Casters name pops up on my communicator. I watch it ring, when its done I text him
"Y call?"
"It is the day that you said you would visit the Han Li waking world compound"
I stare at my communicator. Well shit, i forgot. I quickly get up and I get ready, trying to look even slightly okay.
"We meet at cafe"
I quickly go out the door getting weird looks from effie and sunny but I got to go. I get on the train and it gets moving. I sigh leaning back. Soon i get off the train, I almost run to the café, I look around before going inside.
I sit outside the café sipping on some random drink i bought. A PTV pulls up, the door opens to show Caster sitting there with a smile, a nervous one i think.
"Hey cast, nice ride"
He pats the seat next to him
"Hello why dont you sit down"
i climb in sitting next to him.
"So cast, this PTV is pretty nice and a personal driver too, how fancy"
He looks away.
"Well of course. Ever since my return from the forgotten shores my clan has been gaining quite a bit of fame. Although I have noticed that you arent getting invited to public events anymore, why is that?"
"Its not obvious? Im not as easily sold."
He scoffs
"You're likely the strongest out of everyone in the cohort other than Changing Star herself."
I laugh
"I doubt I'd win a fight against sun."
He looks at me for a few seconds then he scoffs
"Doubt that."
I get put the car looking around. Damn this place is nice as hell
"I'll admit cast this is real enviable."
He grins
"Well theres a good way you could live here too"
I laugh
"I'm not joining your clan."
He frowns.
"So what have you been doing while ive been away"
He perks up
"Oh me? You see ive been helping out at the citadel. I even killed a awakened demon all on my own no issues"
I perk up
"oh i did that not too long ago as well"
He nods
"Of course you'd be able to"
"So whats the strongest thing youve killed so far?"
He summons a very nice looking long sword.
"A fallen devil. This is the memory I got from it"
I nod
"Damn real nice too."
I lift my arms
"I got these from a fallen tyrant. I didn't actually kill it, a government master did, my echo only got the final hit"
He looks the bracelets over
"They seem quite useful. I've seen the clips of that incident. You were quite impressive, you had quite the show out"
Well isn't that quite the compliment
"I only arrived after most of the chaos. Lord- pfft- mongrel, did most of the work"
He frowns for a second then goes back to his normal expression
"Aw yes the dreamscape battler. He is.... quite impressive"
I laugh
"Some people think he is you"
He huffs dramatically
"Like I'd choose such a foolish name"
I elbow him
"Oh come on your not much better with names"
He looks surprised, he then looks away embarrassed. I nudge him
"I'm not any better, now... whats for lunch?"
We walk together to the room for like receiving guests, or so i assume. I flop down on the couch of the guest room. Caster sits next to me
"I haven't asked yet but what have you been doing?"
I wave my hand
"Oh you know prepping for the second nightmare.... oh yeah and I've been trying to learn how to make a PTV"
He tilts his head
"Really, why?"
"You see, I've figured out that I can make ice with moving parts inside, so why not try to make something to ride on? Speed is a big issue I have after all"
He nods
"Why not ride on flame of the divine?"
I shrug
"Well so flame can fight of course."
I then light up
"Oh yeah and I've gotten another echo!"
He blinks
"another? I haven't even gotten one naturally"
I get up
"I'm the luckiest of the unlucky after all"
I summon Singer she looks down at Caster. He circles her looking her over, he looks up at me suspiciously
"I hope this isn't a human echo"
I laugh, thats when singer 'responds'
"An human echo? Of course not"
He looks over the text with a shocked expression
"Oh it can... speak. I have to say you have me feeling poor"
I pat him on the back
"No..... you aren't poor, I'm just rich"
I grin at him as I desummon Singer he huffs
"Yet you still use your old armor, can't get anything new can you?"
I lean on him
"I've got a brand to uphold, the hoes love the armor"
We get brought lunch at this point. Its something I had mentioned liking once on the forgotten shores. He remembered, I can't help but be flattered by it, its nice to be remembered. We eat together
"so whats the area like anyways?"
He looks up
"you know, the area controlled by song"
He nods
"Its quite good, the only problem is the temperature in some areas but, that wouldn't be a problem for you of course"
I nod
"Yeah, what are the nightmare creatures like?"
He thinks for a bit
"There's a lot of undead, there's a more high class nightmare creatures but less weaker ones i think."
I tilt my head
"That does make some sense, i guess"
There was less people in the area for a long time, but they tended to be stronger because of that they went after the stronger nightmare creatures.
"Oh, yeah have you ever been to Ravenheart?"
He nods
"it was quite populated. It was truly worthy of being the crown jewel of the great clan song"
I lean towards him
"So what did you do there?"
He seems a little startled so I sit back down fully.
"I went there as a representative of the Han li clan so I did mostly business"
"Aw man lame"
He shows me around, when we get to the training room. I slowly look over to him
"Hey Cast, come on like old times"
He looks back at me
"Well i haven't shown you around the whole place"
He thinks for a bit
"but I'm sure it wouldn't hurt"
I pull him into the training room. I grab a practice sword and i throw it to him, I also grab a pair of training daggers. I have to admit they've got a lot of different training weapons. I go to the middle of the room, I lift the daggers with a grin
"Aren't you going to attack? Or are you scared"
He laughs walking towards me
"Me, scared of you? Considering every time you train with me I easily beat you"
"easily? Considering how much effort you have to put into even hitting me i doubt it"
I i lean closer to the ground as he gets into a fighting stance. He rushes me, I duck under a fast swing, i go right for a jab at his face, he blocks it with his sword.
I use my other dagger to push his sword down pinning it to the floor, I pin it down with my foot as I do the I take other swing at his face. He ducks under it and he grabs my arm throwing me away.
He lifts the sword off of the ground as he does a loud horrible sound comes from both of our phones. I take it out of my pocket looking at it.
"How about fighting together like we did in the forgotten shores?"
We quickly rush out summoning our gear, I summon Singer and Flame. I toss caster onto flame jumping on it myself.
"You didn't need to toss me"
I look up as flame gets to moving.
"Its almost funny. Twice now I'm dealing with a gate opening with so little notice. Your clans going to help with this one right?"
He nods
"Of course, its so close to the compound after all"
He's forced to hold onto flame tightly, I'm able to stay up unlike him. We arrive at the gate, it had only been about 3 weeks since this last happened, but this time I arrived before it opened, god i hate that horrible nagging in my head. I summon my daggers jumping off flame, caster follows
"It is quite the rough mount."
There's already a few awakened here. About 5 people are already here, 3 seem to be from the han li clan. Me and caster walk to the front of the pack
"Its going to be bad."
He looks over
"I will have to agree."
Soon the gate opens and the first nightmare creatures make their way out. In a way they resemble reindeer, well from what I read that seems to be what they used to resemble. Used to as its more like a frozen rotted corpse of one. Its easily cut down, its only a dormant beast after all.
The dormant nightmare creatures are mostly things like reindeer, some crows and other birds but mostly reindeer. The awakened creatures are human like, rotted dead bodies, but human like ones.
From the clothes and way of fighting their mostly bandits I'd say. There's a few more powerful ones, a little girl, likely her mother and two old women, one is a physical attacker the other is a mental attacker.
Fallen beasts have come out at this point, they look almost like angels, frozen solid their every movement making real annoying scraping noises.
There's a fallen demon and devil. The demon a small boy, a middle schooler, like the other nightmare creatures he looks like a dead body, but he looks almost like he was halfway into becoming a classic demon kind of thing it uses mind attacks to change everything into looking like a enemy.
The devil is a girl, about the same age, now she doesn't look rotted, no her body looks more like it was overtaken by a rose bush, its almost sad the two look so young.
Her main form of attack is soul attack, getting hit by the roses does damage to the soul. I get the feeling that none of them are the guardian though. No, I think the boss will be a terror or tyrant, I'm almost 100% sure. Although something about this reminds me of some old story i read one time.
The Han Li masters, there's about 4 of them, are dealing with the 2 child like nightmare creatures. The two older awakened creatures are being tied down by Singer, flame is tying down the mother and child creatures. Me and Caster are helping thin out the fallen beasts and monsters.
I stab the snow dagger into the visor of a fallen beast, I duck down as a sword from another whistles above my head. Caster speeds up cutting its head off. I look up and he nods to me. I grab my dagger out of it, i desummon it as I make a set of ice claws.
I swipe a few dormant beasts and a awakened one as well. I block the sword of a fallen beast that was going right for another awakened. Flame and Singer finish off their enemies and go to help the Han Li masters.
Caster takes the arm off the beast i was holding off and I cut its throat open with the ash dagger. I nod to the random awakened i saved and she slowly nods back at me. I throw a few ice daggers hitting a awakened monster and a fallen beast. I then put my shield over my head, caster jumps off of it cutting the head off another fallen beast.
I move towards him cutting through dormant and awakened beasts with snow storm as I do. I get to him fighting pretty close to him, if he almost gets hit I block it and when I almost get hit he blocks it. We nod to eachother both having the same idea. We push off, I block the attack of the fallen devil and he cuts the arm of the fallen demon open.
A vine lashes out at me, I slide under it using ice to keep up the momentum, I cut one vine using ice to block another, it causes the vine to freeze. The two masters act cutting down 4 each. I throw my shield hitting her with it, okay it looks a little fucked up because it looks like I just hit a child but still we press on.
I jump over another vine as I desummon my shield. I resummon it and one of the masters takes it rushing the fallen devil. Me and the other master cover for them letting us get close, it tries to lash out again but a chain wraps around its head pulling it back letting the master without the shield finish the fallen devil off.
I lean over, my hands on my knees, panting. I look over at caster and flame, and of course the two masters over there, they've killed the fallen demon, for some reason it now has a mirror shard in one eye and in its heart.
Really this reminds me of a story, but I can't remember the name. I do thumbs up, he looks over and does the same.
As we go to finish everything off the nightmare creatures stop, and so do we. I was right, that wasn't the guardian. The real guardian steps out, a fallen tyrant.
Its like a walking ice sculpture, of a queen I think. The nightmare creatures seem to get smarter with its arrival, I look at caster.
"Time for lord of the dead part two. How fun"
I stand up fully and I get to moving. A chilling wind smacks into me almost causing me to fall, if it was anyone else they'd be frozen dead. Oh but I'm me so I simply press forward. If its a battle of ice it wants then I'm sure it won't be disappointed. It swipes at me with its staff, it almost gets me but a set of chains stop it. I use that to go for the eyes but my daggers just slide right off. It smacks me away, it destroys half of my helmet, the only reason I survived is because of the chieftains bracelets.
I roll back landing next to caster
"■■■■!" He leans down
"still alive...!"
I slowly get up watching as the 4 masters and my ice shards hold the guardian off.
"I have a idea. Is that sword of yours strong enough to cut through that?"
He nods
"good"
I lean down making a halberd out of its own ice. I nod at the guardian and he moves to help. I use the chaos to get closer, but not too close circling around it. I go in for the attack right as Caster does.
I pull on the string making its footing unstable, Caster cuts the arm with the staff off, chains stop the other from attacking flame knocks into it from the back. I move forwards and I cut its head off right from that small crack I saw when I first attacked.
[You have slain fallen tyrant, Snow Queen. Your cold grows deeper]
I feel myself getting far, for stronger suddenly, a tide of ice fragments flooding my soul. I stare at the body, how and why. Its not because it had ice powers, I've killed things with ice and snow powers before. Was it because it was a moving ice statue? I'm not sure exactly why but I think I almost filled up my soul core with that one kill.
"■■■■"
Caster nudges me. I look over at him, he seems quite concerned
"■■■■ you've done enough"
I wave my hand
"I can keep fighting"
He grabs my arm and he pulls me away "no. You're too injured, you can save more people by not putting your life on the line for this"
Fair enough I guess. Still, I can still fight.
I lay there.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow."
Caster looks over at me
"Maybe next time put some more effort into not getting hit"
I glance over at the one healing me. Its a member of the Han Li clan, because of my help they were sent to heal me, and they're apparently going to give me money too. Plus the points ill get from the government
"Worth it"
Caster shakes his head but I can see him trying not to smile.
"Really ■■■■ your too willing to jump into danger"
I laugh then stop because it hurts. Apparently I had gotten hit more then I thought. Hey at least the government got there soon after I was pulled away.
I open the door to the living room, its almost night at this point.
Effie looks up from her communicator.
"God damn you look like you went head first into a woodchipper"
I wave my hand
"A gate opened and I helped out with it"
She laughs
"hey you got payed at least right?"
I smile
"A ton"
"Well you should upgrade the entertainment system"
I shake my head
"Not right now"
I quickly scamper off to my sleeping pod then to my room in the citadel finally getting some really needed rest after such a eventful day