Something was wrong. Just two minutes into our five minute journey back to Edgewood High, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck doing the danger dance.
The snow was coming down as ghostly flakes too small to be felt, but there was a lot of it and the wind was whipping it up into a howling blizzard. The blinding tempest gave the barely recognisable frozen wasteland that used to be my neighbourhood a disturbing vibe.
The cold was already biting at my exposed skin, stripping away any heat I had and leaving it both numb and aching with pain. As the wind tugged and shoved at us, it grabbed my hair, ears, and the remains of my jacket and whipped them all over the place. The one metaphorical ray of sunshine that my bunny ears were resistant to aching from the cold, since they were big and fluffy.
I tried to keep my eyes peeled for threats, but my vision just kept tunnelling. Second by second, the lethargy of fading adrenaline was taking hold. Each icy breath I took made me dream of a warm bath and a mug of tea. I doubt we had any tea left at the school by now, though.
“What was that?” someone yelled, their words riding the wind in a way that made it difficult to figure out who was talking.
Judging by the way the medic was pointing out into the unrelenting cold evening, I guessed it was her. Hold on. Evening? It couldn’t have been eight or so hours already, could it?
“There it is again!” she exclaimed, switching the location she was pointing at.
When I looked over, I couldn’t see anything but an abandoned car outside some sort of store. What did she see? Wait… inside the store, that shadow... it moved. Oh god, it moved and it looked all kinds of wrong!
I caught a glimpse of something waist height, with an uncomfortable number of stick-thin legs, glowing white eyes, and talons. One second it was there, staring at us, and the next—
A blur of movement. Black chitin and a viciously barbed hook darted out of the snow right at my face. It was pure instinct, but my hand moved faster than I’d have ever thought possible and batted the thing away at the last second.
A scream of icy rage filled the night, and the thing attacked again. It was long and thin—A tail, I think—and gods but it was fast. I made an attempt to grab it while I dodged the strike, but someone’s hand found mine instead, and I was pulled away at a run.
I chanced a look and saw Chloe pulling me towards the rear wall of Edgewood high. Why the hell was she dragging me? If we just stood and fought, we could probably take this thing! It was obviously an ambush predator. Chances were it came to a stand up fight—
My stomach flipped with a sudden bout of fear when I saw more shadows moving. Every now and then, they’d stop and track us with their glowing white eyes. Oh dear fuck. The rooftops were crawling.
“Over the wall!” I cried. “Over the wall now!”
Letting go of Chloe’s hand, I focused on the nearest skittering horror and yelled, “Burn!”
Moonlight pierced the blizzard and scorched the scuttling snow monster as it tried to charge us. Burned but still very much alive, it scampered away screaming with rage.
We made it to the wall, but the medic chick took a barbed tail strike in the back. Gods, but their tails were long—if I had to guess, they were at least fifteen feet long. Her squadmates did their best to help her over, then turned to Chloe and I expectantly.
"I can get over fine," I said quickly. "Chloe, you get over."
"Why me?" She demanded, but allowed the two guys to help her nevertheless.
When it was just the three of us, I said, "I'm going to slam the ground with my axe, try and scare them. Then we jump it, yeah?"
They nodded, and I shifted my grip on the weapon so I was swinging with the point. The axe glowed gently as I used my powers to imbue it with magic. It came down and hit the pavement like a club striking a gong and moonlight burst out from the impact point in a wave. The monsters hissed and recoiled from the light, and in that moment of hesitation we scrambled over the old brick wall.
My feet hit the ground next to Chloe, and she glared at me again. Gods, damn girl. Hadn't we gotten past this by now?
"Because you're way shorter than me," I said, replying to her earlier question. "Your cute little arms and legs are too stubby to scale the wall in any reasonable length of time."
"Excuse me?" She sputtered, completely taken aback.
I grinned and completely failed to contain a giggle. "You heard me."
Watching her expression was hilarious. She couldn’t figure out how to feel about my comment.
"They're keeping their distance for now," Quinton interrupted. Then his gaze fell on the medic. "Mel, are you okay?"
She was on her knees, pulsing with feeble magic every so often, but the large wound in her back was still bleeding despite her efforts. Her voice was tired and panicked when she replied. "It's not healing. It's not healing! I'm using my slow heal spell but it's only replacing the blood I'm losing."
Stepping forward, I asked, "Can I cut your clothes to get a better look?"
"Yes!"
Pulling out my little pocket knife, I sliced at the fabric of her uniform until her wound was clearly visible… oh boy was it an ugly sight. The skin and flesh around the ragged hole in her skin was a sickly dark grey that almost reminded me of… frostbite? I'd only ever seen it in movies, though.
An inhuman scream from beyond the wall pulled my attention away and I swore. Too many things to do. The captain needed to be warned—sooner or later the monsters would climb the wall. It was just a stupid, mundane wall, after all.
"Frostbite," I said to the medic. "Maybe some kind of magic poison. You need to get to the sick bay."
"I'll take her," said the third firefighter, whose name I hadn't caught yet.
Quinton nodded at the suggestion. "Right. Silver, Chloe, you're with me. Let's go find the cap and see what the situation is."
We left for our separate objectives, but I couldn't help the feeling that we should be leaving a guard. I mean… where were the patrols? Nobody was out in the blizzard, I guess, but could there be a more urgent reason?
We found him in the gymnasium, quietly talking to a small group of men who thankfully didn't appear angry.
"Captain!" Quinton called as we approached. People looked over from everywhere inside the now heavily partitioned gym.
The man looked up, then did a double take when he saw us. "Quinton, Silver, and Chloe. You're alive!"
“Thanks to these two,” Quinton said, gesturing with a thumb towards Chloe and I. “They stormed in at the eleventh hour and saved our asses. I’ll give you a report on that later, though. We have big problems outside. A huge swarm of ice spider looking things chased us all the way from the elementary school to here.”
“Ah,” the captain sighed, his expression becoming haunted. “We lost most of another squad to them an hour ago. I’ve pulled everyone back to the school for now… not that there’s many of us left. We have barely ten firefighters remaining, plus another twenty or so folks with combat magic abilities.”
The group of men—and now that I was looking, a few women—shuffled restlessly at the mention of our dwindling numbers.
The captain picked up on their restlessness and nodded in their direction. "These fine folk were offering to help us fight, regardless of their magic abilities."
"We don't need fancy spells to crack skulls," a large, burly man said, radiating determination like he was an exceptionally stubborn sun.
"Little Kaia, hello!" Cynath's voice suddenly said in my head. "I am so sorry for my absence! It appears that when the storm structure was… fixed by my colleague, all the gods, greater spirits, demon lords, and ancient ones all gained classes of our own."
Everyone kept discussing the dire threats to the school, but I turned and whispered, "Classes? What, did you pick like, rogue or something?"
"Har har," she snorted sarcastically. "Very funny, little one. No, I have gained a godly class. It's very similar to my old powers and domains, but I can now influence the storm structure in some rather profound ways. My chief concern right now is that I would like to elevate you to the rank of divine champion under my domain."
"I mean… sure, but what does that even mean?" I asked.
Chloe had noticed me mumbling to myself and raised an eyebrow at me. I gave her a smile. She gave me a scowl. I poked my tongue out at her. She rolled her eyes. Oh shit, Cynath answered and I missed it.
"Hey, quit flirting and pay attention," Cynath complained. "A divine champion has their class growth altered to align with their deity's domain. In this case, my official storm-given domains are war, cunning, the moon, beauty, and… how do I put this… feminine gender expression."
"Oh no," I groaned. "Cynath… the storm won't even need to change anything with me."
Cynath… giggled. The ancient immortal goddess fucking giggled. "I know! Isn't it just adorable? You're perfect! I am so glad I got angry and scooped when Enki played that Toxrill! I would never have decided to glance down at Earth to see an adorable struggling larval angel doing her best to help people."
"Scooped? Played that, what?" I was so confused.
"Nevermind. Will you accept? I've sent the request to you," she said, brushing the wacky babbling aside like it hadn't just mentally spun me in circles.
I took the little synesthetic prompt from her and allowed it to latch onto my class. Nothing really happened, but I didn't expect it to go crazy right off the bat.
"Good, now that the paperwork is finished, I shall—"
"Just let us help!" The burly volunteer shouted in frustration.
The captain, looking weary and defeated, stood his ground. "No. You don't understand the dangers we're facing out there. You're obviously a capable man, but even with their spells I'm losing fighters by the handful."
"Oh? What is this?" Cynath asked, curious.
"Crazy powerful snowstorm has been hammering us for the last two days," I explained softly, covering my mouth to hide the fact I was speaking. "We're losing people too fast and a few hours ago these ice scorpion monsters started swarming. We're basically under siege but the moment the bugs decide they're hungry, they could just walk in and overwhelm us with numbers."
"What…" she said, then trailed off into silence for several moments. "Blazing stars, what is that thing? It's almost like the great thunder bird… but no, it's birthing those frozen nightmares…"
Suddenly, a feminine figure made of shimmering moonlight appeared hovering a few feet off the ground. There wasn’t a whole lot of detail to her figure, but what I could see was outrageously hot. Her hips were almost inhuman, and my word her boobs were… large. She wore a flowing robe-like garment, but because she was translucent you could see everything. "Apologies for the intrusion, gentlemen."
Chaos erupted as two dozen scared, tired, and highly strung Edgewood survivors reacted to Cynath, goddess of tactless jump-scares appearing unceremoniously in their midst.
Chloe ducked behind me, brandishing her dagger, while Quinton took a swing at the apparition with his axe. The gathered prospective fighters exploded like the first break of a game of pool, and the captain summoned some sort of energy shield and leapt to protect the closest of them. Then came the confused swearing as Quinton's axe found no purchase and he fell through Cynath's projection and onto the floor.
Slowly and deliberately, I groaned and smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "For fuck's sake, Cynath. A little warning, next time?"
My patron goddess stared at me for several seconds, then stated, "No."
Oh boy. Deep breaths, Kaia. She's an immortal goddess who is so far beyond every human in power that our little stuttering heartbeats aren't even a consideration for her. We'll just have to teach her.
"Anyway," Cynath said with a dismissive wave of her hand in my direction. "I am Cynath, goddess of war, cunning, beauty, and the moon. I am appearing before you with an offer of assistance. If you as the leader of this settlement accept, I can create a zone of safety around Edgewood High School. This would prevent all of the more mindless monsters from setting foot within its borders. Once this zone is set up, a shrine can be built in my honour, but I do not ask for this entirely out of a desire for godly sustenance. This shrine will further allow me to grant a reset of all choices made under the rules of the Storm Structure."
"The storm structure is what the gods call the system," I explained when I noticed a few confused head tilts among the growing crowd. "I think what she's saying, in gamer terms, is that she can make Edgewood into a safe zone and grant respecs of classes, attributes, and abilities."
"My champion speaks true," Cynath nodded.
“Y-you’re… you’re Silver’s goddess?” the captain stuttered, staring at her with wide eyes.
“Yes.”
He glanced at me for reassurance, then back to her as he asked, “And you can help us? Give us more fighters and make the school safe?”
“Yes.”
He seemed on the verge of accepting her offer… but a voice carried over the crowd as its owner approached. “Do not listen to the demon!”
Ah shit, here we go…
Something was wrong. Just two minutes into our five minute journey back to Edgewood High, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck doing the danger dance.
The snow was coming down as ghostly flakes too small to be felt, but there was a lot of it and the wind was whipping it up into a howling blizzard. The blinding tempest gave the barely recognisable frozen wasteland that used to be my neighbourhood a disturbing vibe.
The cold was already biting at my exposed skin, stripping away any heat I had and leaving it both numb and aching with pain. As the wind tugged and shoved at us, it grabbed my hair, ears, and the remains of my jacket and whipped them all over the place. The one metaphorical ray of sunshine that my bunny ears were resistant to aching from the cold, since they were big and fluffy.
I tried to keep my eyes peeled for threats, but my vision just kept tunnelling. Second by second, the lethargy of fading adrenaline was taking hold. Each icy breath I took made me dream of a warm bath and a mug of tea. I doubt we had any tea left at the school by now, though.
“What was that?” someone yelled, their words riding the wind in a way that made it difficult to figure out who was talking.
Judging by the way the medic was pointing out into the unrelenting cold evening, I guessed it was her. Hold on. Evening? It couldn’t have been eight or so hours already, could it?
“There it is again!” she exclaimed, switching the location she was pointing at.
When I looked over, I couldn’t see anything but an abandoned car outside some sort of store. What did she see? Wait… inside the store, that shadow... it moved. Oh god, it moved and it looked all kinds of wrong!
I caught a glimpse of something waist height, with an uncomfortable number of stick-thin legs, glowing white eyes, and talons. One second it was there, staring at us, and the next—
A blur of movement. Black chitin and a viciously barbed hook darted out of the snow right at my face. It was pure instinct, but my hand moved faster than I’d have ever thought possible and batted the thing away at the last second.
A scream of icy rage filled the night, and the thing attacked again. It was long and thin—A tail, I think—and gods but it was fast. I made an attempt to grab it while I dodged the strike, but someone’s hand found mine instead, and I was pulled away at a run.
I chanced a look and saw Chloe pulling me towards the rear wall of Edgewood high. Why the hell was she dragging me? If we just stood and fought, we could probably take this thing! It was obviously an ambush predator. Chances were it came to a stand up fight—
My stomach flipped with a sudden bout of fear when I saw more shadows moving. Every now and then, they’d stop and track us with their glowing white eyes. Oh dear fuck. The rooftops were crawling.
“Over the wall!” I cried. “Over the wall now!”
Letting go of Chloe’s hand, I focused on the nearest skittering horror and yelled, “Burn!”
Moonlight pierced the blizzard and scorched the scuttling snow monster as it tried to charge us. Burned but still very much alive, it scampered away screaming with rage.
We made it to the wall, but the medic chick took a barbed tail strike in the back. Gods, but their tails were long—if I had to guess, they were at least fifteen feet long. Her squadmates did their best to help her over, then turned to Chloe and I expectantly.
"I can get over fine," I said quickly. "Chloe, you get over."
"Why me?" She demanded, but allowed the two guys to help her nevertheless.
When it was just the three of us, I said, "I'm going to slam the ground with my axe, try and scare them. Then we jump it, yeah?"
They nodded, and I shifted my grip on the weapon so I was swinging with the point. The axe glowed gently as I used my powers to imbue it with magic. It came down and hit the pavement like a club striking a gong and moonlight burst out from the impact point in a wave. The monsters hissed and recoiled from the light, and in that moment of hesitation we scrambled over the old brick wall.
My feet hit the ground next to Chloe, and she glared at me again. Gods, damn girl. Hadn't we gotten past this by now?
"Because you're way shorter than me," I said, replying to her earlier question. "Your cute little arms and legs are too stubby to scale the wall in any reasonable length of time."
"Excuse me?" She sputtered, completely taken aback.
I grinned and completely failed to contain a giggle. "You heard me."
Watching her expression was hilarious. She couldn’t figure out how to feel about my comment.
"They're keeping their distance for now," Quinton interrupted. Then his gaze fell on the medic. "Mel, are you okay?"
She was on her knees, pulsing with feeble magic every so often, but the large wound in her back was still bleeding despite her efforts. Her voice was tired and panicked when she replied. "It's not healing. It's not healing! I'm using my slow heal spell but it's only replacing the blood I'm losing."
Stepping forward, I asked, "Can I cut your clothes to get a better look?"
"Yes!"
Pulling out my little pocket knife, I sliced at the fabric of her uniform until her wound was clearly visible… oh boy was it an ugly sight. The skin and flesh around the ragged hole in her skin was a sickly dark grey that almost reminded me of… frostbite? I'd only ever seen it in movies, though.
An inhuman scream from beyond the wall pulled my attention away and I swore. Too many things to do. The captain needed to be warned—sooner or later the monsters would climb the wall. It was just a stupid, mundane wall, after all.
"Frostbite," I said to the medic. "Maybe some kind of magic poison. You need to get to the sick bay."
"I'll take her," said the third firefighter, whose name I hadn't caught yet.
Quinton nodded at the suggestion. "Right. Silver, Chloe, you're with me. Let's go find the cap and see what the situation is."
We left for our separate objectives, but I couldn't help the feeling that we should be leaving a guard. I mean… where were the patrols? Nobody was out in the blizzard, I guess, but could there be a more urgent reason?
We found him in the gymnasium, quietly talking to a small group of men who thankfully didn't appear angry.
"Captain!" Quinton called as we approached. People looked over from everywhere inside the now heavily partitioned gym.
The man looked up, then did a double take when he saw us. "Quinton, Silver, and Chloe. You're alive!"
“Thanks to these two,” Quinton said, gesturing with a thumb towards Chloe and I. “They stormed in at the eleventh hour and saved our asses. I’ll give you a report on that later, though. We have big problems outside. A huge swarm of ice spider looking things chased us all the way from the elementary school to here.”
“Ah,” the captain sighed, his expression becoming haunted. “We lost most of another squad to them an hour ago. I’ve pulled everyone back to the school for now… not that there’s many of us left. We have barely ten firefighters remaining, plus another twenty or so folks with combat magic abilities.”
The group of men—and now that I was looking, a few women—shuffled restlessly at the mention of our dwindling numbers.
The captain picked up on their restlessness and nodded in their direction. "These fine folk were offering to help us fight, regardless of their magic abilities."
"We don't need fancy spells to crack skulls," a large, burly man said, radiating determination like he was an exceptionally stubborn sun.
"Little Kaia, hello!" Cynath's voice suddenly said in my head. "I am so sorry for my absence! It appears that when the storm structure was… fixed by my colleague, all the gods, greater spirits, demon lords, and ancient ones all gained classes of our own."
Everyone kept discussing the dire threats to the school, but I turned and whispered, "Classes? What, did you pick like, rogue or something?"
"Har har," she snorted sarcastically. "Very funny, little one. No, I have gained a godly class. It's very similar to my old powers and domains, but I can now influence the storm structure in some rather profound ways. My chief concern right now is that I would like to elevate you to the rank of divine champion under my domain."
"I mean… sure, but what does that even mean?" I asked.
Chloe had noticed me mumbling to myself and raised an eyebrow at me. I gave her a smile. She gave me a scowl. I poked my tongue out at her. She rolled her eyes. Oh shit, Cynath answered and I missed it.
"Hey, quit flirting and pay attention," Cynath complained. "A divine champion has their class growth altered to align with their deity's domain. In this case, my official storm-given domains are war, cunning, the moon, beauty, and… how do I put this… feminine gender expression."
"Oh no," I groaned. "Cynath… the storm won't even need to change anything with me."
Cynath… giggled. The ancient immortal goddess fucking giggled. "I know! Isn't it just adorable? You're perfect! I am so glad I got angry and scooped when Enki played that Toxrill! I would never have decided to glance down at Earth to see an adorable struggling larval angel doing her best to help people."
"Scooped? Played that, what?" I was so confused.
"Nevermind. Will you accept? I've sent the request to you," she said, brushing the wacky babbling aside like it hadn't just mentally spun me in circles.
I took the little synesthetic prompt from her and allowed it to latch onto my class. Nothing really happened, but I didn't expect it to go crazy right off the bat.
"Good, now that the paperwork is finished, I shall—"
"Just let us help!" The burly volunteer shouted in frustration.
The captain, looking weary and defeated, stood his ground. "No. You don't understand the dangers we're facing out there. You're obviously a capable man, but even with their spells I'm losing fighters by the handful."
"Oh? What is this?" Cynath asked, curious.
"Crazy powerful snowstorm has been hammering us for the last two days," I explained softly, covering my mouth to hide the fact I was speaking. "We're losing people too fast and a few hours ago these ice scorpion monsters started swarming. We're basically under siege but the moment the bugs decide they're hungry, they could just walk in and overwhelm us with numbers."
"What…" she said, then trailed off into silence for several moments. "Blazing stars, what is that thing? It's almost like the great thunder bird… but no, it's birthing those frozen nightmares…"
Suddenly, a feminine figure made of shimmering moonlight appeared hovering a few feet off the ground. There wasn’t a whole lot of detail to her figure, but what I could see was outrageously hot. Her hips were almost inhuman, and my word her boobs were… large. She wore a flowing robe-like garment, but because she was translucent you could see everything. "Apologies for the intrusion, gentlemen."
Chaos erupted as two dozen scared, tired, and highly strung Edgewood survivors reacted to Cynath, goddess of tactless jump-scares appearing unceremoniously in their midst.
Chloe ducked behind me, brandishing her dagger, while Quinton took a swing at the apparition with his axe. The gathered prospective fighters exploded like the first break of a game of pool, and the captain summoned some sort of energy shield and leapt to protect the closest of them. Then came the confused swearing as Quinton's axe found no purchase and he fell through Cynath's projection and onto the floor.
Slowly and deliberately, I groaned and smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. "For fuck's sake, Cynath. A little warning, next time?"
My patron goddess stared at me for several seconds, then stated, "No."
Oh boy. Deep breaths, Kaia. She's an immortal goddess who is so far beyond every human in power that our little stuttering heartbeats aren't even a consideration for her. We'll just have to teach her.
"Anyway," Cynath said with a dismissive wave of her hand in my direction. "I am Cynath, goddess of war, cunning, beauty, and the moon. I am appearing before you with an offer of assistance. If you as the leader of this settlement accept, I can create a zone of safety around Edgewood High School. This would prevent all of the more mindless monsters from setting foot within its borders. Once this zone is set up, a shrine can be built in my honour, but I do not ask for this entirely out of a desire for godly sustenance. This shrine will further allow me to grant a reset of all choices made under the rules of the Storm Structure."
"The storm structure is what the gods call the system," I explained when I noticed a few confused head tilts among the growing crowd. "I think what she's saying, in gamer terms, is that she can make Edgewood into a safe zone and grant respecs of classes, attributes, and abilities."
"My champion speaks true," Cynath nodded.
“Y-you’re… you’re Silver’s goddess?” the captain stuttered, staring at her with wide eyes.
“Yes.”
He glanced at me for reassurance, then back to her as he asked, “And you can help us? Give us more fighters and make the school safe?”
“Yes.”
He seemed on the verge of accepting her offer… but a voice carried over the crowd as its owner approached. “Do not listen to the demon!”
Ah shit, here we go…
