Chapter 14 The Formation

Elysia followed the siblings as they stood from the picnic table and gathered in the open area of the room in an orderly fashion. She fidgeted as the trio seemingly had a silent conversation with each other, feeling out of place, but she endured.

Finally, the de facto leader, Thauzo, turned to Elysia. “First, we will practice a basic T formation. Please stand beside Thres. She knows what to do.”

As Thauzo and his brother Thuax moved in a single filed line in front of them, Elysia stood to the left of Thres. Once everyone was in position, Thauzo continued, likely for Elysia’s benefit, as everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. “This will be our primary full team formation while navigating dungeons. Sometimes, Thuax will break from the formation to scout or provide me with support, but you and Thres should always stay behind me. You two need to focus on dealing damage. Leave the rest to us. The faster you two down an enemy, the less danger the rest of us will be in.”

This was kind of like with her sister did group dungeons in her games, though usually it devolved into a blob of players with a bunch of people yelling over each other in voice chat. She was all for organization as long as it made sense and kept her safe. Still, the allure of fighting solo fed by her elemental pride persisted in the back of her mind. Fortunately, at least for now, her rational side remained in control.

Elysia returned her focus to her group, watching as Thauzo stepped forward, acting as if he held a weapon, followed by Thuax sneaking in jabs with imaginary daggers before retreating behind his bulky brother. Like her siblings, Thres followed suit, raising her hands and allowing a few sparks of crimson fire to manifest, but nothing more. Finally, taking the hint, Elysia created a few sparks of her own.

This pattern continued for the next half-hour, consisting of Elysia and her partner standing and watching the other two perform increasingly more complex maneuvers. A few times Thuax even leaped over his massive brother, though that happened rarely. Only when Thauzo seemed to have a massive creature in a deadlock forcing his brother to attack the creature’s head. Most of the time, Thuax either slipped around his brother for quick jabs or flanking maneuvers.

Halfway through, Thuax disengaged from the group and slinked off toward the opposite end of the room, as if scouting at random before returning soon after. At those times Thauzo stood stalwart as the lone guard of the girls. This formation usually only happened when they weren’t engaged with imaginary enemies. Though a few times Thauzo sprang into action, as if hit by a surprise attack, causing Elysia and her partner to mime attacking themselves.

Despite knowing the importance of teamwork and practice, Elysia’s mind wandered in boredom. Wouldn’t it be better to practice against other teams, or at least dummies? And what’s with the frontal focus? Dungeon creatures won’t give them the courtesy of only attacking their front. She knew firsthand, though usually it was her who stumbled upon the creatures, not the other way around. What if an assassin bug or something similar ambushed them?

She was starting to see the allure of delving solo. If the formation broke down, she would have to worry about more than just herself. She found herself in several situations in her delves where if she had a group like this, they might have lost someone. Though she didn’t know how well Thuax tracked things. Maybe the reason why they focused on the front was because Thuax would point out any ambushes before they happened. Besides, she might not have stumbled into those situations if she had a team backing her up. She was far too inexperienced to judge their formations.

Still, despite her thoughts on her group experience, she couldn’t help but break the silence. “What if they ambushed us from behind?”

Thauzo paused mid attack and turned toward Elysia. “According to Urus, it will be unlikely we will face ambush creatures in Mezo. However, if we did, Thuax would swing to the rear with you two in the center. If we were surrounded, each of us would take a side with you protecting our left. Thaux’s job is to avoid these types of situations, so if it happened, we already failed somewhere and must adjust.”

“I thought Mezo wasn’t open? How does she know what’s in there?”

All three Chrotile stared at her as if the answer was obvious, but unlike them Elysia didn’t grow up on the turtle’s shell nor had blind devotion to the oversized reptile.

Seeing Elysia’s genuine curiosity, Thauzo indulged her. “How do you think Urus found out about the merge before it happened? She has senses beyond our understanding. A scan of a shrouded island would be child’s play to her.”

Elysia shrugged her shoulders in response before queuing up another question. “So if she scanned it, then what creatures are we dealing with? So far, every dungeon I’ve been in was creepy crawly or disgusting, sometimes both.”

Thauzo frowned and Thres pouted while Thaux remained expressionless, prompting Elysia to prod. “What?”

“Urus wouldn’t tell us. She said it would be a surprise and an excellent training opportunity, as one rarely knows what dwells in an unexplored dungeon. She gave us a few pointers such as to expect heavy hitting and durable creatures. Clutch uncle Thrask tried to get more, but all he got was something about cousins.”

Elysia’s eyes widened in realization as the name of the island and Chrotile clicked, but before she could speak, a mountain of pressure pushed down on her. “Shush. The young Chrotile must learn on their own.”

Elysia glared at the floor as the pressure dissipated, drawing curious glances from the trio, causing her to clench her fists, then take a deep breath. Before they could ask her what happened, she asked another question of her own. “Shouldn’t we train against other teams or dummies? And why didn’t any of you bring weapons?”

All three glanced at each other before, as usual, Thauzo spoke. “Why carry weapons with Urus protecting us? We only planned to run through a few formations today. There was no need for weapons.”

Despite herself, Elysia’s hands gravitated toward the many throwing knives and whip mounted on her armor.

Thauzo smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay. We understand you don’t have the same faith in Urus as us. Nor do you know our ways.”

A sigh escaped Elysia’s mouth as her shoulders slumped. “To tell you the truth, I was training when Urus sent the announcement. I’m pretty much outfitted for battle right now.”

“And we wouldn’t blame you. We would feel vulnerable too. Especially with such soft and squishy skin. Part of the reason we feel so comfortable unarmed is our natural scaled skin and claws.”

Elysia’s eyes wandered down to their several centimeter long crimson claws tipping their fingers, causing a shiver. Those things could shred through her like nothing. Worse, the smallest Chrotile was probably stronger than her with her pitiful strength modifier. How could humans stand up to Chrotile? They appear better in every way. They have natural armor, claws, are bigger, stronger, and probably faster.

The one advantage humans might have would be their technology, but Chrotile appeared just as intelligent and have magic at their disposal. Thankfully, they were friendly to her. The more she spent around them, the more she wanted to avoid getting on their bad side. Sure she had lightning, but she was sure they had counters as any intelligent society would. Would a nuke even work? Urus could probably pluck it out of the sky and fling it away.

She shook her head to clear those thoughts before she went crazy and returned to the present. “So what’s next?”

The trio glanced at each other in silent conversation yet again, leaving Elysia out for several seconds. Before they could respond, a familiar voice sounded in each of their heads. “Participants, please suit up and proceed to the ceremony grounds.”

Elysia’s head jerked toward the trio but predicting what she wanted to ask, Thauzo beat her to it. “As tradition, every time we claim a dungeon island, we hold a sending off ceremony. There isn’t much to it. We march around the main arena wearing ceremonial armor, then watch some duels between our seniors to show what we could become.”

“Ceremonial armor?”

Just as Elysia asked, the door opened to their room, and a cart rolled in, stacked with four sets of scaly armor. The blue Chrotile who pushed the cart in bowed his head before leaving just as quickly as he came.

Unable to resist, Elysia approached the cart to find three sets of red scaled armor and one purple tinted prismatic armor like her actual armor when she channeled lightning through it. Curious, she poked the armor to find it relatively thin with only woven fabric under the scales no actual padding. Upon closer inspection, she found the number 36, along with her name printed in several places in a stylized font, though probably easily readable from the stands. The identification appeared on her shoulders, back, front and even on the sides of her helmet. Which was a full faced helmet covering the entirety of her face aside from her eyes.

This gave her flashbacks to her single season soccer stint during the summer between her freshman and sophomore year in high school. She was never a fan of broadcasting who she was with a jersey. If they didn’t recognize her face, then they didn’t need to know who she was. She didn’t do sports for the attention unlike most of her former teammates. Fortunately, other than lane numbers and mostly anonymous participant numbers in track and cross-country, she didn’t have to deal with that. Though if she had ran in college she would have had no choice but to advertise who she was.

She glanced at her new teammates, who also approached the cart and swiftly donned their uniforms. The reason for their name and number became obvious. The uniform covered most of their bodies. If it weren’t for the size differences, she would have never recognized each of them.

Despite her teammates already finishing suiting up, Elysia continued to poke her uniform. “Why the full covering? It’s obvious it would be useless as armor.”

“Tradition. In the old days, they would suit up in true armor. However, since we won’t be fighting and some armor requires mana for upkeep, we use these instead. As a bonus, it gives our young trainee craftsman who won’t get to participate in the dungeon island some way to contribute.”

Seeing no other reason to delay, Elysia grabbed the armor consisting of a long-sleeved shirt like chest piece imitating a true chest piece and gauntlets, pants of a similar style, along with boots. Last was a helmet with a spiked spine running from near her forehead to the base of her neck. After donning everything but the helmet Elysia tucked her long hair under the collar of the imitation chest piece frowning at the discomfort, but since none of the Chrotile had hair, she didn’t want to stand out any more than she already did. Like the rest of the uniform, the helmet fit perfectly as it slid over her head buckled under her chin.

Her field of vision narrowed significantly as the small holes for her eyes limited her range of sight, causing her to unconsciously grasp toward her throwing knives concealed under the cloth and scales. Unfortunately, despite not offering much protection, the ceremonial armor blocked her attempts quite thoroughly, forcing herself to restrain her instincts. Her hands clasped each other tightly at her front as she surveyed her appearance on the reflective cart.

As she thought, the ceremonial armor covered her from head to toe. The slightly loose fit hid most of her features. If it weren’t for her identity printed all over, she wouldn’t have even recognized herself. With armor, she doubted anyone could even tell her gender, though her slight stature would probably give it away.

The feel of her armor underneath sent reassurance through her, knowing despite the uselessness of the uniform, she still wore her armor and had weapons if she needed to protect herself, though her lightning would probably do a better job.

Done inspecting herself, she turned away from the cart and followed her new teammates out the door to join the crowd of similarly dressed participants funneling down the hall.