LTSV - Harbingers of Change - 35 (Patreon)

The last Gate in the San Aurelio territory was shortly before Mira and the others were scheduled to enter the Pearl Forest and they were asked to be on standby in the event that the hunters inside failed to prevent a break. The elves who'd taken custody of the San Estrella mountain range and surrounding woodlands had finished their assessment of the gate and upgraded its initial assessment from a C to a Near-B class dungeon with a three-week duration. That distinction was, apparently, important.

The elves weren't holding out hope for whichever poor souls had ended up in there and had already dug out serious fortifications around the gate. They'd extended an invitation to LivingShadow Guild for help with the initial wave of monsters in the hopes that the hunters could use the experience to gain an edge on the dungeon when it entered its next 'quiet' period.

Mira was generally in favor of anything that let her team practice with their new skills, even if it meant dealing with elves.

The third, as yet nameless, gate was located deep in the Estrella foothills and they had to swap the vans for off-road vehicles. Mira had taken advantage of their downtime to collaborate with Will and Cece. They now had a useful variety of spells between them. Will's wizard class let him copy any spell formula he could see and understand. The System's spell primer was a few steps short of garbage (probably so the System could sell more 'books' later), but Will and Cece were both smart, logically-minded people and it wasn't too hard to run them through the basics of spell interpretation and design.

Cece, especially, took to the subject like a duck to water. Mira hadn't been present for any of their previous lives when Cece had first learned magic, but it would be just like her to be a magical prodigy every single time.

Mira's 'State of the Gate' video had gone live that morning. They'd filmed it the night before, after Mira, Syrith, Soneares, and Randall put their heads together and wrote a script. Luca filmed it and took care of the post-production editing. He'd thrown in a few animated graphics from motion graphic templates that helped illustrate Mira's talking points. LivingShadow leadership, which consisted of Mira's team, Adra, and Syrith, reviewed the final product and approved it before Mira uploaded it to her channel.

Luca was managing her channel and viewer engagement while she focused on the task at hand. He'd been texting her updates all during the drive out and, so far, her channel's follower count had almost doubled. She was getting a little criticism for being a lifestyle influencer talking about 'serious matters', but most of the reception was positive. They hadn't caught the attention of anyone important yet, but that would probably change soon. Syrith was standing by to handle any fallout. They were as prepared as they were going to get.

Speaking of Luca, he had ideas for the channel—assuming it didn't get shut down by the government in a few hours. He'd been a bit at loose ends after he'd followed Bryn to LivingShadow. The move was for his safety, but he'd had to give up his job at a chain coffee shop in doing so. Commuting from the Tower and crossing the barricade every day just wasn't feasible and Bryn was happy to support them both.

Mira had offered him the job because he was convenient and Adra recommended him, but she got the better end of the deal. All of Samira's videos had been shot with a high-end cellphone camera and a ring light. Luca had real film and lighting equipment and, having now seen his reel, Mira pressed Adra to sign him on to LivingShadow as a full-time employee—especially if they ended up doing that 'So You're a Hunter, Now What?' series that Luca had pitched to her.

"So, explain it to me again," Randall said, startling Mira out of her thoughts regarding her videos. He was talking to Adra, who was wearing his Illya body. "Why are the elves expecting a bigger wave of monsters out of this dungeon?"

"The elves have studied the gates more than the other founding races of the Triumvirate," Adra explained. "They have a good track record in predicting the severity of a dungeon break. According to them, even a low level dungeon with a long timer can have a larger-than-usual break. It's only for the first few hours and then the waves will slack off into something similar to what we're seeing on Pacific Promenade. The individual creatures will be stronger by then, but there will be fewer of them. The elves could probably handle this on their own, but they want you to have the opportunity to fight as many different types of monsters as possible before you enter another dungeon."

"Kind of weird that we're getting this opportunity and not SunBlade," Randall mused. "Shouldn't we be working together?"

"The Guildmaster of SunBlade would not send his hunters unless we paid him a fee," a nearby elf spat. "He will learn the error of his ways—or the System will revoke his permit and put it up for another bid. That is rare, but it has happened before."

Adra gestured to the elf. "It is as he said. Guildmaster Heron declined the opportunity."

Mira winced. She'd talked with Soneares for a bit, to better understand what the Triumvirate forces were here to do. Some of them, like the demons, wanted preferential treatment in future immigration opportunities. The elves were here to study new dungeons. Like most very long-lived species, they weren't very interested in colonization. They didn't have the population to support it and they didn't have the demons' vested interest in creating pocket societies where demons displaced by summoning could find sanctuary.

The elves wanted to understand the dungeons and stop the spread of spontaneous incursions like the one that had just rocked this planet. The dungeons were too useful to do away with entirely and the elves clearly weren't selfless enough to be doing this entirely for the protection of younger species, but they didn't need to be martyrs to want to halt, or at least slow, the endless spread of the dungeons.

At the same time, if a suicidal human wanted to reject their overtures of mutual aid—well, the elves weren't going to force Blake Heron to accept their help.

Mira checked the gate. The timer had appeared almost half an hour ago and the final countdown was in its final minutes. No one would know what kind of mobs the dungeon spawned until the gate opened.

"What did the gate look like when we escaped?" she asked Adra.

"It changed colors from violet to white, starting from the center." He gestured towards the gate. "If you haven't seen footage of the dungeon break in the Capitol, that one changed from violet to red all at once."

"So, we'll know right away if the hunters inside finished off the boss in time," Mira murmured.

It was stupid, but she still had hope. Judging by the survivors she'd met so far, the System didn't choose the first generation hunters at random. It chose people with the best chances of walking out of hell on their own two feet, not just the people who happened to be close by at the time.

"Something's happening!" a distant elf called out.

Mira and the others ran up to the front line, which was a barricade of staggers reinforced cement traffic dividers that the San Aurelio city council had donated to this effort. The elves had further reinforces the dividers with engraved spells. A few demons stood between the gaps with riot shields so that defenders could duck back and forth between the front line as they rand out of mana or stamina.

Mira had pre-gamed with a sharpie and had defensive spells drawn all over her arms and torso, which were all waiting for a trickle of mana to activate them. Bryn took the front with his new shield. Randall and Alan flanked him. Mira, Cece, and Will stood a their backs ready to cut down the first of whatever came out of that gate.

She checked the timer again and caught it just as it ticked down to zero. She held her breath, still hoping.

A little starburst of pale shimmering light sprang to life in the center of the gate. It wasn't actually white. The color was almost opalescent: a swirl of pastel tones that spread outwards to overwhelm the dark violet energy of the gate.

"Yes!" one of the demons shouted and turned to his neighbor, an elf who had a look of mixed relief and annoyance. "Pay up!"

"I do not mind this loss, truly," the elf sighed and made a gesture in the demon's direction that presumably transferred money into his account.

"I'll take your money all the same," the demon snickered. "Ah, something is coming through. Medics! Get ready to move on my signal!"

Indeed, a large shape had appeared in the gate. Given their experience with the Ruined Borough, no one here would assume that the first body through that portal would be a hunter.

A few seconds later, a large human man stumbled through the portal and staggered a bit as he stumbled to a halt. He was tall and beefy with a classic strong man silhouette; broad shoulders and a thick, taught belly. He was dirty from head to toe, but Mira thought he might be white under all that dirt. He had short ginger hair and a slightly darker beard that was streaked with white hair. His shirt hung open in tatters. He had on paint splattered jeans and workman's boots. He had a shotgun holstered on his back. A battle scarred chainsaw hung from one of his hands and he held a decomposing head by the hair in his other. The head was animated and kept trying to bite the air.

He stared at the array of defenders surrounding the gate. They all stared back.

Alan leaned over to ask the group a quiet question. "Is that William Ash from the Vengeful Dead series?"

Mira couldn't answer. For one, she didn't know who that was. For another, she did know that man. She might not know his name right now, but she knew him and it took everything she had not to let her lip wobble.

Bertram looked around and dropped the zombie head at his feet. He took a second to stomp on it so it stopped moving and then loudly asked, "Does anyone have anything to eat? I ran out of food yesterday and I could eat a horse right about now."

Note: Hi, Dad.

William Ash/ Vengeful Dead - Ashley Joanne 'Ash' Williams from the Evil Dead franchise.