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Chapter 202: The Jaguar Stirs
🕑 Added 2024-02-26 16:11:01 +0000 UTCAs Windchaser closed in on Corozal’s longest concrete pier, Coop was leaning against the bow rail, mouth agape. He was worried that he was losing his mind. When he left the small town behind, he could swear there were barely 100 people digging in. The local profession masters had been joined by the warriors of the Crossroads and were coordinating in the defense of the Outpost, but that hardly accounted for what he was seeing. Using his knuckles to rub his eyes until he saw stars, he considered if maybe he had spent one too many days at sea, but when he opened them, the sight was unchanged.
Instead of a sleepy fishing town with a few patrolling indigenous warriors monitoring the traps, he was gazing upon a burgeoning city, packed to the point that it might burst. The pathetic citadel he had left around the mana pylon was nowhere near large enough to provide a final sanctum for the crowds of people that were spilling out of the town. He took a wild guess and decided that 20,000 people had filled the town, filling it beyond even its pre-mana population.
Coop asked himself if he had somehow underestimated the demand for a proper settlement that stood as a bulwark against the Cult of Chakyum. There were strangers camped all along the coastal road, filling every building’s first and second floors, sitting together on roofs while sharing simple meals, lining the sea wall with their feet wet from the waves, resting cross-legged around campfires on the eroded pavement, and even bunking in the edges of the forest where they didn’t seem to fear Ruin Nebula ambushes.
Combined, the strangers gave Coop the sense of exhausted athletes utilizing their last opportunity for a break before the final leg of a marathon. He recognized the weariness in their posture as they rested their hands on hips while standing, or leaned forward with their elbows on their knees where they sat. They displayed the stances of people who hadn’t had a break in a long time, and weren’t sure how long the current calm would last. They had the restless energy of people refusing to stop for fear that they wouldn’t be able to start again. It was a type of fatigue he was all too familiar with.
The strangers almost universally held crude, handmade weapons, from bows and arrows and slings, to pitchforks, thick wooden clubs, short knives, and even well-worn examples of Coop’s original weapon: the machete. The way they kept the weapons prepared, even while relaxing, demonstrated an unnatural familiarity that Coop instinctually recognized as combat readiness. No matter how tired they seemed, or how nonchalant they appeared, they were prepared to fight. Their eyes were constantly darting around, subconsciously keeping track of every movement, even while they had casual conversations amongst themselves. It wasn’t that the ones bunking at the edge of the town didn’t fear the Primal Constructs, and were brave enough to relax while in danger, it was that all of the people Coop could see were being equally vigilant. They demonstrated habits that could only come from being under constant pressure.
They were clearly a wide combination of different groups. Some were dressed like the indigenous warriors of the Crossroads, with dark colored flat-brimmed hats, short cloaks, and tightly wrapped or completely bare torsos. Others wore cowboy hats with dirt-stained flannel shirts that were tucked into thick jeans, belts with oversized buckles, and muddy boots that confirmed the outfits weren’t just for show. There were still more with straw hats and overalls or suspenders, women with brightly colored patterned dresses that almost reached the floor, but were marred with dust, and plenty of others wore simple solid colored t-shirts or tank tops with worn jeans. It was like a cross-section of pre-mana regular people that had been transformed by struggle into grim-faced fighters. Where Ghost Reef was forged in the crucible of the siege event, these people had habits developed by the simple struggle to survive in the untamed territory of the assimilation.
“Chief?” A gravelly voice interrupted Coop’s continued assessment of the strangers. “That don’t look like what you described. Was your intel a bit stale?” The newer companion wondered.
Coop frowned slightly as he sought the answer for himself. “It couldn’t be that dated. I only left a week ago.” He explained while watching mostly unfamiliar faces prepare to secure their vessel to the concrete pier.
This wasn’t the nearly abandoned town that had fooled him into thinking it was uninhabited when he first arrived. The one who asked simply grunted, unconcerned with a simple change in expectations, and perfectly willing to adapt to the new information.
“They seem like reinforcements.” The humorless woman the other two called Captain observed. “What do you see, Dan?” She asked the third of her party.
Of the three blood curse victims, Dan seemed to be the most traumatized. Coop couldn’t blame the guy for lacking confidence. Amanda’s exploration-heavy Outrider class was risky enough, eschewing some combat skills in exchange for scouting abilities, but Dan’s class took noncombat to another level. If Coop was to exchange places with the guide, he would prefer to sequester himself somewhere safe, far from any sort of combat. He gave credit to the timid guy. Despite his hesitation, he was still venturing beyond the security of established settlements.
“Scary.” Dan stated after hesitatingly gazing across the landscape, taking a moment to admire patterns only he could see in the sky. The Captain raised an eyebrow at him and he took the hint to elaborate. “Potential Field Bosses, mana fonts, and unnatural waves in all directions, but mostly that way.” He pointed in the exact direction that the Yucatan settlement should have been, despite Coop never clarifying the location. “It’s like a tub being drained.” He added.
Grizz turned his attention away from the dock. “What the heck does that mean?” He asked, scratching at a scar on his elbow.
The Captain responded for the timid mana reader. “It means we might be useful enough to work off our debt after all. I bet we’ll find Cultists at the source of those waves.” She declared. The other two nodded with their leader while she addressed Coop. “Thanks again for giving us a chance to make ourselves useful.” She directed at the Champion.
“Don’t worry about it.” Coop responded absently. He didn’t feel like making use of people who felt indebted to him was something particularly worthy of gratitude, but he hadn’t turned them away either.
The three soldiers had been victims of the Endless Empire’s blood curse, but they were the ones that had been cured by Madison before having permanent repercussions. Jones had suggested they would make good allies as they had skills that were relatively hard to match.
The three had to overcome some confusion when they woke up in a completely different location among completely different people, while remembering the hostility of the Endless Empire and believing that’s where they should have found themselves. Luckily, Madison was able to clear up any misunderstandings. More specifically, she put the three in their place by demanding they be appreciative for being rescued from the clutches of the Endless Empire or she’d do even worse. The healer had a way of engendering reverence that was especially potent when turned on the three former soldiers. By the time Coop met them, they were already yearning to pay Ghost Reef back for the save.
Grizz self-described as a ‘lifer,’ but Coop thought he was the most normal of the bunch, at least in terms of mana. Coop’s assessment probably said more about how the assimilation had transformed his sense of normality. Grizz had a simple combat class with pre-mana experience to bolster his skills.
Coop liked the guy, finding him to be a less sophisticated and more transparent version of Arthur. Both Grizz and Arthur oozed overwhelming past experience, but where Coop’s Intelligence Advisor was someone cloaked behind the veils of espionage, Grizz was an open book. He was the guy that was called in to kick down the door; a straightforward blunt object. In other words, for Coop, he was relatable.
Grizz had been made aware of the Empress City prison guard’s fascination with him and had been keen on going the opposite direction. Unfortunately for him, if they ended up sticking with Coop’s faction, it was only a matter of time before they met again. Coop didn’t have any inclination for preventing the reunion. Eleza had been the reason they were spared from the permanent impacts of the curse, insisting that Coop find a way to cure them when he claimed Empress City, so he believed Grizz could bear with another meeting to at least thank the alien.
The leader of the three, who went by Cap, was a tough woman that gave off an aura of hard-earned respect. She had some abilities that were formally shared among her troops, as she had what was described to Coop as a commander class. Jones believed she would be instrumental in organizing larger real-time movements among their forces during future battles, so he had been a big advocate for her and the others to get to know Ghost Reef. The old caretaker had given the trio a full tour of all the benefits of the island settlement, making sure they were properly incentivized to stick around.
Previously, Ghost Reef had been primarily relying on smaller scale tactics organized by Shane and spread by word of mouth. It was only thanks to a significant amount of practice and training that the defenders of Ghost Reef were able to maintain high levels of coordination over the course of battles, and the larger movements could only work when each fighter primarily focused on a single role while trusting their allies to reliably complete their own. The siege had given many of them enough experience with each other to establish proper teamwork, but if the scale of battle continued to change, they might be put into more challenging scenarios that demanded further adaptation. Cap could actually push notifications to everyone beneath her command and allow them to make significant broad changes on the fly. As their forces grew, she could be a valuable resource for Gideon and Shane in their efforts to maintain precise direction during tense battles.
The last of the group was Dan. He was essentially a mana enhanced scout that could lead them to points of interest that would otherwise be difficult to ascertain. He was the real treasure among the three, even compared to Cap, who had a commander class that was evidently as rare and valuable as Madison’s or Charlie’s in the galactic community. Dan’s existence was significant enough that their faction had devised their late sweep strategy entirely around his ability to lead the elite squads directly to civilization shards. Coop was excited about the prospect of having Dan use his skills to reliably point Coop in the direction of boss monsters in particular, but even that was only partially utilizing his ability.
Dan was someone who had abilities Coop wanted to learn from in particular. When he described what it was like to read the mana, the timid man described it like the world had an overlay of chaotic swirls and currents, a bit like the sky in Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. To Coop, it didn’t sound too dissimilar to his experience with Vaporform, even if it was in a different medium. Where Dan saw an oil painting, Coop had seen smoke rings. Coop peppered Dan with questions on their trip, but so far, reading mana sounded like attempting to tell the future by watching the waves in the ocean.
The three additions to Coop’s scouting party had been among a group that confronted the Champion of Empress City in an effort to claim the shard. Obviously, it hadn’t worked out for them, seeing as they ended up cursed. Coop had the impression that they were a bit too accepting of the explanations they received from the aliens, but it wasn’t like they were alone in that matter. Basically anyone that was Chosen had fallen into the same theme of trust, and the three soldiers were a slightly special case.
They weren’t just Chosen. They were the elites that Coop had been warned about; those Chosen who were bestowed even more resources by their factions than any other. When they returned, they had a level advantage, the privilege of better gear, and the benefit of more intel than anyone else. He supposed that if he was thrust into such an unprecedented situation, where aliens were depicting themselves as guides for a new magical galaxy, he might be more willing to buy in, if only for the sake of his sanity. The factions must have seemed like a life preserver in a turbulent ocean to those who were Chosen but didn’t immediately trust that they were being put on a pedestal. Clearly, some factions were better at leveraging their position than others, recognizing ways to present themselves that didn’t immediately put their subjects on the defensive.
Coop thought the strategy of withholding Chosen for the entire duration of the sponsorship period in order for the faction to give them every advantage possible was naturally backfiring on Earth. Instead of arriving fashionably late with a leg-up on their competition, they missed out on the most chaotic period where the greatest gains were made. They were the kids that started school a month late. Cliques had already formed, and their presence was interrupting the early equilibrium that had developed without them.
Territories had been claimed and were growing by the time they showed up, and the level gap between the regular Chosen and the Elites had already closed when the latecomers finally arrived. The factions spent extra for minimal margins that anyone who experienced the siege event and recruited some crafters could close. At best, they had some special equipment, but Coop was pretty confident that the Ghost Reef Special Issue was already comparable to what they had been gifted, give or take a few bells and whistles.
He couldn’t decide if the poor showing for the heavily invested factions was due to some unique circumstances of the planet's mana enabling faster leveling for humans and invaders, an overestimation of the spread of civilizations shards, or if it was more down to variables presented by humans themselves. It was probably a combination of issues for the aliens. In general, Coop thought humans were quick to form ties, and resistant to break them. A faction that withheld its Chosen ended up turning them into outsiders to be suspicious of, and if they universally sought to increase their holdings, they would be opposed by anyone who came first. With less shards to choose from, the resistance would dig in further, as the residents knew they had limited alternatives.
He had to wonder about the dynamic between other aliens within factions in the galactic community. They really didn’t seem to understand how desperately a cornered animal would fight. It seemed like another limitation on the alien experience brought by their uplifted civilizations. They lacked experience with the natural competition for resources that defined life on Earth.
Evidently, some of the factions anticipated the civilization shards to be swapped in a relatively simple manner. If a more powerful force challenged a weaker leader, there was some expectation that the weaker one would simply cede control for their own benefit. In practice, that was hardly the case. These weren’t friendly duels for honorary positions, and the system made sure they were pitted against each other in life or death struggles. Naturally, it would be a lot more difficult for latecomers to claim an already occupied shard.
When it came to these three, they had the additional misfortune of encountering the Endless Empire after already being forced into the disadvantaged position of being outsiders. From the way they told the story, they tried to negotiate peacefully, but were thrust into conflict before the leaders of the settlement were aware of their arrival. They held back from killing, hoping the leaders to be more reasonable than their outer guards, but the situation only deteriorated. Coop couldn’t help but wince when they revealed their failed plan. It reminded him of his own experience of presenting himself as an ambassador only for the Empire to almost immediately try to imprison him. At least he had managed to get inside before the violence started, unlike their attempt.
Even if it wasn’t Empress City, he doubted they would have had much more success anywhere else. He would have kicked them out of Ghost Reef once they hinted at a desire to usurp the shard, and he was sure Neptune’s Bridge would have defended their perimeter even more aggressively than Empress City, if the experience of Camila’s family was anything to go by. No one would have the time or energy to introduce additional internal conflict to the volatile situation of maintaining a settlement during the apocalypse.
Despite the rough start that the three went through, they were quick to adapt to changing circumstances. Coop thought outcasts like them would fit right in with Ghost Reef, as long as they let go of their faction’s ambitions. He was happy to accept misfits as long as they paid the favor forward. Dan had already tried, as they had information from outside the assimilation, but it was from before the siege event even began. Unfortunately, it would be hard to make use of the old stats.
At least Coop learned that there had been a single faction, called the Abundant Grasp, that successfully spread to a dozen settlements even before the siege, but other than them, the rest of the factions were underperforming relative to their investments. Coop had never identified anyone sponsored by the Abundant Grasp, so his preliminary thought was that they were probably some distance from Florida and the Yucatan. He was mostly concerned about the factions that were more close-by, but at least he was able to confirm that people weren’t being completely wiped out elsewhere in the world. He’d try to remember the faction, but he made no promises, even to himself.
When their ship was secured to the pier, Coop was the first to hop off. He mostly wanted someone to explain who all the new people in Corozal were. The other three followed his lead.
“I thought you ran away.” Juliana greeted Coop as he disembarked from Windchaser. “Looks like I lost a bet with Felix.” She grumbled with a barely stifled smile on her face.
“What the heck happened while I was gone?” Coop asked, still bewildered by the excessive growth of the Outpost.
“The Jaguar is stirring once again.” She stated cryptically.
Coop made a face at her, confused. “Felix?”
She snorted at his incorrect guess. “Not that one. Tzultacaj’s resistance to the Cult. We have already begun aiding your explorers: Amanda and Mikey.” She smiled at him, eyes gleaming with hope. “I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty.”
“I’m tired of being led around.” Coop stated. “Just point me in the right direction and I’ll take care of it.” Coop was ready to rise to the challenge, feeling like it was about time to flex his abilities further.
“Now that’s what I wanted to hear.” Juliana openly grinned in response.
Before they moved from the side of the ship, a wave of silence swept across the town. Conversations stopped in the middle of sentences as people paused to check their notifications. Coop received some as well, and he read them right away, concerned by the sudden change.
[The Sacred Mana Well - Conquered]
[Claimant - Akari Kitawa]
[Settlement Event: Underlayer - Triggered]
[Settlement events will initialize on Day 125.]
“Oh.” Coop mumbled to himself, rereading the notifications. “This is gonna be a problem, isn’t it?”
At least the announcement brought some clarity to Akari Kitawa’s, and by association, Reina Kitawa’s impressive recent progress. They had been fighting inside of a mana well. If he could trust the Cleary Brothers’ attentiveness to the leaderboards, they would have been in there for an entire month.
“Dang.” Coop muttered, feeling a bit more pressure to keep his position on the leaderboard. It had taken him something like five days for him to merely clear the first level of the Coral Forest Mana Well. Admittedly, he had been particularly slow in that grind due to the down time caused by his brand new Legacy of the Mists siphoning away all of his mana when he summoned phantasms to defeat the shrimp monsters, but he didn’t see that as a good excuse. He had no idea how deep the Well went, but if it was more than a measly five levels, he would be losing ground compared to Akari and Reina. Sure, they appeared to be a pair, but that wouldn’t stop Coop from competing on his own. He wouldn’t let a duo pass him either.
“Juliana.” He got the warrior’s attention away from the notifications that she was puzzling over. When she looked back at him, he continued. “Why don’t we just drive into the heart of the settlement? I bet we can draw Chakyum out if we challenge the shard.”
Juliana frowned as she tried to simplify the entire assimilation’s worth of developments in the region. “The settlement wasn’t directly controlled by Chakyum, but it is absolutely full of his people, and we do not stand a chance if we face them in an outright battle. Our general plan is to eliminate the Priests on the fringes, moving quickly between their strongholds, while building support with those we free from the clutches of the Cult. As our numbers are reinforced, we will push deeper. As we are, we are far too few.” She stared off into the distance for a moment, remembering their previously failed campaign.
Coop frowned. He wasn’t exactly concerned with number disadvantages given Ghost Reef was always outnumbered, but he wanted to make sure the Cult of Chakryum was fully eliminated. If that meant taking the challenge piece-by-piece to make sure Priests didn’t slip away, that was also something he could do.
He nodded, making up his mind to try and be patient. “Alright. Point me towards the next fight.”
