As they ran down the ruined streets towards Greenhearth Fi and Kyle started going over the Skill increases from the previous fight using their new telepathic connection.

“You’ve got a couple to look at right now,’ Fi sent to him through their link from in the sky overhead. “Do you want to take a look or go over my Level Up first?”

“Let’s do your Level Up and then move onto the Skill increases,” Kyle sent back. “Just make sure that I can see where I’m going.”

“Alright,” Fi replied and Kyle smiled as a familiar blue screen appeared slightly off to one side and transparent enough that he could see through it if he really tried. “How do you think I should distribute my Stat Point?”

“Constitution,” he sent back immediately. “You’re really fragile right now and if you increase your HP then you might be able to take more than one hit before you’re too injured to really do anything.”

“That’s true,” Fi admitted and they both fell silent for a few seconds as they remembered the incident in the forest when Fi was knocked unconscious by a glancing blow from a Giant Amoeba. “I’ll do that then.”

After placing the point into her Constitution Fi showed Kyle her Stats.

Statistics

Name: Fi Fergusson

Race: Quetzalcoatl (Divine Beast)

Level: 3

Companion Type: N/A

HP: 50/50

HP regen: 0.5 p/s

MP: 120/120

MP regen: 5.5 p/s

SP: 40/40

SP regen: 4 p/s

Str: 4

Dex: 5

Agi: 11

Con: 5

End: 4

Int: 12

Wis: 11

Will: 8

Exp to next Level: 37%

Unassigned Stat Points: 0

“Well your Intelligence and Wisdom are pretty good but if you’re going to focus on magic then we should probably start increasing those next,” Kyle remarked.

“True,” Fi agreed. “Right how do you think I should spend my Ability Points?

“Well you just increased your Flight Skill, so why not improve your Heat Vision Skill, which if I recall correctly only costs 1 AP and one of your spells?” Kyle suggested knowing that she only had a couple of Ability Slots remaining.

“You don’t want me to get another Ability?” Fi asked with a confused look on her face.

“Not right now, I’ve got a lot of different Skills that have a variety of uses so right now I think it’s best for you to specialise a bit more,” Kyle replied as he shook his head.

“Then I guess I’ll increase my Heat Vision and my Restoration spell,” Fi decided. She didn’t really use her Shadowbolt spell that often, so this seemed like the better choice. Once she placed the points into the respective Skills, she brought up the updated information for them both to view.

Abilities Increased

Heat Vision- Allows the companion to sense heat sources within a range of 15m-Lvl 2 (Cost to improve 2 AP)

Restore- Uses healing light to restore the targets health. Heals 25 HP + 5 HP over ten seconds. Costs 20 MP. Casting time: 1 second. Cooldown 5 seconds. Lvl 2 (Cost to improve 4 AP)

“Well those are definitely both going to be useful,” Kyle remarked happily. “Especially that heal over time that Restoration has now, it doesn’t heal a lot but increasing your Stats will increase it.”

“Yeah, so should we move onto your Skills now?” Fi asked.

“Sounds good,” Kyle replied and Fi brought up the next screen for them to peruse.

Skills Increased

Chain Fighting-Mastery: Proficiency Level 7-48% to next Proficiency Level

Increases damage dealt with Chain Weapons by 11%

Increases accuracy with Chain Weapons by 6%

Blunt Weapons-General: Level 9-7% to next Proficiency Level

Increases Blunt damage by 9%

“Alright so I have 20 Skill Points right now, what about my spells, I should’ve mastered Mana Skin, Minor Flame Enchantment and Minor Soul Syphon which means that I can unlock a new spell for both of my Magic Schools, right?”

“Yup!” Fi replied. “Crap you need to turn to the left there’s a big group of some sort of wolf-like monster right in front of you.”

“Zerah, there’s another group in front of us,” Kyle said out loud. “Fi says we should head to the left.”

“Alright,” Zerah replied as she lead the group in the direction that Fi had suggested as she cast a Mage Light spell that floated up into the sky and started flashing in a pattern to let the people that were waiting for them know what was happening so that they could send out a group to escort them before they reached the massive melee that was going on at the foot of Greenhearth’s walls.

Once they had successfully avoided the group of monsters Kyle returned his attention to what he and Fi had been doing before.

“Fi can you unlock Flame Enchantment and Mana Skin three please?” Kyle asked. Unlocking Flame Enchantment which was the upgraded version of Minor Flame Enchantment had always been part of the plan as he still wanted to unlock Inscriptions but Fi was mildly surprised that he had chosen to upgrade Mana Skin but she still did as he asked and brought up the updated information so that he could check it.

New Spells Unlocked

Mana School: Rank 21- Master 1 Spell to increase Rank

· Mana Skin (III)- Increases Physical defence by 10 and Magical Defence by 5. Cost 30 MP. Duration: 1 minute. Spell Mastery 0%

Enchanting School: Rank 10- Master 1 Spells to increase Rank

· Flame Enchantment- Wreaths a weapon in flames. Adds 9-11 Fire Damage to attacks. 5% chance of igniting enemy Duration: 15 attacks or 1 minute. Cost 30 MP. Cooldown 2 minutes. Spell Mastery 0%

Kyle pursed his lips as he examined his improved spells. While the increase to his defences provided by Mana Skin hadn’t increased very much, the length of time that it stayed active had doubled making it a far more useful spell. Flame Enchantment however had mostly increased in utility thanks to the new secondary effect that allowed him to occasionally set enemies on fire.

It was also interesting that he only had to master one spell to reach the next Rank in the Enchanting School again, this was because reaching the 10th Rank of a Magic School was something of a bottleneck with the next being when someone was trying to break through to the 25th. This meant that reaching the higher Ranks became very difficult unless one had a certain Skill that allowed them to gain a new Spell every few times they increased the Skills proficiency Level these types of Skills were collectively known as Specialisations and there was one for every School of Magic other than Mana which didn’t have the bottlenecks, however only Tier 2 and above magic using Classes had access to these Skills and only as Class Skills. The Specialisations also provided new Bonuses to the various specific Schools making them very useful Skills.

As he considered these things Kyle looked around at the rest of the group noting that they all looked just as exhausted as he felt, especially Gloria who had the shortest legs in the party other than Zerah who could use her massively superior Agility to make up for her short stride, their eyes glancing around nervously. His eyes soon fell on the crystalline figure of Amy as she floated along and upon noticing the pensive expression on her face, he slowly made his way closer to her. Such an expression was an unusual sight to see on Amy’s face especially considering the time it took for her to actually change her expression, so he was a little worried.

“What’s wrong Amy?” he asked quietly so that the others couldn’t hear them.

“Huh, oh well, you see Kyle, I’m just thinking about how little help I’ve been this entire time,” she replied, her mental voice sounding even more upset than the time that she had accidentally broken his ribs.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked in confusion.

“Well, think about the last fight,” she told him, her head slowly turning to look him in the eye. “I didn’t do much did I?”

“That was because I told you to stay back,” Kyle said firmly. “If you had been hit by the Lesser Basilisks’ acid there wouldn’t have been much, we could’ve done to help you. Besides the earthen barricades that you made allowed Resald to avoid damage while he was casting the spell on his arrow that covered the Spitter in vines, so I’d say you helped out plenty.”

“In fact,” Kyle continued cocking his head to one side. “I think I can safely say that if you hadn’t been with us, we would’ve all died in the Dungeon when that horde of Scorprats attacked us.”

“What do you think Hal?” he asked as he noticed that his friend had pulled up next to them and was listening in on the conversation.

“Definitely, no question about it,” Hal replied instantly. “You might not have killed as many Scorprats as some of us but your ability to change our surroundings with your magic is definitely the thing that kept us alive when I was unconscious. If those walls hadn’t been there, Kyle and Sasha wouldn’t have been able to hold the Scorprats off long enough for Zerah to get to us.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Amy admitted. “So, do you guys mind if I ask you a question?”

“Go right ahead,” Kyle said glancing over at Hal who nodded in agreement.

“Of course, shall I ask Sasha to join us?” Hal asked.

“Um, maybe not yet, if I feel like I need any other opinions I’ll ask her, but I think that just asking you two will do for now,” Amy replied awkwardly. She was quite embarrassed that Kyle had even noticed that she had been stressing out about something that had been so easily dealt with, let alone Hal who she didn’t know as well so bringing in more people was just a bit much for her right now.

“I was just wondering what sort of magic you guys think I should specialise in,” Amy said.

“Well for the most part I think that’s up to you,” Kyle replied. “But if you’re asking in terms of what would be best for our party then I think that the sort of magic we’re lacking in is crowd control.”

“Yeah, something that would slow down groups of enemies would be really useful,” Hal said. Being their main melee fighter, he was happy to weigh in on the subject of their lack of true crowd control. Kyle’s ability to increase his defence or damage with his magic was useful but lowering the actual number of monsters that he had to deal with at a time would be even more useful.

“Hmm, I can get a spell called Quicksand,” Amy mentioned after a few seconds. “It doesn’t do any damage though.”

“That’s fine,” Kyle shrugged. “By the way if you want to figure out what sort of magic to specialise in, I typically bounce ideas off Claire, she’s quite interested in that sort of thing.”

“I might just do that,” Amy nodded.

The three chatted for a bit longer about various things that had happened earlier in the day trying to figure out what they had done wrong even roping Sasha into the conversation when she noticed what was going on before falling silent as Fi told them that they were approaching the area where the monsters were fighting the defenders of Greenhearth, so they stopped talking so that they could avoid getting attacked for as long as possible.

Creeping closer to the sounds of clashing metal and shouting Zerah looked back at the group and held a finger up to her lips, they were close enough now that anything louder than their heavy breathing could give their position away to any nearby monsters. So far, they had yet to encounter any of the groups sent out to find them but Zerah knew that it was likely that these groups had ended up having to pull back to reinforce the guards and Adventurers fighting the monsters.

Making their way carefully through the streets Zerah brandished her hand suddenly sending several needles hurtling into the shadows of a nearby alleyway eliciting a shriek from the shadows within which spat out a strange spiderlike creature.

“Run kids!” the gnome shouted as the thing leapt at her stabbing out with its razor-sharp legs as it hurtled towards her.

Without even waiting to acknowledge her words the students broke into a dash; they had already been discovered so now it was more important to get as close to the walls as possible where they could be seen by the people on top of them.

More of the giant spider monsters burst out of various nooks and cranny’s as they ran, trying to get at them but they were all intercepted by Zerah’s needles, Kyle ducked under the swinging leg of one of the monsters as he ran, feeling the bladed limb brush the top of his head as he ran and froze as a mental yelp echoed in his head. Glancing backwards he saw a strange white substance covering Amy, the geode seemed to be unharmed, but she was wandering over the street a bit which told Kyle that the substance was inhibiting her ability to sense her surroundings.

Reaching out with his telekinetic abilities he started tugging her in the correct direction and she quickly realised what he was doing and followed his lead.

“Fi,” he sent through his telepathic connection to his companion. “Can you go on ahead and tell someone on top of the walls that we’re under attack and they need to be ready to evacuate us?”

“I don’t know if I can get close enough without getting hit accidentally, but I’ll do my best,” his companion replied.

Kyle hesitated briefly, he was very aware of how powerful both the monsters that the people on top of the walls were attacking as well as the people themselves were, if Fi was accidentally hit by anything there was no way that she would be able to survive.

Sensing his distress Fi quickly sent another message to him through their link. “I’ll be careful. I’m less likely to be deliberately attacked than you guys and I’m a small enough target that it’d be unlikely for the defenders to attack me instead of the monsters.”

“Alright,” Kyle replied as he dropped back to take Amy by the arm and guide her down the street behind the others now that they had made it past the spider monsters that had attempted to ambush them. “But be careful, please.”

“You too,” Fi told him as she shot ahead and began weaving her way through the crowded skies above them.

“Guys, Fi’s going on ahead so we have to move fast!” Kyle said to the others as he all but dragged Amy down the street, trying to wipe the strange sticky substance that one of the spiders had covered her in off as he ran, but to no avail.

“Fi’s inside of that?” Sasha asked in horror as she stared up into the crowded sky above their heads.

“You can’t be serious!” Gloria gasped as a blast of lightning from the walls lit up the sky.

“Never mind that right now,” Ulrich said. “She’s doing this so that we can get over the walls as soon and as safely as possible. We have to keep moving.”

Ulrich was right, even though if they went too much further there was a good chance that they could get embroiled in the fighting near the base of the walls. In fact, they could already see the massive horde of monsters that seemed to be pushing towards Greenhearth despite the best efforts of the defenders.

“How much closer do you think we can get?” Theodore asked glancing back at Claire who was still unconscious on his back. It had been hard enough for the burly companion to avoid the spider things earlier and he was certain that there was no way he was getting through the melee in front of them.

A quick glance backwards told Kyle that the situation behind them wasn’t any better, in fact it was definitely worse.

“Well we can’t stay here, or we’ll be overwhelmed,” he snapped, his worry for his companion making his words harsher than normal but they served their purpose of pushing the others forwards.

Soon they were mere meters away from the crowd of m9onsters and yet they couldn’t see any of the guards or Adventurers fighting them and were forced to a halt, caught between two groups of monsters that were more than they could deal with if they fought as a group against even one of them.

As he thought this, he heard a roaring sound coming from above them looked up warily his eyes widening in shock as he saw a human-sized fireball falling out of the sky towards them. The fireball landed in the crowd of monsters in front of them with a loud explosion that wiped out a group of monsters.

As the flames cleared the identity of the fireball was revealed to be a surprisingly short figure who swung the massive halberd in its hand decapitating several more monsters as the leapt towards it, Kyle recognised this figure immediately and felt all the stress that had built up over the course of the day leave his body in an instant as he realised that everything would be alright.

Galdon the Vulcan had arrived.

Following Galdon’s explosive arrival yet another figure fell out of the sky. This figure was almost twice the height and less than half the width of the powerfully built old man, but its appearance had a similar effect on the members of the two parties as they began to float into the air suspended by a powerful invisible force.

This figure was of course Figz and the students soon floated up so that he could quickly check in on them while Galdon used a combination of fire and earth magics as well as his massive polearm to take out almost 50 monsters in mere seconds revealing the massive magical and physical power that the old man could wield.

“Good to see that you’re all safe, well mostly at least,” the mental voice of Figz said inside their heads as he looked intently at the unconscious Claire before nodding calmly as he found that she was mostly fine. “May I ask where Zerah and Malkin are?”

“Zerah’s back about a kilometre down the road but Malkin stayed behind in the Dungeon to hold off the monsters for as long as he could,” Ulrich reported.

“Well there’s nothing we can do for Malkin right now, Greenhearth and its citizens have to be our priority and attempting to rescue Malkin from the Dungeon would take more time than we can spare right now” Figz said shaking his head sadly. “But I’ll let Galdon know about Zerah, he’ll go and get her.”

Kyle nodded as he heard this, due to the time difference in the Dungeon it was difficult to say whether Malkin was alive or dead although at this point it was easy to assume the worst but as he watched Galdon summon a flood of liquid rock that flowed over a particularly large monster which screamed in pain as its flesh began to melt from its bones he knew that the elderly half-gnome would be able to save at least one of the teachers that had stayed behind to give them the best chance of making it back to Greenhearth.

“Have any of the other groups made it back?” Amy asked worriedly.

“There is only one group still unaccounted for,” Figz replied. “We haven’t heard anything from them at all so it’s likely that they are already dead. I know that sounds harsh but just take a look around, do you think that they’ve survived?”

The students had no answer for that it was hard to believe that people that they had been in classes with and talked to on an almost daily basis, even if they weren’t really friends with all the other students this still hit them all pretty hard.

“And no, I won’t be telling you which party we’ve lost,” Figz told them firmly before anyone could ask. “You don’t need to be thinking about that right now. You remember the protocol in this sort of situation, right?”

“Head to the Adventurer’s School and do whatever we’re asked by the people guarding it,” Resald answered immediately.

“Correct,” Figz replied as they started floating towards the city. “Right now, we’re managing to keep the monsters mostly at bay on the ground but as I’m sure you’ve already figured out the sky is another matter entirely.”

“So, some of us might have to help out?” Resald asked glancing at Kyle and Amy in turn who both nodded.

“That seems likely yes,” Figz admitted.

The Palnassian was obviously uncomfortable with this line of questioning which was thankfully cut off by a flock of strange monsters that seemed to be nearly all wing and mouth diving down out of the sky towards them as they rose until they were level with the Greenhearth walls.

“Don’t move,” he told the students as he created a barrier of Mental Energy that the monsters bounced off before getting struck by bolts of lightning that passed through their bodies before slamming into the ground kicking up fragments of stone or tearing through more monsters.

Seeing the instantaneous retaliation for foolish attacks upon the group that was floating through the sky towards the city walls the monsters cleared to give them space as they moved towards the walls.

“Holy crap,” Kyle muttered before realising that there was something that he had forgotten to check up on Fi.

“Hey Fi, you alright?” he sent through their link which in itself reassured him that she was safe.

“Yeah,” she replied immediately. “I’m watching you come in now.”

Sure enough a few seconds later Kyle could see his companion waiting for him on top of one of the crenulations and he relaxed entirely upon seeing that she was unharmed. With everything else that had happened today the last thing he needed was for Fi to be injured again as well.

As they landed on the wall Fi flew up and wrapped herself around his neck reassuringly. Figz had already explained that there was still one party of students and a teacher that they hadn’t been able to contact, and she knew that despite his obvious relief at seeing her safe he must be struggling with that knowledge.

As they looked out over Greenhearth with looks of horror on their faces at the destruction being wreaked on the town that had been their home for the past several months by a swarm of small flying monsters that had managed to get past the defenders on top of the wall. Several buildings had been set alight and they could see several small skirmishes between the monsters and the guards who had been positioned throughout the city to try and contain the damage.

“Right, you kids get to the Adventurer’s School,” Figz told them. “I have to stay here and help the others but there are some lower Levelled guards trying to contain the situation in the city itself so try to stay close to them.”

The group nodded their agreement and made their way down into the burning city of Greenhearth. They had made it safely back to town but from the looks of things the siege had only just begun.