Azure: Gunner

When facing a singular superior threat, there are two essential rules which you must keep in mind at all times. The first and most important is never let the monster focus on a single target for more than a few seconds at a time.

Present it with multiple threat axis and force it to respond to each in turn. Your goal is to make your opponent chew through the barrier of every possible combatant in sequence. Ideally, sufficient forces are available to enable each fire team to fully recover their barrier before re-engaging. Even if this is not possible, forcing the threat to distribute damage among many targets is crucial to ensuring survival without casualties.

In order to accomplish this, your commanding officer must never forget Grave’s Maxim:

To the unintelligent, an enemy punching them in the face is more threatening than one dealing ten times the damage from fifty yards away.

- Army Tactical Manual (ATM) 402.42

Wolf had overheard the last part of our conversation – Wastes, he might have heard the whole thing. I had no idea how high his Perception actually was. He walked up to us with a scowl on his face.

“All right, we’re breaking for recovery. You’re on your own for the next ninety minutes, find something useful to study. Read the Bestiary or something, then meet back here. Tara, you stay for a minute.”

The Ranger led Tara towards the bar, while the rest of us trudged back to the dorms. I showered immediately, still feeling gross from the monster slobber in my hair. Fucking Trite. If the thing came after me again, I’d… take another shower. It wasn’t like I could stop it. I’d never heard of an experienced Tamer losing control of a pet, but if Thompson ever did, or if she was killed…

I wondered if the other instructors plus the remaining guards could take down Trite even working together. I shivered, then did my best to put the image of a rogue spiderwolf out of my mind. There was nothing I could do about it, and I figured anything that was strong enough to kill Thompson would have to be at least on par with the terrordactyl matriarch.

Since my stamina was in better shape than my mana, I spent part of the break practicing with my cutlass in my room. One of the advantages of a short blade was that I didn’t have to worry about hitting the ceiling or walls with it when I swung it around. I couldn’t do every possible drill in the confined space of my room, but I was able to work on some of the things Wolf and I had noticed when watching the projection of my fight with the horrors.

My efforts were rewarded when I reached Level 7 in Short Blades. I’d also gotten Speed Shooting a Level during today’s training, bringing it to 6. For the moment, my growth in Short Blades was faster than in Shotguns, even though I spent more time training with my gun. Part of that was the extra training I did on my own with my cutlass. I certainly couldn’t fire my gun in my room, at least not without a terrordactyl to shoot.

Or a Yuri, I thought darkly, remembering that I’d actually used my gun in my room twice already. My old room, anyway.

According to Wolf, Short Blades keeping up with Shotguns wasn’t likely to last. It was probably because I’d done so much training with a sword before getting my Class. The System would never start you on a Skill at a Level higher than your Tier times ten – or 0, in my case – but prior experience did help bring it up. I spent some time flipping through the Bestiary, then headed back to rejoin the group for more training.

The next round of training was also against Trite, but now we had to engage with our melee fighters in the open, while the rest of us attacked from range. That put Tara, Raylan, and H’ruk in the frontlines with the rest of us in cover. Including G’hala, who was not happy about having to sit back with her wand while her brother ‘got’ to get up close with the spiderwolf.

The hardest part of the drill was getting the timing right so that our melee fighters could try to push our target around in directions where we could fire on it without hitting them. Tara, Raylan, and H’ruk were in a ‘V’ shaped formation, with Tara at the point and Raylan and H’ruk slightly on Trite’s flanks.

The Defender tried to keep Trite’s attention focused on her, Roaring repeatedly. In a real fight, the more times you taunted the same monster, the less well it worked, but we were ignoring that detail for the moment. Raylan and H’ruk would dart in, pressure from their side, and then drop back momentarily, opening a window for Arlo, Jayce, G’hala, and me to shoot past them.

Zaire’s Earth Spikes had the huge benefit of emerging from the ground wherever he cast, so he didn’t have to worry about hitting his own teammates. He did still need a clear line of sight to hit accurately, though.

We were making progress in our timing when H’ruk got a little too aggressive with his pressure on Trite. In a flash, the monster’s right jaws clamped onto his leather cuirass and lifted the huge orc off the ground like a toy. Then Trite tossed its head and my friend went flying through the air, most of his cuirass still clamped in Trite’s jaws.

H’ruk hit the ground hard, barrier flashing, and rolled to a stop in the sand near me, a dozen yards away from where he’d been standing. I dashed out from behind the Earth Wall I was hiding behind, intending to help him up. Then I came to a sudden, shocked halt.

<What the fuck, H’ruk? Your chest!!>

The volume of fire coming from Arlo and G’hala on the far side slackened off, and then a distracted Raylan was sent flying through the air himself. The crack of Thompson’s signal Spell rang out even as I stood there, mouth open, staring at the orc’s broad chest. With his armor ripped off, I could clearly see he’d changed.

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Where there should be a wide expanse of hard green muscle, his left pectoral was covered in what looked like an ornate tattoo, right over his heart. As I stared, it seemed to writhe in place. I couldn’t describe the design, only that it was oddly captivating. Then, before I had a chance to figure out what it was, H’ruk channeled mana into his armor and repaired it, the restored leather covering up his chest once again.

“Azure!” Thompson barked, and I whirled around. “What was that?! You just distracted your entire team! You’ll get people killed if you pull that in a real fight!”

“But,” I stuttered, my brain still not working properly. I just pointed at H’ruk, who looked embarrassed and crossed his arms over his chest as if to hide the marking. Thompson arched an eyebrow at me, and I glared back.

“He’s got some kind of strange tattoo that wasn’t there before! And it moved!” I finally blurted out.

“Care to explain, Recruit H’ruk? I’ve known corruption to produce effects similar to tattoos before, but I must admit I’ve never heard of one that moves,” Thompson gave my friend a level stare.

“It was there when I awoke,” he said shortly. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it, and I suddenly felt a bit guilty for making him the center of attention.

“And?” Thompson asked, clearly unsatisfied with his response.

“There was also a new Skill, called Intriguing Ink,” he admitted. “I admit I could only speculate about its effects until now.”

“Show us,” urged Zenia, who’d joined us along with the other instructors in the pit.

“One’s corruption is their own business and no one else’s!” Lydia jumped in assertively. She sounded protective. “I evaluated Recruit H’ruk’s condition and judged him to be in no immediate danger. The rest is his to share, or not.”

Thompson tapped her finger on her lips for a moment, considering.

“Overruled, Healer Lydia. Based on Recruit Azure’s reaction, it is something his team needs to be aware of and I want to judge the effects for myself. Recruit H’ruk, show us the marking,” she ordered sternly.

I mentally braced myself as the Fire Mage reluctantly removed his cuirass, exposing the corrupted tattoo to us all. I found myself leaning forward slightly as I tried to decipher it. It had to be larger than my spread fingers, given the size of his chest. It looked like… something.

Is it a – no, that’s not right. How about a… hmm, not that either. Argh! Now it’s – fuck, it changed again!

It took me a moment to break myself away from staring, and I physically shook myself loose, glancing around at our team. The instructors merely looked interested, but the rest of the Squad was much more intent. Focused. Then Zenia stepped up for a closer look, breaking our line of sight, and everyone started as they found themselves suddenly free of the effect.

“Well?” Thompson asked, obviously wanting the Lightning Mage’s opinion.

“Fascinating!” Zenia muttered, then cleared her throat. “I’m afraid that the mechanism behind what’s happening is unclear, as is often the case with both corruption and Skills. However, it’s safe to say that the effect is a mental one, similar to an inverted attention ward. It draws the attention of the viewer rather than repelling it.”

“Apparently quite strongly, too,” Thompson noted, giving the rest of us a hard glance. I flushed, though I wasn’t entirely sure why I was being judged.

My friend has a magical super-tattoo, that’s pretty interesting! So what!?

“Repeated exposure will almost certainly reduce the effect,” Zenia told us. “We must monitor this for any developments over time. If the strength of the effect increases with Level… For now, I believe it’s safer to keep it covered when not in use. It’s likely that it would fall under the same legal regulations as other mind-affecting Skills, like Intimidation.” She gave me a sideways glance at that.

H’ruk suddenly looked interested. “What do you mean by ‘in use’, Professor?” he asked.

“There is a use for every Skill,” she reminded us. “Personally, I would recommend exposure therapy for your Squad before you test it in combat. It should have an impact on monsters, though of course it will depend on their Level, Stats, and even senses. A sightless monster would likely be immune, at least at a low Skill Level.”

“The Skill has not Leveled yet, even with everyone looking,” he informed us.

“What is exposure therapy, Professor?” I interrupted.

“Repeated exposure in gradually increasing increments until immunity or near-immunity is achieved,” she responded.

I needed a moment to figure out what she meant, then I nodded. I gave H’ruk a big smile.

“Let’s do it!” I exclaimed. “H’ruk, just think – it’s like a taunt!”

“Not precisely,” Wolf jumped in and cut me off. “Did looking at it make you want to attack him?”

“It did not, Instructor Wolf,” Zaire stated as I shook my head.

“Not a taunt, then. However, if it causes monsters to be distracted without immediately attacking, it could be even more valuable. I strongly recommend you follow Zenia’s suggestion and then – carefully – experiment with the effect on some weaker monsters in the dungeon.”

H’ruk was looking considerably more cheerful now, and nodded. Thompson let us go, and we retreated to the dorm’s common room to get out of the sun. Lydia tagged along to make sure we didn’t suffer from any side effects. We found several members of Squad Excel lounging around there, and recruited them to join our ‘testing’. Once we’d explained the situation, they called the rest of their team down, and we all gathered around, looking at H’ruk.

He removed his cuirass again, and I did my best to not stare. It was easier this time, and I found that I was one of the first to break the mesmerizing effect – even faster than some of the veterans. Lydia was unaffected of course, thanks to her Level and Stats. It quickly became obvious that those of us with high Barrier and Control Stats were less impacted.

We also figured out that pain quickly broke the effect – when I punched Raylan in the arm, he immediately turned to glare at me, rubbing his arm. H’ruk turned around, and waited until Lydia gave him the signal before turning to face us again. Each time I found it easier to ignore, though there was still a tinge of fascination, of wanting to know what the fuck it was supposed to look like.

It turned out the Skill used mana when active, even though H’ruk couldn’t control when it was on, other than by covering up the marking. He had to stop several times to let his focus recover. By the fifth attempt, we were largely immune to the effect, as Zenia had predicted. H’ruk had gained two more Levels in the Skill from all of the attention, and was nearly out of mana.

A few quick experiments showed that it used more mana the more people were looking, regardless of whether or not it worked on them. It was Zaire who realized the issues this could cause.

“Healer Lydia, if Mage H’ruk were to be seen by too many people, would the Skill consume all of his mana? If so, it could render him unconscious!”

The Healer shrugged, which did not inspire confidence in her next statement.

“It’s unlikely,” she told us. “The System generally won’t let you spend more mana than your focus at once, with a few exceptions. Of course, if his focus goes to zero during a fight, the resulting dizziness could be highly dangerous.”

“Better keep your shirt on, big guy!” Raylan said with a grin. “You’re making the rest of us look bad, anyway.”

“Hey, some of us are enjoying the view,” fired back Leyla, the Ice Mage who led Squad Excel. I definitely didn’t giggle as I saw H’ruk blush for the first time.