Azure: Gunner

Chapter 6-16

A word of warning for those who plan on exploring the outlying regions of the Lost Angels’ area – communication between the townships and the city is slow and expensive. While the Courier’s Guild maintains a network of post offices throughout the region, a typical route is run between adjacent towns only twice a week.

Depending on how many stops are between you and LA, it can take weeks to send a letter and get a reply. It’s also possible, though rare, for a Courier to fall prey to monsters along the way. Of course, if you have the means, a private high-Level Courier can cut correspondence delays dramatically.

- Fodorick’s Lonely Traveler – Guide to LA’s Townships and Minor Attractions

It took me what felt like an hour to finish the letters. I needed several attempts to try to put into words what had happened and why the kids needed to leave their home. I told them that they would get to live in the big city, with lots of other kids, and make new friends and see amazing sights.

To Hazel, I wrote a brief, hopefully clear statement of the situation and the need for the kids to go with the Delvers for their own safety. Thompson promised me that the kids would be well-taken-care-of, so I conveyed that as best I could to Hazel. I hoped that she wasn’t still mad at me over the fight we’d had.

My concern was that she’d let her hatred for Delvers overpower her reason, maybe thinking she’d do a better job of protecting the kids herself. I emphasized that Yuri’s bodyguards alone were Tier 3, not to mention anyone else that worked for his family. No one in Sunland would be able to protect the kids from that kind of strength.

I swore my cramping right hand was almost as painful as a knife to the thigh by the time I’d finished. When I finally emerged from Thompson’s office, I was shocked to see my whole team still waiting for me in the lobby.

“What’s going on, Az?” Raylan asked with a worried expression. “Wilson said we could go, but we didn’t want to leave you in case you needed us.”

“Thanks everyone,” I said, feeling some moisture in my eyes. Dust, definitely.

I made the team join Wolf’s Squad so we could leverage his Leadership Skill to get all nine of us onto the Comms together. Then I quickly explained what I could as we headed back to the bar. I told them about Yuri’s injuries and how Thompson suspected he would leave with very hard feelings.

Tara exclaimed ruthlessly, as I finished my ‘first’ beer back in our booth. For some reason, talking for a long time over the Comms made me feel as thirsty as doing it out loud. I was just happy that someone had mysteriously drunk the beers we’d left behind, and we’d had to get fresh, cold beers to replace them. I could barely stand it cold, let alone warm.

Wolf gave the blonde Defender a hard look.

make light of someone else’s corruption. It’s one thing for the person themselves to make jokes about it. Maybe their team if they know it’s OK. But you should never celebrate anyone else having to go through that. – Gale was the bartender, the one with the bone spikes jutting out from his flesh –

He patted his metal leg, and I saw that Tara’s expression had softened from glee to something more contemplative. With the mood briefly soured, I downed the rest of my beer. Despite my efforts, I barely managed to get my buzz back before it was time for dinner.

Without Wolf, we continued chatting over the Comms as we ate. Practically speaking, nothing would change for now. Back in my room, I lay listlessly on my bed, unable to concentrate on practicing Slow or just about anything else.

I miss the kids so much right now… I hope they’re OK, and that Hazel doesn’t stop them from leaving. I hope they want to leave after they read my letter! I can’t believe they’re in danger because of Yuri’s general shitiness, but hopefully Thompson is right and they won’t mess with the Guild’s orphanage. At least this way, I never have to go back to Sunland to visit them!

I grabbed the extra pillow from the other bed in my room and held onto it tightly as I fell asleep, wishing it was one of those snot nosed little brats that I missed so much right then. Preferably RaeRae. Yuna was ‘too old’ to snuggle with me and Dustin always kicked me in his sleep. The pillow helped, a little bit.

Yuri didn’t need long to make his decision. He was already gone by the time class started the next morning. I was suspicious when JJ wasn’t there to lead PT, though Leon and the others certainly didn’t cut us any slack.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

It was made official later that day, when one of the instructors told us that Yuri had left ‘to deal with a family emergency.’ No one believed him, but we kept what we knew to ourselves. So did Yuri’s former team, though I had no idea how much they’d been told.

The highlight of my week, other than not seeing Yuri’s smug face everyday, came on Friday in the training dungeon. I still fucking hated that place, as the instructors kept changing the traps around each week. The actual process of going through the trapped corridors sucked almost as much as fighting Trite, only it was traumatic mentally instead of physically. The payoff was that I finally learned the General Skill Perceive Traps.

According to Trick Step, it was much more likely you’d get the Skill if you had a Class that gave you points in Perception. Unfortunately, Marta had been the first to learn it, beating out Raylan by just a few minutes. She had received a Level 3 mod as a prize.

The still-irritating Archer didn’t even attune it, just tossed it casually to their newest Squad member. They’d picked up a Swordsman named Halas, a skilled recruit that seemed happy to latch onto the wealthy Squad now that they needed another fighter.

The effect of Perceive Traps was hard to describe, especially since it was only Level 0. It just seemed a little bit easier to pick out the suspicious areas the next time I went through. Much to my disappointment, we didn’t get to stop once we got the Skill.

Trick Step told us that we’d continue learning to avoid physically-triggered traps for the first semester. Then they’d switch us to magical traps, with the goal of getting at least some of us to learn Detect Magic. That would be useful for all kinds of things eventually.

As I waited for my teammates to finish their turns in the torture chambers, I wondered why the magical version of the Skill didn’t have a name that included ‘Acuity’ somehow. Maybe the System just couldn’t figure out a way to use that word in a phrase! I definitely didn’t giggle at the thought, so I was confused when several people gave me strange looks.

I also managed to finally get Inspect and Inventory to Level 2, thanks to an odd exercise the instructors gave us as homework. Apparently, attaching a component to your baselayer created something like a weak attunement. So you could Inspect it instead of using Identify, but didn’t require a Merchant to remove it afterwards.

We were told to remove all our armor components and swap them with a teammate or other student who had the same or lighter baselayer. Then we had to Inspect all the components before swapping them back. It was a strange but effective method at getting a few early Levels in Inspect.

To train Inventory at the same time, we stored and retrieved all of the armor components with each swap. I must have been close to Leveling Inventory because it happened almost right away, while Inspect took longer. The next day, we’d have to find another Squad to exchange with. The trick only helped Level your Skill the first time you Inspected – or stored and retrieved – an object.

There was one particularly interesting fact that I noted when Sink was answering questions about the drill.

“Why don’t we also trade weapons?” one of the members of Squad Deathdealers asked. “I mean, not Class Weapons, but backup ones.”

“It doesn’t work like that. If your non-Class weapons don’t have any mods, they won’t be Inspectable. You get this weak attunement effect when you put armor components on your baselayer, but there’s no real equivalent for weapons. Attaching a mod to a non-Class weapon effectively attunes the weapon to you.

“And remember, mods only work for the person that attuned them. To anyone else, they’re inert, even if you give a modded item to them. Enchantments are more flexible, since they don’t create any attunement. On the other hand, you also can’t easily remove or replace them when you get something better.”

At least I didn’t have to worry about getting involved in any more duels for a while. No one could fight more than once every two weeks. After our team’s performance I doubted anyone other than Marta or Clarice would really be excited to fight us again – and they would have to wait a month.

Tara and Arlo could still be challenged, but there were only two rookie and three veteran duels that Sunday, and they weren’t among the fighters. Only one of the veteran duels seemed to involve any actual animosity, while none of the other fights were for more than three hits or a single eagle as stakes.

We joined the crowd watching, of course, though my mind was barely registering the fights. Once the duels were over I was scheduled for my second ‘training’ session with Trite. This time, there was a veteran student who went before me, and it made me feel a teeny tiny bit better to watch them look as helpless before the ten-legged, three-headed monstrosity as I’d felt two weeks before.

I lasted for five attempts this time, only two of which I survived long enough to trigger Tactical Reposition more than once. G’hala did use Balance on me during my second attempt – with a Healer nearby to fix up my teammates after they’d taken on part of my wounds. Sadly, I didn’t get a Skill Level out of the whole ordeal.

“PAST, what the fuck do I have to do to Level this Skill more? I was bitten, stabbed, thrown through at least two walls, almost had my arm fucking ripped off – come on!”

[Despite your many travails, you only managed to activate Tactical Reposition seven times today, Gunner Ashley! To Level your Skill faster, all you need to do is activate it more often! Perhaps you could try training it more than one day every two weeks?!]

“How about you tactically reposition yourself out of this conversation, jerk?!”

[Your attitude is uncharitable, Citizen! Are you still mad at me about April Fool’s Day?!]

“I wasn’t, until you reminded me about it just now. So, thanks for that!”

[It was my pleasure, Gunner! Just think about all the great reminders I’ll be able to give you once you upgrade your alarm functionality!]