Accidental Healer-Chapter 134 - 48 - Refiners Fire

The trip home was a long one. Mitchell was killed about six hours into a fourteen hour trek. Because of that, we had to deal with four more chaos spawn attacks before we arrived at the township.

After a brief conversation with the Guildian woman, Terra, I learned the name of Mitchell's assassin was called a Chaos Spawn Scavenger and the one she'd killed was level 23. It used a weapon very similar to the weapon Aggard threatened Xander with.

It was enchanted with a dispel. It would counter any spells cast on its target resetting every buff or debuff, which also included magical shields. Mitchell couldn't have known. But I couldn't fight the feeling that maybe I should've. How many times now did one of our enemies use some weapon or ability to counter my barrier spell?

Of course, I knew I wasn't being fair to myself.

What exactly was I supposed to do that I didn't? Mitchell even had chainmail armor when the attack happened. The truth was, he died because he had too much confidence in my barrier. His attack was sloppy because he trusted that even if he failed, my shields would protect him.

That's the part that hurt me the worst. He trusted me, and I failed. Even if that trust was misguided. I'd warned everyone not to blindly trust my barriers, that I wouldn't always be there. But how could I really blame him? I'd been guilty of the same behavior myself.

With no one in the mood for chitchat I was left to grapple with my thoughts all the way until Layton Mischief Township blossomed into view. A pair of towers flanked the north gates, reaching a good ten feet above the walls.

With the town in view I turned to Terra, the tall Guildian mage.

"Terra, I'd like you to bring the scavenger's body and sword to the town hall, can you do that right away?"

She bowed gravely and left without a word.

I made my way to the back of the cart and scooped Mitchell in my arms. He wasn't heavy.

It would've been easier to carry him over my shoulder, but that seemed wrong. So cradling the tall man, I entered through the gates and weaved my way through the bustling township.

The loosely wrapped cloak did little to disguise my burden. It seemed like eyes followed me every step of the way.

I walked faster.

It didn't help. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

When I finally reached the wooden spires of the town hall it was such a relief that I kicked the heavy wooden door open with a bang and strode in. Several familiar faces all turned on me at once.

And the sound of wood grinding on stone echoed through the pillars of a mostly empty auditorium.

"Layton?" Jared's voice reverberated through the rafters. "Oh no–who is that?"

He shoved back his chair and hurried over. To my surprise, Jared wasn't alone. Mischief was with him, and he followed less hurriedly, seeming more curious than anything.

I held out my arms and Jared drew back the cloak, exposing Mitchell's ghostly pale face and deep lifeless green eyes.

"Mitchell?"

Of course Jared would know this young man. His memory of our faction never ceased to amaze me. I'd yet to find someone that Jared didn't know by name. With tender care, he lightly brushed his fingers over the eyes, closing them.

"How did this happen?" His voice was soft, with no trace of anger or accusation.

"He was ambushed—it was a new chaos variant, I couldn't save him."

"Scavenger?"

"Yes. That's right, it was called a scavenger. You saw one too?"

In response, Mischief gestured with his head towards the front of the auditorium. And for the first time, I noticed two black clumps on the floor.

"We were just talking about them actually." Jared confirmed.

There was a light knocking at the door and Jared looked past me to the noise. That's when I remembered I'd asked Terra to meet me here.

"It's Terra, she's one of the Guildian who was with us."

Jared pushed past me and opened one of the tall double wide doors inviting the robed Guildian woman in. She stepped past with a polite nod and hefted the body of the Mitchell's assassin from her shoulder.

"Excuse me, but Layton requested I deliver this here." She glanced around the hall, her eyes lingering briefly on Mischief. "Where should I leave it?"

"Might as well lay it with the other one, follow me." And together, we followed Jared to the small stage near the back of the room. Terra deposited the corpse next to its kin.

For a moment, we all just took it in.

The first body, the one I'm sure Mischief brought, was displayed in two pieces split at the torso.

Aside from one being cut in half, the two "scavengers" could've been twins. Neither were especially tall, maybe an inch or two taller than my six feet. At first glance they gave the impression of wearing some kind of dark black leather armor with tufts of wispy grey fur growing like noxious weeds between openings. But after closer inspection, it was clear that what I mistook for leather armor was actually part of the scavenger's body.

Like the Gremtaurs, this monster had thick dark purple lips that were reminiscent of a duck's beak with patchy grey hairs all over its wrinkly black skin making it look like a burn victim.

"Layton—you can rest Mitchell here, on the stage."

Mechanically, I did as Jared suggested.

"He has a brother and a sister. We need to find them and let them know."

As if on cue, a pattering began on the roof.

It started to rain.

"Of course."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I turned to Mischief. "Did yours hurt anyone?"

"It never got the chance."

I nodded. That wasn't much of a surprise. Mischief's senses were exceptional, as were most of the catkin. It would take a lot to get the drop on any of them. The scavenger had chosen a poor target.

But that didn't mean they weren't dangerous.

"And did it have a weapon like this?" I gestured to Terra and the serrated blade appeared in her hand.

In response, a blade appeared in Jared's hand matching Terra's. He held it out.

"We knew this day was coming."

"Yeah. I guess we did."

I frowned.

"Layton…do you know how many more people would already be dead if it wasn't for you?"

Somehow, as always, Mischief somehow seemed capable of reading my thoughts.

I swallowed hard, glaring at the corpses of the chaos spawn scavengers. I knew Mischief was right. I knew it. Hell, I'd already told myself that several times. But knowing it was true and accepting it to be true weren't the same thing at all.

"Alright, I get it. Thank you Mischief."

"More people are going to die before this trial is over."

"I know that."

Recognizing that Mischief was speaking to me telepathically Terra and Jared patiently watched the one sided exchange.

The auditorium was dark, it hadn't been outfitted with mana shards for lighting just yet. In the upper rafters were openings for glass window panes that remained unfilled, and the smell of a fresh rainfall wafted in.

I understood what Mischief was getting at. He was worried I was going to mope around feeling guilty for each and every person who was killed during the scourge trial.

And why wouldn't he be afraid of that? Especially since that was exactly how the old me would've reacted.

But that Layton was from a different world. A world where humans could just exist. Where just getting by didn't mean near certain death.

Mitchell's death hurt. It hurt because I wanted him to live, wanted him to grow.

It hurt because the people who loved him, his brother and sister, his parents, his friends.

Of course it hurt—for all the human reasons that make death painful. But what I came to realize is that whether I liked it or not, my old world was gone. And in this world, people would die if they didn't progress. And to progress they had to fight.

I couldn't protect my faction from this world by shielding them from all the dangers in it—nor should I. What I could do was fight like hell right by their sides when the dangers arrived.

"There are going to be more of these scavengers, we need a viable defense, and my shields aren't the answer this time."

Jared pulled out his notepad. "Ok, well the good news is we're already well on our way to advancing our armory and many of our fighters have purchased major upgrades. Damon is using the money to acquire better equipment and materials from the market interface and he and Jessica are collaborating to develop higher quality enchanted armaments."

I nodded along. "That's good, but it's not enough."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Mischief, how confident are you in the catkin's ability to sniff out these scavengers?"

"Very confident."

"Perfect." I reached over and took the serrated blade from Jared. "Scavengers are most deadly when you don't see them coming. Combine that with their ability to bypass my shields and they are among the most lethal threats we've seen yet."

I held up the blade. "With the help of the Catkin, I want to eliminate that threat before it even begins."

"Are you talking about some kind of special force?" Jared asked.

"That's exactly what I'm talking about. We'll use the catkin as our scavenger hunters. If you approve Mischief, I'd like to deploy units of Catkin throughout our entire faction."

"I approve."

In the waning light brilliant white fangs glistened.

***

Two scavengers had already spawned, and more waves were going to come. So, immediately after Mischief agreed for the Catkin to act as special forces, both he and Terra left the town hall leaving Jared and I sitting alone in the darkness.

Jared sat on the stage.

The scavengers' were gone now, looted by Terra and Mischief. Both dropped exactly one hundred UBC's. Mischief's kill even rewarded a minor chaos shard. It was a surprisingly good drop.

I straddled a bench, watching the rain fall through one of the windows above. A bolt of lightning lit up the night sky, followed by a boom that shook the rafters.

"No more small shipments from the quarry. From now on, we take one large shipment at a time. There are only so many Catkin, we need to consolidate wherever we can."

Jared grunted his assent and recorded it in his notebook.

"It's been four weeks. How are things going with the teleporter?"

"We're done excavating, we're making progress on the foundation. We could move faster but there is a bottleneck on shipments. Mining is ahead of schedule, but we need more carts and Stetson's golems aren't enough. The carts are built, we just need the mules to pull, anyone with over fifty strength should do."

"Just assign someone, maybe pay them more for doing it or something. We need to have a surplus of stone so construction isn't slowed. What's your estimate on time?"

Jared frowned. "Four, maybe five months. Assuming we can manage the chaos spawn."

"Five months…." I laid back on the bench. "So far, at roughly every two weeks a new variant of chaos spawn arrives. Five months means ten new and more powerful variants, we'll all keep leveling and growing stronger. But what does the system have in terms of defensive upgrades?"

A second later and a ghostly glow illuminated the room.

"There are plenty of options, come take a look."

I sat up and pulled my bench closer to the system interface. Jared had opened a page titled "Faction Upgrades: Defensive" which displayed a variety of different lists on the screen.

I scanned the subcategories.

Siege Weapon Blueprints, Auras, Mana shields and more.

"These siege weapons seem interesting, we already have the towers to put them in."

"I considered that already." Jared folded his arms. "We have the money for it, but I didn't think that they made sense for our faction."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it just felt redundant. We already have living siege weapons in our faction members, and we don't have to pay for their upgrades."

I considered Jared's reasoning, and Daevon came to mind. The guildian spellcaster would be a nightmare, unleashing hell in the form of powerful lightning spells. Compared to that, what would a ballista do? And there were hundreds of others who were getting stronger everyday.

"Yeah ok, I get it."

"Now these, here—" He pointed to the screen. "I think these could be really valuable."

He was gesturing to the shortest list on the screen, mana shields.

I read the descriptions.

"These sound a lot like my spell, Dome of Protection. Can't I just cast that when we are being assaulted?"

"They are similar. But can you be at five places at once?"

Ok, that was fair.

"Plus, these are different, your barrier allows enemies to pass through. These, don't. It would mean that so long as the shields were active we'd have an area we knew was completely safe."

The more I heard the more I realized how beneficial these would be. We already had an area of effect dome that, very, very slowly whittled away at our threats hp. This would be a great addition. I toggled onto one of the shields.

"1,000,000 UBC's!? Can we even afford one of these?" I gasped.

"Not yet, we're sitting at 250,000 at the moment. But give it a few weeks and we should have enough to outfit each of our settlements."

"Will that interfere with our migration efforts?"

Jared shook his head. "It shouldn't, with the influx of coins each group is collecting from the chaos spawn they can fund their own migrations. Leaving us to focus on defenses and infrastructure."

I listened and our conversation crept deep into the night. Jared updated me on our taxes, new buildings, wall progress, how our additions were fairing in their own territories and more.

Jared performed his duties as steward admirably. With each passing day, the chaos spawn grew more dangerous and as they did our faction rose to the challenge.

Faction Layton Mischief was like unrefined steel, and the scourge trial was our refiners' fire.