Oliver took a seat next to Brutus and put his harm over the mans thick shoulders. "Its alright Brutus, at least we will have each other while away from our families." Oliver says trying to console him.
"Its not going away that's bothering me. Its the fact that Peter and Margret died last night in the beast tide!" Brutus say with a sob. After saying those words tears start to leak from his eyes again.
Peter and Margret were Oliver and Brutus's childhood friends. They had been as thick as thieves and always talked about forming a party together and going on adventures. Both of them had turned eighteen before Oliver so they had their classes and had helped try and clear out the beast tide. With how quickly events had been moving Oliver hadn't put much thought into the beast tide, but now that he was confronted with its another of its ramifications he couldn't help but pull Brutus closer and join in on the crying.
Several minutes later Oliver says with conviction "After all this is over and we've become stronger we'll make whoever started the beast tide last night pay for what they've done to our home!"
"That's all we can do to honor the deaths of everyone! We must use this as an opportunity to get stronger so we can get revenge!" Brutus exclaims.
The thought of revenge dries the tears from the two men's eyes, instead filling them with conviction. Oliver pulls his arm away from Brutus and they sit in companionable silence as the carriage begins to move. Neither Brutus nor Oliver were big talkers which is one of the reasons they got along and only had a small group of friends.
Several days fly by with barely anyone in the carriage saying anything. The carriages stopped only twice a day where everyone had a meal and relieved themselves. It seemed the carriage drivers drove the carriages in shifts, one guard drove while the other slept. The wagons had small windows that let in light and everyone mostly spent their time either brooding on what was to come or looking out the windows.
Before long the carriage came to a stop and everyone was made to get out. They appeared to be in a small town that looked hastily put together. There were ten long houses made of wood, all positioned around a large field.
"Okay everyone form lines and listen closely because I'm only going to say this once" shouted a man who was tall and as thin as a rail with long red hair and blue eyes. He was wearing the same uniform as the guards who were with the carriages, which was the uniform of Fated Sect.
"We're currently located on the edge of the Ebony forest, this is where we train our new recruits. There are no beast kings in this forest even though it is quite large. It would take at least a week to travel from one side to the other. Every beast is around level ten to twenty. With the stronger beasts being towards the middle of the forest and the weaker beasts being on the outskirts. From now on you will be trained here in order to join our war against Demon sect. Your group will be working on fighting against human opponents for the first half of the week while the second half of the week you'll be sent into the forest to hunt beasts to raise your levels and to familiarize yourselves with live combat." The man shouted so that everyone could hear him.
"The first thing you'll need to do is form parties so that you'll be able to hunt beasts in the forest. Your training ends when you reach level twenty! Don't think that If you never reach level twenty that you won't have to participate in the war because you'd be wrong. At the end of three months of your group arriving everyone left will be shipped off to the front lines where you'll meet up with everyone who already made it to level twenty. Its in your best interests to progress as fast as possible. You will receive gold for every beast that you slay via your system as well as gold for bringing back their carcasses which will be given to you from Fated Sect. Some carcasses are worth more than others. You can look at the conversion ratio for carcasses you sell to Fated Sect at the main building. You can use your gold to either buy skills in your system or spend it at the Fated Sects kiosk to buy resources, weapons, armor or even potions. Now for those of you that don't have classes form a separate line to the right and you'll be able to pick from a variety of classes. They're Warrior, cleric, hunter and mage." The man explained.
"Now form parties of four among yourselves then pick out your bunks in building number ten. You're the last group of recruits to arrive so the bunk house is completely open." says the man.
The group then begins to converse with each other in order to form four person parties. Oliver and Brutus move towards each other since partying together was a no brainier. They then begin to talk to their fellow Shadow Glades citizens since they believed they'd be able to trust them more as well as be able to work together better. Besides everyone who came from Shadow Glades and had a class survived the beast tide, which means they're not weak or at least had something going on for them.
Ten minutes later Brutus and Oliver are standing with two other people from their hometown. There's a woman named Tina who is a Nature Shaman, her class specializes in healing and control and her contracted beast is called a Plant Sprite which also specializes in controlling a battlefield. Then there's a man named Trevor whose class is a scout and his contracted beast is a Timber Wolf. Scouts are a handy class to have because they're good at tracking beasts and humans alike while also being good at doing DPS (Damage per second). Timber Wolves are also good at tracking due to their sharp sense of smell as well as being a beast that does good damage. With both Tina and Trevor they would have a well rounded party that should be able to hold their own in most situations.With Brutus's contracted beast being an Armored Boar they had a nice mix of support, defence, and attack. Plus even though Oliver didn't count Tina and Trevor as being his friends they at least knew each other and even were in some of the same classes in school, so Oliver knew they were competent.
Currently Oliver was they only one with his soulbound beast out because Loki preferred to rest on Oliver's shoulders instead of being in his soul space. Soul spaces were where most people kept their contracted beasts while not needed. Its a small space that's connected to your soul where your soulbound could rest. Keeping a beast in your soul space also increases their healing speed and mana regeneration by fifty percent. Most soulbound's are too big and bulky to have out all the time which makes the soul space quite convenient. Oliver would honestly rather have Loki in his soul space but Loki always complains when Oliver puts him in there.
Loki as if knowing what his soul partner is thinking sits up and begins ruffling his hair with his two paws making it a complete mess. His newfound party members suppress their laughter, though they eventually fail to do so when Loki curls up on Oliver's head like his previous actions were him preparing his bed before sleep. Somehow Loki manages to fit his whole three foot long body on Oliver's head which draws the stares of many other people besides just his party members. Oliver being fed up eventually swipes Loki off his head and onto the ground where the Shadow weasels stand up on his hind legs and starts to chirp at Oliver, clearly angry at his rough treatment. Loki then turns into a shadow only to reappear on Oliver's shoulder again making his party members laugh even harder.
"It must be hard having a beast king's son as your soulbound beast. Dad told me that the direct descendants of beast kings make bad starting soulbound's because they are smarter and have more personality than soulbound's with lesser lineages." Brutus says while laughing.
"Yeah but that also makes them stronger and more able to understand complex instructions compared to a common beast." Tina says while suppressing her laughter.
"Alright whatever let's just go find our bunks and stop talking about Loki." Oliver says with obvious frustration in his voice, which makes his party members laugh again.
Loki slaps the side of his head and points towards the long house that all the other new recruits are heading towards, as if to say "onward steed".