Arcane Apocalypse

24 – Setting Out

Mia felt conflicted as she stepped out of the building. That first step outside felt like a thousand miles crossed in a single moment, and it made her dizzy. It was not the act of stepping over some imaginary boundary that troubled her though, but people following her as she did so.

Brent was already out, dressed again in his knightly armour with a gleaming longsword brandished in his grip as he glanced left and right out on the sidewalk. The man had been … difficult. 

He was clearly unhappy about how things went down in the basement, and had been rather testy and irritable since then so Mia mostly left him alone to process since then, while she herself was running around gathering supplies and telling Mark and Lina about Jeff’s ultimatum.

Next to him stood Mark, wearing what looked like dwarf-sized armour made of stone along with a silly-looking helmet. All in all, his armaments looked to have been shaped like clay by some horrendously bad craftsman, but he swore they were just as good, if not better than Brent’s metal wear.

Next to Mia stood Lina, a large backpack on her back and an excited but nervous smile on her face. Behind her though, stood Sam — Mark and Mia’s ex-neighbour and fix-it man —, now as a catboy of all things. Or rather ‘feline beastkin’ to be proper. 

Mia wasn’t sure why exactly the last two joined her little group, even with the banishment that came along with it. Still, she was grateful. Even if that feeling was slightly warped whenever she caught Sam checking out her behind. Slowly, bit by bit, her gratefulness was evaporating and when the time came that it finally ran dry, she was going to kick him in the nuts. She’d make the kick hard enough to send the stupid notion of crushing on her flying right out of his mushy brain.

“All clear,” said Brent, not relaxing even a bit as he stepped further out and onto the road caked in dried goblin blood and guts. “Nothing, as far as I can see at least.”

“Good enough,” said Mark, patting an open flask hanging on his side.

“What’s that?” Mia asked, eying the thing as she scrunched up her nose. Even with the small cloth stuck into its mouth, it had a pervasive foul smell.

“Goblin deterrent,” said Mark. “I got us enough to last a week, plus the recipe, but that needs an Alchemist to make so this is probably all we have for now.”

“It’ll do,” said Brent. “From what I know, all the Rifts are towards the city centre and we are heading to the suburbs.”

“Right,” said Mark, tapping his foot on the pavement. “Let’s get going then.”

“Wait a moment,” said Brent as he turned back to the group and a grimace flickered across his face. “You brat, with the cat-ears, what can you do?”

“Uhhh,” Sam stiffened as the entire group turned to watch him. “I’m quick? And I have claws.”

Mai watched in morbid fascination as his human fingers morphed and lengthened into claws. They were long and curved like Karambit knives and gleamed in a dark grey colour under the sunlight. Great, he has knife-hands. The resident catboy is a horror movie villain. 

“How quick?” asked Brent, squinting at the younger man.

“Pretty quick, I’d say,” said Sam, and Mia’s eyes were drawn to him in that all too familiar manner. He was channelling mana. Then he moved, and while Mia could follow him with her eyes, she doubted she could do more than bring her arm up to parry if he was to pound on her with his current speed. Sam dashed over to Brent and, in an idiotic bid to establish his masculine superiority, reached to place a claw near Brent’s neck.

Arrogance was a hard drug,one of the most dangerous ones, and it caused the one Sam seemed to be sky-high on. Which was why he failed to notice the elbow lazily moving to slam into his solar plexus. 

“Oof,” Sam wheezed as the air was knocked out of his lungs. His limbs gave up on him and he collapsed into a whimpering ball.

“Fast enough,” said Brent as he gazed down impassively at Sam. “You’ll be rearguard, boy. The dwarf is the main ‘tank’ as you’d call it and I’ll be the forward scout. The two girls are our heavy hitters, and disablers while also being the most squishy of our group so I expect both of you to jump between any attack and them, understood?”

Mark gave a serious nod, which looked comical as his silly helmet tipped forwards and fell over his eyes. Cursing, the dwarf took it off and Mia saw some light brown mana flow into the piece of equipment before it started to shift under Mark’s heavy stare.

“Am I understood, brat?” reiterated Brent, poking the whimpering catkin with his armoured foot.

“Y-yes,” said Sam. “I’ll protect them.”

“Good,” said Brent, then turned to the last members of their little party: the two girls feeling a bit out of place. “You two have any protection? Something that would help you jump out of the way of arrows or monsters? Barriers, movement skills, whatever?”

“I can make a small shield,” said Mia, unconsciously raising her hand like she was answering a teacher. “And I can make a Familiar … it’s weak, but it could distract enemies and jump between me and attacks.”

“I could drag myself around with some wind?” Lina answered, frowning in thought. “... That’s it I think. Maybe I could shove projectiles aside if I’m fast enough or have a veil up.”

“You were the air-net-girl, right?” asked Brent, then nodded as Lina gave a hesitant nod. “Good. Try to keep up something like that around the two of you if we get into a fight. Door-girl, can you put up the shield while simultaneously firing off those nasty pink bullets of yours?”

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“No,” Mia said with a grimace. Not yet anyway. 

“Then focus on taking out stuff before it can become a problem. Leave defence to the rest of us. Got it?”

“Yes,” Mia nodded. “What of the Familiar?”

“Have it out if you can,” he shrugged. “I don’t know much about this magic stuff, so do as you think best. But focus on always being able to blast nasty fuckers if you have to. If you don’t compromise that, do as you wish.”

“Okay,” Mia nodded, rolling her shoulders to pull her own backpack further up. 

All of them had some sort of a backpack or other bag hanging off of them, which was a must if they wanted to survive. Mark packed a few weeks' worth of compact dried meat and a few litres of water along with god knows what else, while everyone else also stored some personal effects.

Mia’s own bag was filled with her system-given books and a few sets of clothes, with a focus on those that were more compact like shorts and crop tops. Though, her current wear was the exact opposite with a long white pair of jeans and a tank top with a jacket over her shoulders. 

She might not have any armour or the like, but she wanted to have at least some fabric covering her body if she was going to get into scuffles with monsters. She even dug up her meanest boots, the one with iron inlaid heels. Who knew, maybe she’d have to stomp a monster to death?

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Mia almost facepalmed as another important detail came to her mind. “I can sort of feel monsters, or at the very least tell when they are close to me even if I can’t see them.”

“Really?” Brent asked, his full attention swinging back on Mia with much more weight than before. “What’s the range? How dependable is it? Can you tell the exact direction and the distance? … Also, how?”

“It’s one of my Traits, I think,” Mia said, squirming under the group’s attention. “Fae Blooded, it gives me some sixth sense for supernatural energies. As for the rest … I think the range is quite large, maybe fifty metres? Though I can’t pinpoint anything with much accuracy beyond twenty to thirty metres. It also never failed before.”

“Fae Blooded,” Brent murmured, rubbing at his stubbled chin. “I assume that’s a Racial Trait that you got to go along with those ears?”

“Yes.”

“Well, fuck.” Brent ran a hand over his face. “No matter, this doesn’t change anything. We can’t have you scout ahead with how squishy you are, so just scream if I somehow miss any monster sneaking up on us, alright?”

“Okay,” said Mia, nodding as Brent strode out onto the open street while the rest of the group’s gazes lingered for some more. “What?”

“Nothing,” said Mark, shaking his head as he crouched on the ground. “Stuff’s just weird. Still getting used to everyone having so many weird-ass magics.”

“I’m still jealous,” Lina huffed, poking Mia in the side playfully. “Do you think I can change race later? Being human is so last month.”

Mia just shrugged, her eyes focusing on Mark as soft earthly brown mana poured out of his fingers and into the pavement below. His palm sunk into it as if it was liquid and the pavement around his palm slowly liquified before it all flowed towards his hand and crawled up on it till his elbow.

Mark stood, a baseball sized globule of liquid pavement twisting around his right hand. The orb continued to shift, growing vicious spikes as long as Mia’s fingers as it slowly grew smaller. Finally, a handle grew out of its side, which Mark was still holding onto as the head of the now-mace came to a stop at the end of a metre long rod. 

“Nice,” Mia murmured, watching the oversized mace with interest. It was almost larger than the dwarf wielding and its head was certainly larger than its wielders, even covered in helmet as it was. “That’s one of your ‘armaments’?”

“Yeah,” said Mark, giving it a few test swings before nodding in satisfaction. “This’ll do. Turns out, using longswords with tiny legs like these is a damned pain so I think I’ll settle for something simple and reliable. Plus, I can remake this if its spikes break off or chip.”

“Sounds good,” Mia hummed. “But how the hell are you lifting that? The thing probably weighs more than me.”

“Dwarven power,” said Mark, flexing as he lifted the mace onto his shoulder. “Also, my Earth Manipulation is doing like 70% of the heavy lifting, leaving only about a third of the weight for me to lift with my muscles.”

“Alright, everyone on your feet, chop-chop.” Brent clapped, his attentive gaze still surveying the surroundings. “We are out, but not away. Let’s get a move on before they decide to make us hurry our asses up by lighting them on fire with some fireballs. Take up formation, get ready and let’s head out.”

After some well-deserved corrections to their initial formation, the group set out and left behind the building that had been their safe haven since the start of the ‘apocalypse’ as the others called it. Mia thought it was blowing things out of proportion. Things were nowhere near bad enough to call this an apocalypse, even if it was a colossal shit fest.

“You’re a vet or something?” Sam asked, clearly aiming the question at the impromptu leader of their party.

“I was in the reserves,” said Brent, not glancing back as he walked a good dozen metres ahead of the group, prowling through the street with predatory grace. “But that was a while ago, been a forester and huntsman since. I do know what I am doing, if that’s what bothers your furry little head.”

“Cool,” said Sam, sounding insincere even to Mia’s ears. 

They walked in silence for a while, everyone staring at the ruined storefronts and busted open doors on the nearby buildings as they went. Nerves ran high, and everyone was a bit jumpy.

Mia’s head snapped to the side, her ears twitching as the ever-present wrongness in the back of her mind became pronounced. Her eyes stared into a dark alley, lined by rows of garbage bins, then her hearing cleared up and she caught the all too familiar barks and whispered chittering cackles she came to associate with goblins.

“Goblins, in that alley.” She pointed, and the group turned on it as one. 

“How many?” Brent asked, crouching low and taking up position behind a semi-truck parked before the alley’s mouth. 

Mia frowned, focusing on her hearing, and tried to count the heartbeats. Unfortunately, that was a too tall of an ask, even for her supernatural hearing when the little monsters were more than fifty metres away. “Around 5? Maybe six or seven?”

“Kill or leave?” Brent asked. “We don’t need to kill them, but many of you probably need a monster core, right?”

Mia nodded, and so did Lina and Sam. 

“I say we kill them,” Mia said in a whisper, her eyes locked on the vague forms moving around in the alley and … dumpster diving? Well, they were goblins, she should have guessed they’d be nasty like that.

“Seconded,” said Lina, mana already curling around her fingers and snaking towards the alley like a pack of flying serpents.

“Y-yes,” Sam said, answering as the last while Mark was already on the front with one of his gauntlets shifting into a buckler large enough to cover his entire torso. 

“Good,” said Brent. “Can anyone lure them out? If not, I’ll go, but then I can’t ambush them.”

“I can,” Mia raised her voice, runes and shapes already falling away from her Arcane Blast spell circle, leaving only the simplistic design of the Arcane Bolt circle. Still, she knew from experience that using anything more powerful than that on goblins was a waste of her precious mana. “Should I go ahead and … ?”

“Every one ready?” asked Brent, his hawkish gaze washing over every member of the group. He continued when everyone nodded. “Stay behind Mark girls. Sam, flank them if you can. If Mark gets tied down, take cover behind a car. Door-girl, do it!”

The Bolt shot off a moment later, crashing into a goblin just poking its head out of a bin with a rotting burger held above his head like a trophy. Unfortunately for him, Mia’s Bolt crashed through his shoulder and snapped his neck before he could even give a victorious shout to his kin.

The barks and angry chitters grew louder, and Mia heard the rush of small feet. “They are coming.”

Mia took a swift glance at the members of her group. Sam was trembling, but with a resolute expression on his face as he stalked over to crouch behind a car opposite to the alley’s entrance to Brent. Lina had her serious look on, that emotionless stare with a slight frown as her air magic tendrils danced through the air. Mia couldn’t see Mark’s face, covered by helmet as it was, but the dwarf had his buckler before him and his oversized mace readied behind him with his right hand grasping its hilt. 

Brent was calm, eerily so, but that was probably just because Mia was comparing him to a group of jittery young adults. He had his sword readied, his whole body pulled taunt like a bow pulled to the limit with an arrow nocked, a moment away from firing.

The first goblin rushed out of the alley, not caring one bit about anything as its evil little eyes landed on the closest foe: Mark. It rushed at him without a care in the world, getting totally blindsided by a blast of Air magic that sent him rolling across the pavement in a ball of broken bones and pained screeches.

Then came the rest. Two, four, six, seven goblins came running, as Mia counted them in her head, each heading for whoever they spotted first with suicidal glee and brandishing rusted daggers and short swords. 

A Bolt came flying and took one out, snapping its head back with a vicious crack. The goblin fell back, but its kin cared not, reaching the semi-truck and ran past it. Brent’s sword flashed out and took off one’s head with ease, then the man followed up by a second swipe that took out the knees of another goblin. A downward piercing strike later, the downed goblin joined its kin in death.

Four left. Sam pounced then, easily overtaking the goblins once his brain caught up with him, and he descended on the backmost goblin in a storm of claws and primal fury, ripping it apart in a matter of seconds. Not that he let up, continuing to tear into it with a scream, even when it was little more than a splatter of gore.

Two pounced on Mark, bouncing off of his buckler as they poked at his armour with their daggers. The dwarf swung his mace, but the green critters fell to the ground, then pounced again like a pair of angry cats. Their daggers didn’t find purchase on his armour, but Mia could tell he was starting to panic as they kept on poking him.

Mia had to worry about herself first though, as the last goblin circled around Mark with its beady little eyes focused on the two ‘squishy females’ left ‘unprotected’. 

The next bundle of mana reached Mia’s fingers and her newest Bolt smacked into the gut of the evil little thing. It fell over as Mia danced a few steps back to make sure she was out of range of its frenzied flailing as the goblin writhed around, clutching its stomach. Having all of its internal organs mixed into a single cohesive mush probably hurt quite a bit.

It didn’t have much time to suffer though, as one of Lina’s so called ‘air blasts’ splattered it across the pavement a moment later.

Fuck. Mia cursed, hurrying her mana along as she watched Mark flail about, trying to get the pair of vicious little monsters off of himself. He swung his mace and buckler around wildly, probably not even aware of where his foes were in his panic. I need to help him.

Mia grasped the handle of her dagger, now holstered on the side of her right thigh, and stepped forward. She wasn’t the only one wanting to help, though, but she was the slowest. 

She watched as a questing serpent of air mana blew into one goblin, sending it rolling away with a powerful gust of wind while Bren’t sword burst through the other’s chest not a moment later.

Mia didn’t let herself relax, though. She still felt the wrongness coming from two goblins. They were alive, and they were the two that Lina sent rolling away, though one of them was in no condition to fight with just about all of its limbs broken.

Her fingers glowed, the circle formed, and the Bolt slammed into the mostly unharmed goblin Lina just sent sprawling. The wrongness disappeared from it a moment later, along with half its face as her spell crushed it into a gory soup. One left.

Mia briefly glanced at Brent and saw he had the same aim in mind as he tore his sword out of the last goblin he killed. They made eye contact, and Mia just shrugged while Brent nodded.

A few seconds later, Mia felt the life of the last monster getting snuffed out, and she let out a deep sigh. One which she instantly regretted as the repulsive smell of goblin guts and gore mixed with their natural scent invaded her nostrils. The fact that they were just now bathing in sun-baked garbage certainly didn’t help their natural odour, though the two were strikingly similar.

“Done,” said Brent as he came back around the cars. “Snap out of it, brat. That thing is more dead than my grandfather, and he caught an air missile to the face in Iraq.”

“W-what?” Sam stuttered, though only after Brent kicked him in the side hard enough to make Mia flinch.

“Calm down brat,” said the older man not-ungently, though Mia noticed he still held his bloodied sword in an iron grip. “Fight’s over, we won. Sit down and relax.”

Mia felt a pang of sympathy for the boy as she watched him break down, watching his blood-soaked hands as they morphed back to being flesh and blood instead of steel claws. Still, she moved towards Mark instead, who sat on his behind, heaving with his helmet discarded and a faraway look in his eyes.

Mia glanced at Lina, and saw the resigned understanding in her swirly grey eyes before the blonde moved towards the beastkin boy, only letting out a soft sigh.

“How do you feel?” Mia asked, crouching down next to Mark.

“I almost died,” he said, voice sounding distant. “Fuck.”

“But you didn’t,” Mia said, grimacing at her own words. How do you console someone who just survived a life and death fight? “Thank you for protecting us. I don’t know if we’d have been fine fending off three of those at once.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, blinking as he stared at the sky. “How are you fine? I saw one got by me. I fucked up. I was suppos-”

“It’s fine,” Mia said, gingerly patting his armoured shoulder. “We’d been doing this with Lina for a few days now. A single goblin won’t kill us. You did just fine, actually, I think it was an outstanding performance for your first fight.”

After some more words of comfort, Mia got back to her feet and Lina joined her hastily, seemingly all too eager to leave Sam to his brooding. 

“Cores?” Mia asked in a whisper, her eyes jumping between the corpses spread around them. 

“Cores,” Lina said, a grin tugging at the edge of her lips. 

Mia did her best to maintain her impassive expression, though she wasn’t sure she succeeded. After all, the rewards for this quest were quite enticing.

[Quests]

[{Newcomer} Introductory (10)]

Objective:

• Get your hands on a monster core.
• Turned in items: Rank 0 monster core ( 0 / 1 )

Reward: A system generated enchanted accessory (Ring of Lesser Healing).