RISING OF THE SWARM HERO
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Worm or Rising of the Shield Hero and I earn no profit in doing this.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Rising of the Swarm Hero a continuation of one of my Strange Days chapters. Thanks to Storyseeker for beta-reading this. As usual, if you have any comments or preferences, please don't be shy. RandR.
A/N 2: Yes, a few inconveniences are being ignored from Worm. Don't like it? Don't read.
CHAPTER 1
Contessa stood behind Taylor Hebert, her gun at the ready. Could the girl come back from this? The Path looked sound, but she had her doubts. So much had been said and done, by far too many, and there were never any certainties, despite the abilities her shard gave her or the image she liked to project to the world. Contessa often had doubts, even when she knew she couldn't afford them.
The fact that her own actions had brought Taylor to this point, at least partially, weighed heavily on Cauldron's most powerful thinker. A small chance, she reflected, was better than none. She reviewed the Path again, even as she talked to the girl, hoping for some sign that the human retained control, that she could, in some fashion, anyway, be saved. The answers she received meant nothing to her directly, but they had meaning to her shard.
The Path clarified before her. Yes. It would work. She took careful aim. This had to be done with a surgeon's precision, but it would work if she gave control to the Path before her and let her hand be guided.
She squeezed the trigger.
Something changed. Contessa was never sure afterwards what, exactly, happened, but bright light suddenly shone from the ground under Hebert in a bizarre and complex pattern, just as she began to fire the second of the two necessary shots, and her aim was thrown off minutely by the unexpected distraction.
Taylor Hebert vanished into that pattern of light; the one Contessa had seen no trace of when searching the Path for this course of action. She could only stare at the empty space where the girl who had saved humanity had been.
"What the hell?"
OOOOOOOOOO
Taylor wasn't sure what she had been expecting. What sort of afterlife had she earned, after all? It seemed unlikely to be a good one. She had no illusions about what she had done under the influence of the queen administrator shard, good and bad. In her mind, at least on an emotional level, they didn't balance out. So, she hadn't expected anything good after she died.
"Fantastic! The summoning was a success!"
Huh? With an effort, she raised herself from the stone floor and looked around, taking in as many details as she could and from long habit, making note of any potential threats in the area. They were in a stone chamber standing in the center of an elaborate pattern composed of a circle decorated with geometric symbols and markings that brought Celtic runes to mind. There were eight other people in the chamber. Three young men stood in the same circle that she herself had just appeared in. All three of them seemed to be as confused as she felt. One held a spear, another held a sword, and the last carried a bow. Their clothes seemed to be modern and really didn't fit with the weapons.
An unfamiliar weight on her arm made her glance down. There was a slab of metal attached to her right arm. A shield? She glanced up again and took in the group of five strangely dressed men. Each of them wore what appeared to be ceremonial robes that brought to mind both medieval religious ceremonies and a sword and sorcery fantasy movie that she and Emma had watched when they were kids.
The one that had spoken earlier stepped forward, and Taylor realized something else. The man had fleas. She could feel them, in fact, she could feel all the insects in the area. This was such a shock and caused so many mixed emotions, that she almost missed the man's next words.
"Brave heroes, won't you please save our world from pure evil?"
HUH? She gaped at him.
"Please, oh brave heroes! Our world is in dire need of saving."
Taylor gave a small groan and dropped her head in her hands. "Not again."
Then something occurred to her. Hands? She looked down at her restored limb in confusion, but then decided to just roll with it for the time being. Eh, figure it out later.
She spoke quietly enough that only the one with the sword, being the closest, heard her. He gave her a quizzical look, both for her words and for the clothing she was wearing. After a moment, he shook his head and looked back to the man who had asked them to save the world.
"We refuse," the man with the sword said, sounding far too arrogant for his current circumstances. Taylor glanced at him, wondering what he knew that she didn't. They all seemed far more at ease with the situation than they had any business being. She listened as the other three began demanding things ranging from an immediate return to their homes to a huge reward just for deigning to help them.
Are these guys capes? Famous heroes that feel they have a right to make such demands of strangers? She could easily see Eidolon acting that way before he died. Alexandria would probably have been more subtle, but would likely have done the same.
"We should at least hear them out," Taylor interrupted them. She needed time and information more than anything else. She didn't know where she was or what was happening, but their hosts, whoever they were, seemed willing to talk. The belligerent attitudes of the three men weren't going to help her get the information she needed. "Right now, we don't know where we are, what's going on, or how to get home."
"I suppose you're right," the man with the bow nodded. The other two shrugged, looking unconcerned, but didn't offer any further protests.
The robed man that seemed to be in charge relaxed and nodded.
"The king will wish to see you as soon as possible. Please, follow me." He led them out of the room and down a series of bare stone corridors that gradually changed as they entered more common areas of the castle. The walls and floor were better cared for and decorations began to appear. Taylor reasoned that the ritual room, if that was what it was, was in the oldest part of the castle, and one not often seen by outsiders. They climbed a staircase at one point, passing a window that looked out over a city that looked straight out of the Middle Ages. Taylor stopped to look and to reach out to her swarm. There were most of the common varieties she was familiar with, as well as a few that she had never encountered before, or even heard of.
Sampling the air, she noted the temperate climate and checked, through various senses, the layout of the town. While it looked vaguely European, there were a lot of small differences that wouldn't be immediately noticeable. Among other things, there were animals that most definitely had not existed on Earth Bet.
"This really is another world," she murmured.
"Don't be fooled," the man with the spear said, smiling and standing a bit too close for comfort. "This is some weird kind of simulation. Have you seen your stats menu?"
"Stats menu?" Taylor noticed the odd dot in the corner of her vision, and focused on it. It expanded to become something like a HUD in some of the tinker-tech enhanced variations of costumes she'd worn. She studied the display as they started to move again. She knew a little of D and similar things from having been unwelcome lab partners with Greg Veder and/or Sparky. Both dropped a ridiculous number of gaming references, outnumbered only by anime references.
"Come on," the man said, "might as well get on with the exposition. It's always the most boring part of a game."
Keeping her thoughts on the matter to herself, Taylor followed him as she examined the stats she was starting the supposed game with and grimaced. Defense was decently high number for a beginner, she supposed, though really, she had no idea. The attack stat was a problem. She didn't have to be a veteran RPG player to know that one point was not good. That hardly seemed fair. There were other things as well, including a help screen. Before she could do more than make note of the basic menu options, they entered the throne room. She took note of the old man on the throne and the various knights and officials in attendance. Closing the screen, she focused on the man who must be the king. There would be time for reading later.
The king introduced himself as Aultcray Melromarc XXXII, and thanked them for answering their call. "Please, identify yourselves."
The sword wielder stepped forward. "I'm Ren Amaki. I'm a high school student, and I'm 16 years old." He was short but solidly built. He didn't make much of an impression, but seemed fairly unpretentious. It made a nice change from his attitude when addressing the robed men that had first greeted them.
The spear wielder stepped forward next. The pretty-boy, as Taylor thought of him, sounded rather pompous as he announced, "I'm Motoyasu Kitamaru. College student, 21." His long blonde hair was done up in a weird style that seemed really impractical. How does he make it do that?
"I suppose I'm up next." The bow wielder stepped forward. "Itsuki Kawasumi, still in high school, and I'm 17." Itsuki had an easy smile and came across as a nice guy. Taylor found herself wondering if that would last. She had known a number of nice people that had turned out to be monsters of one sort or another.
Taylor thought as she listened to the others, considering how best to describe herself. She'd begun as a hero, become a villain, then a warlord, and then a hero, again. Then what? What had she even been at the end? She decided to keep it simple. There was one word seemed to fit for all of those.
"Good." The king answered, before Taylor could speak. "Ren, Motoyasu and Itsuki-"
"Pardon, your majesty," Motoyasu glanced at Taylor who was merely watching things develop, apparently untroubled at being overlooked. "I believe you've forgotten someone." He glanced at her with a slight smile, apparently thinking that speaking up for her would impress her. Does he expect a cookie or something?
She was a bit surprised. While she was no longer the gawky beanpole she had been in high school, she wasn't used to men going out of their way for her, either. Does this guy just chase after anything female?
"Ah, yes, forgive me." The king interrupted her musings, sounding more irritated than apologetic. "Please, introduce yourself."
"I'm Taylor Hebert. Soldier." That statement drew surprised looks from the three men that had arrived with her and a raised eyebrow from the king. He looked more closely at her for a moment, and then looked away to address the other three. He explained the problem his people were facing. The Waves of Catastrophe, as they were called, were devastating their world. Monsters poured out of rifts that opened in the sky. There had already been one wave, and the army of Melromarc and every adventurer available had barely pushed it back, taking heavy losses in the process.
Seeing no other option, the king had made the decision to summon the four Cardinal Heroes. Taylor could hear the capital letters in the title. Melromarc had in its possession, the king explained, something called the Dragon Hourglass, an artifact that tracked the waves and could dispatch the heroes to where they needed to be. She decided that she needed to see this hourglass for herself as soon as possible.
When the explanation was done, the four heroes were shown to rooms in the castle, provided a meal, and given time to relax and talk. By this point, Taylor had used her swarm to map the entire castle, and some of the surrounding town. Her range, it seemed was back to where it had initially been. She left a fair number of insects in the presence of the king and his advisors in order to listen in on them. Clearly, there was a lot that they weren't being told. The rooms they had been shown to resembled a hotel suite in layout. There was a central chamber and separate bedrooms for each of them. The layout also left a good number of nooks and crannies for people to hide in.
Through her swarm, she noted the fact that several people were observing them from hiding, no doubt reporting back to the king and possibly others, given that there were three separate spies, the details of what they discussed. One was outside the window, clinging to the wall and somehow camouflaged. One was blatantly listening at the keyhole, and another was hidden in some kind of secret passage. That secret passage, she could tell, wasn't the only one. It was not terribly unexpected that they were being watched. She would have been more surprised if they weren't, but three? That's just ridiculous.
While monitoring the spies, she also listened to the king carrying out routine business with his ministers and spoke to the other heroes. A comparison of historical and cultural knowledge proved that they were all from different versions of Earth, although, Taylor said as little as possible about hers, after the other three revealed that they were convinced that everything they were experiencing was some sort of game simulation. She wondered what the spies and those they reported to would make of that.
Taylor decided that she couldn't immediately discount the possibility that it was a simulation. Tinkers routinely bent the laws of physics over and violated them in bizarre and disturbing ways. However, a simulation that included multiple species of unknown insects with alien biology? That was able to fool her swarm sense so completely? Not even Dragon could have programmed such a thing. That didn't even address the question of why someone would go to the trouble of locking her in such a simulation with three random strangers claiming to be from different versions of Earth. Whatever the truth might be, for the time being, it was safer to proceed as if everything around them was real and could kill them. That meant, these three needed a wakeup call.
"Does it matter?" Taylor broke into their highly confusing discussion about game mechanics and leveling strategies. They were going in circles, anyway. "We're stuck here, and we need to treat this as reality."
"Why?" the bow hero asked, sounding annoyed. "Because you say so?" He looked over her clothing. "You say you're a soldier, but you look barely old enough to enlist, and that outfit looks more like something I'd see at a comic book convention."
Taylor ignored his snide tone and dismissive remarks.
"I've been fighting since I was 15, not by choice, but by necessity." There was some truth to that, she allowed, even if it was misleading. "Not that any of that matters anymore. Do you really think that if you die here, you'll wake in your own bed? Or maybe back in that room where we first appeared?"
The three men traded uncertain looks.
"Do you want to test that theory?" She pressed her point, taking advantage of their hesitation.
"Not really," Motoyasu admitted. The others expressed similar reluctance.
"Well then," Taylor said, "I suggest you take this seriously. If you don't, you're likely to get yourselves killed and find out the truth the hard way." They nodded, looking a bit sour for some reason at having to admit she had a point. With so many unwanted witnesses to their conversation, she really didn't want to warn them against treating the people like NPCs, like their lives didn't matter. She had no idea how much of the conversation the spies could follow. Instead, she asked a question. "Have you gone over your help screens?"
"A bit," Ren nodded. "There's a lot in there. Most of it matches up with what I remember from Braveheart Online." The other two quickly corrected him as to the name of the game.
"Guys, come on." Taylor interrupted when it threatened to turn into an argument. "If we're seeing differences in who became a world leader, how likely is it that the details of a game's rules are going to match up exactly?"
The others considered this before nodding.
"She's got a point," Motoyasu admitted.
"We've been given a set of rules to work with," Taylor continued. "Maybe we should try fully understanding those rules? It'll make it easier to break them."
"You think there are cheat codes?" Ren asked, sounding intrigued. Until she brought up the possibility, he had been looking annoyed with her attempts to guide the conversation in a useful direction.
"There generally are," Taylor shrugged, "in games and in life." Her perusal of the menu had shown no indication that the game-like system acknowledged her power over invertebrates. That, she supposed, counted as a 'cheat code' if she understood the reference correctly. She pressed on.
"According to the help screen, we can't form a party ourselves, just as the king said, so we'll just have to see who turns up tomorrow. According to my screen, the shield is always drawing in power or EP, from the environment, and it can be used to enhance our magic and our weapons." She explained the section on 'Energy Boost' as best she could. The concepts involved were rather odd. "It also says that our weapons can be upgraded if they absorb things like monster parts and other materials. I think a trip to the castle armory is a good place to start."
"That would sound reasonable," Itsuki allowed, "but that's not what the help screen says about upgrading weapons. You sure you're reading it right?" The condescending tone set her teeth on edge, but she pushed down her irritation.
"Yes. What does yours say?" This led to another argument about game mechanics that left Taylor with a splitting headache. She decided to end the argument by demonstrating one of the methods her help screen described.
"Let's find out. I want to test one of those functions, now." She took out one of the cellphones she carried, keeping the hidden burner in case it became useful later.
"That's a real-world item," Ren shook his head. "Even if you could absorb things, that wouldn't work." He then gaped as the shield absorbed the phone. "How?"
"Even if you're right, and this is some kind of VR simulation, that would mean the phone is a simulation, too," Taylor pointed out reasonably.
"She's right about that," Motoyasu nodded, seeming to accept that their weapons could absorb things with just that small demonstration. "Wish I had mine with me." Ren absorbed his, but Itsuki and Motoyasu had apparently arrived without their phones. "So, what did that do for you?" the spear hero asked. Ren and Itsuki were examining their help screens incredulously. Apparently, they had expanded to include information about the new method. They saw no sign of the information on EP, however.
"I don't see it," Ren said as he wiggled his fingers, apparently sorting through his menus for information on EP. Taylor wasn't sure what that meant. Why would the section on absorbing materials appear for the others but not the rest? She refocused on the matter before her.
"According to the screen that popped up, I have three new shields. I can communicate with party members regardless of distance with [Telecommunication], take pictures and zoom in on distant objects with [Camera], tell time, set alarms and reminders. I've also got a memo pad, and it looks like I've got an extra store of MP that used to be the phone's battery as well as resistance to lightning attacks. Weird, but useful." There were three other functions, but she decided to keep them to herself.
Ren nodded, saying that he had gotten something similar, though the nature of his weapon seemed to affect the functions he got. Examination of the help screen told her that mastering a shield involved keeping it equipped continuously for a few hours, and that using its functions would accelerate the process. She quickly decided which shield would stay equipped as she slept that night.
"Damn. Now I really wish I had my phone," Itsuki groused. "Although…" He took off his digital watch, and fed it to his bow. "Huh. Not bad." He and Motoyasu quickly fed whatever bits of technology they had on them to their weapons. "Looks like we really can use each other's methods to gain power." He frowned as he searched for references to the other aspects Taylor had mentioned. "Some, anyway."
They quickly decided to try each other's methods to see if they would work. The fact that their menus had expanded to include an aspect of Taylor's method seemed to convince them. They were wary of sharing advantages with each other, but the lure of new abilities proved too strong, so they, reluctantly, revealed their methods to each other. Taylor made careful notes about each one in her new memo pad, and her help screen expanded to cover the methods, but the others had unique insights into the method they were most familiar with.
Taylor carefully reviewed each new section as it appeared. This is well beyond the level of bullshit I'm used to dealing with when it comes to cape powers.
One function Motoyasu mentioned that Taylor was eager to test was the copy function, as it would let her copy other weapons of the same type. That made the trip to the armory in the morning even more pressing.
"Still don't really get how that works," Ren admitted, "but I'm not gonna complain about the results." The three now seemed more open to her ideas, as she had shown them some material benefit in doing so. She asked them to tell her what they knew about Melromarc from the games they'd played.
Itsuki snorted. "Game knowledge is meant to be gathered and used by the player, not handed out freely to random noobs."
Or maybe not. "Am I correct in assuming that everything you know about Melromarc comes from games you've played?" The others traded glances and nodded. "And you think this means you truly understand this world and our current situation?"
"Better than you do," Itsuki retorted. "You honestly never played the most popular RPG in the world?"
"I had more important things to do that playing children's games," Taylor said a bit acerbically. "Staying alive took precedence."
"Don't be such a jerk, Itsuki," Ren chided him. Motoyasu looked like he was biting his tongue, and said nothing. Taylor decided she didn't want to know what was going through the pretty boy's head. "She's been a big help so far, even if she is a noob, and a useless shielder."
What's with these guys?
Itsuki gave a put-upon sigh. "Fine. We'll give her a primer." He proceeded to give her a very condescending and basic lecture on the lore and the basic game mechanics. He was interrupted several times by the other two who corrected him on minor points of lore, strategy, and nearly everything else. By the end of their 'lesson,' the other three heroes had nearly come to blows. It came out during the argument that the main source of their disdain for her seemed to be that, in the games they remembered, no one played the Shield because the shield class sucked. It was considered useless because of the low attack power. To her way of thinking, that simply meant that they had considered it too much of a challenge and given up without trying. There was no point in alienating them by saying that, though. Taylor idly wondered what their defense stats were.
She sat back and took in as much of it as she could while she fed random bits of the meal that the servants had brought them to her shield. The food and seasonings gave her shields that raised her cooking skill increased her magic defense by 1 each. It also earned her teasing from the others who wanted to know if she intended to eat her weapon. She ignored them and fed spare change in her pocket to the shield, as it was worthless in Melromarc.
[Coin Shield]
+1 Def
[Ability: Kaching!] Increases drop rate from monsters by 10%.
She considered sharing that with the others, but feeling a bit irritated with them, decided to keep quiet. On a whim, she also added the eating utensils and gained +2 attack against lower-level enemies. She didn't bother to mention that as the others just laughed at her. To be fair, the [Spork Shield] did sound and look kind of ridiculous. She had learned a great deal that evening both from what the others had said and what they hadn't said. It would, Taylor knew, take time to sort it all out, and determine how best to make use of the information, but she would manage. She always did.
Before going to bed, she stationed insects around the perimeter of her room and set a chair against the door so it would wake her and delay any intruder as it fell. This decision was prompted by a conversation she had overheard through her swarm. She didn't get all of it, but she knew the king had harbored an abiding hatred for the Shield Hero for some reason. His instructions to keep certain advantages from the 'accursed shield' let her know that whatever grudge he held was more important to him than the lives and safety of his people.
Precautions seemed in order.