Chapter 46.7: War with the Oruks - Finishing Off the Remnants of the Berdeng Oruks (1)
Personal System Calendar: Year 00012, Day 1-14, Month IX: The Imperium
Imperial Calendar: Year 6857, 1st to 14th day of the 9th Month
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What Happened in the Valley
The valley was the kind of place that has recorded things that have happened there for its entire existence in a silent way. The stone walls on the three sides did not care about the battle that had been happening in front of them for the past several hours, but they recorded it in their silence anyway — in the blood that had worked its way into the cracks of the rock face, in the gouges that Oruk axes had left in stone when they missed the people they were aimed at, in the particular way that the light of a day that was now visibly ending came down at an angle that made everything look slightly worse than it already was.
Thirty-two Oruks that were still standing now looked worse than they had started. While the rest of what had been two hundred of Agroba's most elite personal bodyguards were somewhere behind them on the trail, in various states of permanent inactivity, they were either dead or dying. The two generals were still functional, which was more than could be said for their arms, but functional enough to have kept the assault coherent when it might otherwise have dissolved into individual combat.
The combined force of Talon One and Two had not moved from where they had planted themselves.
That was the thing about it. They had not moved. They had received everything from the Oruks Elite Warriors had to throw at them, while their formation was organically organized around the people who could take the most of it, given the newest members the space to operate within the formation without being isolated, and they were like an immovable object for they have not moved from their position defending against the continuous barrage of attacks..
But the cost of that was also visible.
Adam Peerce who stood at the forefront of the formation in the way that he tended to stand in these situations, which was to say with his full body between what was threatening them and the people behind him and an expression that said he had made a decision about not moving from this position and was not reconsidering it until they are able to kill him.
By now he already had arrows all over him. Not one but several, lodged in places that the armor had not been able to cover because the armor could not cover everything and the Oruks had been thorough enough to no longer attack his armor but the gaps between it. He had spear wounds where weapons had gotten through during the exchanges close enough that weapon reach was the deciding factor. He had cut wounds from the moments when he had absorbed hits that would have found the people behind him otherwise. His armor was performing exactly what it had been built to perform: distributing what it could, holding what it could hold, and making sure that the worst of what arrived at Adam was still survivable.
He was still standing. That was the only honest and remarkable fact.
Rael Sundfang and Daret the Battleborn also stood beside him — the two new recruits who had ended up at the front not through assignment but through the simple fact that when the formation needed the front held, they had been the ones who moved forward to help hold it. They were hurt of course. But they were hurt in the specific way that those that have been at the front of something like this for longer than anyone should have been able to do was hurt, and yet they were still standing, and that said something about their character that no words from Adam or Erik or August would have said as well the description of, Brave and Courageous people.
Ragnar had also taken hits of his own. The whole line had. The injuries were distributed across the formation in the pattern of a fight that had been sustained rather than brief, and the healers who had been keeping everyone functional had worked through their mana reserves and their potion supplies in the process of doing so. By the time the last of the potions was gone and the last of the healers' mana had been spent, the medical situation was being managed by their willpower alone and the acknowledgment that help was either coming or it was not.
Rexy and Toto were bloodied but moving, which for Grimfangs was their version of still operational. The eagles meanwhile had also taken some arrow wounds — luck finding them at the wrong angle during the aerial passes — and were circling at a slightly reduced altitude that suggested they were managing rather than thriving.
The sun at this point was already trying to go down, witnessing the beings beneath it try to kill each other.
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The Last Stand
Adam was aware of his own condition better than anyone and his body at this point was already running on something other than ordinary fuel. The blood loss had been happening for long enough that it had moved from an urgent problem to a critical care patient. His legs were still doing what he told them to, which was to stand his ground. His arms were less reliable, his grip on his mountain of a shield was losing by the minute. His vision had developed the particular quality of something that is only seen through water, which he had been told was one of the things that happened when a person lost enough blood that the body began rationing what was left for the organs that needed it most.
He could not have told anyone exactly what had kept him standing at the front of the formation when the rational response to his current condition was obviously to sit down and let the people behind him deal with whatever was in front.
But he knew what had kept him there. He just could not have put it into better words, but simply put it was the thought of his wives and his children that kept him alive and still standing. This also included the people behind him who he would love to be able to go home to their own families, and who were going to go home because the front of this line was not going to break while he had any say in it.
The Oruks were still persistently coming to attack them in their berserked states and they would have kept coming until they were dead or their targets were dead. That was just the nature of what they were.
He found enough in what was left of his voice to use it.
"LOOK AT YOU ORUK BASTARDS! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE LOOKING! I AM STILL HERE STANDING. FACE ME! HAHAHAHA!"
He spat blood that had been pooling at the back of his throat, which was not dignified but was functional, and held his shield and weapon with both hands in the grip of someone who had decided that dropping it was not an option regardless of what his hands were currently capable of.
The laugh was real. He did not feel like dying just yet. He felt, with a clarity that was probably related to blood loss and stress on the nervous system, that he was not finished yet, and that certainty was a more reliable structural element than most of the physical ones still holding him upright.
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August Arrives
He came from the sky, which was where he had been as he grabbed on Finnesters right leg when he fetched him, and the Oruks felt him before they even saw where he was.
Fear the Beast was fully unlocked by this point, projecting its effect without management. The thirty-two Oruks who had been pressing the formation with the persistence of things that did not stop turned their heads at the same moment — not because they had decided to, but because something in the architecture beneath their conscious minds had registered the arrival of something truly terrifying and dangerous and was communicating the assessment to every part of them simultaneously. The natural instinct of creatures began to get a hold of them, it was the same fear that Agroba had felt. Their bodies demonstrated what that emotion was, even as cold blooded warriors who have fought hundreds of battles already.
From inside the formation, through vision that was no longer reliable over a great distance because the world was losing its natural light source, Adam felt the atmosphere change. He had felt this before — the specific way a battlefield shifted when August stopped limiting his power output. He smiled. His face did not cooperate with the expression in the usual way because several of the muscles involved were not receiving their instructions cleanly, but the intent was there and the people near him recognized it.
He did not need to see clearly to know what the change in the air meant. August had arrived, which meant they were going home, and he was going to go home.
August took in the valley in the first two seconds. The formation, held. The Oruks that had pursued his team were now reduced to only thirty-two. Adam at the front with the Oruk generals' attention focused on him. The new members, Rael and Daret, having held positions that should not have been asked of them at this stage of their development, have managed to hold them anyway. The healers were all depleted of their mana reserves and their potion bottles. But everyone is still standing.
He also had a new skill available that he was going to test. He had been meaning to try it in a less urgent scenario, but the scenario in front of him was the one he had and it was sufficient enough for their first introduction to the world.
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Personal System — UPDATE NOTIFICATION: New Skills and Features
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PERSONAL SYSTEM — CURRENT STATUS
Personal System Level: 3 (Expert Tier)
Player Level: 75
Current Experience: 1,584,500 XP (Level 75 — Mastery Culmination Bracket)
World System Level: N/A
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THREE-YEAR PROGRESSION SUMMARY
At the start of Year 00009, August's Personal System stood at Level 2, Player Level 50, with experience points capped at the tier ceiling. In the three years since — through the Beast Dominion Wars, the academy period, the construction of the new Talon teams, the Kirka Village operation, the birth of Adaraya and Hiradan, and the current Berdeng Oruk campaign — the following progression was recorded:
Personal System Level 2 to Level 3: Unlocked upon accumulation of ten million stored experience points beyond the Level 50 cap, which had been reached during the final stages of the Beast Dominion Wars. When the system expanded to permit further advancement, those stored points carried him from Level 50 through the entire Transition to Mastery bracket and into the Advanced Specialization bracket, landing him at Level 66 at 723,000 out of 934,500 XP — a jump of sixteen levels resolved in a single moment of recalibration.
The full XP structure of Personal System Level 3 is as follows:
TRANSITION TO MASTERY — Levels 51 to 60 (+25,000 XP per level increment)
The first bracket of Personal System Level 3 demanded 25,000 XP per level increment — modest compared to what came after, but the stored ten million points consumed it entirely without pause. Level 51 required 359,500 XP. Level 52 demanded 384,500. Level 53 pushed to 409,500, Level 54 to 434,500, Level 55 to 459,500. The bracket continued at that steady climb — Level 56 at 484,500, Level 57 at 509,500, Level 58 at 534,500, Level 59 at 559,500 — before closing out the Transition to Mastery bracket at Level 60 with 584,500 XP. Ten levels cleared in the same moment the system opened up. The stored points did not slow.
ADVANCED SPECIALIZATION — Levels 61 to 70 (+50,000 XP per level increment)
The second bracket doubled the increment. Each level now required 50,000 XP more than the last, and the stored points that had raced through the first bracket began to compress. Level 61 required 634,500 XP. Level 62 demanded 684,500. Level 63 pushed to 734,500, Level 64 to 784,500, Level 65 to 834,500. By Level 66, the requirement had reached 884,500 XP — and this was where the ten million stored points finally ran dry, leaving him at 723,000 out of the 934,500 XP needed to clear Level 66 and move on to Level 67. Six levels cleared in the Advanced Specialization bracket before the stored reserve was exhausted. Levels 67 through 70 — requiring 934,500, 984,500, 1,034,500, and 1,084,500 XP respectively — would have to be earned the conventional way.
MASTERY CULMINATION — Levels 71 to 75 (+100,000 XP per level increment)
The final bracket of Personal System Level 3 doubled the increment again. One hundred thousand XP per level. Level 71 required 1,184,500 XP. Level 72 demanded 1,284,500. Level 73 pushed to 1,384,500, Level 74 to 1,484,500, and Level 75 — the current ceiling — stood at 1,584,500 XP. These were not levels that came from casual operation. They came from the kind of sustained, high-stakes field experience that the Beast Dominion Wars had provided in abundance, and from the three years of continued training and operational deployment that followed. Each level in this bracket represented a meaningful threshold crossed — not because the number said so, but because the capability attached to it was real and measurable in combat.
From Level 66 to Level 75: At the start of Year 00012, August stood at 723,000 / 934,500 XP — Level 66, deep in the Advanced Specialization bracket. The remaining XP was earned through continued operations: training under Grandmaster Miles Daemon and Master Ben, the trials completed within the three-year window, the Kirka Village operation, and the current campaign against the Berdeng Oruks.
Level 67 required 934,500 XP — the final step of the Advanced Specialization bracket. Level 68 required 984,500 XP. Level 69, 1,034,500 XP. Level 70, 1,084,500 XP. Each of those four levels cost 50,000 XP beyond the last, the same increment that governed the entire Advanced Specialization bracket from Level 61 onward.
Then the bracket changed.
The Mastery Culmination bracket began at Level 71, and the cost per level doubled. Level 71 required 1,184,500 XP. Level 72, 1,284,500 XP. Level 73, 1,384,500 XP. Level 74, 1,484,500 XP. Level 75, 1,584,500 XP. One hundred thousand experience points between each level. The system's way of communicating that what was being refined at this range was not the same category of growth as what came before it. Experience points at this bracket did not come from routine activity. They came from the kind of sustained, high-stakes engagement that the Beast Dominion Wars and their aftermath had uniquely provided — operations where the stakes were real, while the margin for error was not so forgiving, and the lessons arrived in a form that could not be replicated in any training room.
Statistical Effect of Progression: All base attributes doubled again across the board at the Level 3 system unlock. Speed, strength, durability, and mana control refined to a degree that three years prior would have been theoretical rather than operational. The gap between August and every other person in the Party System — who were operating at levels 43 through 45 through their own accumulated World System experience — widened considerably. The World System itself underwent a patch update at the Level 3 unlock to prevent the imbalance from destabilizing the broader Centuury System.
Current Combat Assessment: Grandmaster Candidate. Fluctuates between high-tier Master and confirmed Grandmaster depending on equipment state and limiter management. With full armor and no limiters active: confirmed Grandmaster-tier. Without armor or at managed output: high-tier Master.
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PLAYER PERSONAL SYSTEM LEVEL (3) — EXPERT TIER
Full Experience Point Requirements: Levels 51 to 75
TRANSITION TO MASTERY — Levels 51 to 60 (+25,000 XP per level increment)
Level 51: 359,500 XP
Level 52: 384,500 XP
Level 53: 409,500 XP
Level 54: 434,500 XP
Level 55: 459,500 XP
Level 56: 484,500 XP
Level 57: 509,500 XP
Level 58: 534,500 XP
Level 59: 559,500 XP
Level 60: 584,500 XP
ADVANCED SPECIALIZATION — Levels 61 to 70 (+50,000 XP per level increment)
Level 61: 634,500 XP
Level 62: 684,500 XP
Level 63: 734,500 XP
Level 64: 784,500 XP
Level 65: 834,500 XP
Level 66: 884,500 XP
Level 67: 934,500 XP
Level 68: 984,500 XP
Level 69: 1,034,500 XP
Level 70: 1,084,500 XP
MASTERY CULMINATION — Levels 71 to 75 (+100,000 XP per level increment)
Level 71: 1,184,500 XP
Level 72: 1,284,500 XP
Level 73: 1,384,500 XP
Level 74: 1,484,500 XP
Level 75: 1,584,500 XP
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NEW FEATURES UNLOCKED — PERSONAL SYSTEM LEVEL 3
Two major system features became available upon reaching Level 3. August had been notified of both in the months prior to this operation, though the practical opportunity to use them in live conditions had been limited by the specific nature of guerilla warfare, which did not favor the kind of sustained experimental focus that new skill development required.
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FEATURE I: SKILL CREATION
Unlocked at: Personal System Level 3 + Player Level 65
Current Unlock Status: Fully Active (Player Level 75)
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OVERVIEW
Skill Creation is the ability to produce entirely new skills from nothing, using mana as the fuel, imagination as the catalyst, and will as the execution mechanism. Skills created through this feature do not require the normal grinding process to develop category expertise — when a skill is successfully created, the system automatically applies the appropriate Category level based on the creator's player level at the time of creation. This represents a significantly faster path to skill mastery than conventional development, at the cost of requiring a substantial mana investment simply to bring the skill into existence.
The mental component is the most demanding aspect of Skill Creation. The skill must be held completely and precisely in the mind before mana is committed to it. A vague concept produces a vague or failed result. A specific, fully-formed idea produces a specific, fully-formed skill. The skill's mechanics, range, effect type, element, and activation conditions must all be established in the imagination before the mana is used to make it real.
Skill Creation was introduced to the Personal System at Level 3 with a specific safeguard purpose: the previous version of the system had permitted August to combine skills in ways that were not controlled, producing results that the World System Administrators Grand Assembly had flagged as potentially catastrophic if applied in populated areas without understanding. The new Skill Creation feature operates with guardrails. The system permits controlled creation but retains the ability to gate what can be produced based on player level and tier prerequisites.
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SKILL CREATION — TIER AND LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
| Skill Tier | Minimum Player Level | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Low Tier | Level 25 | August: unlocked |
| Mid Tier | Level 50 | August: unlocked |
| High Tier | Level 100 | August: not yet unlocked |
| Divine Tier | Level 150 | August: not yet unlocked |
August's current player level of 75 grants active access to Low Tier and Mid Tier Skill Creation only.
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SKILL CREATION — CATEGORY AND SUCCESS RATES
When a skill is created, the system automatically assigns it a Category level based on the player's accumulated experience. Category represents depth of expertise — a Category V skill of any tier is fully mastered from the moment of creation, while a Category I skill requires further development. The player level determines which Category is automatically granted and what the percentage chance of successful creation is.
LOW TIER SKILL CREATION — CATEGORY AND PLAYER LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
| Category Granted | Player Level Required (auto-grant) | Success Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Category I | 10 | 50% |
| Category II | 20 | 25% |
| Category III | 30 | 15% |
| Category IV | 40 | 10% |
| Category V | 50 | 5% |
At Player Level 75, August automatically qualifies for Category V in any Low Tier skill he creates, with a base 5% success rate. His additional player levels above 50 apply a modifier that increases the effective success chance above the base rate.
MID TIER SKILL CREATION — CATEGORY AND PLAYER LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
| Category Granted | Player Level Required (auto-grant) | Success Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Category I | 60 | 40% |
| Category II | 70 | 20% |
| Category III | 80 | 10% |
| Category IV | 90 | 5% |
| Category V | 100 | 2.5% |
At Player Level 75, August automatically qualifies for Category II in any Mid Tier skill he creates. He does not yet have enough accumulated levels to reach the Category III auto-grant threshold of Level 80. Success chance for Mid Tier creation at his current level: approximately 20% base, modified upward by excess levels.
HIGH TIER SKILL CREATION — CATEGORY AND PLAYER LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
Minimum Player Level to access: 100 (August: not yet unlocked)
| Category Granted | Player Level Required (auto-grant) | Success Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Category I | 110 | 30% |
| Category II | 120 | 15% |
| Category III | 130 | 7.5% |
| Category IV | 140 | 3.75% |
| Category V | 150 | 1.875% |
High Tier Skill Creation unlocks at Player Level 100. August is still currently 25 levels away from this threshold. When reached, he will automatically qualify for Category I on any High Tier skill created, with a base 30% success rate. The success chance improves with every 10 levels beyond the minimum.
DIVINE TIER SKILL CREATION — CATEGORY AND PLAYER LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
| Category Granted | Player Level Required (auto-grant) | Success Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Category I | 160 | 20% |
| Category II | 170 | 10% |
| Category III | 180 | 5% |
| Category IV | 190 | 2.5% |
| Category V | 200 | 1.25% |
Divine Tier Skill Creation is the furthest frontier of what the Personal System permits. At base, a 20% chance of success for a Category I Divine Tier skill — and that percentage drops by half with each Category step above it. The system does not make this easy, and it is not meant to. Divine Tier skills of any Category, once successfully created, operate at a level that the World System Administrators Grand Assembly monitors directly. August is currently 75 levels from this threshold.
Note: Every 10 player levels increases the chance of achieving a higher category result than the auto-grant baseline. The system rewards grinding.
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SKILL CREATION — MANA COST BY TIER AND CATEGORY
The mana required to create a skill is a one-time cost paid at the moment of creation. It is not a recurring cost during use. The base calculation is drawn from a percentage of the player's total mana pool at the time of creation, starting at 5% for a Low Tier Category I skill and increasing by 5% with every Category and Tier step above it.
LOW TIER — MANA COST PER CATEGORY
| Category | Mana Required (% of Total Mana Pool) |
|---|---|
| Category I | 5% |
| Category II | 10% |
| Category III | 15% |
| Category IV | 20% |
| Category V | 25% |
MID TIER — MANA COST PER CATEGORY
| Category | Mana Required (% of Total Mana Pool) |
|---|---|
| Category I | 30% |
| Category II | 35% |
| Category III | 40% |
| Category IV | 45% |
| Category V | 50% |
HIGH TIER — MANA COST PER CATEGORY
| Category | Mana Required (% of Total Mana Pool) |
|---|---|
| Category I | 55% |
| Category II | 60% |
| Category III | 65% |
| Category IV | 70% |
| Category V | 75% |
DIVINE TIER — MANA COST PER CATEGORY
| Category | Mana Required (% of Total Mana Pool) |
|---|---|
| Category I | 80% |
| Category II | 85% |
| Category III | 90% |
| Category IV | 95% |
| Category V | 100% |
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FAILURE PENALTIES — SKILL CREATION
A failed creation attempt does not refund the mana spent. The cost is consumed regardless of outcome. At Divine Tier Category V, a failed attempt costs the player their entire mana pool with nothing produced — which is the system's clearest possible statement about the seriousness of attempting it without adequate preparation.
Beyond the mana loss, failed attempts carry an additional cumulative penalty. Upon a third consecutive failed creation attempt of any tier or category, the player's Skill Creation feature is locked and rendered completely inaccessible for a period of one full calendar month. No skills of any tier or category may be created during this lockout period regardless of available mana or player level. The system does not negotiate on this. The lockout exists to prevent reckless and repeated waste of resources that the World System Administrators Grand Assembly considers strategically significant — a player who cannot manage three consecutive failed attempts responsibly is a player who requires a mandatory cooling-off period before further access is granted.
The attempt counter resets to zero upon a successful creation. It does not reset upon the expiry of a monthly lockout — a player who serves their lockout and immediately fails three more times will be locked out again without exception.
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AUGUST'S CREATED SKILLS — CURRENT
I. ELECTRIC LIGHTNING ZAPPER
Tier: Low Tier
Category: V (auto-granted at Player Level 75)
Element: Lightning
Type: Active Combat — Stationary Area Deployment
Description: A stationary floating mechanism deployed at the caster's last standing position. Once activated, it remains in place and zaps every entity within a fifty-foot radius at a three-second interval for five minutes before dissipating. The skill does not require any active control from August after deployment — it runs autonomously until it expires or until he dismisses it manually. Because the zapper is tied to his last standing position, deploying multiple instances requires physically moving between positions across the battlefield. There is no limit to the number of simultaneous deployments beyond his mana pool.
The concept emerged from August's thinking about how to manage large numbers of enemies when he could not be everywhere simultaneously. A skill that continued operating without his direct attention freed him to do other things while the area it controlled continued taking a toll.
Mechanics Summary:
- Activation: Instant
- AoE Radius: 50 feet from deployment point
- Zap Interval: Every 3 seconds
- Duration: 5 minutes (dismissible early)
- Mana Cost: Continuous drain while active
- Deployment: Multiple allowed — requires moving to new position for each skill produced
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II. FLAME ARROW
Tier: Mid Tier
Category: II (auto-granted at Player Level 75)
Element: Fire
Type: Active Combat — Weapon Enhancement (Bow)
Description: A skill that coats August's arrows in a fire-element layer designed specifically to bypass both physical defense and magical defense barriers. The arrow penetrates defenses that would stop a conventional projectile or magical attack. On impact, it does not simply stick and burn — it detonates, and the explosion uses the target's own internal mana as fuel for the continued burn and secondary explosions. For targets with high internal mana reserves, this is particularly destructive: the more mana a target carries, the more fuel is available for the fire to consume.
The concept originated from August's frustration with targets that could absorb or deflect conventional elemental output. The Flame Arrow was designed specifically for cases where direct elemental application failed — it got inside the defenses first and then used the target's own resources against them.
Mechanics Summary:
- Activation: Coats any regular arrow during nocking — no separate activation required
- Defense Penetration: Bypasses physical defense and magical defense barriers
- Impact Effect: Explosion + fire ignition on contact
- Continued Burn Fuel: Target's own internal mana
- Scaling: Damage scales with target's mana reserves — higher mana = more destructive
- Category II Limitation: Penetration is not absolute at this category — very high-tier magical barriers may partially resist
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FEATURE II: SKILL COMBINATION
Unlocked at: Player Level 70
Current Unlock Status: Active — 2 slots (4-slot system; additional slots unlock at Level 120 and Level 200)
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OVERVIEW
Skill Combination allows August to take existing skills from his skill tree and combine them in designated slots, producing a new skill that incorporates elements of both source skills. The result can be a more powerful version at the same tier as the input skills, or, under the right conditions, a skill of the next tier above. The percentage chance of successful combination decreases as the tier of the input skills increases, and decreases further as more skills are added to the combination (up to the slot maximum of four).
This feature is not the same as Skill Creation. Skill Creation produces something entirely new from imagination and mana. Skill Combination takes what already exists and synthesizes it into something different. The two features complement each other but operate through different mechanisms.
The current 2-slot configuration means August can combine any two skills from his tree. The 3-slot configuration (Level 120) and 4-slot configuration (Level 200) will expand his options considerably when he reaches those thresholds.
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SKILL COMBINATION — SUCCESS RATES BY TIER
| Source Skill Tier | 2-Skill Combination | 3-Skill Combination | 4-Skill Combination |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low Tier | 50% | 25% | 12.5% |
| Mid Tier | 40% | 20% | 10% |
| High Tier | 30% | 15% | 7.5% |
| Divine Tier | 20% | 10% | 5% |
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CATEGORY BONUS TO SUCCESS RATE
Category level of the source skills adds a percentage bonus to the success chance. The bonus decreases as the tier of the skills being combined increases, because higher-tier combinations are inherently more complex and more resistant to the kind of categorical certainty that lower-tier mastery provides.
| Source Tier | Bonus per Category Level |
|---|---|
| Low Tier | +2.5% per Category level |
| Mid Tier | +1.5% per Category level |
| High Tier | +0.75% per Category level |
| Divine Tier | +0.50% per Category level |
For a 4-slot Low Tier combination with all Category V source skills, the total category bonus would be: 4 skills × 5 categories × 2.5% = +50%, bringing the base 12.5% up to 62.5%.
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FAILURE PENALTY — THE LOCKING MECHANISM
Failed combination attempts are not without consequence. Every failed attempt increases the chance of the lock mechanism activating by 5% per failure. The lock mechanism randomly and permanently seals one of the source skills from being used in future combinations — the skill itself remains usable for combat, but it is removed from the combination pool. The locked skill cannot be unlocked.
At 0 failures: 0% lock chance
At 1 failure: 5% lock chance on the next attempt
At 2 failures: 10% lock chance on the next attempt
At n failures: n × 5% lock chance
This mechanic exists specifically because of August's prior history with the skill combination process. The previous system had permitted unrestricted combination without these guardrails, and he had used it in ways the World System Administrators Grand Assembly's monitoring flagged as dangerous — producing skills of a scale and destructive potential that the system's oversight had not been designed to manage. The current iteration of the Skill Combination feature retains the creative potential but introduces a cost to failure that encourages deliberate and considered use rather than experimental mass-application.
The system communicates this to August with the same directness it used for everything else: the record of what he did before is why the guardrails exist now. He does not have the leverage to dispute this.
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Reduced to Nothing
August dropped into the valley from altitude and deployed the Electric Lightning Zapper at the center of the Oruk formation without announcement or preamble.
The field activated. Three-second intervals, within a fifty-foot radius, autonomously. The thirty-two Oruks had no idea what this would do to them — it was not coming from a person, it was coming from the air itself in the section of ground they were standing in, and their instinct for creatures who needed a target to be angry at was to move. Moving took them into the coverage area of the second deployment, because August had moved between positions before they finished processing the first one.
He nocked an arrow. The Flame Arrow coating settled over it the moment it was in place, visible at close range as a barely-there shimmer of heat around the shaft. He did not aim at the massed formation. He aimed at the two generals he had injured last time at the enemy camp, because the generals were the problem that grunt Oruk warriors were not — they had survived the previous encounter, they had lost limbs in doing so, and their regeneration was slower without the mana the Flame Arrow had already drained, but they were still the most dangerous things remaining.
The arrow found the first general. The penetration went through the partial defensive barrier the general had managed to reconstruct in the hours since the initial encounter. The detonation used what was inside him against what was outside. The general had significant mana reserves even when depleted — three hundred plus years of cannibalistic accumulation left internal stores that were substantial. The fire found all of it.
He nocked the second arrow before the first impact had finished resolving.
The Oruk warriors who had not yet been touched by the Zappers and who still retained enough awareness to make decisions made the decision that most things made when the combination of a stationary area-denial field magic and a penetrating incendiary projectile was applied to their formation simultaneously, which was that the position they were currently in was no longer tenable. They scattered in the directions that seemed to offer the best odds of escaping and survival.
But August had already anticipated this scenario and was already in those directions.
It was not a long engagement from that point. The combination of everything he was currently capable of without any of his usual limitation to be active, applied to thirty-two Oruks who were already depleted from hours of sustained fighting against people who had been holding them longer than anyone should have, resolved quickly.
When it was finished, what remained was the two generals on the ground, incapacitated, without limbs, mana-drained, and alive — which was August's choice of how to proceed without further bloodshed.
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Adam
After the brief engagement he directly went to Adam first.
The situation was immediately legible to anyone who understood what serious blood loss looked like from the outside. Adam was still standing of course, which was the extraordinary part. The ordinary part was that he was standing through a combination of will and biological stubbornness that had nothing to do with his body's current functional state. The wounds were manageable — the armor had done what it was built to do, the healing that the team's medical support had provided throughout the day had maintained the tissue. What the healing could not address was the blood that had been spent. Mana-aided the body's natural repair capabilities to rapidly close wounds and maintain organ function. But it did not manufacture blood. Blood had to be produced by the body at the pace the body could manage, which was not fast enough for what Adam had spent.
August had not touched his high-level potion stock during the guerilla campaign. There had not been a moment that required it, and the instinct to hold resources back for when they were truly needed had served him well over the years. He had a quantity of them — more than most people would have considered carrying, because most people had not spent years operating in conditions where running out of something critical was a specific and recurring category of death.
He pulled the embedded spears and arrows first. This was not comfortable, but it was necessary — Count Ronaldo Bradmoore had explained the mechanics of topical potion application to Angeline, and Angeline had explained it to August in one of those conversations about field medicine that Count Bradmoore apparently considered fundamental enough to ensure his students communicated forward. The principle: topical application worked fastest when it had direct access to the wound surface. Direct access was not available when the wound had a spear or arrows stuck in it.
He opened the first bottle and poured it directly into each wound as it was cleared. The high-level variant did not require the body to process it internally before it worked — when directly applied to the wound surface, it began closing tissue within seconds, the magical acceleration operating at the point of contact without transit time.
He opened the second bottle and made Adam drink it.
Oral ingestion worked differently. The potion moved through the mana vessels throughout the body, which accelerated the transport of its active compounds to every injury simultaneously. It was not faster than direct application at any single wound, but it was broader — reaching the internal injuries that topical could not address, amplifying the body's general healing rate across everything at once. The mana vessel acceleration was the key mechanism: it did not close wounds directly but made the body's own healing run faster for the duration.
Both methods together addressed what could be addressed. The blood loss remained what it was — a function of Adam's body producing what it needed to produce at the pace it could manage, with no shortcut available. The prayers were for the blood, and for the will that had been keeping the body moving while the blood ran low.
"You'll be safe, my friend. Think of your wives and children. Rest now. I'll see to the others."
He said it because he believed it, not as comfort but as an honest assessment of Adam's odds. Then he moved through the rest of the formation with the remaining bottles, applying what each person's specific situation required. Topical for open wounds. Oral for internal injuries. Both for anyone in Adam's category. He did not hold any back.
When the last bottle was empty, he addressed the people around him.
---
The Commander's Word
"Good work. All of you."
No preamble. These people had held a valley against two hundred of the best warriors Agroba da Kill Mongar had brought to this campaign, through exhaustion and depletion and the specific grinding difficulty of a fight that did not end when it should have ended. They did not need preamble.
"This was not a village operation in the official sense. I want to be clear about that. It was personal business — our business — because Mee-rka is one of ours, and the people she comes from needed help. That is sufficient. If any of you ever find yourself in a similar position, where one of our own needs something and there is nothing official to stand on, do not hesitate. We will come. That is what this team is."
He paused.
"For now — the most critically injured should return back to the village immediately. Healers will accompany them. The rest will have to stay. We must finish what needs to be done here, and then we help the chiefdom with whatever remains of the siege."
He turned to Bren.
"Adam goes. Rael goes. Daret goes. Take Kirpy. Take whoever has enough mana left in them just in case an emergency situation arises. Go now."
Bren organized it without discussion. Kirpy was positioned within minutes — five people across a wingspan of that size was not comfortable, but Kirpy had the disposition of a creature that understood when efficiency mattered more than comfort. They were in the air before the remaining light had finished going.
August watched them lift off and then looked at the two generals on the ground.
"Now. What should I do with the two of you?"
He said it aloud for his own process of thinking it through. Neither of them was in a condition to contribute usefully to the question. But the question was real, and it deserved consideration rather than a reflex.
He considered it with the thoroughness it deserved.
---
What Remained
The cleanup was thorough.
Not every Oruk in the original thirty-two had been directly killed in the initial engagement. A small number had used the chaos of the Zapper deployments to scatter rather than fight, which was not typical Oruk behavior but was behavior that happened when the self-preservation instinct won the argument with the cultural prohibition on retreat. They were found. Finnester was useful for this. Rexy and Toto were useful for this. The remaining members of the combined force, injured and tired, were also deeply motivated to ensure that none of the surviving members of Agroba's personal bodyguard made it back to report on the specifics of what had happened here.
They did not let a single one escape.
The two generals he dealt with himself, at the end. They were not going to recover in any timeline that made releasing them safe — the Flame Arrow had done something to their mana cores that the Oruk regeneration system was not managing well. He did not prolong it. He did not perform anything about it. He made the decision and he executed it and he did not think about it after, because there was other work to be done and the chiefdom still needed to see the end of a siege.
Back at the Southern Beastmen Tribes Chiefdom, the war was resolving itself in the direction that wars resolved when their architect was dead and their supplies were gone and the force that had been pressing the walls from the rear had run out of people to send. The Oruks at the gates had breached through the battering ram, and the beastfolk had held the breach with everything they had — the Warrior Heroes, the chieftains, Chieftain Midoka himself on the ramparts through the length of it. The chaos magic casualties in the medical area had been what they were, and the grief for those who had been lost to it rather than to clean combat would come later, in ceremony and in the specific kind of mourning that a people reserved for deaths that were not chosen.
For now, the walls held. The Oruk force was dissolving. Units were separating from the main body and moving back in the direction they had come from, driven by the combination of no command structure and the practical arithmetic of a campaign that had lost everything it needed to continue.
Talon One and Talon Two, began moving through the forest that had a lingering smell of fire and the aftermath of three days of continuous operation, it was the slow walk back toward the chiefdom's gates.
Towards the guiding light that leads to a window that was not their own, and beyond it, eventually, was the road home.