+ Reid +

Reid surveyed the area around him as the difficulty increase - or the planetary cascade - continued to literally rain down from impossibly grey clouds.

Despite Nyx telling him that he would be transported to a random spot on Vuxarina's surface, he still hoped to see something similar to the first few hours he'd spent on the planet. Unfortunately, there were no signs of the wide-pond dotted plain that had been filled with colorful, corkscrewed grass. Reid was instead surrounded by thick, tropical foliage.

Plate-sized leaves with several points hung heavy from ribbed stems that thickened as they curled in towards a stout central column. High above those plants, thin trunks held aloft small crowns of reed-like red leaves, and clusters of fist-sized, muddled fruits. There were a host of other plants - vines, small bushes, a few flowers, and some kind of clumping grass - but the first two dominated the landscape.

He confirmed his shield and mace had come through the teleportation intact, then checked his other pieces of kit. Everything was where he hoped to find it. Part of Reid just wanted to set out and explore - to wander through the new landscape and learn about it in the same way he'd grown to understand the tutorial space. The thought brought him to others. Maybe Sara had gotten her enthusiasm for hiking from Reid, and he just didn't know it. Or maybe it was just a natural impulse after being 'stuck' in a limited space like the tutorial. A pair of orange wings flashed in the distance, as a bird complained towards the sky for its rude rainfall.

The sight brought Reid's urge to figure out his elemental wings back to the forefront of his mind, and he had to force himself to stop and think about his situation. Priority list time.

Reid was set on food for a while with Crinoptera's meat, but water was honestly a bit tight. He pulled containers and basins from storage, setting them down in his immediate surroundings to catch rainwater streaming off of the pointed leaves. He thought through more of the list as he worked.

Shelter shouldn't be an issue, as he could make himself a bone tent or go back to his roots and strap himself to a tree if he needed sleep. But, sleep was probably going to be even less of a concern now that he'd upgraded the Lone Agent achievement, and earned a new one in Solitary. Both seemed to benefit his recovery and need for downtime. Plus, he still hadn't looked at the 'Dreamroll' equipment reward, which was probably something to do with bedding. Shelter in the form of an actual structure with other people sounded really nice, and Reid had a quiet hope he'd be able to find something resembling a town or settlement.

Thinking deeper, shelter and how useful it would be was dependent on the fauna in the surrounding space. He needed to do a bit of targeted exploration to find animals and beasts, and see what each had going on. Nothing was going to be as strong as Crinoptera, he figured, but that didn't mean the things around him were going to be pushovers. There was a high likelihood that a beast lord or domain owner of some sort was going to be revealed and assigned to him once the difficulty cascade thing was done, so he needed to be prepared with a better understanding of... well, everything.

He also needed proper armor again. That meant either repairing marrow, or remaking it. Reid was now a whole new grade, and that might mean he could do different or better things with the base armor to improve how the whole thing worked. And, he wanted to try incorporating some of the haphazard sacrificial structure his improvised armor had into whatever he did. So, crafting was on the list, and was also pretty high up there so he could fight off whatever he needed to.

But to really get the most out of a new equipment creation, Reid was going to need to fill out at least some of his unrealized stat gains. Each one was going to essentially double, by the numbers - so not doing that first would mean creating something that was potentially only half as good as he could've made it. And really, who would want that? And then, that also meant he would need to grow the rest of his growth-capable equipment to mirror his ability once his stat increases were realized, which would add on more prep time to things. Still, he had been telling himself for a long time that going into things without his full potential was a dumb and unnecessary move. Unless a fight found him, it was better to prepare the right way. He also had the benefit of time, now, that he didn't in F grade, because he was trying to meet a very short deadline for evolution.

Then, there was the wider situation. Reid needed to figure out what Belar had actually done on-planet, and the composition of their forces. That meant finding a source of that information physically, or interrogating it out of one of their troops. If he was lucky, that would give him insight into their numbers, locations, and leadership. If he was really lucky, he'd also start to understand more about Vuxarina itself, and get his bearings in relation to Hugo, Vidita, Norton, Brinkha, and Gerald. He trusted Hugo to hold his own, and hoped the rest would be safe, but linking up with them was a more certain way of finding that out. If their leader in the tutorial space was able to 'buy' his way to F grade, there was a high chance the leader on Vuxarina would be able to do the same with E grade, and potentially give the same level of power to their forces.

There were even wider things to consider, with the cosmos itself, and whether Belar would try to reinforce their troops if Hugo and Reid started winning against them, but that would have to come after the on-planet intelligence. If possible, he also wanted to try to get an idea of where Lycra might emerge from, so he could be there, or help in some way. Assuming Lycra needed the help. Nyx still seemed to think he was capable of holding his own. Reid struggled to take her viewpoint and silence his worry.

Last - he needed a good way to get around, which brought him back to his wings. As long as it didn't have ridiculous restrictions to it, using 'elemental' wings should be faster than walking or running, so he should be able to do more, see more, and find everyone he needed to find, faster. It was all speculation, of course - he still had to actually make the things appear. And climb whatever learning curve they might have. And figure out where he was going with them.

Water continued to pour into the open containers. Resources, shelter, stat increases, armor, info on wildlife and Belar, next steps for the new questline, info on where Hugo - and Lycra - might be, skill practice, and wider cosmic knowledge. No big deal. He activated the Cartographer's Bangle, and his mapping-equipment let out a pulse of energy.

Reid jumped over to the map itself. It was far less detailed and wide-reaching than the last time he'd used it - but that made sense if all the plantlife was getting in the way of the thing. He could find open ground, or higher ground, to get a better idea of the surroundings. What he did have was useful, though. He was in a sea of green that sloped down on one side, and rose on the other. The rise looked like the beginning of a respectable hill. The low section ended in a tan line - the edge of a lake, or potentially something larger.

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He took a deep breath through his nostrils. Petrichor was strong in the air - but Reid also caught a hint of saltwater. That meant he had a sea or an ocean near him. It wouldn't be the worst thing to have been transported to the edge of a continent. After all, that would mean he had one less direction he needed to search and explore. The hill would also be useful, to get a better read on the surrounding terrain using his bangle.

Mana welled up, and Reid crafted himself a set of simple walls, open on one side like a shallow cave made of bone. He would leave it open until the rain stopped, or until his basins were all full. In either case, Reid had solved the immediate issue of shelter. He could've taken time to rest, or relax a bit. He had earned that much. Instead, Reid chose to realize some stat gains.

They were a gateway to everything else.

)+\( Hugo )/+(

He started to shift uncomfortably, but forced himself still. There were many eyes on him, and he had to project the sense of power he did not quite feel.

An honor guard surrounded him in too-close proximity, determined to be the living wall between their King and whatever dangers were about to greet them back on their planet. It was all part of a larger, ringed formation. The least capable were positioned in the center, who were then surrounded by the willing but weak fighters, who were themselves ringed by those who could potentially stand a chance. The outermost layers were a mixture of skill-capable and stalwart individuals, who sat ready with weapons or with twitching bodies ready to set loose their magics. Hugo was not a fan of the salvaged weaponry from Belar, but he could not afford to diminish their potential combat potential by refusing to allow his people to wield the dangerous weapons. A host of what could only be seen as walls with comically useless handles created a barrier around the entirety of the group, and would ideally get transported with them.

Despite their attempts to force him to the center, Hugo stood among the capable fighters. Vidita, thankfully, had offered to take a spot on the opposite side of the circle. He wanted her close - but understood she was more capable than most, and more useful to their people by holding the opposite flank. Interestingly, Brinkha, Gerald, and Norton were amongst the outer layers of combatants. There was no opportunity for him to engage with Serroc's trio, but he felt proud and worried for them and their choice to be on the outer lines.

Hugo hoped the teleportation kept them in their current formation. He hoped the people that were still out in the forest could somehow make it back to the settlement before the teleport started, though that was highly unlikely. He hoped the remaining Belar cowards would appear directly before their warriors, and get cut down before they had a chance to broadcast or share any of their gathered materials. He hoped for a peaceful emergence back onto the planet. He knew he would not get everything he hoped for.

His vision flashed through an impossible white for a fraction of a second, then he - and everyone around him - were back.

The beacon they had entered was located at the center of one of the royal capital's treasures - the Helena Gardens. A wonderful queen in many ways, one of Helena's lasting impacts was a focus on agricultural productivity that saw crop yields and pollinator protections become part of Vuxarina's core strategic initiatives. Her namesake was the single-largest pollinator garden on the planet, and the reason why the capital was so often full of colorful blooms. When his mother was still alive, she had taken Hugo there often.

It was nothing like he remembered.

Acrid smoke filled the air, and was the obvious cause behind the dead and dying plant life underfoot and in view. Walls and half-finished fabricated buildings surrounded three quarters of the space - an obvious construction project intended to finish when the tutorial was supposed to complete under normal circumstances. The last quarter of the gardens was... gone. the ground stopped at the edge of a fresh and active strip mine, where large craft and vehicles were pulling and processing a mix of metals and crystals from the ground. Beyond the immediate walls and the hole, the city - his city - was beset with a series of awful, simple, tall buildings interspersed amongst the Vuxarinan architecture. In some cases, it appeared that Belar had simply built their own structures off the side of mansions, castles, and historically protected sites.

The parasites.

Shouts went up from different parts of their group - thankfully still fully arrayed as they had been before the teleportation. A few Vuxarinans from the hunting parties had been teleported just outside the ring of 'shields' - as had the Belar troops they were hunting.

There were more Belar troops still alive in the tutorial than Hugo had expected - and they were also shouting, to the goons on the half-completed wall.

Chaos erupted from multiple points at once. Belar forces on the wall shot magic and mundane projectiles down at his people, and his people flung their own magics. They first focused on the Belar troops that had come from their tutorial, but quickly had to shift aim to suppress the enemies above them. Elements of every nature flew through the air, cutting against the smoke as it slammed against wall and shield. Their forces rearranged to focus combatants away from the open hole, and towards the thickest of the fighting.

Damage and casualties built on both sides. A droning alarm added its noise to the ringing, acrid air. Hugo thinned himself, reached out, and used his magic to trip up their foes. He froze them standing so they were unable to take cover, and disabled them while they tried to move or fight. Still, some of the hideaways from the tutorial managed to get away from their group. They fled into the city like rodents.

An engine whine caught his attention, and Hugo turned to find a crude flat vehicle floating slowly up and out of the strip mine. Built to move the harvested material, the dull grey craft instead held Belar forces in mining gear, armed with dusty rifles. Hugo lashed out towards the incoming craft as it neared them - just close enough for his magic to wind its way around the pilot. Hugo let the man spasm, and his jolting hands on the controls shook the craft enough that multiple people fell off the sides and back down into the open mine. A concentrated beam of light lanced out, and hit one of four active engines. It heated the conical device until it glowed orange - and exploded.

The craft corkscrewed down and away, back into the hole it came from. More of the vehicles rose up, in response to the still-droning alarm. Impossibly-grey clouds rolled over the sky and brought further darkness before heavy raindrops started to slam down to Vuxarina's surface.

Their position was unsustainable. They were too open and exposed to the surrounding walls, and they were already at risk of being overrun. If they waited any longer to make a push, they would run out of steam before they could even make it to safety. He had to rally his people, into danger, and the hope of better ground.

Another voice beat him to the act.

A stout stonemason wobbled on the top of the circle's outer walls, held steady by his friends.

Gerald shouted as the battle and the rain continued around them.

"Push to the Lodge!"

The Mason's Lodge was only a few blocks from the gardens, and supposedly had reinforced walls that could 'outlast the castle itself'.

That old stone building was also hallowed ground. Even Hugo had never seen inside of those walls - and so had no idea how beneficial - or detrimental - it could be to their group. There was no guarantee it was a safe place, especially with the enemy's F-grade weapons and power armor in play.

Hugo quieted the doubt circling his mind. He chose to honor Gerald's conviction, and repeated the man's call.

Voices all around them echoed out the same, and the group pressed forward.

Towards danger and enemy fire.

Towards the old familiar streets of their city, and towards hope.

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