Yellow Jacket

Vaeliyan Verdance/Warren Smith— Level 20

Second threshold requirements met

Class upgrade available

Class: Blade Dancer/Drift walker Alignment: Legion Cadet/Aberrant

Unallocated Stat Points: 0

Strength: 25
Perception: 30
Intelligence: 38
Dexterity: 33
Endurance: 25
Resolve: 35

Vaeliyan's Skills at level 20

Power Strike (Active):

A single, focused melee blow delivered with full-body commitment. Designed to break guards, knock targets off balance, or end a fight with clean force. Most effective when delivered from a grounded stance with intent. Requires no charge, no windup, only opportunity.

Pocket Sand (Active):

A burst of particulate grit thrown directly at a target's face or optics. Causes immediate disorientation, temporary blindness, and target disruption. Non-lethal. Opens space, ruins focus, and invites mistakes. Taught to those who weren't born faster, just meaner.

Optimized Metabolism (Passive):

The body operates with refined internal efficiency. Post-exertion recovery is faster. Heat regulation is cleaner. Breath control holds longer. This isn't regeneration. It's output discipline. The body doesn't burn harder. It just burns better.

Anchored Stance (Passive):

Trained for balance and weight control under impact. Reduces stagger, slippage, and recoil disruption. Movement becomes deliberate. Posture resists being broken. This is not strength, it's structure that refuses to fold.

Vaeliyan's Soul skill – All Around You

Core Effect – Pressure Field

The field builds over time. The longer the user remains still, the faster the pressure intensifies. What begins as a subtle shift becomes a persistent weight. The space tightens. Air feels heavier. Focus degrades. The presence grows without sound or warning.

Passive – Suffocation Drift

The field spreads outward from the user, thinning focus and sharpening discomfort. Oxygen levels remain unchanged, but breathing feels strained. Thought slows. Tension builds. The effect is passive, progressive, and persistent.

Execution Effect – Compression Spike

The user can condense the field instantly, applying a sudden spike of directional pressure. The effect is silent, invisible, and immediate. At close range, it can stagger limbs, break rhythm, or knock weapons off-course. Applied precisely, it can mimic the force of a physical strike.

Known Limitations:

The field strengthens the longer the user remains still. Movement reduces intensity and disrupts edge stability.

Pressure loses coherence with distance from the user.

The Skill does not directly immobilize targets.

Effects are less noticeable to individuals with suppressed emotional response, advanced conditioning, or enhanced respiratory systems.

Stage Two Upgrades

Spatial Sensory Link:

Detects motion and presence through subtle shifts in pressure. Provides 360° awareness independent of sight or sound.

Directional Focus:

The user can shape the field's effects toward specific targets or soften its reach. Pressure follows intent, not command.

Passive Signal Disguise:

Sensors register the Skill as background fluctuation, vent lag, circulation faults, or minor atmospheric drift. No alert is triggered unless manually investigated.

(One skill upgrade available)

Warren's Skills at Level 20

Soft Flicker (Active):

A refined evolution of Flicker Steps. Allows the user to disperse into a controlled nanite mist and reconstitute nearby within visual range, without noise, shimmer, or static trail. Movement is no longer disruptive, no longer a visual stutter: it simply happens, like a blink that no one notices.

Requires direct line of sight, The reformation process has been stabilized, smoothed into seamless reintegration. There is no burst, no flash, no displacement wake, just a change in position, clean and surgical.

Echo Vision (Passive):

An advanced extension of Scavenger's Eye. Retains the passive enhancement of visual pattern recognition and environmental scanning, sharpening Warren's ability to detect irregularities, hidden salvage, and useful out-of-place elements even in chaotic or cluttered terrain. His brain remains trained to catalog structural logic and deviation without conscious effort, every frame of vision filtered, indexed, and weighed.

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

But now, Echo Vision does more.

It records short-term visual sequences in real time, leaving behind memory echoes that can be mentally replayed. Movements, layout shifts, enemy paths, anything witnessed becomes retraceable, reviewable, and perfectly clear when needed most. Useful for backtracking, identifying inconsistencies, or remembering the exact placement of an item or threat that was seen for only a moment.

Examine (Active):

Allows close, precise inspection of physical items. Identifies structural materials, mechanical condition, origin markers, manufacturing details, and utility potential. Does not reveal hidden properties.

Moment of Choice (Passive)

An evolved extension of Quick Reflexes. Retains the enhancement of startle-response timing and intramuscular coordination, enabling the body to respond instantly to sudden proximity, shifting momentum, or threat movement without conscious input. Reflexes remain clean, automatic, and preemptive, firing faster than thought.

But now, Moment of Choice does more.

Reflex chains no longer trigger directly. Incoming stimuli are intercepted by nanite-regulated neural pathways and converted into high-speed response projections. Time is not slowed, but cognitive compression occurs, reflexive options are presented in isolated still-frames, each motion queued for review rather than release. Step, shift, deflect, absorb: each path flashes in succession. Movement does not initiate until one is selected.

The result is reflexive action with embedded volition. The body holds position until a decision is made. Reactions remain as fast as instinct allows, but no longer occur without intent.

Crafting (Active):

Activates a system-assisted overlay that highlights structural stress points, compatible materials, and assembly pathways in real time. Enhances focus and spatial awareness, allowing rapid assessment and execution of mechanical or structural tasks. Used to repurpose materials into tools, stabilizers, or functioning devices with heightened efficiency and minimal error.

Mobile Sun (Active):

Generates a compact gravitational core of nanites. Anything that enters contact is drawn in and torn apart by extreme force. The field exerts constant vacuum pressure in all directions. Control is manual. Activation carries physical risk.
Warning: The user is not exempt. Contact with the core will result in severe damage or death.
This Skill does not stabilize itself. It will consume whatever it touches, intended or not.

Warren's Soul skill – Rain Dancer

Core Effect – Phase Slip

Environmental moisture, rain, mist, blood, steam, no longer reacts to Warren. It aligns with him. He is not moving through the storm. He is the storm's chosen vector.

Water flows with him, not around him.

Raindrops spiral to his motion.

Mist forms his silhouette before he steps into it.

Visibility itself becomes distorted in his presence.

Passive – Micro-Evasion Boost

Every movement Warren makes is adjusted, not just spatially, but meteorologically.
Wind pressure shifts around his path. Microcurrents redirect trajectories.

Flechettes miss by millimeters.

Melee swings veer away as air density warps.

Objects moving toward him may deflect subtly, as though pushed by sudden wind shear.

To observers, it looks like supernatural instinct.
To the System, it's a behavior it cannot fully explain.

Attack Sync Effect – Kinetic Surge

When Warren strikes mid-motion, the environment becomes a weapon.

A swing of his truncheon may bring a concussive burst of pressure, water, or mist.

Rain compacts and detonates on impact.

Mist lashes like a coiled whip.

Droplets act as accelerants, increasing momentum and range.

His blows land with the violence of hurricanes.
His movement leaves behind impact craters, gouged stone, or collapsing structures, not from strength, but from the mass of motion given form.

Visual Signature

Rain doesn't fall, it follows.
Mist doesn't obscure, it shapes him.

Each movement trails spirals, rings, and pulses of moisture that react before contact.

Lightning sometimes arcs around him, not to strike, but to avoid him.

The storm bends toward him, not in service, but in recognition.

Growth Conditions:

Rain Dancer evolves through high-risk engagements in poor visibility conditions.

Rain, smoke, fog, blood mist, steam, any atmosphere with distortion potential increases adaptation.

Direct kills made immediately following an evasion spike increase psychological effect range.

The more he endures, the more the storm learns him.

Known Limitations:

Less effective in arid, dry, or open-sky environments.
More moisture decreases its limitations.

Stage Two Upgrades:

Function (Path of Clarity):

Controlled Precipitation: Rainfall within the field thins to preserve sightlines, airflow, and coordination. Peripheral zones retain full density for concealment and misdirection.
Steam Dispersal: Heated mist is redirected outward or downward, creating breathable corridors even in high-temperature vapor zones. Visibility stabilizes.
Pressure Equilibrium: Localized fluctuations in atmospheric pressure are neutralized. This reduces disorientation and strain, allowing full function even in hostile weather environments.

Notable Effects:

Rain falls as needed: soft over breath, heavy where silence must hold.
Mist shapes passage instead of shrouding it.
Steam thins without vanishing.
The field does not clear the storm, it harmonizes with it.
Relief without weakness. Shelter without retreat.

Switch Conditions:

The Skill responds without voice or motion.
Intent defines function.
Desire for clarity calms the storm.
Need for sight, for breath, for balance, these shape the field.
There is no surge. Just space to endure.

Resonant Field Memory:

Each encounter with distorted air sharpens the field's response.
Areas previously traversed will adapt faster in future returns.
Steam, rain, and fog alter more intuitively in zones where the Skill has learned to listen.

Note: All passive skills are usable throughout the veil