Unchosen Champion

Coop began his Ancient Prowler hunting session with an audience. He trusted Charlie so he thought it would be fine that some of his abilities would be revealed. He wouldn’t be showing much other than his Salvation and Retribution skills when he summoned his equipment, but they might be able to glean his attributes by watching carefully. He didn’t use any teleports while fighting Ancient Prowlers, so that trick would still be in his back pocket. Defeating the monsters only depended on his superior attributes and his choice of weapon.

He had made some huge gains to his attributes since the last time that he fought the Ancient Prowlers. The difference in the numerical value of his stats was staggering. He was noticeably faster and thanks to the +100 Mind bonus gained from completing the quest chain and earning the Slayer title. Compared to the more gradual increase to his stats as he leveled, the change was a massive step up. He predicted a much longer hunting session thanks to his ability to avoid even more damage. Preventing the stacking debuff would be the key to hunting the Ancient Prowlers.

Camila and Charlie watched from the dunes as Coop fought his first pack of Ancient Prowlers, then another, and another. He just kept going, not needing any breaks. They were bewildered that Coop didn’t seem to be limited by cooldowns or mana. After spectating for slightly too long, they went to try fighting their own battle.

He could tell they felt confident that the pair of them would be more than a match for the Ancient Prowlers. They were both higher level than Coop and much higher level than the monsters. Coop had made it look easy, completely avoiding the ambushes and smoothly executing the monsters one by one before moving to a new pack, without stopping. He had warned them that they were tricky enemies, but there was only so much he could convey with words. He knew Charlie well enough to know she wouldn’t do anything without taking some precautions but Camila had shown him nothing but confidence.

The pair of girls approached a lone Ancient Prowler and opened with Charlie using her wind powers to summon a dust devil. The tiny twister immediately started kicking up loose sand from the otherwise compacted ground. They intended to eliminate the first monster and empower the starter ability into a tornado to defeat the rest of the pack while Camila protected Charlie. A standard tactic that they had used many times before, in training, and against the monsters in the city.

The Ancient Prowler was too quick to be caught by the escalating tornado and launched itself at the offending mage instead. The dust devil was left behind, whipping up sand by itself, as the monster leapt to the side and then forward with a nimbleness that neither of the pair expected. Coop’s speed had deceived them into thinking the monsters weren’t so overwhelmingly quick.

Camila intercepted the leaping monster, but, because of the monster’s dexterity, instead of countering the attack she was forced into an awkward block with her bracers, taking a stack of the Vulnerable debuff on the very first exchange. She was surprised that the monster had been as nimble as it was. Coop expected them to handle it, but felt a twinge of worry that their engagement had started so poorly. He paused in between packs, just in case.

Charlie raised her arm and brought it down in a chopping motion, forming a thin blade of water that chased her fingers down. The water blade began moving away from her at a moderate pace. It wasn’t very fast but it was cutting through the air with a dangerous sharpness. Normally, it would be easy to avoid such a slow moving and obviously harmful attack.

Camila launched herself forward, flanking the creature as it reset its stance to resume its attack. She used her momentum to kick the monster into the path of the water blade. When Camila activated her abilities, she was easily a match for the speed of the monsters. The blade cleaved the kicked monster with barely any resistance before it evaporated into the air. The combination of skills defeated the first monster, but Camila had already taken some damage.

The second monster ambushed Charlie before either of the girls were prepared. Her thick cloak prevented a serious injury, but she was almost knocked down, and received her own stack of the Vulnerable debuff. Charlie was slow to recover her balance, contrasting Camila’s heavy investment into Agility and Coop’s own stat bonuses.

Camila was the first to respond to the ambush. She leapt forward and punched the monster with a straight right strike, followed by a jab, and finally a right hook. The monster was smashed into the ground by the series of punches, stunned, allowing Camila to follow with a stomp that crushed the monster’s head. The second monster was defeated. Camila was dangerously fast, especially when she started building momentum.

The third monster had tried to use the moment that the second monster was stunned to sneak attack Camila mid stomp. Her speed allowed her to finish the combination, and the ambusher failed to save the previous monster, but it still landed a solid attack on Camila’s thigh, causing her to flinch away.

Charlie blasted the attacker with a gust of wind that lifted it into the air and launched it away, giving the girls space to regroup. But the fourth monster didn’t waste time, ambushing Charlie while she was distracted with her successful gust.

The monster was foiled by Charlie’s heavy cloak, but its low attack took Charlie’s feet out from under her. Before the monster could follow up with more attacks on Charlie, Camila rejoined the fight as a blur, opening with a massive kick that split the monster in half. Both parts disintegrated into smoke as they flew away.

The other monster paused its rush to rejoin the fight and stared the two girls down, slowly circling the two. Camila matched its pace before Charlie reengaged the fight by swinging her hand horizontally, forming a wide blade of water that moved slowly forward.

Camila began as soon as Charlie’s arm moved like it was the starter flag for a race, launching herself past the monster. The monster turned to face Camila who feinted once to the right before lunging left and striking the monster with a solid right elbow to the top of the head. She took one more step to spin and knee the monster into the path of the water blade. The monster was too stunned to avoid the attack and was defeated by the water blade.

The final monster of the pack ambushed Camila, trying to catch her off balance after her combination on the previous enemy. Camila was too fast, and properly anticipating the ambush, was able to dodge backwards out of the way. The monster didn’t get a chance to try again as Charlie’s gust of wind pressed it into the ground as soon as it landed. Camila finished it off with a combination of kicks to the head, ending the fight like it was a brutal street brawl. Both girls glowed with a soft white light indicating that they had leveled.

Coop returned to his hunting, a bit relieved that they had won after all. He didn’t want them to know he held any doubts, so he pretended that he hadn’t stopped to watch. He returned his concentration to his own battles.

Watching the girls reset their fight had given him an idea for how he could improve his own tactics. The problem he needed to address was the stacking Vulnerable debuff. Thanks to his Bloodthirsty title’s health regeneration on kill he was able to comfortably maintain his health pool, for the most part. However, if the debuff stacked too high, every attack he received would become dangerous. It wouldn’t matter if his health was at its maximum if even a slight scratch dealt damage in the hundreds.

Coop was finding that if he slowed his fights down, just a little, he could control the ambushes even further. This would allow him to dodge more consistently, especially with his improved stats, and therefore take less stacks of the Vulnerable debuff. Adding an extra second to each individual fight would save him a significant amount of time in breaks over the course of his hunt. If he could avoid taking any damage for long enough the debuff stacks would expire on their own, and he wouldn’t need to stop at all.

He switched to a more conservative battle style, avoiding damage as much as possible, keeping the monsters in his glaive’s killing range. Even slightly slowed down, he was killing Ancient Prowlers faster than he ever defeated Ancient Defenders. The limitation with the Defenders was in the time taken to travel from monster to monster, but the Prowlers basically came to him. As long as he didn’t need to retreat there was essentially no pause in his experience gains. The new tempo worked like a charm.

—

Camila flopped into the sand of the dune, bloodied and frustrated. She watched as Charlie sat next to her with a wince. Charlie had avoided the jagged teeth of the Ancient Prowlers thanks to her heavy cloak, but Camila hadn’t been spared. Charlie conjured a light rain shower that was so gentle it was more like a morning mist. It was a rare spell that increased their regeneration by a large amount, allowing them to heal as long as they stayed in the drizzle. Camila appreciated that it also washed the evidence of their injuries away.

Camila looked at her health and grimaced. The one battle had reduced her to less than 40% health remaining. Even with Charlie’s healing rain it would take some time to fully regenerate. She had accumulated four stacks of the Vulnerable debuff that Coop had repeatedly warned them about. The stinging wounds did nothing to alleviate her pride. Not even the level they had both received for completing the first stage of the Ancient Prowler quest chain made her feel better.

It was embarrassing that they hadn’t taken his warnings seriously enough. She watched as he cleaved a monster in two and cleanly avoided the sneak attack of the next. He barely moved his feet, pivoting only slightly to behead the ambushing monster before it even hit the ground. He made the monsters look slow and clumsy.

She knew they weren’t. Camila was fast. It was the entire basis of her class, with her damage being derived entirely from her speed and timing. She was forced to use all of her skills to outmaneuver the one pack of Ancient Prowlers, and that was with her unusually high investment into Agility forming a baseline of speed. Her class allowed her to completely ignore Strength in favor of Agility, but it didn’t feel like enough.

If Charlie and Camila weren’t twice the level of the monsters they fought, they would have been in serious danger. She didn’t think it made sense. The only other real monsters they had fought were pack monsters as well, and they hadn’t had any trouble dispatching entire groups of them. They had been lulled into believing their levels made them nearly untouchable during the early parts of the assimilation. They hadn’t bothered to consider how they matched up to every different skill set.

In this case, the Ancient Prowlers perfectly countered their most powerful skill combinations by being abnormally quick and fighting individually, but consecutively. Charlie’s most powerful skills relied on wide area effects that needed time to ramp up, and Camila’s skills were best for protecting her for the duration. The monsters were too aggressive to allow Charlie to build up and were quick enough to put even Camila on her back foot for most of the fight while leaving most of the damage up to her.

Their training had been inadequate for the situation. They had spent their time learning to fight within a specific type of balanced party against other balanced parties. In retrospect, the Empire’s training had been overly choreographed and completely failed to establish the spontaneity of a real fight, and despite their independence they hadn’t fully adapted to their own style yet. Every encounter the pair had, prior to this one, had shown their levels were enough to overwhelm any foe.

Coop was still defeating monsters, one after the other, with no signs of needing to stop. She hadn’t fully believed his claim of killing 20,000 monsters, thinking that even such an earnest seeming person would boast a little, wanting to impress the two girls. She believed him now. Once he had a pack engaged in combat, he defeated each monster in less than 10 seconds. In the time it took her and Charlie to defeat one pack, he could defeat five by himself

Camila understood why Coop had seemed so confident about his level when Kevin had been talking down to him. Coop had earned his levels, but the factions had gifted them theirs. It was a harsh reality. She didn’t get why the factions wouldn’t prepare them better. Was the Empire incompetent, or did the aliens lack the perspective needed to prepare for an assimilating planet?

Either way, she didn’t care. She knew that she had some changes to make in her own mentality. Camila was glad to adjust. She was already itching for another round, but they would have to wait for their health to regenerate.

Instead, Camila and Charlie discussed the fight, doing their best to identify mistakes and come up with ways to correct them. In the end, they just needed to avoid underestimating their enemies as that was their biggest blunder.

While they waited, she came to the conclusion that the Empire’s mistake was in assuming humans would be completely obedient. Camila was self aware enough to know that she would never be. She was contrarian, willful, defiant, and rebellious. She would never have been fighting as a duo against random monsters if she had yielded to the Empire’s doctrine. They would have put her and Charlie up in the middle of the settlement, just to cart them out like show ponies whenever an event came around.

She didn’t think most of the people loyal to the Empire were being blindly subservient. They were selfishly hitching themselves to what they believed was a winner while jockeying for a better position in the future hierarchy. At least that was how she saw people like Kevin, more of an office kiss-ass or a teacher’s pet than a lap dog. Of course, there were zealots that truly believed, but she had to imagine they were a minority.

The second pack that they fought went better than the first, but she had still taken three stacks of the Vulnerable debuff and Charlie was completely out of mana when the last monster was defeated. They would still have to spend just as much time recovering.

She leaned back onto the sand with both hands behind her head and one knee bent while Charlie sat and hugged both knees. They both watched as Coop defeated monster after monster. Eventually, he suddenly lit up like a spotlight was on him to show that he leveled. Both girls cheered, but they trailed off when they realized he wasn’t stopping. Camila wasn’t sure if he had even noticed the level. It hadn’t changed his rhythm at all.

They continued their own pattern of fighting one pack and then recovering their health. At the rate that they recovered, they were only fighting one pack an hour. It was quite the contrast to Coop’s unbelievable pace.

Coop was something else. Even if she hadn’t taken any damage in their fights, she wouldn’t have been able to continue until her skills were refreshed. She couldn’t use them over and over. Charlie had similar restrictions in that she was limited by her mana pool. Coop didn’t seem to have anything limiting his ability to fight.

She was daydreaming while recovering when Coop finally approached them. It had been around five hours since she and Charlie had fought their first pack and it was getting late. They started right after the sunset, which was around 6 PM. Apparently, Coop wasn’t done. He wanted to let them know that he was going to keep fighting for at least another three hours. He suggested they head to the tavern and try the stew, the baths, and the beds. Coop told them to have Maeve put everything on his tab. Camila laughed at the idea of ‘knowing a guy’ that would get them VIP treatment after the apocalypse, but they played along.

Camila and Charlie thought visiting the tavern was a good idea, but wanted to fight one more pack Since they had almost fully recovered. They had defeated 20/25 of the Ancient Prowlers. One more level would have them pass Kevin, which would freak him out. Coop approved of the idea before he returned to his hunt, he had only stopped for a few minutes.

He engaged another pack and expertly kept the monsters at the full length of his weapon, dodging with minimal movement when they attempted their sneak attacks, and decisively ended each individual fight with a single powerful strike with the blade of his glaive.

After Camila and Charlie reached level 28 they headed to the tavern. Camila was also going to let Kevin know they were taking Coop on a little boat trip and he and the squad could come with or stay put until they got back.

The Clumsy Shark Tavern was wonderful. Camila immediately loved it. There was a devilishly handsome bartender, a seductive waitress, a roaring fire in the fireplace, and the smells of alcohol and savory foods. Most of her squad was missing, she assumed passed out in one of the beds Coop was so excited about, but one group of five remained. She was amused that the Endless Empire’s elite soldiers had been put to bed before 11:00 o’clock.

The waitress hopped over to them without missing a beat, welcoming them and inviting them to take a seat anywhere. Camila let her know they would be eating on Coop’s tab at the bar, but first they needed to speak with the other guests. The waitress gave a sly smile at the mention of Coop that Camila reflexively mirrored before the waitress waved them in. Maybe they did ‘know a guy.’

Kevin the Hammer was at a table with Parker and Eric from her own party and Lisa and Debra from his own. The five of them looked like stereotypical tourists looking for trouble in a small town that they didn’t hold any respect for. Camila went straight to their table and added a chair for herself.

She let Kevin know about their planned boat trip. Kevin’s response was more or less what she predicted. He told her, “Absolutely not.” He said they were leaving as soon as the rest of the squad regained consciousness as the ale had knocked them out. They would return to their settlement and go further up the chain of command to decide what to do about discovering another civilization shard. She could predict how it would go. They would need to warn Coop to prepare before they returned.

Camila reminded him of Charlie’s role in the squad, being the only one who could actually sail the ship, and suggested he stay put and enjoy the tavern’s hospitality while they take their trip. She wasn’t asking permission, just letting him know so he wouldn’t panic when the ship disappeared for a while.

There was some yelling, but Camila didn’t back down. Surprisingly, Eric was the one who was the most offended by the idea that she would help Coop with anything at all. She guessed it wasn’t really that surprising given how he leered at her all the time, but it was still annoying. Kevin had accepted the situation relatively easily, knowing how weak his position actually was. Either way, she left them and sat at the bar with Charlie to try the food.