her eyes twinkling,”-but our dear Ryker here did have an idea which paid off. He made all of them face each other in duels within the chamber. To ostensibly get a better sense of each other. And it turns out that junior brother Kite is very scary in duels. Emilio Cardenco seems almost afraid of him now.”

“Junior… brother?” Ilmaril asked, confused.

“It’s a Hua-Xian way of address. Kite explained it, and I quite like it,” Christine said, completely ignoring the skeptic look of her uncle as she forged on. “In regards to the team, I would say that the only proper wild card remaining is Amica Steiner. Because she seems to have the hots for Kite. And she’s not subtle about it.”

“I saw the notes. Overt flirtatious behavior and sexual advances? Not that uncommon between silvers of these levels in tense situations,” Ilmaril noted.

“No, not in itself,” Mtanga agreed. “But we’re still monitoring it. You have read the dossier, Sir, so you should know of Steiner’s background. Going through such things can leave certain lasting behavioral patterns. We’re just making sure that it doesn’t escalate.”

“Kite does seem to feel that something is off, too,” Christine added. “As far as we know, he has deflected all such advances. Sure, he might be married or something, but Steiner is quite the looker. The whip of Lust can crack down on us harder than we know, especially when far away from home and therefore also far from consequences of any indiscretions.”

“Do you feel that this is something that needs dealing with?” Ilmaril asked, turning to Ryker.

“Not yet, Sir. We’re ready to step in if the need arises, but otherwise we follow protocol and let them handle it themselves. As long as they remain professional in the trials, that is.”

“Good,” Ilmaril said, sliding the folded report across his desk. “And good job. This is a promising batch. Keep me posted. Oh, and you can expect to draw upon the resources you need for the scenarios regarding essence users. We should have enough adventurers and staff on hand to create what you need.”

Watching the sunset had always been something Kite had enjoyed while growing up in Starberry Peak, the roof of their guest cabin offering a supremely good view as the autumn-colored foliage of the landscape was painted in a new palette of dusk. Having visited Bastion for quite some time, Kite had then been forced to acknowledge that the sunrise over the ocean had been even more spectacular, even though the dawn itself did not have the same sensation of eerie calm. And now he was forced to re-evaluate yet again.

“Little beauty, this… I’m not sure what compares to this,” he murmured as he had laid down along the slightly sloped back of Glint’s larger form where she lay dozing in the shallows of the ocean just outside Port Singhni. To the west, the sunset was on full display on a level so far beyond anything he had ever seen. The vast, glittering calm of the ocean reflected the colors of peach and purple in ways that even boggled his silver-ranked senses, all of this further accentuated by the faint colorful swirls of the almost invisible barrier which kept out the worst of the ocean weather.

And to top it off, a small crate was floating beside them, filled with local snacks and drinks of such variety that Kite had yet to go through half of them.

“Which reminds me that I need to save some to bring back to Dragonfly,” he continued, Glint only half listening. “She would enjoy this. Quite a lot, in fact.” The thought of his friend and lover let his thoughts wander further on the path of home, and a slight melancholy came over Kite as he wondered what his aunties and Raven were doing, as well as uncle Walker and the guild. Even Soul came to mind, probably practicing to reach perfection even at this very moment.

“Is this what homesickness is like?” he wondered, mentally touching upon the faint feeling. It was not hard to imagine why, though. Port Singhni had been a wonder, and Kite had spent the whole day exploring. As it turned out, only half of the city was landbound, with the other half stretching out into the water on floating rafts connected by similarly buoyant walkways. And everything, from the buildings to the people to the sensation had been different in some way. Not completely alien, but different enough to drive home how far away Kite really was from those that he held dear. But he did his best to accept the feeling and let it nestle next to the excitement of seeing and experiencing so many new things. Both were valid after all.

“And I will return, but it looks like I have performed well enough for the stay to become more than just a short taste of the wider world,” Kite thought, leaning back and closing his eyes for a while.

It was only when the last rays of the sun had truly vanished that he sat up, rubbing Glint along the glimmering scales of her neck.

“It’s time to go back to shore, little beauty. Dinner and a comfortable stay awaits. We better put that retainer to use, no?”

As it turned out, the adventure society did award compensation to the potential members of the task group while they were busy with the trials. A silver-ranker taking on contracts could make quite some money during a month, let alone six, and while the retainer wasn’t quite that expansive, it was certainly more than enough to alleviate any sting in Kite’s purse. Therefore, Kite had decided to forgo his humble lodgings at the society for his night on leave, and had rented a room at a nice hotel in the floating part of the city.

Said hotel had a nice restaurant nearby, and Kite was quite full when he and Glint were finally making their way back to his room. Or rather, he was.

“You want to go explore the ocean some more?” Kite asked, getting a sense of confirmation from the carp as she swam excited circles. “Well, of course. I can see why so much water would surely hold many treasures and adventures for you. Just be careful, little beauty. While gold-ranked monsters are very unlikely to be seen so close to the city, you never know.”

Getting her mental affirmation, Kite waved Glint off before turning to resume his walk back. Even after nightfall, the streets were bustling with renewed life. Glow stones were brought out, cheap to both own and keep lit in the higher mana density of Pranay, and soon both the houses and the waterways formed by the floating city were glimmering with every color. Farmers, fishers and many other kinds of craftspeople came in with their boats, picking a spot near some walkway and started hawking their wares directly from their small crafts. To Kite, it was overwhelming, new, exotic, a bit stressful and mostly… It felt like an adventure.

It took well over an hour to actually get back to his hotel, as Kite couldn’t help himself to stop and peruse wares, even being convinced to buy more than a few things by the more shrewd and daring salespeople who recognized the look of a bedazzled foreigner, even if said foreigner was obviously an essence user. Kite had just paid for a rather pretty carving of some kind of exotic bird when he felt a by now familiar aura nudge him.

Paying the old woman in the boat, Kite stowed his purchase and rose from having crouched at the edge of the walkway. Amica Steiner was waving at him from across one of the nearby channels. While she was very much not from this part of the world, she had apparently chosen to embrace the local fashion of Port Singhni, wearing only some colorful silk wrappings to cover her chest and a loose skirt along with some glittering jewelry.

While she was too far away, Amica was projecting a ‘Well, fancy meeting you here’-air. Kite did not know if it was feigned or not, but as she started heading his way, he inwardly steeled himself as he thought;

“I suppose that it is high time to have a proper talk and put this matter to rest.”