The aquamarine power flooded his mouth again and he could no longer move it. He could breath, but just barely. Ana had dealt with her share of cretins in her years, and this sorry excuse was cut of the same cloth. She leveled her iron rod, it's tip sharpened to a deadly point. Tomas' fear thrummed through his Spirit.
"Where is DuFont?"
Mervin didn't like being on the streets.
Admittedly, he was surrounded by Guilders with levels ranging into the twenties and thirties, and he was steps away from Elder Teine himself. Harm was not likely to touch Mervin or his teammates. It was ironic, he thought, that when Teine made them his personal guard that he was protecting them rather than the other way around. The clatter of glass down an alley had him snap in that direction, but it was only a damn daika. The idiotic chicken-lizard fell off a pile of garbage and scurried away.
"Calm yourself, young man," a smooth voice said. Mervin pulled his spear back up and his spine felt like it locked into place. "We are in no danger."
The Elder looked like he was out on an evening stroll. While the sun was low in the sky and the evening air was cool, there were monsters in these streets. Even if Mervin's Perception couldn't pick them out. They were systematically clearing the Wall Quarter at the moment, but the Revenants plagued them just as much as the rest of the city. The difference was the other Quarters didn't have the Wall to steal their attention. A few Bronze Ranks were with them, along with some Iron and Tin Ranks; not many at all compared to the danger they had faced as they cleared the streets. The bulk of the Guild's forces were still needed to defend the Wall. Monsters assaulted it in waves, creatures that were slowly battering down its defenses. It had gotten so bad that the Elder had wanted to search sooner but couldn't risk leaving their post. Now he'd changed his mind, for some reason.
Mervin worried that it wouldn't hold, but the others called him an idiot for being concerned. "It's lasted longer'n my grandpap's been alive, it'll last a few beasties," Garin had said. He just hoped they were right.
"Street is secure, sir," a Bronze Rank confirmed, and the Elder nodded absently. He was fiddling with that box again, the one his Sentinel's Regard kept telling him was extremely dangerous. Mervin wanted to edge away from it, but he was to stand guard. So guard he did.
"Very good," Elder Teine said in his smooth voice. It belied the gruesome scar that marred his face. He pointed ahead with his device. "There. The trail leads there."
Mervin looked. It was a pump house, one of the many that somehow helped the river from flooding the lower parts of the Quarter. Never claiming to be more than a simple village boy, Mervin had only the foggiest idea of how they worked. Magic, as far as he understood, scripted pipes housed within a building larger than the farmhouse he grew up on. Though the Elder and thus Mervin did not move forward, the Tin and Iron Ranks did, a wave of them pushing toward the pump house to secure it.
They didn't survive.
The nearest wall of the pump house exploded outward, propelled by a concussive wave of force that made the air itself squeal. A massive thing rushed out, nearly twice the size of a Revenant, thirteen feet tall and hulking with muscle. Tin and Iron ranks were swept away with a single, brutish arm. Several were turned into a vile paste, splattered against nearby walls.
"Form up!" Piotr shouted. Lars raised his bow, arrow already shimmering with Mana. "Protect the Elder!"
A horde of Revenants boiled out of the torn edifice, following in the massive creature's lumbering wake. Suppressive fire rained down upon them, a sea of elemental bolts and physical arrows. Yet the abominations were not halted. They crashed against their front lines, bearing much of the front row to the ground. Mervin flinched and moved forward, but a hand halted him.
"Not our job," Garin grunted. Mervin restrained himself, reluctantly.
The Revenant's tore into the lower ranks at first, but cracked against the superior power of the Bronze Ranks. Mervin was able to thrust his long spear and deliver a few strikes to the pressing beasts, but his teammates had the real victories. Lars' arrows flashed out like summer rain, a deep blue Mana trailing each projectile, while Garin's halberd chewed vicious chunks from the abominations' necks and shoulders. Piotr's own spear spun with deadly precision and far more Skill than Mervin could manage. Most of them had their Omens Revealed by the Pathless long ago, and despite the lesser gains they were stronger than him in most ways.
Sentinel's Regardis level 25!
With a gasp, Mervin fumbled out a glowing vial. Teine had given them all a selection of Rare draughts, a most generous contribution, in the hopes that they would Temper.
Congratulations!
You Have Reached Apprentice Tier in Sentinel's Regard!
You Gain:
+3 PER
+3 INT
+...
Rare Essence Detected During Formation!
[Essence of the Hungry Survivor]
Choose A Feature:
Desperate
Relict
Craving
Which do I? Mervin hadn't the time, and the word were unfamiliar. The Elder had not prepared him for this. He chose.
Congratulations!
You Have Absorbed The Essence Of Relict!
Mervin nearly screamed as the light of the true god filled him, and a terrible, burning sensation shuddered through his center and radiated outward. It was like paths of fire were being etched into his flesh, lines of agony that twisted wildly through his chest and toward his limbs.
"GRAAAAAAAAHHH!"
The massive creaturethe Ghoulhowled in near tandem with Mervin, and it rushed their central formation. Whether it was drawn to his Tier Up or not, he didn't know. But onward it came. Mervin fumbled for his spear, dropped in the crush of it all, but his hands wouldn't work. They wouldn't
There was a flash of silver and brilliant, achingly pure white. A torrent of wind Mana flooded the street, so much that Mervin's Sentinel's Regard couldn't keep track of it all. Dozens of discs of compressed air sliced in convoluted arcs, and dark ichor splattered out onto the road. A thud shook the earth as it fell, mewling but not quite dead.
"Secure it. I wish to study this larger strain," Teine instructed. His Bronze Ranks leaped forward with manacles and chains, each of them so heavily inscribed that they sparked with each shift. He walked over to Mervin and helped him to his feet. "You Tempered your Perception Skill? And you used my Essence Draught?"
Mervin nodded, not trusting his voice to speak. Elder Teine grinned, the boyish charm of it ruined by the tug of his scars.
"Excellent. Quite excellent." He turned to the rest of his team. "Guards, walk with me."
They went further into the pump house and saw the mangled remains of the inscribed construct and a jagged hole down, into the depths beneath the city. Teine held the device over the hole and it goes wild, spitting frothing waves of corrosive light Mervin was increasingly certain his friends couldn't see.
"The way lies forward. Or, perhaps, down is more appropriate," Teine laughed in his throat. "Come. Destiny awaits."