PoA The Concept of Death Chapter 8

PoA The Concept of Death 8

 

Melinda called out commands and retreated as her simulated team pulled back.

This team was heavily stacked with mages, and only the plant mage had any ability to tie down the attacking ogres. Even then, it was a losing proposition. [Root] was a Tier 8 spell, and the finger-thick, wooden tendrils were hardly enough to slow the massive monsters down, let alone halt their movement.

The lack of an earth mage made the simulated run that much harder; at least Vinnie could have created barriers. Instead, they pulled one monster, then retreated to the cleared part of the forest.

It was slow, but effective.

She spent most of her time using the drones that came with this simulation watching their rear. It wasn’t perfect, with the Tier 5 drones’ limited flight time and mana efficiency, but she had been able to catch two wandering ogres before they were able to ambush them from behind.

Her lightning mage fried one of the monsters as her fire mage peppered a second from the side. She checked everyone’s mana and sent a message to pull back and refill their mana with mana stones.

Melinda was getting ready to settle in for a long wait when the simulation ended. Her scoring report wasn’t bad. Apparently, she had hit all the criteria except she scored low on the section regarding her anticipation of the ogres’ movements. Considering that was a monster-specific trait, she was happy with her score of eighty-two percent.

She opened her eyes and used her AI to open the cubicle she was in, and she unhooked herself from all the gear helping to translate her movements into the simulation. It took a few minutes, but she checked out of the simulation room and saw that her friends were still busy.

After checking their progress, she sent a message to the group and set off to do more training with Baxter. She felt like she was close to getting her Talent to interact consciously with spirits.

She only needed a slight push to close the gap.

***

Tara shuffled as her ranged instructor, Robert, threw a pebble at her knee. She loosed her arrow as the clay pigeon appeared. Trying to not rely on her Talent was nearly impossible, but she could blunt its influence on new weapons. However, the bow was so ingrained into her, she didn’t really know where her Talent ended and where her own skill began.

Her two weeks of individual training had come after the team had taken the much cheaper group lessons. For 5,000 points, it was a steal. But the ranged trainer had pulled her aside on day one and offered her a refund, saying that he couldn’t train someone possessing a Talent that needed individual attention along with a group of others.

The rest of the team had leaned into their specialties, with Melinda taking general mage training. She needed healer training from a generalist just as much as Tara needed ranged training from one.

Digging into her point reserve, Tara took the specialized training that was recommended to her.

Robert was a Tier 19, and had abilities far beyond her skill with a bow. He didn’t have as wide a base as her Talent gave her, but he was good enough to critique her.

There she learned that her Talent wasn’t perfect. Sure, it was powerful; it let her pick up any weapon with what felt like years of experience. It allowed her to skip most of the prerequisite training, but she still needed to learn for herself through experience.

Robert mostly focused on forcing her into new positions, and demanding that her and her Talent adapt to the sudden changes.

He had transitioned to reactive training after she had put an arrow through the mobile training aids that they were using. After that, they moved to more replaceable, stationary targets.

She needed to get every point’s worth of training from the soldier during her limited time. She could afford another two training sessions if she dipped into her reserves, but their team wanted to save their points to change sides when they died.

None of them were happy with the Queendom’s recent changes, but they were high enough in the hierarchy of Pathers to avoid any negative side effects regarding their point earnings. At the same time, they weren’t so high up that they benefited, either. Their team was right in the neutral zone.

That didn’t mean they agreed with the changes though, and they intended to join Matt as soon as possible.

Tara made a mental note to thank Matt once again for the quiver. It was so stupidly useful, she didn’t know how she ever fought without it. When she paired it with a summoning enchantment on her bow, she was able to carry and summon a nearly unlimited number of arrows.

The best part was, they wouldn’t fall out of her quiver if she moved too much. While she could have gotten an enchantment for a normal quiver with the same effect, it wasn’t perfect. If the enchantment was too strong, it would interfere with the summoning rune on the bow. If it was too weak, it would still let the arrows slip through.

With the growth item, she got the best of both worlds. She could summon her arrows for less than a single unit of mana.

That didn’t even take into account the random elemental enchantment that would be applied to the arrows that she left in the quiver for long enough. The quiver enchanted one single arrow at a time. However, the effects were completely random, so she had to store a number of arrows before the enchantment became very useful.

Some elements were more effective than others. The single void arrow she had gotten was being held as a trump card, just in case their team got into a sticky situation. The arcane arrow she had gotten last month was a curiosity with how rare the mana aspect was. Void was well known for its singular purpose; she didn’t need to test the arrow. But the arcane arrow was a complete unknown that she didn’t want to waste.

The water arrow had less utility, as it had no pressure behind it, which did little to add to the damage. Along with fire, earth, and wind, it was one of the most common elements that popped up.

The fire arrow exploded, adding a good bit of versatility to her kit. When the arrow was paired with penetration, the explosion was mostly internal, making the fire arrow a valuable part of her kit.

The earth arrow immobilized targets, which was handy in a pinch. But overall, Vinnie could do the same job, better. It was good to have a backup, but it was largely redundant.

She hadn’t let the quiver enhance the same arrow twice, after seeing that it gave diminishing returns on power. It was better to widen her breath of stored arrows than to go for one super arrow. Though, she had let the void arrow get upgraded three times.

A trump card should be invested in, after all.

Two rocks whirled past her as she loosed another arrow, only for her dance to be interrupted by a third, prompting Robert to call out how she needed to be more prepared.

***

Mathew pushed the bar off his chest and held the weight for a heartbeat before slowly lowering it and inhaling.

After seeing his wife off to work on her healing project, he went to work out. The group training with a defensive instructor taught him a lot, even with the limited one-on-one time.

He had redoubled his training in the simulators, but things weren’t progressing as well as he’d hoped.

During all his simulations, he had scored a max of seventy-three percent. He needed to defend his team, but he was always pulled in five directions at once, with himself being the only dedicated defender.

The point was only hammered home in the last scenario, when he needed to block a fireball from the front.

His first instinct was to scatter the team to avoid the projectile, but his shot-caller had ordered him to block it.

The first time he ran the scenario, he had followed orders, and they were attacked by a pair of wolves as he was blocking the fireball. The second time he ran it, he ignored the order and called for his team to scatter.

They did, and while he was able to take the first two wolves, his team members were torn apart, and he once again failed.

It was beyond frustrating, and he took it out at the gym.

As the bar slowly touched his chest, he forced it away with an explosive exhale, and equally violent push.

When his AI alerted him that Melinda should be getting off soon, he cleaned up and made his way back to their suite. After picking up her favorite stir fry, of course. She would have forgotten about dinner, as she usually did when working long hours, and would starve to death if he didn’t force her to eat.

He had a plate ready for each of them when she shuffled in the door. She kissed his cheek before digging in, and didn’t say anything as she scarfed down her food.

When she was done, she sighed. “Thanks. I needed that.”

“How did it go?” Mathew tried to grin and pull Melinda into a cheery mood.

He wasn’t feeling great himself, but Melinda was running herself ragged.

His wife stretched until her limbs quivered with the movement. “I keep feeling like I’m so close, but it’s just out of reach. I’ve tried changing my methodology… I’ve tried changing the way I think of things to get a new perspective… But nothing has worked so far.”

Mathew thought that over and offered what he could. “Maybe take a break? It could help refresh your mental gears.”

Melinda had a look on her face that he was all too familiar with. He knew that it meant she was getting ready to raise her hackles, and resist any notion of taking it easy.

It was a common sight in their youth, but it had faded quite a bit in their last few years. But in the last seven months, it had only reappeared more and more, as they all noticed how far they had slipped.

He believed that there was a time for being obstinate and driven, but this wasn’t it. She was burning herself out.

Finally, the energy wooshed out of her, and as she slumped down, Melinda nodded.

“You’re not wrong. I’m tired. We’re too busy trying to make the most out of this war and fix our deficiencies.”

Mathew scooted his chair beside Melindas, and rotated her until he had her back in front of him. He started to dig his fingers into her shoulders.

The little gasps were what he was looking for throughout his crusade against knots and tightness He would focus on those problem areas and gently work her aches and pains away.

When Melinda was half asleep, he carried her to their bed and slid her under the covers. He went and showered his sweat off before joining her.

There were so many things they should be doing, but what they really needed was a break.

The next morning, he put his foot down and made the entire team take the day off. Together, they sat around and watched movies and relaxed.

It did them all good.

He spent the next afternoon distracting Melinda with a day of window shopping, and ended their evening in one of the parks inside the city. They ate a picnic made by Matt and himself that morning after they worked out together.

Stolen story; please report.

He mostly helped by cutting things, or fetching things from the various bags of ingredients they had gotten on their way.

Once the sandwiches were made and the salads were prepared, they only had to wait on the soup to cool down.

Or so Matt said.

When Mathew suggested turning the heat up higher so it would finish faster, he was kicked out with a warning that Matt would have it ready for their dinner.

He really didn’t understand the man’s anger. If they cooked it faster, it would boil off the water, and he could package it up now and save a courier the trip. It made sense to him, but he also realized that he ordered out food a lot more often than he made complicated meals.

As he dipped his bread in the creamy soup, he had to give it to Matt, the man could cook. And by the noises Melinda was making, he should get some lessons himself.

It was an amazing evening; both of them had more energy in their steps as they went home. The date had reinvigorated them both.

Things were pretty nice, despite the war going on behind them.

Now, he just needed to save up for the taunting skills in the point shop. The problem was, they were all Tier 14 and expensive for their Tier.

***

Sam mixed a potion with Liz as they chatted about the recent happenings, but were careful not to interrupt their careful mixing.

She had figured that things would be awkward once Liz had revealed that her parents were some of the strongest people in the empire, but the pair had quickly fallen back into their grove.

With her AI reading her spiritual sense, Sam adjusted the temperature of the pot and stirred twice. The concoction turned to a vomit yellow, and she cursed.

It was supposed to turn a shade of green, before returning to clear.

Liz leaned over and tisked. “I knew that Fennel Root was bad. We should go back to that merchant and get at least part of your money back.”

She thought about it; it wasn’t the worst idea. She shook her head and said, “He could easily say that it was my concoction ,and not his herb.”

She didn’t add that it was already eating into her funds to try to make this poison. Kepler’s Kneller was a potent vomiting agent that would debilitate a swath of enemies, but the ingredients were expensive.

Liz threw around money like it meant nothing. If Sam had only known her parentage, she would have blamed it on her upbringing, but she had seen the woman haggle to the Tier 2 mana crystal for items. No, it was just that she and Matt were wealthy beyond their Tier, after selling more than one growth item.

The partner to her friend hadn’t successfully concocted the Astral Blood potion in her nine attempts thus far. Each attempt cost thirty times all of Sam’s attempts.

In a roundabout way, Liz had offered to buy the ingredients on their last shopping trip, but she declined. Sam had the points to spend, but it felt so much more wasteful when they were a limited resource, and they weren’t earning hundreds of thousands like Matt and his team.

It was hard not to be envious sometimes.

Still, she didn’t want any handouts, especially from a friend.

As she started scrubbing the failed poison into a waste disposal storage bucket, Liz helped her rinse and empty the vials. It was a nice gesture, as she had more downtime before her next step, where she needed to add the extract of a Silver Bear’s blood.

Liz nodded to her workstation when Sam didn’t move to start again. “Are you going to try again? We still have enough time left.”

Sam thought about it but shook her head. “I need to get out of my own head. I’ve made potions harder than this. The shit product doesn’t help, but I could have noticed that, and added the brine of Harpy eggs to prevent that.”

“We all have off days.”

The redhead looked worried about Sam.

She waved the concern off. “It’s fine. Really, it is. I just need to step away for a bit. What are you doing tonight?”

Sam could use some girl time with someone not on her team for a change.

Liz wiggled her hand. “I don’t have plans, but we have team training early tomorrow.” She paused with a look that Sam knew meant she was reading her AI. “And I have a meeting tomorrow. Your Pather boss is a pain in my ass.”

Sam had never met Talous, but the impression she got from Liz wasn’t exactly a good one.