Unchosen Champion

Coop had grown to love being the junior caretaker of Ghost Reef, but dream job or not, that wasn’t his role anymore. Instead, he was now Champion of Ghost Reef and the responsibilities had evolved along with the title. In a way, becoming Champion resembled a significant promotion even without an appropriate pay raise. He was working hard to set the settlement up for success in the long term future, just like he had planned for his class.

Coop thought it was amazing how much had changed in the last three weeks. Of course, it had all started with meteors unleashing mana on Earth, so maybe it wasn’t all that amazing. It was actually pretty reasonable to expect a cataclysmic event to cause some significant changes.

The changes hadn’t only been external to Coop, he had personally changed quite a bit as well. Ignoring actual magic, he had finally let go of his avoidance behaviors when it came to the guilt he felt over his parents’ deaths. He wasn’t the hollow, unattached person he had been when he was afraid to exist without distraction. His parents had been kind and helpful and Coop was ready to carry that legacy into the harsh new system as much as he could.

He wasn’t afraid to credit Ghost Reef itself for giving him the opportunity to sort himself out. The drastic change in scenery, to that of a tropical island paradise, had given him a chance to appreciate plenty of little things again. His mana affinity pushed him beyond the threshold to finally be willing to reflect on himself without fear.

He had not only become personally invested in the well-being of other people, like Jones, Charlie, and Camila, but he also cared for the settlement as a whole. Ghost Reef had other residents that he wanted to provide a haven for. Some of them were contracted through the system, like Balor, Desmond, and Maeve, and others had arrived as refugees. Olani and her grandkids had washed up on a flimsy raft and he was glad to welcome them. He hoped others would make it to the sanctuary that they were building together.

Then there were others who may not even count as residents even though they had been on the island before he was. Coop wanted to offer them the same protection anyway. The burrowing owls, sea turtles, and unaccounted for swimming pigs all deserved protection from the invaders. The reef itself was worth defending. They were all going through the same assimilation together and none of them had asked for it.

Of course, mana itself had wrought the most obvious personal changes. Coop had strength, speed, and durability like he never imagined, and he had set himself up to snowball even further. He had actual magical powers that allowed him to summon ethereal weapons and armor, and he could detect and read mana auras. He needed to develop his powers to the best of his ability so that he could build and keep Ghost Reef a safe haven.

He cast Retribution and summoned his ethereal spear, watching as misty vapors appeared, thickened, and became a tangible weapon. Then he dismissed it, returning it to mist that dissipated in the night air. He was repeatedly summoning his weapon to advance one of his passive skills. Practical Application reduced the mana cost of abilities as he used them, so he periodically conjured a weapon to improve his efficiency. Eventually, he hoped to have his abilities be completely free of cost.

Coop watched the dark water of the ocean, extending to the horizon in all directions, as the ship cruised back to the island chain. He reflected on how he had carefully selected his class and skills, and how they had exceeded his wildest dreams. It was an early gamble to withhold his attribute points until he had a class, but it had paid off delightfully. He had effectively tripled the value of those first five levels by delaying his allocation. He couldn’t credit his wisdom, though, he had to admit it was pure luck that it had worked out.

His Revenant class was the real standout. The description had promised to provide necessary flexibility in order to achieve singular goals. The class had absolutely delivered so far. Coop couldn’t wait to get more skills and expand his class’s options. He had no regrets about choosing to become a Revenant. He certainly wouldn’t trade it for any of the other classes he had come across so far.

Ghost Reef had supplied him with opportunities to grow beyond what the factions seemed capable of. He had a variety of monsters to fight in a relatively dense area, and he hadn’t even explored the rest of the chain of islands. Exploring should certainly be near the top of his to do list. He would be able to better plan his leveling if he had a proper assessment of the nearby monsters.

Camila and Charlie had told him about the monsters they found on the mainland, and Coop found the news disappointing. There had only been one monster type anywhere inside and around the city. Coop had already found almost half a dozen variations around the main island alone, and that wasn’t counting what was waiting inside the nearby Coral Forest Mana Well. He’d still make the trip to the mainland to try and complete another invader quest chain, but for now he wasn’t done with his starting area.

The factions didn’t advise their Chosen to bother hunting regular monsters to complete the invasion quest chains, but Coop was planning on completing as many as possible. He believed the factions were underestimating the value of the system provided quests, and he thought Ghost Reef was uniquely situated to best take advantage of those quests. If there had only been one quest chain to complete, he would have also prioritized an alternative way of getting experience, but he was spoiled for choice on the island.

He wasn’t sure exactly how factions were formed, but he theorized that all the prominent factions had existed for a long enough time to have forgotten their own assimilation periods. Their doctrines had evolved well beyond the times of invasion quests, so now they minimized the merit of completing them. They were biased towards the systems of leveling that they currently employed.

If Coop completed the quest chains, he might even be able to seize an advantage that went beyond just the Chosen of Earth. Time might be the only advantage the rest of the galaxy held over him. Of course, that was a big advantage, one that might be impossible to overcome. From Coop’s perspective it was still a distant worry. 111 years was already an inconceivable length of time. He didn’t need to think about time on scales of thousands or millions of years.

The other major disappointment to come out of the news from the mainland, other than the limited monsters, was the state of the nearest settlement. It had been claimed by people actively representing their faction, the Endless Empire. It seemed like the Empire had convinced a significant group of people to zealously fight in their name. It seemed crazy, but the various factions seemed to be persuasive enough to recruit people to fight on their behalf right from the get go. Coop didn’t get any offers, so he really couldn’t relate to those who accepted them so ferociously.

If an alien abducted him and offered to make him a galactic king he still wouldn’t put his full faith in them, but Jones had explained it with a sort of proverb. “Only a madman would ignore instructions from a god.” Coop might think that believing the aliens was crazy, but it seemed like many others looked at it from an opposite perspective. Ignoring their instructions might be crazy.

Not all of their Chosen were true believers, he already had four wishing to leave them to join his own settlement, but they still had numbers. Even now, they had enough people to try and steal his settlement out from under him. It was an unpleasant response to his attempted hospitality and that was before they tried to assassinate him. Despite his reservations he would be returning their disrespect with the sharp edge of his weapons. He just hoped it wouldn’t escalate any further. The Empire was occupying a major city that had millions of residents before the apocalypse. Their current numbers would be impossible for Coop's tiny settlement to resist.

The Empire’s settlement was structured in the inverse of how Coop imagined a sanctuary should be. Instead of protecting its residents, the residents were being used to protect the settlement. It sounded like a bad deal if someone was looking for a place to be safe. Evidently, the only worse deal would be found in the wilds. Outside of the territory of settlements, the power of monsters was constantly escalating.

Coop worried about the state of humanity. He hoped the people at other settlements had been able to form cooperative efforts to survive without the outside influence of factions creating conflict. He knew people would find other reasons for conflict, but it didn’t hurt to hope.

He looked back in the direction that they had come from and watched the wake of the ship leave a temporary trail on the surface of the ocean. He felt a small frown form. His only experience with a larger faction other than the Endless Empire hadn’t given him any more reason to be optimistic about the fate of settlements or humanity as a whole.

The last task he had completed involved wiping out the Breathless faction of the Undead. A single person had been sponsored by the Breathless on an oil rig and he had used his faction’s gifts to convert everyone else into zombies. They were killed and had their souls bound to the Zombie Lord’s until Coop came and defeated them.

Coop had belatedly learned that they weren’t monsters manifested by mana like the Primal Construct’s invaders, but had actually been humans previously. Even worse was that the Zombie Lord himself was a regular human that Coop had a conversation with. They had fought to the death, leading to Coop confronting the fact that he had already started killing people.

While the Zombie Lord was monstrous, Coop was further led down a path that had him killing. When the Endless Empire tried and failed to assassinate him, he didn’t show them any mercy. Coop needed to remain resolute. They were all in a deadly conflict over the fate of the planet. He wouldn’t hate anyone for trying to kill him. Most of the time, they would probably feel that they were righteous, but he would still fight back with the same goal. The alternative was to be killed.

He summoned an ethereal glaive, twisted it in his hands a few times and admired the ghostly blade in the starlight. He dismissed it into wisps of vapor that were left behind by the moving ship as they disappeared. His Retribution skill had been reduced to 48 mana per summon, down from 50. It wasn’t much compared to his mistjump, which was down to 33 mana per teleport from the same starting point. Lowering their costs was another personal priority, and he would pursue it diligently while hunting monsters to complete quest chains and during his downtime.

Coop left the edge of the ship and his musings behind to rejoin Camila and Charlie on the upper deck. Charlie was gripping the steering wheel with both hands while Camila leaned her head on Charlie’s shoulder. Coop leaned against the railing in front of the wheel and smiled back at them. It felt good to add people to his circle of trust.

They chatted like they had on the way to the rig, like old friends despite not actually knowing each other for that long. Coop thought the downtime was nice, something to make sure to appreciate, like a nice sunset or a pristine beach. He’d do his best to remember to take a second to recognize the valuable moments whenever he could afford it.

They expected to make it back to Ghost Reef by the dawn of a new day.

—

Debra couldn’t believe their luck.

She was Kevin the Hammer’s second in command, and out of the squad of Chosen of the Empire, she was the most surprised by Ghost Reef. She had been against joining the expedition to scout islands away from the main settlement. She believed it would be a waste of time and she had mostly been correct. That is, until they reached their destination and they found an isolated civilization shard.

What the heck was it doing out here all by itself? They weren’t expecting to find any shards, just some potential new residents trapped on islands. This was an extraordinary find.

Discovering its location would be enough to get their entire party promoted within the Empire. She couldn’t wait to get back to report the find to leadership. She didn’t care if the commanders decided to take the shard or ignore it as long as they recognized who found it.

Then the insubordinate Camila decided she wanted to go on a sunset cruise with her new boyfriend, preventing them all from returning to the Empire’s settlement and receiving their deserved accolades.

Debra hated Camila. She didn’t like how she effortlessly commanded the attention of the entire room whenever she entered, and she especially disliked how little loyalty she showed toward the Empire. Debra thought she was dangerous to keep around. A potential bad influence for the impressionable young men and women that were a part of the Empire, but they had been instructed about certain individuals to keep around. Potential elites that would be tactically important as allies and much worse as enemies.

They had all received incredible magic powers, but the Empire still favored certain affinities based on millions of years of experience. Both Camila and Charlie were two of the favored. She still thought they should get rid of them, and she wasn’t the only one.

She had to give Camila credit for leading them to this golden opportunity. By taking her boyfriend out of the picture, the Champion of this settlement was left exposed and defenseless. He was a low level old man that was totally naive to let them inside his defenses when they were clearly the superior force. They didn’t even need tactics, they were just invited inside by the muscle brained, factionless island boy.

They had waited until after the factionless bodyguard was taken on his boat trip. Now Debra was leading a mixed squad to take the old man out. He was so easy to trick. All they had to do was request a tour and he stupidly brought them through the fort’s walls into more and more isolated corridors. He was far too dedicated to being a good host, thinking it would build a positive relationship between them.

She let him drone on and on about historical facts that no one ever cared about until they entered the perfect open room. There were three cannons positioned at small windows facing the open ocean, but there was plenty of space for them to defeat the Champion.

Debra gave the signal and her squad spread out to surround the fool. These three weren’t members of her party, but they had to make due with the ones who were cooperative. Loyalty was always hard to come by.

Once they were in position she took out a valuable artifact that the Empire had specifically given them for assaulting powerful individuals. They were meant to be used in order to claim civilization shards. Only certain groups were qualified to carry them, and Kevin’s group was one that had earned the Empire’s trust.

She crushed the artifact while holding it toward the Champion and dark energy gathered around her fist before it launched itself into the old man. He was caught completely unaware as he was engrossed in his descriptions of a ship battle. Apparently, a pirate queen’s reign had ended when her fleet unsuccessfully attempted to capture the ocean fortress thanks to these very cannons. Too bad, Debra thought.

He was silenced mid sentence. The energy entered his back. He never even registered what was happening. The old caretaker was filled with dark energy that pulsed through his veins and he collapsed to the ground, limp, without making any more sound.

They used the artifact as a precaution, just in case he was more powerful than he appeared. Debra wasn’t convinced it was necessary at all, but orders were orders. With the Champion disabled they could eliminate him at their leisure. Using the artifact was worth it since the reward would be a civilization shard, and this way they could keep all of the residents. Who knew what destruction an all out fight might have wrought. One artifact for one intact settlement was a nice trade. The Empire had supplied them with hundreds.

She had no idea how the pair of island caretakers had managed to construct so many buildings in their settlement, but she knew that the Empire would reap the benefits now that they would become the owners.

She turned to her nearest squadmate for acknowledgement of a job well done.

Her squadmate didn’t move. Her lifeless eyes stared blankly toward where the caretaker had been standing. It was like she had frozen. Debra called out to her.

“Earth to Nina! Nina? Why are you spacing out?”

Instead of any response, her squadmate’s head slid off of her shoulders and toppled to the floor with a disgusting squelch that immediately threatened to bring Debra’s lunch back up. Her eyes shot toward the collapsed figure of the old man. What had he done? Was the Champion masking his power level this whole time? Did he lead them into a trap, predicting their plans?

She heard two quick sounds that reminded her of a knife being rapidly unsheathed and sheathed again. She turned to her other two squadmates who were positioned across the room on the other side of the Champion. Neither had reacted to Nina’s horrifying decapitation. Debra watched as they each fell over in the exact same manner as the first victim.

They had all been assassinated! She stared back at the old man to figure out how he was doing this, but he appeared completely unconscious. The curse should have already worked. They had been assured there would be no way to counter it until settlements reached their final stages.

Debra spun around, searching for any clues, until she caught movement in one of the dark corners of the room. It was two predatory glowing yellow eyes that were only ankle high.

The eyes locked onto hers and slowly moved toward her. Debra could only stagger backwards in terror as the monster exited the shadows.

Once Debra laid eyes on the hidden enemy, she only had one more involuntary thought before her existence was snuffed out.

“What a cute kitty.”