Chapter -2147483637 (The Curse of Team 13)

  The previous day, shortly after noon.

  Alex looked down at Ada, who had just started her second class advancement. They’d only been reunited for a handful of days, but the blond woman felt drawn to the other. She’d remembered the years they had spent together in her previous life back on Earth, which had been a very confusing time for her.

  Alex had always been attracted to the other girls in her classes, and the thought of being with a man had felt gross to her. She’d always felt drawn to her fellow bandmate, and couldn’t ever figure out why. The fact that Ada had actually been a woman the entire time helped that attraction make sense.

  No, the real confusing part was that skill the system had forced her to take. She supposed she was lucky that she’d just recently merged one of her general skills into a class skill on her second class and had an open slot, because she didn’t want to consider what might have happened if she hadn’t had a slot available.

  What concerned her was the fact that ever since that skill had shown up, she’d started gaining levels at a rather alarming rate. Ever since reaching level 300, she’d been earning roughly one level every 5-10 days, depending on how hurt the other rangers had gotten that week. Now, she’d been earning at least one level each day. This wasn’t happening with only her classes, either. Each of her skills that were uncapped were likewise seeing absurd growth rates. The [Soul Bonded] skill had reached the cap after only two days, and was remaining capped every time her primary [Druid] class gained levels.

  Alex spent some time contemplating what all of this meant, but was interrupted by the wagon coming to an abrupt halt and the hatch on the roof being opened.

  Marcus looked down into the wagon and called out, “Look alive everyone, I can see Nyssos coming back to meet us, and he’s coming in fast.”

  “Shit,” thought Alex. There were a few reasons why their scout would be returning to the main group in a hurry, and all of them were bad. Best case, there was some kind of large carnivore on the road. Worst case was a significantly large group of bandits with an ambush set up to attack travelers.

  Alex looked back down to the immobile Ada, and made a snap decision. She couldn’t know what would happen, and if the worst case was bad enough, the entire ranger team could end up getting captured or worse. Hopefully, in that circumstance, Ada would end up getting left in a ditch for dead and be able to run back to Odessos for reinforcements. Alex wrote a quick note on the smallest piece of paper torn from a scroll she could manage, and then stuffed it into Ada’s cheek and hoped that no one would bother looking there.

  She then called up to Marcus, “OK boss, do you want me on healing or preparing an offense?”

  “Healing until we know more.”

  “On it.”

  Alex switched on her regenerative healing aura [Regrowth], which would rapidly seal stabbing and slashing wounds for designated allies, and she mentally acknowledged each of the 8 rangers as valid targets. She’d tried using it on Ada, but even during practice sparring, Alex’s healing had no effect whatsoever on the woman’s wounds. That, of course, hadn’t stopped the woman from rapidly recovering from the damage.

  Alex gave her head a shake to clear those thoughts away. They were in a potentially seriously dangerous situation, and she needed to keep the distractions at a minimum.

  Climbing up through the roof hatch, she saw Marcus with a concerned look on his face. “How’s the situation?” she asked.

  “Not good. I sent Nyssos on back to Odessos to get a courier dispatched to the frontline command post.”

  Alex didn’t need to ask for what purpose, as there was only one reason why a ranger team would be contacting a command post, and that was because the situation called for Sentinel response.

  “So how much shit are we in, exactly?”

  “Deserters. Nearly an entire cohort, and it looks like many of them are conscripted classers.”

  “Adventurers? I fucking knew this would happen eventually.”

  “Yeah, I remember. ‘I told you so’ isn’t exactly going to help us right now, though. Nyssos said he was definitely spotted. And since they already know there’s a ranger team close by, they won’t wait for us to ride up into their ambush point. Even if we turn around now and race for the city, their scouts are going to catch us, and even the worst physical classer is capable of outrunning us. We need to set up some kind of defensive position and hold out as long as we can, and hope we can get a sentinel to show up before we’re all dead.”

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  “What about Ada? She still hasn’t finished her class up, and there’s no telling how much longer she’s going to take. You told her she had more than a week.”

  “Close up the wagon and hope they don’t manage to crack the doors. Honestly, from what I’ve seen, I don’t know that she’d die from getting her head cut off. She’s probably the most likely to survive this out of all of us. Other than you, of course.”

  Alex then noticed something considerably more ominous. There was now a massive cloud of dust rising above the trees before them. She pointed, and asked, “So, what are we supposed to do about that?”

  “Fuck. We set up a defensive bunker and hope we can hold out long enough for a Sentinel to reach us, and if not, surrender and hope they decide to take prisoners. If that happens, you have permission to melt them all.”

  Martelius and Quintus worked well together, using some of the reserves from the wagon’s arcanite supply to rapidly construct a defensive bunker around the rangers, with the wagon at the center. A few openings around the perimeter provided ports for unleashing skills out at the enemy.

  If they were lucky, Nyssos would reach Odessos some time in the night, and an emergency courier dispatch might reach the nearest Sentinel at the front lines the next afternoon.

  Nyssos ran for hours, covering the miles back to Odessos in what had to have been a record pace for him. He’d even leveled up three times along the way. But even so, false dawn had arrived by the time he reached the walls of the city. After a brief argument with the guardsmen at the wall, and an even more brief conversation with the guard’s captain, he was pounding at the door to the courier’s guild. Minutes later, he was speaking with a bleary eyed guildmaster. He dictated a missive, and the guild master woke their best courier, a man with more than 300 levels in a Gale class, and 200 levels in one utilizing brilliance, the two synergized in such a way that the man was capable of stupendous speed with intermittent bursts of ludicrous speed. The courier took off in flight to the fort which served as the front lines headquarters, where there should be three sentinels stationed on a permanent rotation.

  His task finally complete, the exhausted Nyssos collapsed on the floor of the guildmaster’s office and fell asleep.

  “Enemy in sight,” Quirinus called out.

  “Acknowledged,” said Marcus, nodding. He activated a skill he kept stored within a citrine gemstone for just such an emergency, and added an additional layer of protection to the inside of their bunker, which had been constructed with an ablative layer of earth atop a dome of solidified lava. His stored skill conjured a thick layer of impact resistant steel to the inside. The mana required to recharge the skill gem was more than Marcus could afford to expend right now, and it would have to be replaced with a new gemstone once they made it back to Ranger HQ -- if they made it back.

  “Pliny, Atalanta, reinforce the bunker best you can. Quirinus, Lucius, Gaius, Martelius, we’re all on ranged offense. Top off your mana from the reserves as needed, but focus on efficiency, not all out offense.”

  Ranger Team 13 held out for seventeen hours of constant bombardment from the deserters before the reserves in the wagon ran dry. The enemy artillery mages cracked a hole through all three layers in the bunker, opening the rangers up to direct attacks. An ooze classer finally managed to hit the entire squad, immobilizing them all. Alex had done her job and kept them all alive, even after the man calling himself Spartocus had ordered them taken into “protective custody”.

  Everyone except Ada, at least. Alex still wasn’t able to heal the woman, and when Ada had been found when the deserters had pried open the Rangers’ transport, she’d been pulled free and the men had attempted to torture and execute her. The former soldiers stabbed her multiple times, then nailed her body to the trunk of a tree, stabbed her several more times, with no fewer than three swords becoming stuck and abandoned. The woman was then used for pila target practice, and finally someone with a ridiculously large axe chopped off her head which was then placed on a spear planted in the ground facing her own body.

  Throughout the entire ordeal, the sparkling lights indicating an in-progress class advancement had remained around Ada’s head, and Alex could still feel the woman’s presence through their bond.

  The rangers were forced to watch the attempted execution while still coated in mana draining ooze. They were then shackled, chained together at the back of the wagon, and they were all led off to the encampment.

  In her previous life, Alex had been a pediatric oncologist, and as such, had witnessed some of the worst diseases that frequently affected children. She’d also been involved in research into mRNA vaccinations and their application in training an immune system into detecting and fighting off its own cancerous cells. When she’d been old enough and had obtained a copy of the medical manuscripts, she recognized them for what they were, an amateur’s basic understanding of anatomy and medicine, and a rudimentary version of the hippocratic oath.

  She understood that an oath to do no harm was foolish in a world such as this, and only someone with the naivete of a child would make such an oath. There existed plenty who deserved harm. Slave owners who tortured their slaves just for the thrill. Men who beat their wives. People who beat children. Alex had declined to take that oath, and instead, had made her own.

  

  First, protect yourself.

  Second, heal anyone who asks to the best of your ability and do not ask for payment they cannot afford.

  Third, protect your patients.

  Fourth, those who cause harm deserve the same. They are not your patients.

  Reasonably short, simple, and to the point. Each level of her oath provided her with a stacking 4% boost to mana regen, magic power, and magic control, which was better than what the standard Oathbound healers received and wasn’t restricted to only her healing abilities. As a result, her regen was considerably higher than the ooze's ability to drain her reserves.

  Alex began [Channeling] mana into a skill.

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  Based on the world from the original work by Selkie Myth

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  You can also find all of the Beneath the Dragoneye Moons volumes on Kindle Unlimited and Audible:

  

  1 - Oathbound Healer -

  2 - Adventures in the Argo -

  3 - Ranger's Dawn -

  4 - Beyond the Wall -

  5 - Moonveiled Journeys -

  6 - Immortal Moments -

  7 - Return to Remus -

  8 - New Horizons -

  9 - Gladiator Gauntlet -

  10 - Under Ashen Skies -

  11 - Mandate of Heaven -

  12 - The Phoenix Peaks -

  13 - Moonfall -