Mage Tank-Chapter 276: Biiiiiirdmaaaaaaan!

I still had Reveal transmitting to the party when I felt the hammerhead’s soul pull away from us, allowing Varrin to get an instant understanding of what I wanted to do. Without any other prelude, I used Shortcut to take the pair of us to the top of the falling craft. Varrin tucked his arms beneath the large metal loop that the hammerhead had been using to grip the vehicle, catching the slightly drool-covered bar in the crook of his elbows.

The big guy flew forward, easily hefting the cabin, pulling us out of our dive, and getting us back up to speed. We’d replaced the elephant-sized falcon that had abandoned us in a couple of seconds, and our Ravvenblaq stand-in was a decidedly more handsome type of bird. He’d be a lot faster as well.

Both Pio and Guar were still atop the cabin, their boots tucked into smaller metal loops that helped keep them in place against the wind and movement. Baltae swept in close as well, and I pointed at myself, then at the three of them, and then down at the cabin below. I had no idea if they understood what I was trying to get across, but Pio nodded, and I activated Shortcut while trying to bring the three of them along with me.

They accepted the teleport, and the four of us appeared back inside the craft, where it was starting to get pretty crowded again.

Pio looked up at the ceiling. “Is… Lord Ravvenblaq now carrying us?” she asked.

“He sure is,” I said.

“What in the hells is his Strength score?”

“Pretty sure he just got it to seventy.”

“S-seventy?” stuttered Baltae. “Why would he place half of his points in one attribute?”

Tavio stood from his place next to the pilot and turned towards us. “I doubt that Lord Ravvenblaq has placed half of his points into Strength,” he said. “But the reasoning for his attribute spread is immaterial at the moment. Sergeant Baltae, can you identify the phenomenon we just experienced?”

“The unusual pressure waves?” asked Baltae, eliciting a nod from Tavio. The mage’s floating grimoire began flipping wildly through its pages while Baltae looked thoughtful. “There is nothing that matches it exactly within the unclassified sections of the Imperial Library.”

“You just read through an entire library?” I asked, unable to help myself.

“I have most of it memorized,” Baltae replied, matter-of-factly. “As for the rest of it, yes. In regard to the pulses, given how they impacted the nearby mana monsters, the effect resembles a variety of alpha-type vocalizations.”

“Assembly calls?” asked Tavio.

“Maybe,” said Baltae. “Needless to say, the scale of what we just observed is much larger than normal.”

Pio shook her head. “It affected multiple species,” she said. “Silica Swifts and hammerheads do not flock together, nor do they share territory.”

“They are both avian monster types,” said Baltae. “They both originate from the Forest. Regardless of how many similarities they do or do not share, you cannot deny that they are both now migrating in the same direction.”

Tavio made a disgruntled chittering noise. “There are Delver abilities that could be responsible as well,” he said. “Let us hope that is not the case. A Delver who can command this number of mana monsters from many miles away would be a much greater threat than an undocumented alpha with broadly applicable vocalizations.” He then gestured at me. “There is also the possibility of an avatar, but we have no evidence that is the case, nor any profiles on an avatar with this type of ability.”

I was glad that Tavio was the one to put that thought to words. I didn’t want my group to become the party that cried “Avatar.”

“Orders?” asked Pio.

Tavio looked to me. “How fast can Lord Ravvenblaq fly while carrying this thing?”

“Several times faster than the hammerhead, assuming the cabin can hold itself together,” I said. “Honestly, he might not even notice the weight.”

Xim added, “Even if this thing falls apart, we can swap to the Closet-harness method.”

“I’d prefer to keep my dignity in front of our hosts,” I said. “And I’m betting that between Baltae and Etja, they can keep this rig in one piece.”

“All right,” said Tavio. “Arlo, please have Lord Ravvenblaq bring us level with the Silica Swifts and match their speed.” Varrin and I were still linked up through Reveal, so we immediately started accelerating. Tavio’s eyes flicked upward for a second before he continued. “Everyone who can engage with flying enemies will cull the flock as quickly as possible, which I am requesting your party’s assistance with as well. I will also accept your offer to connect our slate through the System’s network. Once the Swifts are dealt with, we will reevaluate based on what we learn through the slate, but I expect we will need to haul our tails towards Krimsim as fast as possible.”

“Sir,” Pio acknowledged with a nod.

“Happy to help,” I said, before swapping to psychic comms with Grotto. “Paying attention to all that?”

[I have a sub-core continuously monitoring all of your activities and biological functions. Even if I actively filtered the information, it would take milliseconds to ingest it.]

“Right. Anyway, mind giving these guys an uplink?”

[I do, but given that you have already offered the Littans this solution, I will oblige.]

“Thanks, bud.”

There was a startled shout from up front. “Major!” said Lieutenant Augustin. “I am being targeted by a psychic attack of some kind!”

“Grotto…”

[It is not an attack! Attacks deal damage. I am simply using the most convenient route to establish a connection to their slate.]

“That’s just Grotto!” I shouted back to the pilot. “Sorry, he can be a little bit…”

“Of an asshole?” suggested Xim.

“He’s using your brain to access the slate,” I said. Tavio squinted at me, and I raised my hands. “Hey, I didn’t ask him to do it that way.”

“I no longer have control of our slate, Major!”

“Stay calm, Lieutenant,” said Tavio. “If you start losing health, or if any sensitive information is being accessed, let me know.”

[As if they could tell that I was accessing ‘sensitive information’.] I felt a hint of scheming through our psychic link. [Would you like for me to access any of their sensitive information?]

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Please play nice.”

[Very well. I will refrain from engaging in light espionage, but only because you asked politely.]

I pretended that Grotto didn’t just inquire as to whether I wanted to commit any international crimes and turned to my group.

“Anybody want to stay down here?” I asked. Nuralie looked a little hesitant, but everyone was on board for some bird slaughter. I shot Captain Pio a questioning glance.

“I will remain below,” she said. “Baltae, Guar, assist Fortune’s Folly outside.”

Guar shifted his hammer on his shoulder. “My grandpa used to take me dove hunting as a pup,” he said. “This is making me nostalgic.”

“Noted,” I said, then teleported all six of us back outside without waiting for any more childhood anecdotes. I briefly used Gracorvus to stabilize myself while tucking my feet into a pair of bootholds I’d seen the Littans using to keep from getting blown away. Madel was still cruising through the birds, taking them down at a much more casual pace than she had been. The Swifts would attack when she got close, but were no longer swarming. Varrin already had us flying close to one flock, and I quickly started assigning targeting priority.

“Nuralie, focus on distant stragglers and small groups. Xim, use Ignite where they’re most crowded to spread the love around. Etja, kill anything at range that the two of them aren’t killing. Varrin, I’m gonna turn this birdless birdplane into a weapon of violence against birds, so feel free to ram us into some.”

I withdrew one of my Acacia Wands of Elemental Reservoir and used it as a spell focus for casting Elemental Barrier, granting the spell a small damage buff. I selected the Cold damage type since it seemed to work out well for Madel, and it triggered my Arcane Geometry evolution to let me shape the spell to flow around my allies for free, keeping them safe from its effects.

Then, I went through a rotation of additional mana shapes, exploiting their range conversions to give the skill a massive boost to its size. Mystical Magic gave me some improved efficiency when shaping this way, but it still inflated the spell’s cost from twenty mana up to one hundred and thirty-five. The trade-off was that the spell now had four times its normal radius.

Usually, I’d consider this an egregious waste of mana, but Elemental Barrier’s primary weakness of being stationary was negated since I could slap it down onto the cabin itself. Elemental Barrier was also a fire-and-forget type of spell. Once I put it out there, it didn’t take any upkeep to maintain other than one instance of focus, which I was happy to dedicate towards giving us an endless flying AoE of frosty death.

I activated the spell, and for sixty-eight feet in all directions, the air was filled with pulsing waves of lethal cold. It fully encompassed the cabin and even caught a few nearby Swifts when it activated, smashing them out to the barrier’s edges and shattering their crystalline forms. The chunks fell away like glittering lumps of hail.

“Oh, also, the hammerhead is Littan military property, so we should definitely avoid killing it. Watch your crossfire.”

Guar observed the pulsing barrier surrounding us for a moment, holding out an arm and watching it curl around his body to avoid him. He grinned, then let the wind carry him to the back of the birdplane, snagging a pair of bootholds before he started hucking giant golden hammers at anything that came within his range. Baltae went back to his normal point-defense circuit, but he had to fly a little farther out since my Barrier took up all the space he was originally guarding. Madel was still out there hacking away at shit, and then the rest of my crew got involved.

Varrin hit the gas and took the plane directly through a nearby flock, crashing through them with Elemental Barrier. The spell pulsed in response, shattering the birds and casting the fragments aside. Xim dropped Judgment on a more distant group, the crimson column piercing through the flock from top to bottom and beginning a chain reaction as her Ignite began to spread, then she immediately dropped Judgment on the next crowd of birds.

Nuralie had her feet tucked into a pair of loops like myself, but the rest of her body above the ankle was translucent as she made herself incorporeal to avoid being kicked around by the wind. She sniped at stragglers, a steady rhythm of arrows unerringly seeking their targets and dropping them in one hit. Meanwhile, Etja kept herself stable with Siphon while she continuously fired off a pair of death beams, which exploded when they hit their target, disintegrating everything nearby.

I had my hammer out, prepared to start throwing a rain of duplicates, but as I watched the massacre, I let it drop to my side. There was no reason to waste the stamina. Baltae eventually had a similar realization and came to land next to me on the plane, locking himself in place with Telekinesis.

We watched the absolute destruction of the Swifts in silence for a moment. That is, we watched it amidst the deafening roar of wind tearing past us at peak hurricane speeds, but no words were exchanged. Eventually, Baltae tapped the side of his helm and made an inquisitive gesture. I asked Grotto to add him to a psychic channel.

“On a scale from one to ten, how serious is your party being right now?” he asked.

“Hmm. I’d give this a three?” I thought back to him.

He crossed his arms and tilted his head to one side. “What does a ten look like?”

“Given how much we’ve improved recently, I have no fucking clue.”

“I see. Perhaps if I stick around long enough, we will get to witness it together.”

“Careful what you wish for, Sergeant Baltae,” I thought back to him.The man chuckled. He may not have realized I was being serious.

“If I may ask,” he thought, “why does the System display Level 16 when I inspect you, when that is clearly not the case?”

“That’s an interesting way to phrase that question,” I replied. “Historically, people just ask, ‘How are your attributes so high?!’”

“That is the crux of the issue, yes. Lord Ravvenblaq appears to have a Speed of at least 40 based on how fast we are moving and other factors. If he also has a Strength of 70 as you have said, then that would leave only thirty-six points for him to distribute elsewhere. However, he also appears to have a rather high Agility score based on–”

“Let me stop you there,” I thought to the mage. “I trust that you’ve got plenty of evidence gathered to support your theory, and I’m happy to confirm it. We’ve got more attributes than we should for Level 16. As for why our Level still says 16, it’s more or less the correct number based on how the System tracks Levels, which is different from how most people believe the System tracks Levels.”

“Ah. The typical method is by total attributes gained…” Baltae replied, trailing off in thought. “But it also corresponds to total Delves undertaken. Delves are the only known way to gain attribute points, but if that were not the case, then one could undertake Delves to gain Levels, while gaining attributes externally without increasing those Levels, thus resulting in greater attribute scores than expected for any given Delver Level.”

“Hey, you got it on the first try.”

“Curious. I wonder what Delver Level is intended to measure, then. Experience?”

“At this point, it almost feels like an intentional misdirect,” I replied. “For example, this is my Delve record.” I sent him the part of my status screen that showed a breakdown of the Delves I’d undertaken.

Delver Level: 16

Delve Record: 16 Platinum (modified from 10)

Special Delves: 2

“What is this modifier?” he asked.

“The second Special Delve we did gave us six Levels by the end of it. We’ve only done ten actual Platinum Delves, but our Level still says 16. That doesn’t follow the total Delves to total Levels formula. If anything, Delver Level is a record of the quantity of mana infusions you’ve received directly from the System.”

“Fascinating.” Baltae went silent for a few seconds while the bird slaughter continued around us.

“Not going to ask how we did it?”

He glanced up from his pondering. “That feels like a useless question. Either you have no desire to share the method, or it is something that is not widely applicable. Otherwise, why would you not distribute the process? Your party seems to be quite open about what others would keep as closely guarded secrets.”

“You’re right, it’s impractical,” I replied. “One method is extremely difficult and dangerous. The second method is extremely dangerous, difficult, and expensive, but… we might be figuring out a way around that.” Baltae nodded, but didn’t press the issue, which I found refreshing. I decided to change the topic and see if Baltae could help me with one of the problems I’d been working on. “Say, do you know of any good Intelligence-based healing skills?”