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Chapter 84 - Growing Threat
🕑 Added 2024-07-19 20:05:21 +0000 UTC"You have birds that you scout the area with and through them, you saw me running toward your camp aggressively?" I asked.
After realizing there was a miscommunication, I tried to figure out why they thought I would attack them. Finding out they had birds watching me as I rampaged through the forest was... unexpected.
I hadn't thought anyone would be watching me as I ran through the forest and knowing that someone had made me a little self-conscious. I hadn't exactly been the epitome of grace during my trek.
It also made me understand why they thought I was going to attack. I had been a bit... destructive on my way here.
"Yes, which is why we were prepared for a fight," The woman said from the other side of the portal. I realized she hadn't given her name and I kept referring to her as the woman.
"I do not have that intention," currently, "I only seek answers," I said.
Now that I knew a bit more and found out they had birds they could use to scout, things started to fall into place.
If they used that ability to keep track of the goings on, they would know who attacked us. Austin's skill was spot on if that was the case and there would be no need to fight them.
I only needed to get the woman to tell me.
I was slightly jealous of their ability to do so. It also made me a little sad realizing that it was something Kyle would have been able to do if he still lived. He ranted about getting a bird beast companion and seeing what it could do made me a tad sad.
That kind of information was extremely useful to have. Both during the waves and to keep what happened from occurring again. It was something that we would have to fix.
Getting that skill or class for someone in our camp would be difficult. Everyone had their own paths to tread and having a skill not in line with that could be detrimental. Especially now, when things were about to come to a close.
We didn't have any Beastmasters but we could come up with something similar.
The woman seemed to be thinking of how to respond and her indecision vexed me. The possibility that she knew and wouldn't tell me angered me.
I tried not to let it show. It wasn't unreasonable to decline to answer, I had said nothing of recompense. Doing anything for free wasn't how the world worked and it certainly wasn't now that it had changed.
Saying nothing of repayment was on purpose. I wanted to see if they would give me the answers I sought without me having to give anything up. If I ended up having to pay for them, so be it.
"What is it you want to know?" She seemed to come to a decision.
"I want to find out who is responsible for the attack on my camp. A debt is owed and I aim to collect it." I answered gravely.
I wanted no miscommunication on what I would do and I made it clear what I was after. If these people were friends with the people responsible, I would find out now.
After saying my piece I watched her face closely.
There wasn't any shock or surprise on her face signaling this was the answer she had expected and yet no signs were pointing at them being responsible. She also didn't become defensive or indicate in any way that she was allied with the people responsible.
As I said before, I wasn't the best at reading faces but I should be able to see something this big. Making clear my goals of revenge, I aimed to catch any hint of deceit or defensiveness if they did turn out to be behind it.
There was too much I didn't know and I couldn't discredit the idea that they might be who I was looking for.
If only Austin's skill could have led me directly to who I wanted. I wasn't sure how it worked but it was already frustrating me.
If only it could point me to who was responsible and make this whole thing easier, but no, it led me on a wild goose chase with only a direction to go off of.
Why the skill worked in roundabout ways was vexing. If it intended to send me on an adventure to seek the answers I sought, it was doing a good job.
She took another moment before answering.
"I know who did it," For a moment I feared she would ask for something in return, "It was someone we call the Mindbreaker."
The name she mentioned meant nothing to me but that didn't matter. All I needed to know was where I would find him. If she could point me in his direction I would be on my way.
"Do you know where he is?" I asked.
I wasn't going to trust her blindly but this was as good of a lead as any.
"We do not know where he is. The last we saw of him was when he was up north. If you remember, I sent your camp a letter about it." She said.
Now that she said it, I did remember reading a letter about something like this. We got letters from a few different factions earlier on in the tutorial but they mostly stopped after a while.
As the tutorial increased in difficulty, factions stopped sending letters. I usually ignored all of the letters as they were all asking for help or asking to merge camps.
There was one I remembered that warned of an impending threat but I had other things to deal with and dismissed it at the time. It wasn't important when there was a wave to prepare for the next day.
Finding out the threat was real made me want to go back and slap past me. I wasn't sure if anything would have changed but it would have been good information to have.
No one died and no one received major injuries, so dismissing the letter didn't result in anything too bad, but it could have been a lot worse. It was mostly the surprise of my camp being under attack that scared me so much. It was unexpected. A threat aimed at my family shouldn't be unexpected.
Since the woman, I really needed to ask her name, didn't know where the person was, I settled for the next best thing.
"Where is his camp?" If I couldn't find the person, I would go to their camp.
"Let's take a step back so I can explain to you the threat we face." She said with a serious tone.
I hadn't missed the fact she used 'we', not the threat I face.
She then went on to describe what the Mindbreaker, a man named Craig, had been up to. The name sounded familiar but I couldn't place it.
She told tales of taking over pylons before dominating people's minds. She wasn't certain how he did what he did, but she knew a lot.
His class revolved around gaining 'thralls' and most of his skills were related to wearing down mental defenses before taking over. The other skills he had were related to controlling the thralls he already had.
The fact she knew so much about the man's class and skills was a tad worrying. I hadn't exactly kept what I was able to do secret and there were numerous times I had fought with birds around.
Were they spying on me? Did they have the same kind of information on me? Or my family?
The thought was unsettling and not one I particularly liked. I now understood why so many people had [Identify Block]. Being so exposed didn't feel good.
I was used to only being around my family where we already told each other what skills we had so blocking information-gathering skills was useless.
Back to the Mindbreaker though, the information she gave me explained why we were attacked by both monsters and man. She mentioned that after gaining levels and experience using his skills, the Mindbreaker expanded out to monsters under his control.
His supply of further human thralls dwindled as more people either died or were already under his control so he expanded to beasts.
I was told he didn't have as much control over the animals since their minds were less developed but he could still give rudimentary orders like attack or defend an area.
After she was finished giving all the information she knew, it turned out to be quite a lot.
"So the man has mental skills, an army of thralls, nine pylons, and has only been growing in power." I summed up.
To which she responded with a nod.
Hearing that such a threat was growing without my knowledge was jarring. It made more sense now why she had given me this information for free.
What she told me was a threat against us all, if it was true, and telling me helped her in the long run. Knowing that telling me was in her best interest made me inclined to trust it more.
I still wasn't going to blindly trust it but verifying the truth of what she said shouldn't be hard. All I had to do was search out one of these pylons and see for myself what they held.
I had assumed everyone was busy fighting the waves. Not gearing up for world domination. Well, tutorial domination.
The list of things to worry about seemed to only grow.
As she relayed information about the man, I thought of what I would do. I couldn't rush off with a half-baked plan like I did before.
So many things could have gone wrong and I was lucky they hadn't. I was confident in fighting an army but I had zero idea how many thralls the man had. Rushing in blind could lead me to an early grave.
I could have been led into an ambush, surrounded by beasts, or he could have trapped me and tried to work his mind voodoo on me. There were so many things I didn't know were possible.
I didn't even have any mental defense skills, skills which the woman said were available in the store. Her pylon rank was higher than ours and a wider variety of skills were available to purchase which ours didn't have.
The sheer breadth of what I didn't know was astounding and that didn't even include the stuff I didn't know that I didn't know.
I had been so focused on surviving that I hadn't spent any time, or points, on learning more about the possible things I may face in the future. I hadn't even known mental domination was possible.
Suffice it to say, I had a lot to think about and I needed to take some time to come up with a plan of action. There would be no more charging forward blindly.
As our talk came to an end, it seemed the woman was debating asking me something.
Before she came to a decision, I asked something that was on my mind, "I never caught your name."
She had never given it but phrasing that way was better.
"Tracy. Tracy Strong," she answered.
"Well, it was nice to meet you Tracy, but I have things I need to do. I wish you good fortune." I concluded.
I needed to get back to camp and discuss what we were going to do.
Just when I was about to turn and leave she said one more thing. It seemed her mental deliberations had come to a conclusion and she had decided to voice her offer.
Hearing it left me speechless. I hadn't expected to be offered that and I could only answer non-committedly.
That wasn't something I could decide by myself.
My entire run home I went over the last thing she said. It would work, but I didn't know if I wanted to.
Comments
Demonlord
I'm glad they talked about it and it didn't went violent
