Azure: Gunner

Mind-altering Skills may only be legally used on someone of your Tier or higher. This is a stupid fucking rule, but Politicians are well-known for treating intelligence as a dump Stat.

There are additional restrictions for Merchants, of course, with every store required to maintain an up-to-date price book and make it available to customers. Shopkeepers aren’t allowed to use these Skills – regardless of Tier – on customers unless you initiate the bargaining first. So don’t fucking do that. Pay the listed price and move on.

Lots of arrogant baby Delvers think they can ‘take’ a Merchant when bargaining, like they could take them in a fight. Listen up, baby Delver – you fucking can’t. Imagine that Merchant thinking they could kick your ass because they occasionally play around with one of the swords they sell when they’re bored and no one’s around? Yeah, it’s like that.

- Delver’s Guild Handbook, Section 3.13 – "Restricted Skills”

Zaire remained unusually guarded around me despite my attempts to apologize to him. Frustrated, I finally asked Raylan to help me find out exactly why my accidental Intimidation had hurt our relationship so badly. The Knife Fighter visited my room on Saturday night while I was practicing Slow. He closed the door behind him and sat down on the extra bed.

“Az, I finally got the story out of Zaire. The manaborn have some bad history with Skills like Intimidation being used against them. I think he’s coming around to the fact that you didn’t mean to do it, but it’s a sensitive issue for him because of the way his people have been treated. It doesn’t help that you grew up in Sunland, either.”

“Well, shit! Raylan, I don’t even know anything about his people, other than they apparently don’t need to exercise and Clarice hates them.”

“I think she hates all non-humans, actually,” Raylan told me seriously.

“What? There’s a fucking dwarf on her team! How does that make sense?”

His laugh was ugly. “According to people like her, dwarves are just short, thick humans and elves are just skinny humans with pointed ears.”

“So… are you telling me it's just because Zaire looks less like a human?” I was furious.

“Pretty much,” he sighed. “I’m not a history expert, but even I know that dwarves and elves came out of dungeons just like orcs and cyborgs. But when you look at the trainee Squads, what do you see? Humans, elves, dwarves – nothing else.”

“Raylan, there aren’t that many other non-humans in the school…”

“Exactly! Ever wondered why? You know, I asked Jayce, and they told me that at least 20% of LA’s population is non-human. But if we hadn’t showed up with Zaire, G’hala, and H’ruk, well, there’d only be a handful of them here. I want to know why we don’t see more non-humans in the Academy…”

“Arlo doesn’t seem to care,” I pointed out, and Raylan laughed.

“He’s an odd one, for sure. I think he only wanted to join up with us because he was excited to find another gun user here, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. Tara… well, she’s trying at least, but it’s clear she’s still not entirely comfortable around the orcs.”

“She’s doing better than I expected,” I pointed out honestly.

“She is trying,” he agreed. “Speaking of her, though, how are your feelings doing?”

“Well, I’ve been working on Slow and – “

He raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, you don’t want to talk about it. I get it. Go back to practicing!”

He stuck his tongue out at me as he stalked out of my room, pretending to be offended. At least I had learned something about why Zaire was still mad at me. Not that it gave me any brilliant ideas on how to fix it. Still, the manaborn Mage was keeping up the extra practice with his staff, so hopefully JJ wouldn’t get him kicked off the team.

On Sunday we walked to town again, more for the change in scenery than anything else. Aside from Arlo we didn’t have much money to spend, anyways. He had written to his family about getting pistols for us, but had no idea when to expect a reply. We left the Academy early, after breakfast, and were on our way back just before lunch when we ran into the Deathdealers heading the other way.

We stopped to chat with them for a few minutes. We were about halfway between the school and the town, and just about to part ways, when I heard a sound in the distance.

“Everyone shut up for a second!” I raised my voice, and the conversation stopped as everyone turned to look at me. I saw the realization on their Ranger’s face a moment later.

“Fuck, I think I hear the alarm,” Venkat spat out, and I saw the surprise on the faces of the others.

“It’s not stopping, either,” I added. “It’s the Tier 1 alarm, not Tier 0. We need a plan, fast.”

There was a quick, fierce debate about whether we should head back to Backhorn, stay where we were, or head towards the school.

“We’re not heading for the Academy,” I overruled my team’s desire to seek out the fight. “Not with a Tier 1 alarm. Maybe if it was the Tier 0 signal, but not now. We should run for the town, the guards there can definitely handle Tier 1s.”

Venkat was the Squad Leader of the Deathdealers right now – they had rotated the position around several times – and he agreed with me. We took off at a fast jog downhill. I kept us all together in a group, not sending out any scouts, so we could move faster.

We weren’t fast enough.

<Behind us!> G’hala cried out through the Comms, and I turned, almost getting run over by H’ruk.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelFire; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

We were on the steepest part of the dirt road, and off to the left side the terrain was rocky. Charging down it was a creature like nothing I’d seen before. Identify.