The Pinnacle Warrior

Astrid‘s immediate inclination was to go and help out whoever was in trouble. In fact, she found herself standing and her armor summoned to cover her with her equipment Skill before she even had a conscious thought. Muti held out a hand and pushed Astrid’s chest hard. She stepped back and looked at the Barbarian as she pushed down a flare of anger.

“We cannot rush into battle against others like this. These are not monsters, they are our competitors. Any intervention chosen will have to be decided upon by the party as a whole, not simply by one of us, regardless of what your position is.”

“But what if they’re one of the other Human parties?” Astrid demanded. “I won’t let somebody get killed just because this is a contest. I’m sure we’ll be able to succeed on our own merits anyways.”

“You will do what the party needs and demands,” Muti rebutted. “You are our leader, not our owner.”

Despite the frustration that continued to swell inside her, Astrid agreed with the sentiment. She turned to the other party members. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t think it’s our problem,” Felix said with a shrug. “Our goal right now is to get through this floor as fast as possible, and we have something like twelve kilometers to get through before we rest for the night. That’s not a small amount of delving we have ahead of us, regardless of how difficult the enemies we face are. Slowing down for someone who, at best, is friendly competition, doesn’t seem to be the best option available to us. And if somebody dies? Well, it’s their fault for being weak, and they’re just a little less competition we’ll face on the path.”

Benedict looked over at Felix, his brows wrinkled and his lips pursed. He seemed to consider saying something, but decided against it. Instead, he said, “I don’t think I’d go that far, it’s not a problem for these people to continue to live.”

Felix grunted dismissively, making Benedict’s face fall further, but he said nothing else.

“I think we’re getting off topic,“ Astrid cut in, putting a hand between the two men before they started to argue. “We’re delaying, and I would like to go try to help whoever’s being attacked. Muti says we shouldn’t, and Felix agreed. You two, what are your opinions?”

“What use is being strong if I can’t help people?“ Benedict scoffed. “I’ve been a surly arse enough in my life. I don’t mind having an opportunity to be a hero. Let’s go help.”

“I don’t wanna throw ourselves into it,“ Skandr said, “But if we can keep some people from being killed by coming around and talking, I think that would be ideal. I’d say we go, even if we don’t end up actively helping anybody.”

“And I’m still for it,” Astrid added. “Muti, Felix, it seems like you’re outvoted, but what do you say before we get moving?”

“I did not say that I do not want to go,” Muti stated. “I reminded you that your position as a leader is not one of absolute leadership. I would like to go, though not to protect others. Instead, I would seek to prove my strength against those we compete against if the opportunity presents itself. If I may show them that our strength is so great that they have no prayer of success, it will allow us to focus on strengthening ourselves instead of merely moving as quickly as we can.”

Felix didn’t give an answer, but instead gestured for the others to lead the way. Astrid decided not to comment on his lack of comment, instead merely nodding and gesturing for Muti to lead the way. Muti grinned as stepped towards the sounds, gesturing for everyone to gather close so that, through Dread Master, she could grant to them all her stealth. Astrid felt as Muti’s aura settled over her, the heavy plating of her armor sliding more quietly over itself as she jogged after her Ambusher companion. A small part of her wondered how she could use Alacrity-aligned mana to help make herself even more stealthy in the future, but that was a question that wouldn’t see an answer until she was level 24. Surprisingly, that question had never occurred to her until now, and she wasn’t about to ask Felix anything when he was making that face.

He noticed her attention and his helmet reappeared over his head. Until Benedict had drawn her attention to it, Astrid hadn’t thought about how Felix had changed recently. Now that she’d been slapped in the face by it, she couldn’t help but think about those changes and she was forced to realize that he had changed quite a bit. He was serious, competitive, and kind back when they’d begun working together. Sometimes, his intensity had faded, but as the months have gone by, how has she missed how he changed so much?

In that same vein, Astrid tried to remember the moment in which she herself had lost so much of her initial innocence. The girl that had just received her Class would have thought it was at least cool, if not impressive, to meet somebody who had any of the noble Classes, especially a Count. Of course, if he then acted the way that Caelum had towards her, she would have chalked him up to be a prick and an arse. That wouldn’t have colored her opinion of noble Classes as a whole, though. 

Now? She couldn’t say that she’d trust a single noble, even the Viscount from Stahlstadt, a man that’d long been the leader of her hometown. From how he worked with her mother, she’d always considered Viscount Stahlstadt to be a man of honor. Now? Astrid could help but wonder how much he’d known about the surge in Schteldt and how much involvement he had in the deaths there. She’d always thought of him as a man of honor, her mother had always said he was an honorable leader, and yet, Astrid couldn’t wonder if he was so great a man as she’d always thought and been told. After all, if Guinevere had suffered like that because of his power mongering, then Astrid couldn’t trust him ever again.

She was pulled from her thoughts as the sounds of anger that had already filled the air now originated from just a few meters ahead of the party. Strangely, a thrumming buzzing sound filled the air, accompanying roaring and chittering shrieks. Muti stretched a hand out to stop the rest of the party and gestured forward into a small clearing.

Astrid saw as the Hiveguard confronted the Kin, their bodies made for the roles that they obviously filled in their party. In the front stood their frontliner, a creature that looks less like a bee than most of their party. It still had the yellow stripes on its abdomen, or her abdomen, Astrid supposed. Unlike most of the rest of her party, the front \liner had a less narrow body shape with tightly a cinched waist, instead sporting broad shoulders, chest covered in interlocking plate of natural armor, and thick winglike coverings over where her wings were. Those thick, secondary wings bore deep cuts in parallel jagged stripes as a remnant of where the Kin had attacked.

The Hiveguard that was ostensibly the Healer was tending to their frontliner, her secondary arms sprouting out of her ribs and stretched towards the frontliner. From those arms flowed hundreds of flying insects that Astrid couldn’t see clearly enough to guess what kind of animal they were. As they reached the frontliner’s wounds, they crawled into the flesh and seemingly began the process of healing. The frontliner held her thick arms in front of her allies, trying to hold them back while also maintaining her focus on the Kin. She buzzed with what seemed to be an attempt at communication, and received only a roar in return.

“The situation seems to be coming to an end all by itself…“ Skndr looked at the two parties, though some of the Kin were circling around the Hiveguard’s strangely still party.

“Should we do anything?” Benedict asked. “Do we really need to show ourselves? We just came here to see if maybe we wanted to help, but so far as I can tell, we’re not needed.”

Just as Astrid went to say something, the Kin that stood in the middle of the party, a massive beast that looked more like a bear than a person, shouted out in the Barbarian tongue. For the first time, Astrid wished that she’d taken time to learn the language, even though it would have eaten into time that she would have spent doing something else. The Kin also had their own language, while the Hiveguard, according to the stories that she’d heard, just learned the language of whoever they wanted to speak with. They had something different they did to communicate amongst themselves?

“Do you speak the Human tongue?” Muti asked the Kin. 

“Some. Why you here?”

Muti  turned to look at Astrid, who sighed, dismissed her hammer into her equipment storage, and walked forward. With her shield on her left arm but her right hand open, she said, “We heard the sounds of combat and decided to come see if any of our friends needed our help.”

“No friends here. You go now.” He whipped his hands through the air in a sideways, dismissive motion. There was a snarl to the edge of his bear-like mouth that Astrid couldn’t quite read, but she didn’t lose herself in attempting to understand it. His body language and facial structure were entirely foreign to her, and Astrid decided not to get into an argument, fighting to push down her anger at being treated like this.

“OK. Just let me ask over here. Do you need any help, Hiveguards?”

She was already here, might as well ask the question. Three insect-like faces turned towards her, their faces and postures even more unreadable to her than the Kin while the other two looked only at the Kin.

“Not working. Not to understand…“ The Kin Astrid was fairly certain was a male growled in frustration at that. He then began speaking in the Barbarian tongue, and Muti crept up behind Astrid to translate.

“He is very comfortable with swearing. Right this moment, he is calling the Hiveguard idiots, saying that they cannot speak. I do not have any experience with the Hiveguard myself, but I believe that he is frustrated that they do not want to fight. Some measure of honor is binding him in not killing the Hiveguard, but even in this tongue, he cannot seem to express himself the way that he would like to. I do not believe that it is truly honor that holds him back, but something else, a word that he does not know how to say outside of his own language. Regardless, he is repeating that the Hiveguards are cowards, that they do not want to fight, and that they came at him from the dark.”

Astrid shook her head, not understanding what was happening, not really, but it would seem that the Hiveguard had gotten the message, or had recovered enough to retreat. The thinner members of the party were the first to step back, their long, thin wings buzzing in the air. As soon as the Healer and what Astrid supposed was a mage of some sort lifted off, the other three followed suit, the frontliner’, thicker wings almost roaring instead of buzzing as she leapt into the sky. They left and flew away, going into the distance as ten people watched their passage..

“You have no friend here. Leave, or fight to death.”

Astrid nodded, not entirely sure why the Kin was so combative, but decided not to question it. Instead, she gestured for her party to retreat, the shadows quickly enveloping them.

“Are they following us?“ Astrid asked Muti.

“Not for now. I will tell you if I feel one of their number approaching, but it would appear that none of their party is particularly well suited to attempting to hide themselves and any approach will be obvious.”

The party continued on their path, and Astrid couldn’t help but hear Felix wordlessly mumble to himself as they made their way forward. Benedict’s frustration, her own realizations, and Felix’s marked change all struck Astrid at the same time. They had almost four weeks left in the Wandering Trials, how would things continue to develop if things were already this tense?

She shook her head and continued on the path, gesturing for Muti to guide them to the next fight. After all, they still needed to gain levels, regardless of any interpersonal conflict.