Ambient Mage

*Claudia's Pov*

I partied up with the rescue team, some of the faces were recognizable, some were not.

"Ms. Claudia please join the first rescue squad."

"Sure."

"Hello, everyone."

I walked up to the group of four.

"Welcome to the club, Claudia."

"i'm Ludwig, and this team's leader. A 4th star mage"

"I'm Isaac, this team's long range fighter. 4th rank mage"

I shook his hand as he extended it.

I turned to the last boy.

"I'm Ryan, the tank, 4th rank swordsman. and this is-"

"I'm Marcia."

"I'm the group's main fighter, and 4th rank swordsman."

"I'm Claudia, nice to meet you all."

Ludwig began to speak again.

"Anything y'all need to add?"

"Nope."

A series of rejections came around.

"Alright, what role do you guys need? A medic?"

"No," said Ludwig, "I go that covered, but please by all means, join Marcia, we always welcome more damage."

"So when do we leave?"

"In a few minutes here, so make sure you got everything."

With that, everyone in the group dispersed.

I assumed we'd meet back up here, near the gate entrances.

Ryan walked up to me.

"Don't worry about packing too much, Luddy over there is like this group's dad."

"He always overpacks to prepare, and is mostly prepared for every situation."

"He sounds reliable."

"He is, he's our resident medic, and because of that can have a bit of an attitude, when he's healing someone, but he's a great strategic mind, and a caring person."

"I see."

After that Ryan left and I went back to the admin building to pick up my stuff I needed and left back to the entrance.

"Alright is everyone here?"

Ludwig spoke up."

"I'm here, Luddy, Marica's here, we're just missing Issac, since Claudia's also here."

"Alright, once he gets here we'll go over mission objectives and total inventory."

"Hey guys."

"Speak of the devil."

"You're not late, Isaac, don't worry, everyone else is early."

"Alright, lets get down to inventory and objectives."

Everyone suddenly became a little serious.

I hadn't seen such a well composed team since Lucas leading his own.

"Everyone has a day's ration, extra water, and wound packaging and bandages?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"I'm missing some wound packaging, but I have most of it."

"Alright, we have rope?"

"I got it, and I also have the harness, the anchor and pulley."

"Great."

"I got the potions."

"Wait a second Ryan, we need Claudia to understand the checklist, that's why I'm calling for it today."

"Obviosly the next menu item is the potions, healing, mana, and attack."

"Moving on, who has the tool kit?"

"That'd be me, chief."

"Cool. Claudia, these materials can be found in our little base in the future."

"Thanks."

"No problem, alright let's check out and get out into this dungeon."

We walked out to Maria, who was doing gate duty today."

"Hello," Maria turned to the group, "Claudia?!"

"What are you doing here?"

"Here to sign out of the camp with my rescue group."

"What's going on?"

Ludwig interjected.

"Do you not know who she is, and why it's so odd for her to be with you?"

He frowned.

"Not at all, please enlighten me."

"She's the admin of this whole place."

The group turned to me.

"You're the famous Claudie?"

I resisted the urge to put my head in my hands.

Marcia put her hand over Ryan's mouth.

"Sorry, don't take it personally, but seen as the only time you seemed to actually show anyone emotion or actually introduce yourself was after Michael's famous slip."

"Does everyone know Michael here?"

"No, but after the whole talk you had over comms, anyone with a public comm orb could hear it."

I nodded my head.

I turned back to Marie.

"Marie, I'm no longer admin here."

"Why not, you kept everyone fed, clothed, warm, and mostly happy?"

"Well, Rose came back."

"Who?"

"One of the founders of this camp."

"Really?"

"Yes, and she's a Castellan, so when it comes to management, she's one of the best."

"One of the best?"

"Well, there's also the Norak merchant group, and our main founder and leader, without him, the original 7 of us would probably have not lived to make the camp."

"Holy-"

"Who is this guy?"

"He's recovering right now, I can't share the details, I was oathed."

Everyone had a slightly different reaction to that.

Ludwig and Marie became a little serious, Marcia got curious.

Ryan and Isaac, looked like they just wanted to hear a good story.

Marie started.

"Well aren't you going to tell us what happened?"

"When I get back I'll tell you, but we need to be signed out so we can go rescue people."

"Oh right. Sorry. And.... all of you are checked out as of now, good luck."

"Thanks Marie."

With that, Ludwig took the front and led us forward into the dungeon.

"So mind sharing the story?" Maricia asked.

"Not yet, we need barriers to move faster."

"I need to cast a silence spell, and a low level cloak for our smell and sight."

"Got it."

We continued forward as I casted.

In a matter of moments the two spells were in effect.

"Where are we headed Ludwig?"

"Not far, most teams have yet to explore outside of the 30 minute immediate zone, with your team of leaders, making it the furthest to the colosseum."

"That was recorded?"

"Yes, a lady at the admin building gave me an updated map."

"That was probably Rose."

"Really?"

"Pink rose-flax color hair?"

"Yes."

"That's definitely her, I don't know a single person wih hair like that."

"I see."

"Anyways you mind telling us the story of how he got so injured?"

"No I want to know why he's a better manager than you."

"I'll answer one of those, now, while we're not in battle."

They took a vote as we walked.

They seemed to be good friends.

"Were you all friends before this whole fiasco?"

Isaac spoke up.

"Not at all actually, we all were assigned to the rescue group."

Ryan ever the person to not let himself be quieted began as well.

"Luddy over here actually grumbled that he was a good enough healer to stay at base and heal."

I looked at him.

"What was the criteria?"

"Wouldn't you know best?"

"Actually I handle management, not the finer details, but I assume you had to be capable of at least healing limbs, major organs, or continuous healing for hours."

"Almost there, anyone with a mind magic background could join as well."

"And you are?"

"Yes."

He looked very proud of it too.

"There's an enemy ahead, so if you guys want to fight we can."

"Not yet, we're not even halfway to the south gate, and only about 20 minutes out, we need to conserve energy."

So we switched paths and went southward, instead of west.

"So Claudia tell us."

"Did you guys ever come to a consensus?"

"Well, 3 to 1 we wanted to know how he got injured."

"I see."

I steeled myself to tell the story.

"It's not a very fun story, and you guys might see the 7 of us leaders diferently, are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Yep.

"Uh-huh."

"Alright then, here goes."

"You know the minotaur still in the center of the colosseum?"

"Yes, what did he get played like a doll or something?"

"No, the eight of us were fighting the minotaur."

"Lucas, our leader had the minotaur down on it's knees with Charlotte and I."

"The princess?"

"Yes."

"Wow, you guys are bigshots."

"Well, Lucas, is a knight to the Svarmet Duchy."

"Woah."

"Well he wasn't always, but that's a different story."

"Charlotte and I were doing the main damage to the minotaur, but Lucas managed to undermine the balance of the thing, bringing it down to it's knees."

"He was going to pierce it through the head to finish the fight, when Charlotte saw something above us."

I paused.

Marcia was biting her nails.

Ludwig looked serious.

The other boys looked afraid and excited.

"She yelled out to back away."

"Lucas, and Aisha backed up, while Charlotte and I pulled back"

"Aisha as in the healer Aisha?"

"Yes, the very same, she's a tank."

"What?"

A chorus of confusion began.

"Really? Tell us about that too."

"One at a time, let me finish."

"Help!"

A scream rang out.

"Doesn't that idiot know that screaming is only going to attract more monsters?"

"I don't know, Don has always been stupid."

Apparently two people recognized him.

"Don Carciak, fourth star swordsman, third son of the baron, and resident scaredy cat."

"Really?"

"Yeah a lot of people know him."

"He's gpt a reputation for being like this."

"Let's go put out his fire, and get him back to base."

Ludwig said.

"Alright, let's move then."

Ryan responded.

We all maneuvered around Don, who was still screaming.

Ludwig reached him first.

"Shut up, you're attracting monsters."

"Sorry."

"Where are your teammates?"

"One of them is back that way."

He pointed southwards.

"And the others?"

"Near the gate."

"Fine, we'll take you back to camp once we get your teammates back."

"Thank you."

Marcia galred at him.

"Don't be a deadweight."

She said my thoughts, so I flashed her a smile.

She responded.

We continued our walk at a faster pace to find the girl.

Don was of no help, he couldn't tell left from right, if the signs were in front of him.

We eventually found his teammate.

"Are you okay?"

She had a gash across her chest.

She was alive, and thankfully woke up when called out to.

"Hey, where are your teammates, probably back at base already."

"We've been running away from base for a while now."

"What?"

"Why would you do that? We have medical supplies."

And with that she slumped over in sleep.

"Ludwig, we need to get her back to base, we'll just have to trust she was right."

With that, we travelled back with the camp.

Marcia was enraged a little.

"Don why would you leave a girl like her all alone?"

"I'm sorry, sorry."

Ludwig spoke up.

"Marcia, stop, we have bigger problems."

We looked out at our camp.

There were a ton of monsters sitting near the walls.

Well.

This was not ideal.

The 5 of us dashed into the gates, taking care to be signed in as I brought the girl Lucia, to the medics.

"Claudia."

Rose found me.

"We need you at the wall, no rescue teams are unaccounted for, so everyone is mobilized to the wall right now."

"Why are there so many monsters?"

"We have a running theory that they are attracted to the light or people here. Probably both."

"I understand, what do you need me to do?"

"Stay safe and conserve your energy, we have spearmen and swordsmen who are skilled enough to jump from the walls and fight the monsters directly."

"That's good."

"Let's be honest Claudia, there's too many 4th tier beasts here."

"There are some 5th tier too."

"Really? How many confirmed?"

"Three. As for the 4th tier there's at least 30."

"How many monsters?"

"Probably well into the 200's."

Damn.

"So I'm backline support?"

"Yes, but your real mission is to keep Lucas safe."

"Theoretically all the 5th tier people could band together and deal with this, but right now we only have 3, Aurelia, You, and Ms. Charlotte, and two of them are preoccupied with Lucas."

"We need to protect Lucas."

"Any reason we don't just pull Aurelia or Charlotte out now?"

"Lucas is coming to."

"What?"

"It's going to be a long night Claudia."

"i understand Rose."

"Claudia, be careful."

I left to the wall.

The monsters were still holding out in the walls of the labyrinth, the first day wasn't even over.

I met back up with my rescue party.

"What's the current count?"

"327 monsters, any new 4th tier or 5th tier?"

"No."

Good.

Rose's voice was heard over the public orbs.

"Everyone at ready, this is going to be one of the longest nights of our lives."