Bog Standard Isekai

For the most part, Brin felt himself a natural Frenarian. He’d lived in this world for a couple years now. He adopted their culture, ate their food, and dressed in their clothes, which led him to believe that his mind sort of worked the same way theirs did.

All that fell apart in moments like this, when he came face to face with a decision that seemed completely insane and stupid, or both. Zilly and Davi weren’t stupid, and they weren’t crazy either. Zilly was impulsive, sure, but this looked like something they’d planned on together after careful deliberation. So why?

Because of the System. Because they’re grown up with it, and understood it on an instinctual level. The System gave better rewards when you risked something. A duel on a bridge over an active volcano would give better experience than a duel on flat ground. Winning a duel in the middle of a mass conscription, fighting while avoiding the eyes of ranks of soldiers sent out to arrest you would give massive experience, maybe even an Achievement.

On one hand, literally any other time would be better for this showdown. On the other hand, that made this the perfect time.

“Sorry, Brin, but we’re not taking no for an answer,” said Davi.

“This is crazy,” said Brin.

Zilly stepped forward and drew her sword. “This duel isn’t going to stop at first blood, since you only get stronger when you get wounded. The contest only ends when one team can’t keep going, or if we get caught by the press gangs. If you try to run, we’ll catch you, and if you try to surrender we’ll turn you in.”

Davi winced but didn’t countermand her.

“You both want to get drafted. Is that it?” Brin asked.

“I really don’t,” Davi answered. “But we have to be ready to risk it all, or it won’t be worth anything.”

“What Achievement do you think you’re going to get from this?” Brin asked.

“I don’t know!” Zilly said brightly.

“You’re crazy. You’re really ready to risk conscription for the chance at an Achievement you don’t even know exists?”

“Of course,” she said.

Brin should’ve expected that. They’d risked their lives time and again to hunt monsters in the forest. Compared to following him to that [Witch’s] house or onto the beach last month, this was actually a much smaller risk. Instead of betting their lives, they were only risking their futures.

He hated to admit it, but excitement was already thrumming in his veins. His mind was already at work formulating strategies. He’d shown just a hint of what his Class was capable of in his battle with Rhun, and he was eager to try out more. Most of all, he was more than ready to humble these two idiot teenagers.

He cracked his neck side to side and gave his spear a practice spin. “You know, this only works if you win. And I don’t think you can.”

“Then the Achievement will be yours. Consider it my parting gift,” Zilly answered.

Brin created several directed threads. Some of them he sent out to scour the city, in order to get an overview of what was going on in different sections of town. He made a task manager, a mouth manager, an eye for the back of his head. Most, though, he left in standby, waiting for his orders.

“So what are we waiting for?” asked Brin.

“Hogg said the impressment is going to happen tonight, right? We’ll let them signal the start of the match,” said Zilly.

Brin shook his head and decided not to tell her she was crazy again. He was beginning to sound like a broken record. “I want a different win condition. Once you two realize how completely outmatched you are, promise me you’ll give up and focus on escaping the draft.”

Zilly and Davi made eye contact and they both grinned. “Not going to happen,” said Zilly.

Brin looked back at Hogg, who was still unrecognizable in his disguise. “Can you at least help make sure they don’t get nicked?”

“Who, me?” Hogg asked in an overdone old-man voice. “I don’t know you! I’m Kidhum Bats, a humble [Carpenter].” Brin’s [Inspect] confirmed that this was a poorly dressed and low-leveled [Carpenter]. As for Jeffrey, it was hard for Brin to even remember he was there. They’d be no help.

“You guys are the worst,” said Brin. “Well, if I beat you quick enough it won’t matter. I’m not waiting for the impressment. You want to do this, then we should start n–”

Just then, a glowing red rocket rose into the air from the middle of the city, making a screeching wail and lighting up the city as bright as a bolt of lightning. The flare must’ve been a signal, because all at once, the sound of shouting men and barking dogs broke out across the city.

Luckily, his Invisible Eyes told him that none of the troops were nearby; the ones who had been assigned to arrest Zilly and Davi must still have been looking for them at the Wogan place. He didn’t have any more time to watch the city; his own fight had begun.

Main: Invisibility, please

Task Manager: Activating Invisibility

The thread had been ready, and so Brin faded out of view just as Zilly [Dashed] forwards to reach him. He easily dodged out of her path, and then focused on Davi.

Just as the [Skald] put his fingers to his strings, Brin put a field of complete silence over the entire area. Let’s see if you can use your [Bard] power on the sound of nothing.

The magics clashed, his silence against Davi’s music, and he immediately felt the Wyrd give Davi the upper hand. [Skalds] played music; and music needed to be heard.

He felt his silence spell shatter, and Davi’s song rang out. It was one he hadn’t heard before, but he knew immediately that it had been custom made for Zilly herself. Zilly’s anthem. The music was stronger than it had been before, more powerful. As a [Bard], motivating people in battle was only a side-case for their set of abilities, but as a [Skald], this was what Davi was for. The music’s power roared with an intensity Brin had never felt before, especially not on this side of it.

Maybe he could’ve formulated another argument in the Wyrd capable of beating Davi’s music, but he had no time to think about that, not with the way Zilly was moving. She seemed to have a precognitive ability to find him wherever he ran, and he only narrowly managed to keep out of the reach of her sword.

Ok, plan B.

Main: Army of Glass

Main: Hail of Darts

Task Manager: Activating Army of Glass. Hail of Darts in 7 seconds.

Mirror Images sprang up around him. Four at a time until there were twelve. Each of them covered a thin glass statue, and each statue had a real glass spear. He’d spent a lot of time tweaking these statues into something usable; he needed to be able to summon them in the span of a breath, so he’d settle on making them a paper-thin shell of glass.

The only reason to have glass at all was to hide the fact that he was an [Illusionist], so it didn’t really matter how strong it was, and like this he could summon a dozen at once. The spears weren’t any stronger, but they were sharp enough to cut straight to the bone.

Brin jumped in and stabbed at Zilly to keep her distracted while his Mirror Men were still forming. They exchanged a wild, brutal series of blows, with Zilly lashing out in every direction and unable to see him. Maybe due to Davi’s song, she came off better. She took a thin slash to the thigh, and gave him a deep gouge on his shoulder and a scratch on his forehead that he just knew was going to drip into his eye.

It didn’t matter; every wound she took slowed her down, and every wound he received only made him stronger. Already, [Battle Fury] was at fifteen percent.

The Mirror Men closed on her, and Brin stepped back. Since the glass was so thin, he could use [Shape Glass] to move them quickly, and his directed threads were doing a great job of making them move realistically. Well, no, they were kind of crap. The legs barely moved as they zoomed forward, but it was good enough for now.

Zilly looked as if she was ready to try to charge through them and keep pursuing the real Brin, but Davi’s song shifted, warning her to stay back, and she instantly obeyed, using [Dash] to make some distance.

Brin cursed. With how sharp their spears were, he had a chance to do real damage if they all hit her at once, but he saw that wasn’t going to happen. She used [Dash] to keep to the edges, picking them off one at a time. Each slash of her sword shattered another copy, exploding through their thin shells in bursts of glass that made rainbows in the dim lantern light.

Task Manager: Hail of Darts ready.

Main: Go.

Brin felt the pull on his power; the spell was formed. He grabbed the spell at the last second and directed it into the area where Zilly and Davi stood. He saw Davi turn and start running, obviously sensing the magic somehow, but that wouldn’t matter. Brin didn’t name the spell “Hail of Darts” because it was only one or two darts.

Hundreds of inch-long needles of glass poured across the entire area, and there was nowhere for the two of them to dodge. At the last second Davi turned and cradled his oud in his arms. Zilly followed suit, hiding her face and hands.

The needles poured over them, and when the two of them straightened, there were many still lodged into the skin. The damage was superficial, but that didn’t matter. Damage wasn’t the point. Wounds were. Brin’s [Battle Fury] was at 100%.

Main: Drop invisibility. Activate Disguise.

Task Manager: Disguise Activated.

He still wasn’t good enough at illusions for a real disguise, but he could make little changes, and a bunch of little changes added up. He turned his black hair into a more Frenarian light brown, turned his blue eyes brown as well, and removed all his scars. It didn’t sound like a lot, but looking into a mirror this way, Brin didn’t recognize himself. He wouldn’t remove the disguise again for the rest of the night, just in case that kingdom [Illusionist] was watching.

Zilly’s eyes darted around, not trusting that there wasn’t another illusion going on, but Brin hardly needed it anymore, not with [Battle Fury] fully charged.

He leapt at her, swinging with his spear, thrilling in the extraordinary strength and power [Battle Fury] gave him.

She dodged, and the spear cracked the stones on the ground where she’d been standing. He needed no time to redirect his movements, and followed her as she tried to roll out of the way.

She narrowly escaped being sliced apart by blocking him twice, midair, in a startling display of athleticism. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she [Dashed] backwards.

He followed. With his stats doubled, he was blindingly fast, and her [Dash] didn’t give her nearly as much space as she thought it would.

Every time she finished a [Dash], he caught up with her, forcing her to parry or block before [Dashing] again. The first two times, he powered through her block and cut her forearm and then grazed her ribs. The next two times, she blocked completely, narrowly deflecting him from cutting something important. The strike after that, she blocked hard enough that his spear rang like a bell and bounced to the side.

Something was wrong. He swept his spear down at her again, but this time she deflected it easily. The next two strikes were stronger still, and now she was pressing him back.

He was certain now. Whether it was Davi’s music or some new Skill, each of her strikes were stronger than the one before.

He pulled on his light magic and cast the entire area in darkness while he backed up and tried to think of his next plan.

Something struck his magic like a physical blow, lightening the area for a split second despite his best efforts. Some kind of bomb? A flashbang! Zilly must’ve had one custom made. After all, he’d given her the idea.

He felt the alchemical magic war with his own illusion magic, and while his illusion had the upper hand, the burst of power and surprise gave away his location for only a fraction of a second.

The split second of light gave Zilly more than enough to charge him, and he deflected her blow, letting her sudden titanic strength push him back and away from her. What Skill was that? An [Overload] evolution, maybe?

Well, even with that, he still had the upper hand. He just had to avoid letting their weapons touch.

Too risky. In a split decision, he decided to run.

Main: Turn Invisibility back on

Task Manager: Activated.

Already, curtains were starting to open and people were starting to peek through to see what was happening. This was the last place he wanted to be if he was going to disguise his Class.

Zilly and Davi had given him an advantage when they told him that if he ran they’d follow. If he kept going here, he gave himself a sixty percent chance of winning. Good odds, but why not make them better? If these two were really going to do this, then he would make them earn it.

Newly invisible again, he turned and ran.

Zilly followed him, of course, and Davi followed her. He turned down left down one street, and right down another, but they stayed hot on his heels, not missing a beat. He wondered what Zilly was tracking him with; it was probably heat sense. [Rouges] could sense heat almost as well as he could see light.

He headed towards the sound of shouting. Only a couple streets down, he found them.

Men in blue and white uniforms, wearing polished breastplates and helmets and carrying truncheons marched down the street in a line, while specialists with a wide assortment of weapons went from house to house, sometimes bearing [Rare]-Classed people out again bound and gagged.

Brin ran straight around the line of soldiers and then straight down the middle of the street. He panicked a bit when he saw one of the doorbusters flinch and stare straight at him, but the man shrugged and turned back to the house he was invading.

Brin smiled in relief, and also in success. There was no way Zilly and Davi would follow him this way.

He passed the press gang, and then kept running, giving himself some space between them. He had no problem using them as an obstacle, but he didn’t want to press his luck.

After he felt he was safely away, he checked back for Zilly and Davi.

Main: Show me Zilly and Davi. Screen 1

Task Manager: Showing on screen 1

A little screen opened up on the bottom left hand side of his field of vision, showing him the view from the Invisible Eye that had been following his friends.

Zilly and Davi were still running. They’d gone all the way around the press gang, and now Zilly was looking straight up. No, her eyes were closed. She was sniffing. Suddenly, she changed direction, and now she was headed straight for him.

Unfair. She could smell him.

Brin scanned the horizon, the night sky perfectly clear to his darkvision. He saw smoke rising from the eastern section of the city; that would be the best place to lose someone with a good sense of smell.

He started running again. Not that he meant to lose them completely; that would be anti-climactic. Once they didn’t know where he was, he’d be able to launch a perfect ambush.

Actually, why not get that started now?

Main: Javelin, please

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Task Manager: Summoning

He felt his mouth move with the Language and soon he had a nice, long javelin in his hands. He decided to actually launch the thing himself; directed threads could do rote tasks, but for getting real power out of the Language it was best if he used his normal mind.

Davi and Zilly ran from a side street two blocks down. This was the perfect range.

“”

The javelin launched from his arm like a cannon blast. He’d made it invisible, so there should be no way for them to see it coming. For an instant he felt sort of guilty. That was going to do real damage, possibly lethal damage if Zilly was unlucky.

He faintly heard Davi strum a warning in his song, communicating the danger faster than words. Brin could hear it, too; Davi was saying that he heard something magical activate in the Language, and since he didn’t know what it was, they both needed to dodge right now.

They both rolled in separate directions, and Brin’s javelin exploded like an artillery shell right at Zilly’s feet, missing her.

He cast a spell to silence himself, and then tried again, but again they both dodged. Davi could hear the Language, even if he didn’t make a sound.

Well, Brin had more tricks up his sleeve. He turned and ran back towards the fire.

He went over walls and crossed rooftops. He leapt across alleyways and climbed up balconies, making a mad flight across the city while treating the buildings as his own private jungle gym. When Zilly and Davi had to jump across something, he threw a javelin at them to hit them midair. When they had to climb up a garden fence to follow, he pelted them with glass bullets. They always seemed to be able to block or evade, but several times their dodge forced them to fall to the ground, giving him some more space.

At a particularly windy street, the press of soldiers was too thick for him to wade through even while invisible, forcing him to him turn back. This let Zilly and Davi catch up, squaring off on a wide, flat rooftop. Soldiers marched on the street below, and might’ve spotted them if any of them looked up.

Davi kept his oud silent and instead approached Brin with his quarterstaff in his hands, Zilly wrapping around the side.

Brin lifted his spear, and they charged. The back-and-forth was quiet and intense. No one wanted to alarm the guards below, so they didn’t block or parry, and instead aimed for strikes that would hit flesh instead of the other person’s weapons.

Brin barely kept his head from being knocked into next week by Davi’s quarterstaff, and stook a couple thin slashes from Zilly’s shortsword. Again, this was too risky. He created a Mirror Image to give himself a distraction that lasted a fraction of a second, and used that time to start running across the rooftops again.

As soon as the lines of soldiers thinned out enough that he thought he could get away with it, he leapt down from the roof and darted through them, giving himself more space between himself and his pursuers.

He ran. The smoke got thicker, and the noise got louder.

The conscription became more violent the further he went through the town. Crowds of angry men and women took to the sheets, shouting at the soldiers and barring their path. When he got to the source of the smoke, he found that a full riot had broken out. Rare Classers and Commoners alike were clashing with soldiers in the street. He saw dead and dying citizens on the ground, and many of the soldiers had abandoned nets and truncheons in favor of swords and axes.

A fire was spreading. There was an inn, one of the expensive ones, that was completely ablaze, and it was spreading fast to the surrounding buildings.

“Who’s there?” a man shouted, and Brin realized in alarm that it was an officer from the army, pointing at him with his truncheon.

How? He should be invisible! He noticed that the smoke was swirling around him in a distinct person-shape, outlining his figure.

Main: Copy Light, on one of the soldiers. Not the officer!

Task Manager: Activating Copy Light.

Brin used his illusion magic to create a thick cloud of smoke all around him, and then let it clear when he felt the Copy Light spell settle around him.

This spell would make him look just like one of the soldiers, but it wasn’t perfect. Brin wasn’t practiced enough with this to make the illusion follow his movements; it was static. Hopefully in the confusion it would be enough.

“Two Rares! That direction! A [Bard] and a [Warrior]! They’re coming this way!” Brin pointed, and winced internally as the arm on his illusion stayed in place and his real arm poked out the side.

In the smoke and darkness, it was good enough, because the entire press gang turned to face the other way just as Zilly and Davi crossed the street a block down.

“After them!” called the officer.

If they really did get caught, Brin would do his best to free them later, but the two of them getting arrested would be the perfect end to this fight.

For his own part, Brin kept running. The smoke had been a mistake; he’d need to practice his invisibility in different conditions to make sure this type of thing didn’t happen again.

His path away from the press gangs took him towards the thickest of the flames; people here had completely forgotten about the impressment and everyone was working together to try to form bucket lines to contain the blaze. He heard calls for [Waterers] and [Earth Movers], and no one cared about the dark shape darting through the smoke.

Until someone did. Brin ducked just in time to avoid a surprise attack that would’ve scalped him, and then he heard Davi’s song, urging his opponent onwards. Somehow they’d caught up with him.

Brin used his illusions to make the fires brighter and the smoke darker, drawing shouts of alarm from the people rushing to put the fire out.

Zilly zeroed in on him regardless. Her face had streaks of sweat running lines down her soot-blackened skin and her eyes were red but locked onto his invisible form.

Brin threw a blast of discordant noise into Davi’s ears, disrupting his song. He jumped towards Zilly, dodged her sword rather than blocking, and kicked her in the chest.

The kick landed perfectly and launched her into the burning building, straight through a wall that had been weakened by flame. Davi shouted her name, and Brin used that moment of distraction to start running again.

With the Invisible Eye still watching them, he saw Zilly burst out of the burning building again, coughing and spitting mad, but they’d lost his trail, giving him more time.

He ran on, away from the fires. As the smoke died down, the streets became thick with soldiers. Instead of just one line, he found a place where they’d made an actual barricade, with two rows of soldiers and a line of archers behind that. This was their main base, and he saw a row of new recruits for the war. They were all lying face down on the ground, some in manacles and others beaten unconscious.

With the captives all together like that, Brin noticed that only about half of them were actually Rare. There were [Herbalists], [Surgeons], [Potion Mixers], and [Midwives], any Class that might have some sort of medical side to it. He also saw a few [Vagrants] in the mix, which was impressive considering the [Hunters] hadn’t even been able to catch them.

He couldn’t go towards the encampment, obviously, and the only other way was toward the beach. Good, that was the perfect place for their final showdown. If Zilly and Davi made it through and found him again, that would probably be the best place for him to avoid watching eyes. No one would think to escape to the sea, not when the army controlled the harbor, and the beaches here weren’t crowded. Rather than rush to build beach houses, the well-to-do of Frenaria thought the sea shore was a rather trashy place to live.

Brin dashed onto the black sand of the beach, turned, and wasted no time setting up. He split off a conscious thread, ordering it to think about how to disguise their fight from the view of the city, and then used his main mind to start summoning projectiles. Once the glass was in place it would be a lot easier to move it if he didn’t also have to summon it first. How much of his mana should he spend on this? He was already down about half of his reserves. He decided he could spend half of what was left on summoning the projectiles, and he’d leave a quarter for the final fight.

He got to work. Darts, spears, bullets, and javelins. Arrows, shields, and the empty shells he could use as Mirror Men. Everything and anything, all in preparation.

His conscious thread came back fairly quickly. The dark ocean was a perfect backdrop; if he just put up a big screen and projected the black beach against a dark ocean, it would be nearly invisible unless someone was right on top of it. He assigned a directed thread to make the image and maintain it, then went back to creating projectiles.

It took Zilly and Davi enough time to catch up that Brin started to worry that his [Battle Fury] might run out of time. He had five minutes left on the clock, and had made all the projectiles that he wanted, when the two of them finally appeared from behind the shanties that were the closest buildings to shore.

No one spoke, and Dave hadn’t started playing yet. For a moment, they simply stood there watching, waiting. Apparently, they wanted him to make the first move.

He shrugged, and gestured with his hand and a glass spear rose into the air. At the same time, a line of ten illusory glass spears appeared alongside it. He pointed forward and launched them all forward. Sure, he’d get more power if he spent some time chanting the Language, but mostly he just wanted to see what they would do.

Davi stepped forward. He tossed his oud behind him, and spun his quarterstaff to shatter the only real spear, while all the others flew to either side.

Zilly caught the Oud and to his surprise, began to play. She wasn’t as good as Davi of course, and honestly wasn’t even as good as Brin, but she carried the tune well enough for Davi to activate his magic through.

The [Skald] started singing along, striking Brin square on with the emotional force. This time, Davi’s song was empowering himself while at the time singing fear and discouragement to Brin. It was an extremely complex use of power, and not something Davi could’ve done a few short months ago. It seemed Davi wanted to test himself just as much as Zilly did.

Brin assigned his Task Manager with launching the projectiles, because he was going to need his full concentration for this.

Spears, darts, and bullets flew at Davi. He deflected many of them, and charged through the rest, ignoring the superficial wounds.

Brin stepped forward, and for a moment it was just like every spar against Davi. The strength, the speed, the overwhelming experience and creativity; all of it came together and forced Brin to bring out everything he had just to stay in the fight. The song pressed against him, urging him to fail, to give up, convincing him that he was clumsy and that he was going to make a mistake.

Davi landed a strike against his side that made his ribs creak. Brin retaliated fiercely, but Davi batted that away and struck in him the shin making him want to jump on one foot from the pain. He couldn’t seem to get an edge; he couldn’t even imagine what it would take to win here.

He roared, pushing back with his mental resistance, trying to clear the invading emotions from his mind. He swung harder, moved faster, cut quicker, and to his surprise, landed a punishing blow against Davi’s block that sent the larger boy stumbling back.

He was… he was stronger than Davi. He was a lot stronger than Davi, especially with [Battle Fury]. Why was he so surprised? It felt like a mental block was finally falling off his brain. Somehow he’d sort of begun to think of Davi being stronger as a fundamental force in this world, and now that he realized it wasn’t true, all the other mental barriers were swept away.

Davi had been messing with his movements. The song wasn’t only saying “You’re going to lose”. It was also saying “You’re going to lose, but step here to delay the inevitable.”

Now that he could pinpoint what was happening, he could ignore it. He launched into a set of strikes that made Davi move back as fast as he could walk. He feinted, then swung around to strike Davi’s leg, leaving a deep gash. He stabbed, and Davi didn’t parry completely out of the way, letting Brin score his shoulder.

He swung around and knew his next strike would end the fight. All at once, Zilly was there, blocking his spear with a ringing strike. Whatever had each of her strikes hitting harder than the one before was still in effect, and the blow made his fingers ache through the haft of his spear.

Brin sent a flurry of projectiles at them both. Zilly [Dashed] out of the way, and Davi scrambled back, grabbing his oud from where Zilly had left it in the sand.

Main: Noise!

Task Manager: Activating.

Brin’s magic created a concentrated sphere of deafening, thunderous noise in a bubble around Davi’s head. He silenced it around the bubble, though, so that only Davi could hear it.

It worked; since the noise wasn’t interfering with Davi’s music, his [Bard] magic had nothing to argue with. Brin wasn’t disrupting Davi’s performance, after all.

Davi grimaced in pain and the music died on his lips. He fell to a knee, pressing one hand against his ear, but keeping the other on his oud.

For Zilly, Brin didn’t dare try to deafen her, so instead he silenced himself. Then, rather than turning invisible, he opted to blind her instead. He summoned light to shine the brightest beam of sunshine he could straight into her eyes. She snapped them shut, then put an arm over them for good measure.

He activated four Mirror Men, and pushed [Shape Glass] into them to start heating up their bodies. Hopefully it would interfere with Zilly’s ability to tell them apart.

He ran forward with his Mirror Men, letting them come at her from the front while he stabbed at her from the back.

She jumped, clearing his front-most Mirror man with a front handspring. She kicked him from behind, shattering him, and then plucked his spear from his broken hand and blocked the next Mirror Man’s strike, shattering both weapons.

Brin stepped forward and swiped at her from the side, but she slid underneath his spear, turned it into a roll, and plucked her sword off the ground on the way up. All of that with her eyes closed.

Davi’s song began to ring out. Brin checked, but no, he hadn’t let off with the noise. Davi was singing through it, despite the fact that he couldn’t hear himself, and his song rang out loud and clear.

This time, Brin recognized the song. It was the Battle of Hammon’s Bog. How dare he use that song against Brin? Out of all the music Davi could play, that one was supposed to be his.

Zilly sliced at him, and he dodged. The fight became less like a fencing match and more like a game of keep-away, as Brin was forced to avoid all of her strikes. Even so, Zilly’s [Dash] gave her enough maneuverability that he was forced to block, and sure enough every time he did her blows were even stronger than before.

He needed to turn the tide.

Davi’s song was urging Zilly to greater strength; Brin was sure that if he could stop the music he’d be able to win. He started to chant in the Language, picking up more of the projectiles he’d prepared and filling them with power.

Zilly [Kicked], trading the wild strike for another slice to her shin, but it did what she’d needed it to. All the magic he’d poured into the glass was wasted and it fell back into the sand.

He had to try to mess up Davi’s music in a more direct way. He put two sound bombs next to Zilly’s ears and made them explode. The resulting bang was so loud it made his own ears ring, but Zilly just shook it off and jumped at him again.

Unfair. Shouldn’t high-perception types be weaker against that type of thing? He’d have to ask her how she resisted that once this was over, but whatever the case it was clear that Davi’s music was still empowering her.

He started adding to the music instead. He added a drumbeat, and a bassline. Davi didn’t notice. Of course he didn’t, he couldn't hear. Subtly, the music started turning Brin’s way, empowering him as well. And it should. This was his song!

Brin grinned and then added some ferocious dubstep beats to the music, and Davi kept on playing as if nothing was happening. Now that Brin was part of the song, he was part of the emotional power and he could redirect it to a small degree. He’d practiced this with Davi a bunch of times.

He tried to wrest control of the song away from Davi, but it was like trying to redirect a river with paper straw. He got a little, but not enough.

Arise ye Bogland men, go to!

I press ahead with comrades true,

I shall not dodge nor shift mine stance,

With friends beside me I advance.

Despite the lack of purchase Brin kept straining against it anyway. But when Davi got to the end of the verse, he suddenly felt a huge shift in power. When Davi was singing, he had impregnable control. But when he got to the part of the song with no lyrics, suddenly there was an opening.

Brin kept the baseline intact, but then only added the dubstep sounds because electronic-sounding music was much easier to create on the fly.

When Brin had partial control of the song, he turned the music against Zilly, and struck out at her with his spear. The vibration from the strike ran through her entire body, forcing her to a knee. Success. The Skill that was making every strike stronger than the last was Davi’s Skill; he could give someone that ability through song. And when Brin took control of the song, even if only for a moment, it reset the counter.

They raged back and forth. When Davi sang, Zilly grew stronger and stronger. When the singing paused, Brin took her back down to the baseline. They were both tiring, but Zilly was getting worse. Even when she was empowered, her swings started to get sloppy. She stopped using [Dash], [Kick], and [Overload], probably finally out of Mana.

Brin was dangerously low on Mana as well. He didn’t have enough to shoot damaging projectiles, so he pivoted to something else. Every time he got the chance, he scooped a bullet or javelin up off the ground, put just enough Mana into it to make it sticky, and then threw it onto Zilly’s clothes where it latched in place.

It wasn’t tying her down, but it had to be heavy.

The song ended. Brin shot a glance to Davi, but he was still standing strong, a look of annoyance on his face. He strummed, and then started to play again. A different song.

“And these were the lives and times of the patriarchs of Fellgrande. Anat begat Wushel who rained for eighty years. He in turn begat Marsha who reigned for twenty-four…”

The litany of names and dates could barely be considered a song, but there was no pause and no instrumental breaks. There would be no more chances for Brin to take control of the music again.

Brin sighed, and determined to do the one thing he hadn’t tried yet. Hadn’t Rhun already shown him how to beat Zilly? He should’ve thought of this first.

He dropped his spear, ran forward, and tackled Zilly to the ground. She’d been confident, noticing at the same time that Davi’s song had lost its flaw and was moving forward when Brin hit her. She drove her sword deep into his back as they fell, but they landed hard and it flew from her grip.

He wasn’t a proficient wrestler by any means, but she was more tired than he was, and he had another advantage on her. Brin pushed every last ounce of glass magic he could into the glass he’d attached from her, binding her in place.

It was dumb luck that he found a discarded blade of glass within reaching distance. He picked it up and pressed it to the skin on her throat.

“Surrender.”

She stopped struggling. The music stopped. Zilly’s face was pale as she looked up at him with wide eyes. She wasn’t red-faced or angry this time. All he saw in her features was the same exhaustion he felt himself, with an extra helping of despair.

Something whacked him hard on the top of the head.

“Bonk,” said Davi, holding his quarterstaff.

“Ow! Wait! Shoot! I totally forgot about you! Does that mean this is a draw?”

Davi put his finger in his ear. “What?”

Right, he’d been shooting deafening noise straight into Davi’s ears for several minutes now. The hearing loss wouldn’t be permanent; another benefit of high Vitality.

He got off Zilly, thought about standing up, and then rolled to the side onto his back. He was so tired, too tired to even do something about the blood oozing from his back into the sand. Hopefully [Scarred, but Healing] would take care of it?

“I said, is it a tie?” Brin said, mouthing each word carefully.

Davi shook his head, still not understanding.

“No. It’s your win. You had a knife to my throat. Davi never would’ve hit you if he actually thought you’d do it,” Zilly said numbly.

Congratulations! You have earned a new Achievement!

Menace

You have fought a duel to the bitter end in a time of great civil unrest, while flouting all laws and authorities.

You have greater resistance to wide-range mental manipulation. City Skills are less effective on you, should you choose to resist. You have an increased ability to detect when you are being affected by a City Skill.

Strange that the Achievement didn’t say whether he had won or lost. Did Zilly and Davi get the same Achievement? He thought they did from the way that their eyes were scanning the empty air.

Did they notice that it didn’t say who had won? He rather hoped that their Achievement did tell them that they’d won. He’d gone all out because it would’ve been an insult to do otherwise, but he had the fear that they needed to have won this duel if the three of them were going to be friends in the future.

Jeffrey arrived, putting a hand on Davi’s shoulder. “What a beautiful sound. Alas, we’ll need to leave now if we’re to avoid the recruitment. When that riot is contained, they’ll be able to bring their full force to bear in picking up any stragglers. We’ll need to be gone before then.”

Davi looked down at Brin, looking embarrassed. “I can’t join the army. I can’t do that to my parents.”

“I know,” said Brin. “Get out of here.”

“Just promise me you’ll still remember us little people when you’re out there making it big,” Davi said with false cheer.

“I’m already big,” said Brin.

“I guess you are.”

Hogg arrived next, and started bandaging Zilly’s wounds. She shrugged him off, wearily scooped her sword off the ground, and then trudged away from the beach. Only when she got to the street did she pause, as if she’d forgotten something.

“Goodbye, Brin.”

Brin tried to think of something to say. He had too much to say, and couldn't get any of it out. By the time he figured out how to start, Zilly was already gone.

He followed her with an Invisible Eye, watching as she went back to the barricade and turned herself in. Since she volunteered, they didn’t give her a beating, put her in manacles, or even take away her sword. But she still ended up face down on the ground with the rest of the recruits.

“Roll over,” Hogg said. “I need to seal that wound on your back, and I’m not using a Healing potion for this. Then we should get out of here. Unless of course you were thinking of joining Zilly?”

“No,” Brin answered. “Let’s get out of here.”