The Outlands

About half an hour after they started eating, it seemed like everyone had finished. And, as their conversation wound down, Lilith turned to Maia, giving her a warm smile. “So, have you given any further thought to what kind of hunts you want to be doing?”

“A little.” Maia said. “But I keep running against the issue of strength. I know you said it can be adjusted, but doing that is going to result in an awkward experience; if we bring me up to your levels, then I’m not going to be able to use that strength with any sort of proficiency. If we bring you down to mine, then you run a real risk of overestimating your abilities and getting yourself hurt.”

“Don’t worry about that.” Eve said. “Most of us are familiar with fighting while our strength is lowered, and even if we do make a mistake, we can’t actually get hurt. The worst that happens is we ‘lose’ and get kicked out of that simulation or something.”

“Maybe we should start with a warm-up?” Lia suggested. “Something easy, to get us used to fighting at whatever level Maia wants us to fight at.”

“I don’t suppose any of you have a way for me to watch from afar while you hunt?” Maia asked. “I’d like to be able to get a feel for how you all fight so I can lead us properly. Um…I was leading, right?”

“However you want to do it will work.” Maven said. “And yes, there are ways for you to watch us. We can even split into individual groups and you can watch each of us in sequence. Time flows strangely here, it won’t feel like it takes any longer for us even if it takes you twice as long to watch them all than it did for us to do the hunts.”

“I think it would be better if you all work as one unit.” Maia said. “I want to see how you work as a team. We’ll have you hunt…uh, I guess a bear monster or something? They’re usually pretty durable and that should give me plenty of opportunity for me to see you in action.”

“Do you regularly hunt bears?” Ellie asked. “I thought their meat wasn’t very tasty, and you hunt mainly for food, right?”

“Food and occasionally trade.” Maia replied. “And I hunt whatever I can get. Monsters in the Deepwood are a lot more dangerous than monsters outside of it, so if I find something that doesn’t use poison or venom, and is relatively easy to kill, then I hunt it. And, yes, I am increasingly coming to realize that living there is something most people would consider insane, but…well, it’s where the people in my village were born, and we don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“And I thought I had come from the poorest background of us…” Lia muttered.

“Aren’t you some sort of queen or empress or something?” Maia pointed out.

“I was born a commoner and put into this situation by a cosmic coincidence.” Lia replied. “My family was pretty poor, especially after my mom died and my dad turned to drinking.”

“Well, I’ve really felt poor, I never struggled for food and had everything I wanted.” Maia said. “Life was just…dangerous. While I don’t know enough details to say for sure, I think I would prefer my life to yours.”

Actually, now that they were talking about family life, Tess realized she didn’t know that much about everyone’s families. “Come to think of it…what is the status of your parents, all of you?” Tess asked. “I realized I don’t even know even though we’ve talked…I guess not a lot, but it feels like it.”

“My parents died years ago, as did about half of the older population in the village.” Maia said. “There was a particularly bad monster attack and they didn’t make it.”

“Mine are both alive.” Lia volunteered. “We resurrected my mom, and my dad never died.”

“I didn’t have any, unless you count Jerry.” Connie said. “So, I guess alive?”

“Mine are alive but they’re not family.” Amelia said. “I’ve cut ties.”

“And I was reincarnated directly, so I don’t have parents as such this time around.” Rose replied. “The ones from my first life are long dead.”

“And ours are alive.” Eve said. “So…there you have it, I guess.”

“Sorry to derail things a bit, I was just curious.” Tess replied. “Anyway, why don’t we walk while we talk? Then by the time we’ve finished talking we can get started.”

“Yes, let’s do that.” Maia said. “Where do we go?”

“Just walk in any direction and we’ll find wherever we need to go.” Lilith replied, striding off. And, sure enough, after just a few moments they came across a door with the words “hunting simulator” written above it.

“See?” Lilith said. “This place is nothing if not convenient.”

“Creepily so.” Maia said.

“Can’t deny that.” Tess said. “Anyway, you said you wanted to watch us first, right?”

“If you would. It sounds like some of you can cast tomeless magic, so those who can, will you cast all the spells you can? I’d like to be able to take them into account.”

The others shared a glance. “About that…we all can, and for some of us it’d be easier to list things we couldn’t do than list things we can.” Lilith said. “That being said, I think if we stick with just our preferred toolset, you can figure out how to use us from there.”

“All of you can, and that much?” Maia asked, dumbfounded. “How much time did that take?”

“For most magic, next to none.” Maven said. “It is a matter of how magic in our universes is structured; the system we talk about is in place to allow people to use magic much easier, whereas magic in your world doesn’t have that guiderail. I assume you learn magic without a tome by way of using tome magic until the sensation is familiar enough to do it unaided?”

“More or less.” Maia replied. “How do we start this?”

Lilith opened the door then stepped aside and ushered them in. “Just step in, it’ll either take us where we need to go, or there’ll be a very obvious label or button for it.”

Tess stepped into the room, and all of a sudden was in a wooded area with everyone but Maia. After a few moments, Lilith spoke up. “Okay, so…we don’t know where the thing we’re hunting is, I propose we split into two groups to find it; Eve and I can act as our communicators.” She said.

“Seems sensible enough.” Tess said. “Who’s going to be with who? Do we just want to divide it by universe?”

“Let’s do that.” Amelia said.

“Just so long as you have good enough detection capabilities in your group.” Rose said. “Amelia and I can easily handle ours, but what about you?”

“I’m our scout, I’ve got a few hundred feet of range where I know absolutely everything.” Tess said. “I’m not sure what your ranges are, but that should be enough, right?”

“Yeah, and Lilith and I can make up for anything beyond that.” Eve said, walking over to her. “Shall we?”

The two groups split up and began to search for a target. Tess quickly fell into her usual scouting routine, but she didn’t end up finding anything before Eve told them that the other group had found a wyvern of some sort and that they were going to meet up.

Once everyone was together again, they took a quick moment to discuss strategy. The plan they landed on was simple; Amelia and Rose would keep it from flying away, and everyone else would focus on dealing damage.

They moved out, and once they were in range Amelia and Rose entrapped the wyvern in ropes of vine and chains of darkness. With the monster held down, Lilith shot it with a nasty-looking bullet that writhed under the skin where it struck.

The wyvern roared in pain, but Ellie was already on it, four flying swords swirling around her head before burying themselves in the wyvern’s chest. A few more shots of magic from Maven, Lia, and Connie hit it before Tess and Eve slashed into it with Tess’s claws and Eve’s sword respectively, then…it was still, and everyone found themselves in some sort of control room with Maia.

“Well, that was interesting.” Connie said. “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“That was…I thought you were really going to struggle with that.” Maia said weakly. “We did bring you down to my level, right?”

“In terms of raw power, yes.” Rose said. “In terms of skill? No. Amelia is the most naturally gifted mage any of us have ever heard of, and her spell construction is enough to bring her up a notch in terms of actual threat. Likewise, the rest of us are very skilled in our own right and the diversity of our abilities make up for a lack of power.”

“If that’s not accounted for.” Eve said. “I think it’s more likely that Maia is underestimating herself; it would seem she’s yet to push herself to the limit, and I think she’d be surprised with what she’s capable of if it really came down to it. Regardless, we just need to bump up the difficulty of our foes a notch and that should make it a bit more engaging. That or limit a few more of our abilities. What do you think, Maia?”

“Me?” Maia asked. “Um…let’s limit ourselves a bit more. I think if we just refrain from completely locking it down like that then it’ll be fairer. Unless you all think differently?”

The others didn’t have any objections, and once the last of them had said so, the room around them melted away and they were in the woods again. “Alright, Maia, you’re in charge this time.” Lilith said. “How are we doing this?”

“Let’s split up to find it, like you did before.” Maia said. “I’ll go with Tess’s group so that the numbers are even.”

So they did. They moved through the forest stealthily, and it went much the same as the first time, except this time, Tess was the first to find something. It was outside the range of her tremorsense, but she could hear it crashing around in the distance. So, she held out her hand to signal the others to stop.

“I hear something.” She said. “It’s moving due north of us, I think.”

Maia paused, probably trying to hear what Tess had heard. “I don’t hear it, are you sure?” She asked.

“My hearing is magically enhanced.” Tess replied. “I’d be surprised if you could.”

“Calling in the others now.” Eve said. “Tess, Maia, you’re the stealthy ones, why don’t you go take a peek at this thing while the others get here?”

Maia nodded. “Tess, lead the way.”

The two crept through the woods, the noise growing ever louder. And, after a minute or two, the creature came into range of her Tremorsense, and Tess signaled Maia to stop.

“I can feel it.” She said. “Big, a boar, if the shape of it is any indicator. And if you’re wondering, I have an ability that lets me sense things through the vibrations of the ground, it’s a little outside of visual range, behind those trees over there.” She finished, pointing off in the direction they had been moving.

“I’m going to go take a look.” Maia said.

“Got it. Let me know what you think of it.”

Maia headed off towards the beast, stopping behind a tree some distance away. She watched the boar for a few moments before sneaking back to Tess. “It’s distracted digging around for something.” She said. “Now’s a good opportunity to take it out, we should hurry.”

“Do you mean just the two of us?” Tess asked.

“Oh, no, I just meant in general.” Maia said. “It’s really big and probably tough, I don’t think the two of us would be able to kill it before it got in position to do some real damage to us. I’ll go let the others know, you stay here and make sure it doesn’t get away.”

“Got it.” Tess replied. “I’ll let you know if something happens.”

Tess waited patiently, and fortunately the boar kept on digging right up until the others, led by Maia, got back. “Is is still there?” Maia asked.

“Yeah, still digging.” Tess confirmed. “How do you want to do this?”

“We all attack at once.” Maia instructed. “The idea is to kill it before it knows what’s happened and can start attacking us. These types of monsters tend to get really, really angry and will fight even when most other monsters would flee.”

“What about us frontliners?” Ellie asked. “I mean, I guess we all have ranged attacks too, but…”

“Use your ranged attacks, then I need you to be ready for if it gets close.” Maia said. “I’ll need you to try and keep its attention so the others don’t get targeted.”

“I can handle that no sweat.” Ellie said, thumping her chest proudly. “Alright, let’s go.”

Tess and Maia led the way to the boar, which was still rooting around the trees. They carefully got into position, then, on Maia’s signal, fired their attacks. The volley hit the boar, which let out a squeal of anger as it whirled unsteadily to face them. Ellie rushed forward to take its attacks, but that proved to be unnecessary; a second round of fire stopped the boar in its tracks, and a third caused the already wobbling boar to fall to the ground, dead.

“And so the tribe fells its prey, and food for the coming week is secured.” Eve said, putting on what was probably a documentary voice.

“What?” Lia asked.

“Sorry, just making a joke.” Eve said. “There’s a style of show in my world that would talk like that, usually educational content about animals or history. Don’t worry about it too much.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been on a hunt that went quite like this.” Maia admitted. “It was only ever me and maybe a mentor, it was just too dangerous to go in a group.”

“We’ve got a pretty stacked team here, too.” Ellie said. “We’d probably have to really crank up the difficulty to make it anything like what you’re used to. Do you want to try that?”

Maia paused. “No, that’s too stressful, I think. I’ve got an idea of what it’d be like, and that’s good enough for me. What do you all usually do for fun at these things? I’d like to try that.”

They did a few other things, mini golf, laser tag, some arcade games and board games, and eventually ended up sitting and talking with each other as the party wound down. It was mostly them sharing stories about their lives, and though Tess had heard some of them before, she was surprised how much new stuff she could pick up.

A short while into that conversation, Lia and her group disappeared, and Maia bolted to her feet, a shocked expression on her face. As she did, Lilith laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “They’ve just gone back home.” She said. “The party does that, it’s nothing to be worried about. It’s abrupt, but not dangerous. You’ll get used to it.”

“Oh.” Maia said. “Um, what’s the–”

Maia vanished, and Lilith and Eve followed just a moment later. “I guess that just leaves–”

Tess paused for a moment, then got back to carrying the food to the table. She had the vague sensation that she was forgetting something, but nothing sprung to mind, so she told herself it was nothing. If it was really important, she or someone else would remember it later, and she was positive there wasn’t anything that would need immediate attention. So, she let it go, and got back to dinner with her wives.