Part 10 - The Strength of Order

  Liz was by far the oldest person in the prisoner wagon. The tearful gazes of the children around her sobered her grief quickly, and she swiftly found her acting face.

  She took a shaky breath, then began to assess her situation.

  First, Heron Lake had been attacked, which did some of the work explaining the lack of merchant caravans before her class-up. She was completely unaware of how long she’d been out, but based on her hunger, it was more than a day or two. Towns had walls for a reason, and even with a small guard garrison, one wouldn’t reasonably fall in a short period of time, let alone give time to start mounting heads on pikes.

  Her first major problem was her mobility, or lack thereof. She tested all her options, and found her mana completely depleted, along with most of her regeneration. She had quite a lot of regeneration, which meant a mass of canceler skills had been heaped on her. She realized briefly that her thoughts remained in order, as she’d arranged them with her [Mental Partitioning] which meant her regeneration hadn’t been completely negated, only penalized so heavily that her [Earth Manipulation] couldn’t keep up anymore.

  Conclusion: they’d likely placed all of their canceler skills on her, and had come up short.

  Next observation was that the only prisoners with her seemed to be below level one hundred. It made sense that they’d only take a handful of prisoners they could control. Based on the sun’s position, they were traveling further east, deeper into the Justiciary. Unless they had plans to use the kids as hostages, she wasn’t sure who would be taking them towards the desert regions of the country.

  She watched around her, hoping for a glimpse of her captors.

  None were within her limited scope of vision.

  “Hey,” she quietly called out to the kids around her, hoping for one of the older ones to give her a clue of what had happened in greater detail.

  “Mm?” A little boy glanced at her and tugged another child’s sleeve. All of the kids looked dirty and many had clothes in ragged shape. Usually, even the orphans of Heron Lake were fairly similar to other kids, thanks to Sylvestre’s management of the church funds. Seeing them covered in ash and dirt was a harsh dose of reality.

  “What’s going on?” She tried to keep her voice down to avoid anyone noticing she was awake.

  “Soldiers attacked, killed a lot of people, then took us kids, split up in different directions and hauled us off. Dunno where you were being kept but they put you with us right before we left.” The older boy gave her a fairly basic rundown,

  Liz let out a small sigh. “I can’t get up to see anything. Anyone here have solid Strength to help me sit up, at least? And what are they doing about food and water? I’ve been out for my class-up since… before any of this started.”

  “We can ask for water, but food only comes at dawn and dusk, and it has only been bread for the past two days. We couldn’t move you at all. You’re really heavy.”

  She chose to ignore the rude—though true—remark.“So they’re keeping us alive, but only barely. My mana is completely out from some canceler skills. Can’t feel any effects but it’s got me out of options for fighting back. What else happened?”

  “They attacked anyone above their 128 class-up. Seemed scared of even the [Laborers] and [Artisans]. The Valkyrie lady told us all to run, and ol’ man Sylvestre was already gone when that happened. She said we had to get away, then ran up to the upper floor of the temple, grumbling about some ‘layabout’ and we never saw her again. They caught us at the smuggler exit by the river. They haven’t been speaking our language, so we dunno what's going to happen. I’ve been trying to keep the kids calm.”

  The story of being scared of [Artisans] struck a chord in Liz, but it didn’t make sense. If the attack was retaliation for the assassination in Khazad, then it would've taken much longer to mobilize an army and travel so far. Plus the kid didn’t say they were dwarves, meaning the attackers had been a mix or had been races unworthy of specificity, likely humans.

  “You’re doing a good job at that. We don’t want to provoke these soldiers into hurting any of us.”

  As if she’d called for it, she was suddenly all too aware of the sound of the metal gate to the prison wagon screeching open.

  “Sir! The weird chick is awake!” A male voice called out.

  Next she heard the approach of horse’s hooves, followed by a series of barked orders calling for a halt to the caravan’s movements, followed by orders to drag her out of the prison wagon.

  She felt searing pain of being harshly dragged from the wagon as the children shrank back in fear of what she soon found to be spears aimed at her from all sides where she lay on her back on the ground.

  The man who’d been shouting orders descended from his horse, then approached through the ring of spearheads.

  “Pretty old for a [Priestess] of your level. Weird stone body enhancements, too. A reset for solid religious class, I’ve seen before. But stone limbs? That makes you unique. You’re going to tell me all your stats, levels and skills—with descriptions—before we decide if we take you as a slave or if we kill you now to spare ourselves the trouble.”

  Liz felt her mind turning over at rapid-speeds as she formulated her plan to approach this. Combat skills like hers almost certainly fell into the category of things that would get her killed to ‘spare them the trouble.’

  She gritted her teeth from the real pain of being dragged around with canceler skills keeping her pain skill turned off. Her performance involved a mix of real tears, real fear and totally false information.

  “Liz Fereday. Human/Stone Golem Hybrid. Stats are low except for Vitality.”

  She felt a scream of pain tear from her mouth as the leader of the soldiers pushed one of the spears into her shoulder.

  “The exact numbers.” He commanded her.

  She pretended to relent, then fully slipped into the role of a scared young girl.

  “Okay! I will. Strength, 326. Dexterity, 1,224. Vitality, 3,446…” She rattled off low numbers for her stats except for Vitality and Mana Regeneration while pretending to focus on her stat screen. Even the numbers that could easily be verified needed to be slightly incorrect to hide the false tells she was creating for her new temporary character.

  “Class 1 is [Rehabilitation Patient of Seira],” she went with an old class that sounded distinctly non-combat focused. “Skills are [Earth Conjuration] at 46, [Earth Manipulation] is a unique version that only works on my own body, which is capped. Then I have [Tenacity of Stone] for a pain reduction skill, also capped. Last skill is [Rigid Body] which unlocked recently and acts as a personal body enhancement, level 36.”

  Her tells established by her earlier mannerisms, she wore the character identity like a second skin. Her gift for acting and, as she’d hoped, not having any of the Pallos system’s lying or performance skills made the soldiers around her fall easily for her lies. She’d been ravaged by monsters in the woods while looking for medicinal herbs when a paladin of Seira had saved her, helped her back to the temple and had taken a class that gave her the stone replacements of areas the healers couldn’t help with.

  Her false identity spun further and further from there, creating a wole fake second class around managing the trauma of having her body torn apart in such a horrific way. By the time she was done, the hostility was gone from the eyes of the soldiers around her, mostly replaced with immense pity for what she’d suffered through.

  It also helped that her pain skill had been disabled, leading her to experience phantom pains periodically again. She even mentioned her [Mental Partitioning] to block out her trauma of the experience of receiving the injuries she’d had, further cementing the men into a sort of discomfort at her cries of agony, which she only slightly played up.

  She even had excuses for her lack of filling every skill slot of her classes. Low level people often had open skill slots or kept rotating basic everyday skills instead.

  The leader became increasingly contemplative before having the men—more gently—put her back into the prison wagon.

  Liz felt more than slightly smug at having her reasonings validated. She’d been immensely worried about having her mana regeneration canceled and how she’d be disabled if that ever happened, so she’d been practicing and coming up with cover stories for the previous weeks. She knew it would all pay off eventually, and even if it didn’t, she doubted she would have regretted the effort.

  She also felt firm in her reasoning that the system could offer excellent gains to a person, but no amount of natural talent and skill would go to waste if one worked hard enough without the Skill given to them. The best benefit was that almost nobody knew her actual skill set. She hadn’t even told Arlyen about the exact names and descriptions, only basic outlines. She’d been careful from her first eight skills onwards at Sylvestre’s suggestion. There was no way she would realistically give away her secrets to anyone in a world so clearly dangerous as this one.

  Loaded back into the wagon, the convoy now proceeded onwards.

  She consulted the new information she’d gotten from the soldiers. They’d been wearing random pieces of armor, rather than a specific uniform. That meant adventurers or mercenaries, usually. The final option was the worst, though. They could be soldiers operating under false identity. A cunning leader could start wars with ease by putting the right people in the wrong outfits and launching an attack on their own citizens. That exact idea had been a plot in the most recent movie she’d been scouted for.

  Why did that come to her mind?

  Easy. These soldiers were now carrying their prisoners further into the country, rather than running away, or at least sending the prisoners to a slave market. And few were the mercenaries who would give up a potential profit by selling their captives for a quick bonus, she imagined.

  Adventurers would’ve been the easiest to handle, as they usually fought monsters more than people. But adventurers wouldn’t beat the likes of Arlyen or bother to put heads on pikes.

  Mercenaries wouldn’t bring prisoners deeper into a country they’d attacked.

  She was becoming very certain these men were an advance force from the countries looking to unseat the Justiciary from its role on the global stage. And they were an unknown level with [Identify] requiring mana she didn’t have. If she had lost [Mental Partitioning] then she would’ve likely struggled to even speak with the men at all. She couldn't afford to lose that skill as well. She needed to maintain her cover story now as well. Meaning that on top of being immobile beyond her right arm, she also had to keep playing up her pain levels.

  With a little luck, her captors would find it in their newfound pity to loosen up the canceler skill to give her the pain reduction skill back after they grew sick of hearing her agonizing cries once in a while. She just couldn’t play it up too much.

  The kids in the wagon were real champs for trying to care for her every time he cried out in phantom pain induced spells.

  The next day, they carried on as they had the first.

  Thankfully, she had validation on her pain levels now with the spear injury in her shoulder as well. They’d eventually given the children bandages and told them to stop her bleeding. Which was done with the most basic of low level skills in the first aid direction.

  She felt dumb a day later as she heard a pair of soldiers muttering nearby in their unusual language.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Why’s the boss even keeping the bitch alive? Her classes are dead weight. Who’s gonna buy a slave girl who can’t take any useful servant classes?”

  Liz mentally cursed the man for pointing out something she’d forgotten about in her hurry to not seem threatening.

  “She’s got high vitality. With her mana back, she’d be fine at any brothel. And she’s got the looks for it. It’ll be-”

  The other soldier cut off suddenly as an arrow caught him in the throat.

  Bliss washed over Liz as she felt the mana surging back to her passive skills and she aimed for her best efficiency options to turn back on as she hoped to restore her mana pool while the confusion was high.

  The ambush struck Liz as being perfect. The canceler wasn’t the only one to fall in the opening moments, and panic spread among the soldiers swiftly.

  Liz didn’t have the mana for [Chainmail] but she was far from defenseless, and the unwitting fools had restricted her with chains. She was literally [Chainbound] in that moment, so she felt like she would’ve gotten a prize had she not updated her class.

  She made her first ever use of [Fate-Linked Mana Regeneration] and frowned at the miniscule increase it gave. If she had to guess, the benefit was one percent or less.

  [*ding* [Fate-Linked Mana Regeneration] has leveled up! 1 -> 2]

  She silenced her notifications and mentally wished for a reminder to shorten the notifications for those skill names in particular.

  The chains around her wrists popped open without the need for a key, as did all the chains on the children she could get in reach of the instant she was free.

  She gathered up all the chains around her arms and torso as supplemental material for a future use of [Chainmail] as she delivered a kick to the gate of the prison wagon.

  The entire convoy of soldiers was in chaos. Mist had gathered among the trees around the road and dark figures could briefly be seen weaving in and out of view, bows and spears being used in both directions as Skills propelled a ranged engagement all around her.

  The first of the captors she ran into after hopping from the wagon went down with a sharp axe kick as stone and gravity descended in a combined force.

  [*ding* You have slain a [Triple Agent] - Mirage Lvl 287, [Gifted Swordsman] - Fire Lvl 253!]

  Liz grimaced at the first class name, wondering who they were working for to get that class.

  She made sure the immediate area was clear and then began to usher the children out of the wagon and towards the woods.

  The older boy she’d spoken to before led the way as Liz remained to undo the remaining iron chains as the dozen young humans and gnolls bolted.

  As Liz turned to follow the kids, she felt a presence in her [Awareness] coming towards her rapidly, making her whip around.

  Directly into a gauntleted first that hit her chest harder than even Arlyen’s brutal ‘training’ strikes. She landed in the scrap metal of the prisoner wagon. The makeshift armor of chains she’d wrapped around her body being all that kept the metal from tearing into her skin.

  Forever grateful to have her regeneration back, she forced air into her lungs as she glared at the leader of her captors.

  [Warrior - 509]

  She grimaced. This was not at all the same as the smuggler leader.

  A trained professional at killing would be above her few weeks of skill even if their levels and stats happened to be equal, which—based on the impact she’d taken—they were not.

  She was in mortal peril, and the man had a fury in his eyes.

  “Gotta say, kid, you’re a hell of a liar. Best I think I’ve ever seen ‘fore. Thought I knew what every low level conning skill looked like in action.” His accent had shifted a bit since their prior talk, and now he spoke in a more rough manner that wouldn’t befit his original soldier-ish persona.

  “I spent over a decade acting and that was all without skills from the system. I’m quite confident in myself, really.”

  An arrow came towards the man’s head from behind and immediately vanished into a tiny sphere of swirling darkness as it got close to him.

  She noted the automatic defense skill that had to have been some sort of dark element. She inspected his eyes for signs of an advanced element but saw none.

  Just Dark, then. A physical [Warrior] was fine by her, but the Dark element made getting close for her martial arts a risky move. He might well just delete her fist from existence if her Vitality wasn’t enough.

  She studied his stance with interest, noting the sword he hadn’t chosen when he’d struck her a brief moment before.

  She settled into her stance for [Martial Arts] and covertly readied her [Elegant Chains] after slipping them out of storage behind her back.

  She darted forward, then activated [Fate-Linked Vitality] for the first time as she lashed out with her stone fist.

  The man just stood there, expecting her attack to be swallowed by his automatic defensive skill.

  That didn’t happen.

  In a flash, her fist reached his chest through the dark hole he’d created, launching the leader back towards the mist where the ambushers waited.

  Her eyes widened as she realized her hand hadn’t taken any damage. She frowned and looked at her [Fate-Linked Vitality] skill. It had only been active or the second her fist had connected with the defensive skill, but it had protected her.

  She turned and rushed in the direction the kids had all run in, this time activating the Vitality skill again and watching her stats like a hawk.

  [Vitality: 6,618]

  It had momentarily doubled the stat. If her timing had been off by much, she would have suffered as much damage as the arrow had. She felt supremely lucky.

  The kids couldn’t have gone far, but she had almost no visibility.

  The sight of blood on the ground sent a shiver through her spine. She sped up in her rush to catch up with them.

  She finally used [Chainmail] to mold the chains she’d taken into a quick iron shirt of linked chains.

  The Mist cleared suddenly as she emerged into a small clearing with a ring of odd mushrooms around it. The children all huddled together next to a large boulder in the center of the clearing.

  [*ding* [Awareness] has been upgraded to [Combat Awareness]!]

  She frowned at the notification that hadn’t suppressed itself like she’d set them to.

  Her system seemed to bug out briefly as well, as the nagging feeling of her skill warning her went off in full force.

  She rolled to the side and barely got out of the way when the leader she’d sent flying away slammed his sword down on where she’d been standing.

  [Combat Awareness: Sense presences around you, and detect incoming attacks. -150 Mana Regeneration]

  The description seemed a little fuzzy to her, like static.

  She’d gotten lucky, mostly. The new skill had warned her of the direction of the danger and the approaching presence of the unusually fast man. She realized he was a speedster-type combattant.

  She knew without a doubt that his stats were higher, and the hit from before had been his assumption that she’d injure herself.

  “Really, you are full of surprises. How’d you even survive that attack you tried?”

  Liz studied the man before replying, “I didn’t just try. What, did I collapse a lung?”

  His expression soured. She could read the pain in his expression with ease.

  “This wasn’t supposed to happen at all. If that pissant hadn’t broken his word, I’d be selling you to the highest bidder within the week.”

  Liz bristled at the idea of being sold off like property. She was no stranger to selling her skills, attaching monetary value to her time, or allowing her manager to make some of those decisions for her. But she would never belong to anyone but herself. The concept turned her veins to fire and her mind to a blazing fury.

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  He moved.

  She lost sight of him, only to catch [Combat Awareness] informing her of a presence to her left and an attack in motion as he rounded her to strike at her back.

  Her silver chain wrapped around his sword as she pushed [Fate-Linked Vitality] to increase the stat [Elegant Chains] ran on.

  She pivoted and lashed out with a blade formed from stone on her left hand.

  The attack sailed through empty space as the speedster began to harry her from all directions, each time using her skills and [Combat Awareness] to repel him.

  “How long will your mana hold out?”

  The question prompted Liz to check.

  [Mana: 6,597/23,880]

  She felt a grin spread over her face that even her acting skills couldn’t suppress. Her mana had been steadily going up since she got free of the canceler.

  “I can do this forever if you wanna try me.”

  He glowered at her, and then resumed their dance of death.

  It wasn’t long until Liz noticed the change. Her silver chain, though not the gold ones, began to bite into the metal of the captor’s sword, leaving small nicks in the blade, and she kept getting better at countering him. It wasn’t just her stats, either. She could feel [Tenacity of Stone] urging her to adapt to his methods and speed as she drew upon the part of the skill that came from [Adaptable].

  After some time of their deadlock, the man finally seemed to be unwilling to damage his sword any further.

  Her fists had never reached him, nor her kicks, but her blocks were always there, ready for him at every turn. She could certainly feel that she’d been leveling from their fight, and eventually [Combat Awareness] began to inform her of figures at the edge of the expanding range of the skill, and she briefly noted the audience she had. She hoped these would be friendly people, as her cover story wouldn’t be so useful anymore.

  The children all watched on with rapt attention, unwilling to run back into the Mist outside the clearing.

  The leader of her captors finally pulled back to a distance, glaring at her.

  “One day, I will kill you.”

  “Huh? But why? What’s even the point of targeting me? I’m just defending myself here!”

  The man darted for the edge of the clearing in a pulse of dark energy, slipping into the Mist and blurring from sight before anyone could react.

  Liz got one final glimpse with [Identify] before he reached the edge of the clearing.

  [Warrior - 512]

  She fought the urge to put her face in her palms as she realized he’d gained the levels needed to get his third class from fighting her. She let out a sigh and prayed quickly to Seira.

  Seira,

  I don’t have much time right now, but could you please ensure that man doesn’t haunt me with some [Eternal Vengeance] skill or something?

  -Liz

  The prayer took a couple thousand mana, so she hoped it was a wish that could be granted.

  She grumbled at not getting to finish him off as she approached the kids while the ambushers strode into the clearing, the Mist thinning as the skill that had created it was disabled.

  “How are you all doing? Anyone hurt?”

  One of the smaller kids was behind the cluster of the rest, lying injured on the ground with an arrow in his abdomen.

  “Hey!” She yelled out at the ambushers and started tagging each with [Identify] to look for a medic. “This kid needs healing!”

  Her shout prompted one of the hooded figures to bolt from the clearing in the direction she hoped help would be in. The kids were what was left of her memories of Heron Lake. She would protect them in Sylvestre’s memory.

  Help only took a few brief moments to arrive as tearful children were shooed away by a tall, slim man carrying a woman at literal Lightning speeds.

  The woman leapt from his arms immediately and inspected the child briefly before Liz could stop her. She got a bad feeling from the young woman, who didn’t seem much younger than Liz herself was.

  “I’m Elina. A [Priestess] of Seira. I’ll help ensure this child makes it back to a [Healer].”

  Liz’s feeling got worse when she saw the swirls of darkness in the [Priestess]’s eyes.

  [Priestess - 157]

  Then, oddly, Ice began to form over the child’s wound as Elina removed the arrow.

  “I’m a Decay and Ice [Priestess] with the ability to temporarily numb pain and stop injuries from worsening before they can get help. As I said, I’m Elina, and you are?”

  “Liz.” She felt dumb at giving such a brief response to an introduction, but she wasn’t in a friendly mood.

  “You should join up with us! I heard your skills were amazing for your level! We’re trying to restore the Justiciary after the attacks in all the cities.” Elina seemed like a military recruiter to Liz’s suspicious gaze.

  “I’d rather not.” Liz replied with a hesitant tone of voice that showed how far she was from anything resembling ‘trust.’ Plus, there was a lot to unpack from that statement.

  “Oh but I’d quite appreciate if you did. At least come see where we are based in this region, if only for the safety of the children.” There was a slimy male voice that sent a shiver down Liz’s spine directly behind her, totally missed by [Combat Awareness].

  She turned to see… nothing at all.

  “I’m over here!” The voice sounded amused, but still like a snake.

  Liz whipped around to find a human with the stereotypical getup and build of a [Mage] at Elina’s side. He had the cloudy eyes of a person with the Mist element, and based on the sound of his voice, he also had a Sound element. She was finding a lot of advanced element classers lately.

  [Leader - 738]

  Liz stifled her panic and nodded. “Fine. I can’t just wander the wilderness with a bunch of children. I hope you’re not the sort of crowd that would mistreat kids. Hope’s all I have in this situation anyway.”

  “Oh no, not only them. Miss [Priestess], if you want revenge for what happened to Heron Lake, I can use someone of your talent and potential. Your body is quite remarkable. I’d love the opportunity to see how your power grows.” The slimy man’s voice came from all around her, but at the same time, only she reacted to hearing it.

  She didn’t see much of a choice, but at least she could buy herself time. There was no way a decade of Hollywood experience wouldn’t teach her how to placate this particular type of manipulative prick.

  “Lead the way.”