Other times he would instead use his feast of absolution spell to replenish his stamina and mana. The stream of energy flowing from an enemy into his hand gave away his position, but having just been topped off he could teleport away freely, leaving confused enemies in his wake.
The adventurers slowly but surely gained control of the bottom deck. The bronze-rank Ustei captains held the various stairways leading up as they commanded the tribesmen to retreat up them. The bronze-rank adventurers regrouped their teams that had been scattered in the melee. There had been a few casualties, but most were still alive and the healers went to work. Jason took the chance to gather up Colin, although many of the leeches were carried upstairs by the Ustei.
“Good work, team,” Jason told the leeches as he crouched down for them to enter a cut on the back of his hand. As he did so, the bronze-rankers gathered to discuss the next push.
“It’s going to be hard to establish a position on the higher decks,” Ernest Geller said. With the silver-ranked expedition leader somewhere in the upper decks, he asserted control of the gathered forces.
“We should gather all of our bronze-rankers and force passage up one of the stairways and push through from there,” he said. The other bronze-rankers agreed. There was no strict chain of command, but Ernest’s confidence brought the others into line.
A team was assigned to watch their backs for an Ustei counterstrike from the other stairwells, then the attack on the next deck began. The tribesmen still had the numbers, but the essence disparity was the defining factor and the deck was soon wet with Ustei blood. After the organised surge up the chosen stairwell, the teams spread out from their foothold on the next level and things once again became chaotic.
Jason spotted one of the weaker teams that had managed to stick together but were being hemmed in by Ustei. Their bronze-rank team leader went down, taking an Ustei captain with her. One of the iron-rankers took charge.
“Everyone use your coins!” he shouted out, and Jason watched them all slip silver-coins into their mouths.
“Oh, crap,” Jason muttered, looking around. He spotted Humphrey’s team through the wild melee and teleported over, arriving in front of their team leader, Ernest. The Gellers knew his cloak well, but Jason still pushed back the hood to prevent friendly fire.
“I just saw a team lose their leader and wolf down silver coins,” he said. “They’re going to need an extraction.”
“Idiots,” Ernest said. “Point the way.”
Jason did, sticking with Ernest’s team as they fought their way forward.
“You alright?” Humphrey asked Jason as they pushed forward.
“It’s a grim job,” Jason said, Humphrey nodding his agreement.
They were closing in on the other team. Their burst of silver-rank power had overwhelmed the Ustei around them, but that fleeting strength was giving way to weakness as the power of the coins left them. Seeing their enemies flag, the Ustei pushed harder, but reinforcements arrived for the weakened adventurers in the nick of time.
Humphrey exploded into the Ustei like a cannonball, a single, sweeping stroke cutting three of them clean in half at the waist. His team capitalised on the momentum to surge into the tribesmen. Jason appeared behind the largest cluster, once again unleashing a spray of Colin. The adventurers took control, Humphrey’s team surrounding the coin-weakened adventurers. Their healer was going to work on the fallen team leader, who was badly hurt. An iron-rank healer wasn’t enough to get a severely injured bronze-ranker immediately back into the action.
“We’ll get them out,” Ernest told Jason. “You go back to making a mess.”
Jason nodded, flicking his hood back up.
Eventually, the adventurers claimed full control of the great sand barge. While the main force was fighting below, the expedition leader had leapt straight to the upper decks. After crashing his way through the Ustei leadership, he confronted the only silver ranker they had, their tribal chief. Demonstrating the difference between a fully trained adventurer and a nomad, the battle between silver-rankers was punishingly one-sided.
Once the clan chief fell, the surviving Ustei leadership gave up. It took time to filter down the decks of the sand barge as fighting continued, but the now-decimated Ustei tribe surrendered.
Jason was glad he had no part of the post-battle organisation. Imprisoning the Ustei in their own barge was a logistical nightmare, especially with some of what they found on board. The tribe’s women and children had been locked away like slaves, which was borne out when they found actual slaves in essentially the same conditions.
Waiting around with the other iron-rankers not yet roped into assisting, he sat down to meditate in the shade of the sandstone wall Hudson had made in the beginning.
The battle had been long, wild and quite unlike anything he had experienced. Rather than carefully choosing his moments he had been flickering through the battle, seizing chances as he found them. His familiar proved incredibly powerful, and Jason’s abilities saw plenty of use. He had even taken the chance to use his new spells as much as he could.
Humphrey found him, saw him meditating, and sat down to do the same. The battle was as new an experience for him as it was for Jason, and he had his own insights to consolidate. Beth’s team spotted them as they returned, the wall being their team’s regrouping point. They looked at Jason and Humphrey, sitting cross-legged in the sand.
“They’re training now?” Mose said.
“We are too,” Beth told him, drawing a groan from Hudson. “No slacking. You can have all the natural talent in the world, but dedication is what makes you the best.”
At her command, the others joined Jason and Humphrey. Not all of them were able to transition to a meditative state right after the battle, but at the very least they worked on clearing their minds.
Caught up in meditation, Jason was shaken out of it by a feeling of pressure in his body. He got up and staggered to the sandstone wall, using it to support him as a wave of weakness overtook him. He started coughing up gelatinous phlegm into the sand, speckled with blood. Then a blue-grey light started shining out of him and his body surged with strength.
Ability [Haemorrhage] (Blood) has reached Iron 0 (100%).
Ability [Haemorrhage] (Blood) has reached Iron 1 (00%).
All [Blood Essence] abilities have reached [Iron 1].
Linked attribute [Power] has increased from [Iron 0] to [Iron 1].
Progress to bronze rank: 2.5% (2/4 essences complete).
Jason pushed himself off the wall, feeling slightly dizzy. He noticed the others had all broken their meditations and stood up. They were looking at him with smiling faces.
“That first attribute bump is a little rough, isn’t it?” Beth asked.
Jason nodded, uncharacteristically silent.
“Congratulations,” Humphrey said, giving Jason a slap on the back that almost sent him sprawling into the sand.
“You’ve taken your first step,” Beth said, giving him a pat on the arm. “Welcome to the path to bronze rank.”
91
Life & Death
Jason let out a contented sigh.
“This is nice,” he said, then picked up a sandwich and bit into it.
The picnic at the Island’s park district had plenty of people. Danielle Geller was at a picnic table, which she was sharing with Thalia Mercer, Rufus and Vincent. Jory was sitting at another table with Clive and the brother-sister pair of Rick and Phoebe Geller. Gary was sitting in a folding chair with a sandwich the length of Jason’s arm.
“You know you could cut that into smaller pieces, right?” Farrah asked him.
“Then it wouldn’t be an enormous sandwich,” Gary said. “It would just be a bunch of sandwiches.”