Rising Kite - A story from the world of HWFWM

“Report.” the sect leader commanded from behind her screen, the white light projecting her silhouette onto the paper with eerie accuracy.

“Yes, sect leader.” grand elder White replied. “Our clashes with the enemy have mostly kept them busy during this last week of preparations. It should only be two days, maybe less, before we can initiate the summoning and begin our push anew.”

“I sense hesitation, grand elder.” the words were as soft and light as they usually were, yet their implications still held danger.

“Sect leader, the adventurers caught wind of us setting up the rituals days before even the most pessimistic expectations. They have been harrying our location and have already destroyed several. With the decrease in summoning locations, I am unsure if it will be enough to turn the tides. We have already lost grand elder Delusion a few days ago, without being able to confirm a kill or enable a capture of our own. Their silver-rankers outnumber ours now. Even with the grand summoning circle, we should consid-”

“Are you saying, grand elder, that you are weaker than our foes? That I made a mistake in trusting you with this operation?” the same equanimity in her voice, yet the feeling of threat only increasing.

White was silent for a moment. “No, grand elder.”

“Then trust in your path. Even as we wrangled for supremacy, the heavens still saw fit to test our paths properly. Strength against strength. Trust in us and the sect. Trust in me.”

White looked up at the screen. “Sect leader, you intend to take to the field?”

“When I deem the moment to be correct.” she answered, tone steady.

Inwardly, White was relieved. If the sect leader meant to be personally involved, their prospects suddenly looked better. Their enigmatic leader was the one who their whole sect rested on. Without her intervention, the sect would have collapsed completely a decade ago when they were attacked.

“Then I will return to the front. Although I might need to chastise some of our members. Not all have acted with the sect’s best interest at the forefront of their minds.” he stated, rising to his feet from where he knelt.

“Grand elder, the strength of your path should allow you to retake dominion over our forces. Otherwise, the heavens did not mean for it to be so. Go, and succeed in our name. Bring those who sought to challenge us to their knees.”

“Yes, sect leader.” White bowed and left the otherwise empty room. The situation at the front was strained enough that they couldn’t just gather the elders at their leisure anymore. As such, he alone had been called in to report.

Traveling back through the forests, his silver-rank speed and conjured chains making the passage swift and simple, White was left with his thoughts and his plans. The summoning would soon begin, and then they would clash. He would strive to deliver pain to his opponents in such numbers that his god would laud his efforts. The battle might be a dire one, but they had prevailed before with the help of the sect leader, and would do so again.

“The Victorious Sunset sect apologizes to the Descending Star sect for casting aspersions on their character.” grand elder Sight said while bowing at just the right angle to show proper respect.

“And the Descending Star sect apologizes to the Victorious Sunset sect for this grand elder’s harsh words and for not having connected the missing initiates and disciples to this matter in time.” grand elder Meridian returned an equal bow.

The tension was palpable, but not with the angry buzz of aggression it had held the last time. Rupert thought that it would have to do, for now, but shuddered to imagine the chaos should the Victorious Sunset sect have prioritized retribution at the time of the incident.

Investigators from the adventure society had gathered information, eye-witness accounts and examined the remains of the attackers. With information provided by both sects, it didn’t take too long to realize that while the ambushers which had attacked after the initial silver-ranked clashes were indeed members of the Descending Star sect, they were all marked as missing either before or during the war. As all sides had faced the battle-thralls of their enemies as well as their illusory tricksters and spies, it did not take long to piece together a reasonable image of what had transpired.

The attack had never been intended to succeed in a direct way, but was merely another attempt to put a chink in their fragile unity. One that might well have succeeded, had the Victorious Sunset sect not performed their internal purge of both people and purpose beforehand.

“Then I say we settle this matter. Both of your sects will be rewarded as agreed upon.” Rupert declared, standing from his seat and taking the floor. They were gathered in a temporary command post not far from their lines, and Rupert had still prioritized only bringing in one grand elder from each sect, he himself representing the adventure society. The rest were still needed at the front. While things looked to be in their favor for now, the pressure needed to be kept up in order to execute the next phase.

“As you know, our enemies' preparations are expected to soon reach their conclusion, at least from our ritualist’s estimation after examining the materials brought in. That is why we are readying for a push of our own ahead of their time-table, and for that we will need a competent spearhead. All of our silver rankers will be requested to join in, albeit that Vigil will be our first reserve and ready to intervene should the enemies try to circumvent us with one of their own.

From their efforts and numbers, we should be at a qualitative advantage against the enemy, only their undead helping correct for the quantity. If we can disrupt the summoning and keep it such, we might be able to tip the scales thoroughly in our favor.”

While he talked, Rupert had made adjustments to the plans and troops on his more simple map used in the mobile camp, each silver-ranker being important enough to warrant their own marker in this conflict. Rupert thought it a bit ironic how the importance of a single silver-ranker varied across the world. During the last monster surge, he and his team had been in Rimaros and had been but a drop in the silver-ranked bucket where they were the rank-and-file. Individually rather unimportant.

“Will our allies in the sects accept this war contract?” he asked, turning to the two grand elders.

“The Victorious Sunset sect will accept.” grand elder Sight stated, quick on the uptake and without preamble.

Grand elder Meridian took her time, at least trying to look like she was pondering alternatives before nodding. “The Descending Star sect will accept it as well.”

“Then we shall sign it and start assigning our forces. Hopefully, the upcoming days will see us through.” Rupert said, laying out the contract for them both to sign.

“For the strength of our paths.” both women stated almost simultaneously.

Kite was deep in meditation where he sat in the small pavilion-like tent the group shared, having made their camp in the forest as a part of the sprawling campsite which most adventurers in the field returned to between contracts. The practice of meditation was both to calm his inner turmoil and tension in regards to what their next war contract would bring, but also to see if he could lay another metaphorical brick into his path. He had been working at it for a while now, and was just considering giving up on the attempt for now when he suddenly felt the last of the intangible blockades clear and the familiar feeling surged forth once more.

The gray light tinged with bronze had become a prize to look forward to when returning from their many excursions during the last weeks. Although it had often eluded him, this still made it the third ability to cross the threshold in but a few days, with a few more being almost painfully close.

WWJS:

Congratulations!

Your ability [Heaven-and-Void Warding] has reached Bronze 0.

[Heaven-and-Void Warding] has received additional effects.

Heaven-and-Void Warding

Spell. Cost: Low to Moderate mana Cooldown: None Current rank: Bronze 0

Effect - iron: Form a temporary barrier around self or ally within 30 meters, absorbing damage for a medium duration or until released or shattered. Cost is increased to moderate mana if used on ally.

Effect - bronze: May adjust size of barrier, increasing its strength by diminishing its size and vice versa.

Your ability [Spiritual Reprisal] has reached Bronze 0.

[Spiritual Reprisal] has received additional effects

Spiritual Reprisal

Special ability. Cost: None Cooldown: None Current rank: Bronze 0

Effect - Iron: Any creature striking you or one of your barriers will suffer one instance of [Unstable flow] - a stackable affliction which increases the effect of one of your special attacks, which consumes one instance of this affliction.

Effect - Bronze: You may choose to consume all available instances of [Unstable flow] at once, increasing the effect of the attack further the more instances that are consumed. Instances above a certain amount start giving diminishing returns.

Your ability [Void-Sunders-Firmament] has reached Bronze 0

[Void-Sunders-Firmament] has received additional effects.

Void-Sunders-Firmament

Special attack. Cost: Moderate mana Cooldown: 3s Current rank: Bronze 0

Effect - Iron: Surround your melee weapon or unarmed attack with spatial tears, dealing high damage and resonating force damage. Can be used either as a wide, sweeping attack or as a more focused, directed attack.

Effect - Bronze: Cooldown reduced to 3s. Suffuse the target’s wounds with remnants of the void, inflicting the [Vitality-tear] affliction which negates a certain amount of healing before being consumed.

That Heaven-and-Void warding, his most frequently used barrier power had broken through to the next rank just before the more passive ability which came into effect when enemies hit him or his barriers didn’t feel too surprising. And their effects were intriguing, but once more something Kite would need to work with to master.

His barrier could now be conjured at different sizes, with a minimum diameter of around ten centimeters and a maximum of around two meters. The smaller the barrier, the stronger it was in terms of damage absorption. When it evolved, he had started practicing by having Dragonfly throw things for him to deflect in an attempt to recreate some of the training he went through with master stone. While it allowed him to get a feel for it, she lacked his mentor’s mastery and wasn’t able to match his deviousness or intensity to really push Kite. He would need to work a lot with this to not adapt just timing and angle but also size to the circumstance.

The improved Spiritual reprisal instead allowed him to further switch up the timing of the added damage. Throughout his, admittedly short, career the ability had acted as a small damage boost in every situation where he had found himself trading blows with his enemies rather than going on the offensive with quicker attacks. Now, he could choose to switch it up with more intense bursts of damage as he released his power all at once for a greater retaliatory strike. What he knew was that it would inevitably help him when facing multiple weaker opponents.

Before, they would all stack up the affliction enough so that Kite wouldn’t have time to capitalize on it when he turned to them. They would either fall before his instances were consumed or be taken care of by one of his allies. Now he could dispatch additional enemies more quickly, turning his defense into a more useful trap which to spring on his opponents.

Finally, Void-Sunders-Firmament, his most damaging special attack got a more straightforward boost in that it became available more often, but also a more situational boost in the form of an affliction which started hampering enemy healing. One more tool for damage and to take control of the battle.

As he was spending time familiarizing himself with the latest upgrade, he was interrupted by a voice.

“Kite, it is time. The next war contract has been delivered. From the aura of the messenger who came with it, I think this is a big one.” Serene’s voice said as it came from the air next to Kite in the otherwise empty tent.

Exiting the tent, Kite joined his companions who had gathered around Grim and uncle Walker where they stood at the edge of the open space in the middle of the camp, the afternoon light finding its way down through the thick rust-colored canopies above. The bronze-rankers looked serious as they were reading from the scroll in Grim’s hands.

“Well, younglings, it seems like it is time for something more decisive.” Walker said, looking up at them. “We have been tasked to be part of the rearguard for something named the assault team, which I assume will be several of our silvers. Our role will be to disrupt what lower-ranked enemy reinforcements we can to allow the higher-rankers to do their work as undisturbed as possible.”

Even though a silver-ranker could shrug off a huge number of bronze-ranked attacks, doing so while fighting other silver-rankers might still be a nuisance. Kite and his group had already done this on a smaller scale, such as when they kept enemies off Braid to allow him to work on taking down enemy defenses.

“There are certain contracts that become milestones in an adventurer’s career.” Walker continued. “Those where you found yourself with the fate of yourself and those around you balancing on a knife’s edge. Where the stakes were the highest they have ever been, even if you are only a part of whatever is unfolding. We see it during every monster surge, and far too often in between.

And as you are closing in on bronze rank, leaving your beginnings behind, you have to ask yourselves once more; what kind of adventurer do I want to be? What is important to me? Which is my path towards the heavens? Because there are few more defining moments of your path such as the one which might lay before us now.

So please, do this old man a favor and survive this. Fight for yourself and those you hold dear, not for the potential glory, so that your path may continue its climb. While heroes are forged in conflict, not all of them survive to carry the mantle.” He finished, leaving a silence which had a gravitas of its own in the wake of his words.

As he looked upon his uncle, Kite thought that he could almost see it; the silver-ranker his uncle would hopefully soon become. Stoic and realistic, yet helpful and kind. Boastful, but never in matters which carried actual weight. The closest person Kite had to a father, leading them into danger and about to do his utmost to carry them through.

The somber moment was broken by a slow clapping. “Well, Walker, I didn’t think you’d make for such an inspiring figure.” master Force said with a cheeky, yet warm, smile as she let her aura expand and reveal her position.

“Just because youngsters like you are all battle-mad doesn't mean they have to be. I am just trying to impart my most sage wisdom upon these young souls.” Walker answered, turning to Force with a smile that matched hers. “What gives us the honor to be in the presence of an illustrious silver-ranker?”

“I came to get you, as you will be deployed in the wake of myself and Frost among Morning Dew.” Force answered as she turned to the rest as well. “So gather up your belongings. We head to the staging ground.”

“Will we get to see you fight again, master?” Dragonfly asked hopefully. “I was too in the thick of it to get a good look last time.”

“I believe that you will see more silver-ranked combat now than you have ever done in your life, little Dragonfly. And I want to be clear with one very important aspect; stay away. At a longer distance than you think you need. A bronze-ranker will need to be very careful, but an iron-ranker… They might just become accidental collateral damage.” Force said, light tone gaining a palpable gravitas as she leveraged her aura in support of her words.

“Master Force is quite correct, and I would counsel the young master to heed her words well.” Grim said in the silence that ensued. “Had we been in more populated lands, there probably would not have been any iron-rankers in such a conflict at all, instead being relegated to the utter periphery at best. But we are in the Autumn lands, and neither side can afford to dismiss resources. But please, young master, if for nothing else then out of respect for my service to you and your family, heed her warnings.”

“Do not fret, Grim. My path has to live on to realize its potential. I will try to curtail myself somewhat though, but it is in the heat of battle that legends are forged. My Heavenly shaft will prove its worth in this upcoming struggle!” Will said, usual gusto reaching the level of eyes gleaming with passion.

“Very good, young master…” Grim eventually responded after a suffering silence, before straightening. “Then you all know what to do. Gather your belongings.”

Meanwhile, Force was just looking around the group before going back to look at Will, then back to the group again. As the group spread out to break down the camp and gather their belongings, she seemed to lose a bit of her silver-ranked poise as she asked no one in particular:

“Is… is no one gonna tell him?”

Grand elder White made his way through the camp, people scurrying out of the way as he ruthlessly leveraged his aura like a spiritual battering ram against his lessers. In the camp around him there was a lot of activity as the students of the sects had scurried into preparation. Weapons were checked, armor donned and auras pulsed with tension, excitement or both. He could see gathered students following the path of pleasure receive a fresh batch of alchemical stimulants, the small pills one of the ways to initiate their frenzied way of fighting and claiming their opponents.

White felt little but scorn toward them. Even though their path sometimes aligned with the teachings of lord Pain, it was frivolous and self-indulging to the point of uselessness. Their victims would have so much more potential as battle-thralls rather than just vessels for their perversions. But they were the most numerous students, having the easiest time to recruit from the lowlives and other seekers who had come seeking shelter with them over the years, lacking the discipline or self-sacrifice needed for the path of pain.

And they had irked his people more as of late, not even mustering the discipline for the simplest joint operations. The sect would be stronger in the end, should they all perish while bringing victory to the Unbreakable Chains sect.

He reached the eastern edge of the camp, clearly marked by a sharp artificial slope leading down toward the largest of the summoning circles. As it was maybe twenty meters across, a sizeable area of woodland had to be excavated in order to set it up. This in turn meant that they needed their most potent cloaking-arrays to hide the camp from easy notice by the adventurers.

And still, it had not held up as long as they had wished. White stepped up to the figure of Collector of Anima, head priestess of Undeath in their venture. She sat overlooking the circle on a luxurious palanquin carried by uniformed zombies, her spectral servants fuzzing about her many robes, amethyst hair and shielding her from the almost non-existent sunlight with a beautiful parasol.

“Our reports have shown the enemy making a move, a force spearheading westward in this direction. You are commanded to initiate the summoning, priestess.” White spoke, voice cold and firm.

“Only my god can command me.” she answered, eyes thinning as she looked down at White from her palanquin. "It is too early. You haven’t even managed to bring us enough proper materials yet. What do you expect us to do with this?” The final statement was accompanied by a wave of her lacquered fan down towards the circle.

Across the magical diagram, choice corpses had been placed in their correct positions, ready for whatever the priestess intended. Even while White didn’t know the particulars of this ritual, the pattern of corpses looked sparse and only partially complete to his eyes.

“It does not matter. The enemy is soon upon us, and the summoning must proceed.” White stated again.

“But with just a few more days, we cou-” she began, but was interrupted by the arrival of another silver-ranked presence.

“Do not worry, priestess. The Red Table can pick up the slack. Our summonings aren’t as… logistically challenged… as yours, after all.” Gardaram Krunei said as he approached. The runic looked by far the youngest of them all, with his pale skin and pulsing crimson runes clearly visible across his bald scalp. White did not know if he had just passed quickly through the earlier ranks, or if it was the result of his own magic. The runic was a proficient shaper of flesh, after all.

“Like you have any reason to show such pride.” Anima hissed, giving him a spiteful look. “You’ve already lost almost half of your summoning locations.”

“Redundancy, priestess, is the hallmark of any venture. At least those performed with true skill. I thought you people were beyond rest, taking such pains to return from the final one, but your slacking seems to indicate otherwise. It is not our fault that you can’t deliver on time.”

Before the conversation could derail any further, White pushed against both of their auras with his own, silencing them as they needed to focus to fend him off. “The order goes for you too, mister Krunei. Ready your people.”

“With pleasure, Grand elder White.” the man answered with a mock bow, eyes still not leaving the priestess of Undeath. “I shall personally see to it right away.”

Priestess Anima glared daggers at his back when he left. “We shall begin as well. But whatever comes of this, the responsibility lies with your sect for the result.” she all but snarled without even looking at white. A few incorporeal specters flew out of the sleeves of her robes, darting off into the distance to carry her orders.

Half an hour later, the sigil had already started glowing with a fell, purple light as multiple priests around it started their conjuring. Spread out in an uneven line from north to south, multiple smaller summoning circles were springing to life as well as blood was spilled in great quantities to ignite their potential.

The warriors of the sect had already gathered as the first of the corpses in the grand circle rose, moving twitchily at first before steadying as its skin sloughed off and dissolved into a black semi-liquid ectoplasm, bones and all. But the latter reappeared around them as calcified armor as they leapt out of the pit, one by one.

Collector of Animas was frustrated at the paltry number, but still couldn’t help marvel at the gift from her god. As long as the circle stood, any corpse of an essence-user thrown down would be reforged into one of her grand creations and gain a rank up to a maximum of silver. She was quite happy with the current pattern mixing the spiritual with some of the corporeal for an efficient, clean mix rather than the unsightly shambling zombies. Had the ambient mana been greater, more could have been achieved, but alas such was not the case. And it was a shame that their attempt at stockpiling some of her creations in the city had been discovered as well, but at least Anima could console herself with her part in what the adventure society hadn’t unearthed.

From the smaller circles, hungry red-skinned humanoids and other more monstrous creations were taking form as they were summoned, drawing on spiritual blueprints from a place of only hunger and blood. They were not few in number either, welling out into throngs and guided by the cultists of the Red Table.

Followed by the created undead and the warriors of the Unbreakable Chains sect, the horde ranged out in front as a hungry screen ready to devour all they came across. The fallen sect would rise, reclaiming their foothold and right of dominion. First over the Autumn lands, and then beyond.

Grand elder White walked at the center of the sect column. Even his hardened heart felt excitement at the upcoming challenge. The sect leader had said that it would be a true tribulation, so he had decided to face it head on and force it into submission. For such was his path, and the heavens would soon enough know the grip of his chains.

Being in the presence of so many silver-rankers at once was a rather overwhelming feeling, even though they held their auras under tight control. Kite and his group stood gathered with the rest of what would make up the assault group, a bit over a hundred adventurers of different ranks. Just under half of their forces would leave, and the remaining warriors would be counting on defensive emplacements and caution to make up the difference.

In front of the gathered force, the seven silver-rankers stood lined up with the deputy director in the center, their supernatural looks making them distinct from the normality of the forested backdrop.

At the far left was a regal, dark-haired human woman in the blue and silver robes of the Descending Star sect, although her clothes were beyond the norm as they looked like a star chart turned into finery. Kite had never met her, but knew her name. She was grand elder Meridian, the sole remaining among her sect’s forces,

Next to her stood mistress Dew, as picture perfect a replica of the ice queen she was known to be with her long silver hair and lips painted blue. While Kite knew there were other traits beneath the facade, the chill she sent up the observers’ spines was quite literal.

The next man was someone Kite did not recognize at all. A celestine man with shaved head, thin eyes and a pleasant smile as he watched the crows, dressed in loose and austere saffron shirt and flowing pants, pieces of brass-colored armor reinforcing key places. From his looks and position in the line, he was unaffiliated with the two sects.

Then came the deputy director, his reddish-bronze fur and red mane almost looking like he was bathed in blood by the light of the late afternoon which reached them from beneath the trees. If the deputy director was here, Kite was quite sure that no one outside the large clearing could overhear them.

To the right of the leonid stood master Force, bearing proud and relaxed, with her short-cropped hair and long, thin braid. All calm and collected at the moment, her loose martial-arts outfit made her look the part of the controlled warrior Kite also knew her to be.

Kite did recognize the final two; grand elders Sight and Lark. The almond skinned celestine woman had her bronze hair up in a tight bun and was clad in light armor on top of her sect uniform, third glowing eye already manifested on her forehead. And grand elder Lark, his hard face and thin, long mustache looking out over the crowd and finding them wanting. Unlike the last time Kite had seen him, he now wore metallic green armor over his sect robes, the golden fabric only shown as accents rather than dominating. The armor was a magnificent piece of work with the phoenix featuring heavily in the embellishments. His eyes met Kite’s for a short while, but not giving any other reaction than letting his gaze remain on the younger man for a little while before moving on.

Together, they felt like a mighty force, but Kite found himself wondering what kind of operation they would undertake for them to gather all of their silver-rankers for it.

“We will now brief you on the upcoming strike.” Rupert said, his aura silencing the crowd. “Braid Spun from Honesty will handle most of the information, so I recommend you listen well. But I will tell you now; this may well be a defining battle of this war. We will all need to bring our best and act for unity and victory, not strife and personal glory.

Just by surviving this, you will have proven your strength in the eyes of the adventure society. Fight well and fight for those you hold dear, both here and back home. We fight for them as well.” the deputy director finished, before gesturing to a slightly nervous Braid to step forward.

The masked man looked around the crowd, taking a deep breath before speaking. “As many of you may know, our enemies have set up a series of emplaced summoning circles in the area west of here. From what we have been able to deduce, they seem to be made for large-scale summoning of lower-ranked monsters with the blood affinity. We suspect they will use these as fodder and shock troops in order to even out our advantage in quality, and should they have enough that may very well be the case.

However, other gathered intel hints at some kind of central summoning array capable of creating a lesser number of more powerful minions. We do not know how yet, but both the blood cultists and church of Undeath could pose great problems with such magical infrastructure at their command.

As such, this will be our primary objective; to find and take down that summoning array. All the lesser circles remaining will be considered secondary objectives, as will fighting the forces of our enemies. Our silver-rankers will be the spearhead, finding and engaging theirs whenever possible. Use your flares should you encounter an enemy of that rank, and retreat to a safe distance should you be near when ours engage them.

Your teams will mostly be there for crowd control and support, while a few choice teams will be sent after the secondary circles to ease the pressure upon you. You have already received missives with fallback plans and position to rendezvous, as well as red flares to signal any ritual circles you might come across but consider yourself unable to handle.” Braid finished, a murmur going through the crowd at the news.

“As you can hear, this will be a tough one. Our enemy's condition for victory is keeping those circles operational. As such, ours is for them not to remain as such.” Rupert stated grimly. “Use your judgment and trust in yourselves and those around you. We shall now move out. If our estimates are correct, we will face our enemies tomorrow.

May Warrior guide your strikes and Fortune guard your back, adventurers.” he finished, turning on his heels and striding off towards the west. And the gathered force of adventurers followed.

Kite’s insides were simultaneously calm and roiling, a similar sensation of importance to this moment like his feelings before traveling towards the jade-sky gate. Walker had said that moments such as this might define something that stayed with him and shaped the rest of his path, for better or for worse.

Looking at his companions, Kite further steeled his resolve as he could feel the power inside him. The power that had only grown since he stepped into the adventuring life. He once more silently vowed to do his utmost to protect them in what ways he could. And uttered a soft prayer to a familiar recipient.

“Fortune, may your favor remain with us through the tribulations ahead.”