Rising Kite - A story from the world of HWFWM

“Things… don’t seem to have gone as we hoped,” was Emilio’s first statement when the elf appeared next to the rest of the group after a brief little excursion into the city above.

“Well?” Ryker prodded from where he stood pressed shoulder to shoulder with Rahnan, the elven leader of the other tunneling team.

The other team joining up with them as they breached into the city proper gave a sense of security, raising their numbers from eight to fourteen. Except that this also meant that fourteen silver-rankers were cramped into the rather dusty and unkempt cellar on the other side of their breaching point. Only the fact that some, like Amica, could fly or otherwise elevate themselves to leave more space on the floor made it possible to fit them all while Mtanga and Christine repaired as much of the concealing and repelling arrays as possible so that stray monsters from below wouldn’t wander up into the city at random.

“There seems to be a full-scale hunt of some kind goin on,” Emilio supplied, waving a wand in the general direction of the surface above the old plank floor above them. “We’ve breached into the bottom of a mill. All the chaos outside seems to have led to the normal rankers fleeing for their homes, as all I glimpsed outside were groups of essence-users searching the streets. Mostly bronzes and some irons, but that’s probably just because the silvers are off doing something else.”

“Any sign of combat?”

“Not active, but things have definitely gone down in the last few hours. Even my short trip to the top of the mill showed at least six spots of more widespread destruction. If there were silvers fighting out there at this very moment, they were all doing it very quietly. And while I know that the two teams sent up here are capable of subtlety, expecting the same from whatever thugs and adventurer-rejects we find here isn’t as likely.”

“The most important thing I heard in that was that the mill above was clear,” Rhanan, the other team leader, said with not a small dose of impatience bleeding into his scholarly voice. “Flyers and the like, go up first. We’ll follow and set up a plan of attack.”

“And retreat,” Ryker added as the adventurers started shuffling up towards the rough wooden hatch in the ceiling of the cellar as Amica’s telekinesis opened it. “Christine. Mtanga. How do you rate this as a potential point of escape should the need arise?”

“We’ve left the breach itself open and the array should hold for now,” Mtanga supplied, his pearly white smile hidden behind the covering mask of his helmet. “But the magical infrastructure is old and patched, enough so that we can probably just blast the ground hard enough to create an escape route as long as we’re willing to contend with our ever-friendly monsters beneath us. But fair warning; too much violence might cause the whole array to start crumbling.”

“Then we should keep it at a minimum. Plenty of those down there are already berserking with nowhere to go. And you all know how long silvers last.”

Kite also felt quite relieved as he got some more space to move around in, joining the rest of his group as they crept towards the edges of the hatched windows of the mill. The city atop Havenpeak matched the descriptions in the information folders; utilitarian buildings made from a combination of stone-shaping and brought-in wooden planks. The old fort remained the center of the small city, its blockish silhouette dominating the landscape. Even from his less lofty vantage, Kite could see the remains of the destruction which Emilio had been referring to.

For a tense couple of minutes, the two gathered teams just stood in silence, taking in as much details as they possibly could before quickly compiling their observations to the team leaders.

“It would seem that our situation is quite complicated,” Ryker eventually said after he and Rahnan had spent some time conferring. “The lack of crowds and moving normal rankers will make any attempts at blending in to move unfeasible. While retreat is an option, we have decided to make the attempt to at least localize the stealth teams which we can assume are still at large if the patrols are anything to go by.”

“How do we know that they are even alive and that the patrols aren’t just to find the rest of us?” a woman from the other tunneling team asked; a twitchy-looking human who was idly playing with a length of some kind of conjured razor wire.

In reply, Ryker reached into a dimensional bag and brought out a fistful of small stones, where seven out of eight still showed a tiny, glowing dot.

“We have copies of their tracking stones, although their stealth powers will probably render the directional guide unreliable at best. As you can see, they seem to have lost one member with an unknown number of people captured.”

“Capture does seem unlikely, at least in any numbers,” the other team leader added. “I doubt they have the infrastructure to keep more than a scant few silvers contained. So far, this organization hasn’t given hints of shipping slaves as part of their operations. Keeping even collared essence users needs plenty of infrastructure of its own.”

While Ryker had kept his stern facade while delivering the news of the team member’s death, the news still caused a ripple amongst the aura of all present, Kite included. Silver-rankers of the caliber of the task groups often had quite a bag of tricks to get out of tricky situations. This meant that someone had either gotten very unlucky, or their targets were more organized than they had been led to believe.

“As we said-” Ryker continued, his words breaking through the slight spiritual stir, “- we have a preliminary plan of attack. The scout of each team will roam and search for clues of the stealth teams’ locations, patterns of movement among our enemies or other hints of our original targets.

My team will make our way into the city as quietly as possible to be ready to act on whatever information they can feed us, while Rahnan’s team will start by securing our line of retreat while acting as reserve. They have two trap essences amongst them, and we will trust that they use them well. It’s up to us to make the best we can of this mess, and to show these lowlifes that they have no idea what is going to come down on their heads.”

Kite nodded along with the rest of the gathered members of the task group, the gravity of the situation clear to all. Not even Gray Sky had any complaints, all of the runic’s snakes looking as alert as their essence user.

And with that, little more needed to be said. Emilio gave each of those in the team a somber nod before he flickered away, appearing on a roof in the distance on silent feet while the other scout dissolved into sand, which then started forming into floating eyeballs. Kite immediately noted the similarity to Wander, but as the scout moved off it was obvious that the man’s ability to spread out wasn’t at the same level as the quirky woman.

“Wander would have been excellent to have along,” Kite thought wistfully while he donned a simple cloak along with the rest of his team. While the cloaks they had been provided were at least similar to the style usually worn on the island to ward off the ocean winds, no one had any hope that the simple attempt at disguise would hold up to more than the most casual of inspections.

They saw Emilio wave them forward from a few rooftops away, and all thoughts of his friends back home were gently put at the back of Kite’s mind as he followed the rest of the team, exiting the mill. Part of Kite wanted to run, staying close to the buildings and carefully peeking around any and all corners. But after his training in Gauntlet, he also knew better, following the brisk yet casual walking pace which Ryker set. While those in the know would probably recognize the odd group, most of the civilians and normal-rankers would probably not think it that out of the ordinary. Or at least be afraid enough of the imposing essence users to decide to mind their own business.

“At least the line of sight is limited,” Mtanga whispered under his breath as he walked next to Kite along the winding streets, the sharp turns and odd alleys a sure sign that the city had just sprung up rather organically as the smuggling operations had grown over past decades.

Even so, the group had to hide in alleys or make sudden turns as Emilio signaled the proximity of incoming patrols. And as they got a bit closer to the fort, said patrols became all the more frequent.

“Fortune, may we find signs soon. Because I don’t think that this will be sustainable for much longer,” Kite silently prayed as he stood guard while Ryker and Amica stacked the last of the bronze-rankers’ corpses deep inside an alley before Christine used her stone-shaping to sink them down into the ground.

As the patrol had happened upon them before the group had the time to heed Emilio’s warnings, a swift, brutal attack had been their only recourse. Fortune had indeed already smiled at them, as the four surprised bronze-ranked thugs hadn’t had the time to signal or otherwise make a sound. But if they had been more numerous it is likely that some would either have gotten away or the team would have been forced to use some of their less than subtle powers.

Ryker had apparently had similar thoughts as Kite, because he gathered the team in the deeper shadows of the cramped alley.

“Emilio will scout ahead while we wait here for a while. Moving around seems to be less and less ideal. We-” he began, but fell silent as Emilio appeared next to them. The elf’s eyes were sharp as he gestured for them all to hide, and within the second, the team of silvers had dived down behind barrels, crates and other debris.

None of them peeked out, but in the reflections of a nearby puddle of water, Kite saw a distorted image of four people moving. While there was little detail to be had, he could make out that their forms were a lot more varied than the thugs and smugglers they had previously seen.

“Probably more exotic kinds of armor and equipment. Some kind of inner guard to the crime barons?” he thought as the sound of their distant conversation reached him.

“-you think that any one of us can really cash in the boss’ challenge?”

“Nah, no way. You know him. But at least we have a chance here on the other side of the city. It wouldn't surprise me if we find some adventurer rats skulking about either. The boss assumed that there would be another team out here somewhere. If we can flush them out, the rest will help us corner them. And then your share can let you pay back what you owe me-”

“Wait, did you see that?”

“Oh no, don’t you go shifting the subject. I want my money, Trull.”

“There. Lightning!”

As one of the four spoke, Kite saw an arm raised to point off in the distance. Then the crack of a thunderclap echoed along the streets, impossible to miss for any silver-ranker in the vicinity.

“Well shove me into the heidel-pen. Someone has found some rats. Come on! We’d better get there before we miss our chance at the rewards!”

The four reflections all moved off at once, half of them taking to the sky. In the relative silence that followed, all gazes turned to Ryker as the team emerged from their hiding spots.

“We follow them. Emilio, got a mark back at the mill?”

“Of course.”

“Report that we’ll engage and try to help our people get back towards them. Because we can only assume that’s what they’ve found. Expect your return to be straight into active combat,” their stern team leader said as the marks on his cloaks started glowing as it split into strands. “The time for subtlety is over. Full speed ahead. Punch through any lower-rankers. Time to help our people.”

As the thunderclap echoed across the city, Solomon Blaske took a long swig of his drink while only glancing over at the bolts that followed.

“The two teams covering the south side must have found something,” Franz noted from beside him. As he was out of his flaming armor, the elf looked very much like a nobleman in his embroidered frock coat and fine jewelry.

“Well, I suppose that he technically is a nobleman, even though his family’s name has been struck from the records of his homeland,” Blaske thought, sipping his drink again before speaking. “Looks like it,” he said, continuing to lounge in the chair he had brought with him from his lodgings while surrounded by the burnt-out remains of the decoy house above the dimensional net.

“I take it that we shouldn’t move out to assist?” Franz asked, an eyebrow raised.

“There’s two teams over on that side of the city, with plenty more of our dear employers’ little minions in tow. I’m not sure what I’m paying them for if they can’t handle themselves. Keep a lookout as usual, though. If we’re proven wrong, we should at least be ready to move out quickly. So keep that teleport of yours at the ready. But I have the nagging feeling that other little rats might want to move in and ruin our little dimensional cheese beneath us if we leave. And we can’t have that now, can we?”

Jane didn’t even have time to curse as she whirled in between another pair of arcing strikes from the scything pendulums which screamed past her like a pair of severing meteors. Each of the heavy crescent blades was attached to a chain which in turn was wielded by a leonid man in hot pursuit of their group along with three of his companions. All of their true pursuers were silver rank; coreless essence users who had frustratingly enough been able to locate and flush the stealth team out of its hiding spot after only two hours.

“Some kind of mercenaries. Competent too. If careless,” Jane thought as she threw more of her Vortex Javelins while dodging to allow the remaining two of her team to get ahead. “And those damn thugs,” she inwardly swore as she was forced to abort her fifth throw due to one of the locals coming in from the side and launching a small geyser of poison towards her. The core-user was far clumsier with her powers than Jane thought any silver-ranker with dignity should be, but even with less skill and discipline, the thugs were numerous. Not too many silvers amongst them, but enough bronzes to help corral and hamper the fleeing group.

Seeing the signal from Derrik ahead of her, Jane turned and sped away while trailed by multiple ranged attacks of different kinds, the chained pendulums the most problematic of the bunch. However, she got a temporary reprieve as Derrik once more used one of his more potent illusions to turn the streets behind them into a confusing maze of bodies and warped reality with places of seeming inverted gravity. While it was but an illusion, Jane knew from experience that a mind thoroughly tricked would sometimes struggle to know the difference.

Together with the others she blasted through a group of bronze-ranked thugs who tried to bar their way, accepting a few stinging attacks in favor of keeping their momentum.

“Good job with the distraction!” Lefoux called, his wolf-form trailing the blood of the thugs as several moon-like orbs detonated behind them.

“Agreed, but we need more of a lead if we’re to go to ground again or make it out of the city,” Jane called out. She led them in a right turn and was looking for alleys to cut through in order to confuse their pursuers further when she felt something that caused her heart to chill with dread.

“More incoming!”

The words had barely left Jane’s mouth when a surge of blood shot towards them, the crimson mass lashing out with restraining tendrils. All three of the members of the stealth team managed to dodge, evade or confound the grasping pseudopods, but disaster struck when an elf in crimson, slick armor emerged from the mass of blood like a visceral cocoon hatching, her fluttering butterfly wings definitely helping the metaphor along.

The woman swung a jagged, mean-looking sword into seemingly empty air, but the spray of blood and suddenly visible illusionist with a half-severed leg indicated that she had some power to help her detect even the invisible.

“My blade has marked you now, adventurer. There is no escape!” the woman called in triumph as three more of the assumed mercenaries were making their way down the street at a dead sprint; a second group added to the ones still finding their way through or around the illusions behind them.

“Eight of them,” Jane realized with a sinking feeling. “And that’s not even counting the thugs or the four who ambushed us at the dimensional net. Shit.”

But even as she thought, she and Lefoux were already pouncing on the elven woman in their midst. They needed to minimize the damage and just keep their momentum. Find some time to cleanse any potential marks or whatever the woman had been referring to. Then-

A wave of bone-cracking force tore through the air, with the elven woman returning to her liquid form just in time to avoid it as it instead struck the stealth teams. All three were sent tumbling and stunned along the streets for a dozen meters, Jane righting herself through her flight power to send what projectiles she could to hamper their pursuit even as two more groups of thugs were emerging from a nearby alley.

“And another behind the mercenaries,” she noted, her mind trying to fight the steady descent into despair that the situation wanted to drag her into. Another group of people, probably locals from the looks of their cloaks, had emerged from among the houses.

As what tiny fragment of Jane’s perception that could be spared amongst the incoming attacks noted the gleam of proper armor and weapons beneath said cloaks, it started to reevaluate, trying to fit the new added danger into the already bleak scenario. And when one of the four new mercenaries called something to the new arrivals with but a glance over his shoulder, her calculations went thoroughly into the realms of the hopeless. But when the one in the lead of the cloaked group gestured, all of the cloaks suddenly flying off the backs of their wielders and through the air of their own accord to wrap themselves around the four mercenaries, the calculating part of Jane’s mind could only freeze in disbelief.

A moment later, two people flashed into existence in front of the barely recovering stealth team. One of them was an elf in combat robes who twirled a pair of glowing wands before he started unleashing a barrage of blasts towards the bronze-ranked thugs, forcing them to scramble back into the alley from which they came.

The other was a younger human man in heavier armor with dark hair kept up in a loose topknot, metallic tattoos lighting up across his face as four spectral arms materialized behind him along with three swirling vortices above him. He became a blur of activity, conjuring a pair of barriers to intercept a barrage of more potent attacks while the spectral arms started moving to project some kind of counterattacks which disrupted other incoming projectiles. They wielded mostly wavy-bladed short swords, but sometimes Jane could only see a blur while at other times a shimmering, chitinous shield would appear on one of his arms, its glow seeming to spread to his barriers. And on top of that, a small, very pretty fish would sometimes dart out from a container at his side to envelop a foe in a globe of restraining water, further hampering the assault of the thugs.

“Honored senior sister,” the younger man said, addressing Jane with a nod even as he directed his attention to intercepting incoming attacks and spells while the elf with the wands had disappeared again, flickering in and out amongst their foes. “If you would please join me in making our way back towards my team, we can start working on how to move forward from there.”

Having found her bearings, Jane stepped up to the defender - at least that’s what she assumed he was - while Lefoux helped Derrik limp forward as he waited for the healing potion he had downed to work. Jane threw out what wind spells she could, but moderated her spending as the trio had spent quite a bit of mana during their escape.

“Lead the way. We’ll-” Jane began, but was interrupted as another silver-ranker - one of the core-using thugs - came jumping off a nearby roof while swinging a conjured huge sword channeling an even bigger special attack of some kind. She made to evade, but the younger man stepped smoothly in front of her, and in the blink of an eye he made three counterattacks; One of his spectral arms flicked a strike towards the emanating projection of shuddering, blue force that was emitted from the blade while another did the same towards the conjured weapon itself. As for the third, it was the man himself who struck, a ringed staff appearing as a chiming arc.

Seemingly all at once, both the spectacular attack and the conjured weapon crumpled inward on themselves with the sound of an ephemeral mirror cracking while the staff caught the very surprised jumping man in the side of the head. Instead of descending like a destructive meteor, the core-user was sent tumbling end over end down the street towards what turned out to be adventurer reinforcements now bearing down on the four mercenaries.

“Amica!” The young man called, and Jane sensed his own and another, notably stronger, aura crush the core-user’s feeble spirit, and the tumbling man suddenly came to an abrupt halt in the air. He was dazedly trying to take in his new, upside-down perspective for a moment before he was once more jerked away with much more momentum, and Jane felt not a little amount of satisfaction as what could only be a telekinesis user started using the thug like a cudgel against his own allies.

The younger man with the barriers once more turned to Jane, nodding politely. “If senior sister doesn’t mind, I recommend that we hurry. Because I suspect that these aren’t your only pursuers.”

“Things have indeed not gone as we hoped,” Kite thought to himself as he protected the beleaguered remnants of the stealth team which they had finally reached. Emilio and Kite did their best to keep the core-using thugs at bay while the rest of the group tried to catch and overwhelm the four more powerful silver-rankers before enemy reinforcements could arrive, it was still a fair amount of projectiles and other attacks and spells which Kite had to contend with. Had it been hapless civilians or lower-rankers he was escorting, he already knew that he might have been on the verge of failure, but the silver-rankers of the stealth team made his task manageable.

And as his latest, Fortune-given addition to his arsenal caused yet another burst of multi-colored bolts to burst from one of his barriers, Kite was once more grateful for the chance opportunity in the woods beneath Starberry peak so long ago, and the awakening stone which had given him his looting power.

WWJS:

Targe of the Mirror-Swarm

Shield

Silver rank - Rare

[Effect] - When intercepting an attack charged with magic, such as a spell or special attack, this shield unleashes a salvo of retributive damage in the shape of many small seeking projectiles. THe number of projectiles scales with the amount of mana spent on the blocked attack up to a certain threshold, with additional effectiveness when blocking attacks mostly consisting of magical energies.

[Effect] - The retributive effect is also shared with other shields and barriers conjured by the wielder.

Kite’s looting power had been rather quiet during the months of training in the mirage chamber, and only occasionally producing items when facing the less numerous essence-users of the contracts he joined as part of the evaluation for the task-group. But as the team had to fight their way up through the interior of the island and its plethora of insectoid monsters, the power had once more paid dividends, and something surprisingly useful as well.

Ever since ranking up, Kite had missed his shield from bronze-rank, but hadn’t really found a replacement which meshed with his path. The one he was now currently wielding had brought an end to the wait, a round targe made from what seemed like black chitin shimmering with oily rainbow colors. That effect spread to his barriers as well, and a trio of opportunistic bronze-rankers were once more blasted back as their attempted flanking spells were returned as small, seeking projectiles of similar multi-colored light as the shield’s surface; like a small swarm of shimmering fireflies.

“While it might not be the peak of power, one shall never turn one’s nose towards a heaven-sent boon,” Kite thought happily as the item further lessened the pressure on him. The shield would probably not be a boon companion until the end of silver rank, but was synergistic enough that he wanted to see if Peony could use it as the base for something even more potent in the future. While the retributive damage wasn’t overly high, everything counted, especially as it was an addition to Kite already doing what he wanted.

As Kite and his wards started drawing nearer to where Ryker and the rest of the team was laying into the four mercenaries who made a staunch but quick fighting retreat, Emilio appeared close to them as well.

“Ryker. More of them incoming. Finish what you can, because we need to move!” the elf called, following his own example as he became a blur of motion and glowing lines. When his time-manipulating power ended, a storm of wand projectiles previously held suspended in the bubble of separate time were all discharged at once, mowing down three more bronze-rankers and injuring one of the silver-ranked thugs enough for the woman to dive for cover.

Fortunately, the four mercenaries were already trying to get away from the numerical superiority of the adventurers when Ryker and the others pushed further, the situation thoroughly descended into something of a race to see if the team from Gauntlet could do enough damage before proper reinforcements caught up. And unfortunately for the mercenaries, the team had a few prepared tricks up their sleeve.

Ryker had his cloth twine together into two thick ropes before slamming both lengths downward. He kept the descending, crushing special attacks far enough apart to encourage his foes to shift their position so as to step into the space between them. Out of the four mercenaries, three fell into the trap as only an elven woman in slick crimson armor used her blood powers to shift out of the way. The others instead found themselves bundled together, defensive powers of different kinds absorbing the magical shockwaves each of Ryker’s heavy attacks projected outwards.

That damage was only secondary, however, as Ryker’s use of that particular move was the opening shot of something which the team had practiced many times.

“Wall!”

“Nest of the god-viper!”

“Open the maw of desolation!”

“Glean the uncountable geodes!”

Kite’s force walls appeared around the now clumped up trio of mercenaries, boxing them in while leaving only one side open; the one facing the rest of the teams. The three mercs had to activate all their defenses available, as some of the team's more potent area spells followed shortly afterwards. Glowing snakes sprung from the ground to entangle and bite into all three of them while volatile crystals appeared and detonated in the semi-enclosed space, but this all paled in comparison to the ashen maw that appeared above Sztyka.

The channeled spell had the mercenaries’ shouting calls to each other shift into screams of terror as the damage started mounting, their bodies starting to wither away at an alarming rate even for a silver-ranker. As more attacks from Ryker and Mtanga were inbound as well, it became what truly tipped the scales. Two of the mercenaries attempted to use what was no doubt their more potent powers to get away, one vanishing in a cloud of darkness before Kite could shift the attention of his vortices to the man. The other instead attempted to phase through the barrier, turning ethereal and slipping out of the restraining snakes only to find himself wound up in cloth tendrils carrying glowing blue sigils which threw the man back into the center of the force cage as if his body was as corporeal as they came.

“They’re here!” the woman leading the beleaguered stealth team shouted next to Kite, and through his expanded vision he saw a pair of heavy, scything blades and their connecting chains tear a house further down the cobbled street into splinters to create a shortcut, accompanied by more auras closing in.

The wielder of the bladed chains, a heavyset leonid with golden fur, emerged from the still falling debris just a moment later, leaving the cobblestones beneath him cracked from landing. His snarl of fury was just turning to a roar as he gestured towards them with one of the heavy blades, the other already being wound up into a swing behind him.

“Faster! But save the annoying fucking illusionist. I’ll eat him myself for tha-”

His words had been working themselves up to a proper roar, but it died in his throat as he actually took in the scene before him while the other mercenaries and thugs started to pile in behind him. Because while two of the four mercenaries in the force cage had escaped, the other two had not, and the leonid was the only one quick enough on the scene to see the last dust of what used to be their bodies swallowed by the ashen maw above Sztyka’s head.

And while being silver-rank didn’t make you smarter per se, it made your mind work very quickly, taking the leonid only a moment to get a proper head count of their foes. Eleven silver-rankers were spread out over the street before him, all of their auras firm, disciplined and out for blood.

Ryker, with enchanted cloth already winding itself around his limbs once more, readying himself for the charge. Mtanga and Christine, the stone-armored elf covered in glowing crystals and the archer’s arrow already aglow with faint wisps of light. Sztyka invoked Justice’s name as claws of dust formed around her, Gray Sky rising up on his snake tail with eyes radiating cold death and Emilio flickering off to the side, wands twirling and the gleam of the hunt in his eyes. And finally, Amica and Kite, where the latter stood still with tattoos aglow, his stance tranquil as three vortices floated above him and four spectral arms grasped for weapons hidden in the void. Behind him, Amica floated like a living calamity, more and more of the rubble sweeping up into a great maelstrom that covered the whole width of the street.

The trio that was the stealth team were the only ones who looked spent and exhausted, but even so their determination was clear, javelins held high, claws twitching in anticipation and the flickering light of spells at their fingertips.

The leonid took one look at what was arrayed before him, and his previous demeanor crumpled as he turned on the spot, making good speed in the other direction while calling over his shoulder;

“Shit! Go- back off! Fall back! Report to the boss! You two, cover us! Maximum force!”