It turned out that I got my wish, plus interest. If I'd thought the previous day acting as defense for the Outpost was a slog of a marathon, the second was the uphill section and there wasn't a flat grade in sight. Much less a decline. While the sky had been clouded and the weather fought back and forth between miserable rain and hair-whipping wind as the hurricane approached, the sky was unequivocally livid.

Without a good way of making windows, despite the efforts of a stoneshaper that was more a sandshaper than not, every opening in the outpost had to be barricaded. Droplets of rain fell like pebbles, interspersed with debris and hail in equal measure. When the wind gusted, the rain might as well have been falling sideways. Such was the strength of the assault that when I met up with Sarah I suggested she construct underground passages like the Ocalans in order to connect the main observation tower to the mess hall and the various shops.

They would be a hassle to maintain, unless they spent a good amount of time reinforcing it like the Ock Bridge. Hell, even before I'd made it out to her office desk some additional reinforcements had to be constructed for the bridge approach over the Ock as the banks rose almost five feet from the norm. Combined with the boosted strength of the already hefty flow of the river it washed the banks away to the sturdy roots of the cypress trees that grew there as well as a few hardy oaks and the odd Attuned tree.

"I still intend on sending out two scouting teams," Sarah said, rubbing at her temples. I hadn't known the woman for too long, but even I could tell she'd gained a few forehead wrinkles since taking on her position as councilmember in charge of the Wild Guard. The expansion to Ocala's border likely hadn't helped.

"We've already had two defense calls. I'm sure I can hold, but I don't know how much," I said, rubbing at my chin in thought. The elementals were pissed or more likely riled up as the bully came into town. Abusive father? I wasn't sure how parental relationships worked with the Anemoi Sharon had interacted with.

"Information is key," Sarah said, pausing to send some message forward through the comm-plant before focusing on me. "Buy me whatever time you can. I got word from Devon that things in the city haven't stayed as stagnant as we'd hoped with the hurricane approaching."

I was instantly on guard. It was obviously an expected or visible reaction because Sarah answered my question before I could ask it. "The Busters are fine. Better, even, if that knife-eared pain in my rear is to be believed. I don't know how Clara ever used him as a proper scout."

"Do you think I should return?" I asked, suddenly uncertain about spending a day at the Outpost when my friends were surrounded on all sides by unknowns. They could more than hold their own, but as the previous day had proven to me quantity had a quality of its own.

Instead of answering right away, Sarah leaned back in her seat. Her fiery hair continued to write things down even as her eyes met my own. "What do you think?"

"Is that even a real question? If my friends are in trouble, I should be there..." The seriousness with which she'd asked, and remained silent afterwards, gave me pause though. I asked a question instead as I tried to picture the situation from her perspective. "Can you hold here without me?"

"Yes," she said evenly. "But not if I want to send two groups of elves and merfolk out into the storm for information."

"So the question is more on the value of information? You are asking me to choose between my friends and information?" Despite how much sense the balancing act made, I couldn't help but let a bit of the heat enter my tone.

"Ron, we are on the back foot. You suspect there is an Aberrant in play, the Ocalans outnumber us in every way that matters, if you and your squadmates weren't so honestly overpowered I don't think we would have been able to grab this Outpost in the first place and now there is a hurricane looming over our heads full of the literal incarnation of nature's wrath. Information is how we prepare, and prevent what happened at Summerfield. If the enemies we've set out to fight have another Death Crow to throw at us, I want to know so I can have a Samuel Fallon to slap it out of the sky!"

The hissed growl that she held her voice to so that her tusks didn't get in the way honestly drove the words more intently. She wanted to shout out her frustrations, but she was holding it together. For how long? It wasn't the same... but didn't Sam, Danny and I throw caution to the wind for the sake of knowing what was on the surface? Information that Elias had withheld on what had happened with my father, even as harmless as he'd thought it was, would have changed everything. For better? I don't think so, but then it would be me making that decision for her.

"Are they safe?" I asked, clenching my fists from where I'd been holding them behind my back.

"As of this morning, Devon reported them all well," she said, the bite in her word absent as she answered.

I sighed, letting the breath all the way out and taking a deep breath to replace it just like Dale had shown me long ago. Anger hadn't been a problem for me in many years, but then again I hadn't realized just quite how protective I felt about my friends. I pushed my worry, my concerns and doubts into that held breath and released it. They weren't gone, but they'd lost some of their edge. "I'll buy you as much time as I can, but with how things are I don't know if the Nash Shaman will call me back earlier than intended."

A weight practically melted off the orc woman's shoulders. "We will make it work. Thankfully, I am set to take a shift today and spend some time away from this cursed desk."

"Ha! Tell you what? I need to talk to Alan at some point before I leave. You can cover for me on the trailing end of the elementals I draw in."

"Deal," Sarah said, rising to her feet and clasping my forearm. Blobby joined in, putting one of his jelly appendages atop our arms as if we were doing a team huddle. The two of us shared a look before breaking out with laughter. Whether the slime knew what it was doing or not, it was the perfect thing for the moment.

Tension properly dissipated, the wall called for my ministrations and I had a Trait rearing to be assimilated.

-- + --

"I should have asked the girls for a warming accessory," I chattered, rolling to the side and using Fievil to cast at my back. The freezing gust of sleet pelted my soil berm hard enough to send parts of it flying, but I'd been paying attention to the way the Hail elemental attacked. The barrier was flatter than it was tall and I leaned on my conjured armor to protect me from the shrapnel its destruction produced, but I couldn't afford to get hit many more times by the concerted efforts of the Water Elementals.

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While their attacks were not very effective, the status effects they were stacking on me in ways I did not like.

The unspoken part of the last Affliction was the persistent damage it did if I remained in range of the elemental that gave it to me. The Q4 Deposition Elemental had been able to dodge everything except for one of my Air Augmented Skills thanks to the fact that I felt like I was moving through molasses. was a 'roided up version of that peppered the target in a fine mist of crystal shards directly instead of acting like the grenade-adjacent form that my original skill had. Thankfully, Blobby was able to pull me out of the zone of fire when I finally hit the bastard twice; it was enough of a disruption to the snowflake-shaped creature that Fievil was able to latch on for a snack.

When the Hail Elemental's attack petered out, I used the Augmented Skill again to break up the creature's body and rush it down. Fievil was tangled up with a pair of Gust Elementals and Blobby was stretching its slime like a whip to intercept bolts of lightning aimed at my flank from a Q2 Static Elemental that refused to get into range for me to clobber it. In recompense, I used to boost myself off the ground on a column of stone to get in range of the Hail Elemental.

Despite how annoying their Afflictions were, I enjoyed the ice-based Water Elementals best. Getting to hit the loose collection of hardened water with the hammer side of a weapon aided by Ballast was just satisfying. That my landing was followed up by a spray of scintillating bits of frost from the dying elemental only served to make me feel more badass. Unfortunately, I didn't have much left in the tank as I grimaced at the twenty percent that my mana pool had been hovering at for the last hour.

"Sarah, I could use that swap," I sent through the comm-plant. She'd asked me to join her Party so that my messages would get priority over the constant chatter of reports she received. It also let me know that she'd been at the wall for the last fifteen minutes and she didn't hesitate to jump into action.

Like a coordinated group of jugglers, four fiery arms sprouted from her head and stamped out any bits of snow lingering on the ground. A lizardfolk on the wall turned the steam produced by that into a hail that threw the Gust Elemental into disarray when it was enhanced by a Gust Refined Elf beside them. Fievil didn't miss the opening, sundering the last bits of semi-solid air and getting to the juicy core within. There was hardly even any Pith left over when he did that.

For the final elemental that had been harassing our group, I decided to use my second favorite of the Augmented Skills the Hummingbird Charm allowed me. Really, by itself it wasn't that impressive but I'd finally figured out a way of triggering from a distance without having to do complicated shenanigans with my weapon.

got me within twenty feet of my sparky target. Then I cast to form the bits of mineral in the air at the same time I cast . The Augmented form of turned my halo of sand into an electrified halo of sand. If I left it alone, then like its namesake it would turn into the lumpy cool-looking rock that formed when lightning struck sand. Floating hunks of stone hovering over your shoulder and ready to follow up on your attacks were already amazing. If I mingled the forming Imbued Skill with ... they got taken along for a ride.

The sparking flow of sand and mineral flakes scoured the low Level Elemental so fast all I saw was its core of mana drop to the ground and shatter like cheap glass on one of the dozens of I'd created for cover outside of the Outpost walls.

"I thought you wanted me to swap with you," Sarah sent through the comm-plant, not bothering to try to talk through the blowing winds of the storm.

"Gotta get what I can from these," I said, huffing it back to Blobby's side and withdrawing the Arcane Sink with a nudge at Fievil. The Totem grumbled about returning to the Shard Weapon, but moved quickly. I couldn't help but picture the suctioning and dissociation of the mana manifestation as a genie returning to its lamp.

"Well, by my estimates you'll have two or three hours before I could use a hot swap," Sarah said, not turning from where she was glaring at the sky. The falling rain had eased slightly as the elementals lost their target --me-- but the hurricane itself was closer. The waves of monsters would continue to ramp up. "The scouts I sent out haven't made it back yet."

"I should be back to full in an hour but I'd probably need help getting back into it." The orc woman sent an affirmative before returning herself to the wall. Without me drawing the elementals to the northern stretch of the Outpost's wall, the mass of elementals would be coming from wherever they formed. You didn't want to be concentrated when the enemy could strike from anywhere, especially when it could be the literal wind itself attacking. It was the reason defenders had seemed so sparse when I arrived.

I didn't head over to Alan right away. Like a responsible fighter, I sought out the bottom floor of the north wing of the observation tower. Really it only made sense to put the barracks above the ones keeping the fighters in one piece. While healers acted... wherever really, by virtue of emergency response, not all injuries could be dealt with on the spot. The field hospital still had a person staffing it most of the day, and if not a messenger ready to get a healer at a moment’s notice. Comparatively to the five other more combat and construction Attunements, Life Attuned were in the most demand. Sam's developments with the healing smoothies and jam had revolutionized the response scope and access of the Wild Guard, but it didn't replace a proper heal.

Except when your Strength was as high as mine, and your Skills lent themselves to ridiculous defensive powers. Then, the healer on call shoos you out of the room to deal with a half dozen minor injuries thanks to the increasingly difficult weather. With that dealt with, I stamped my foot on the ground to try to pinpoint the closest thing I could guess was a mad scientist lab in the Outpost. A notification reminded me there was one final thing I ought to do before life got out of hand for me.

Harmonic Sinew (31%) > (87 [9]%)

With all my practice fiddling around my whitespace, it only took me a few minutes to transfer the four percent remaining I needed to get Harmonic Sinew to the Sublimation Threshold. It left it thirteen percent away from fully assimilated, but considering the fact that 'resonance' was how the Trait Paradigm assimilated I didn't doubt it would be done by the end of my shift against elementals. Getting my bell rung by fist-sized icicles provided more than enough resonance if my Trait's progress was to be believed.

I considered spending a bit more time transferring my remaining potential into Slurry Ichor, but I didn't want to waste too much of the time Sarah had carved for me. It was possible that the elementals would ease off, but I had a sneaking suspicion that wouldn't be the case. Without much more delay, I headed right for the building in the Outpost that had the most ridiculous amount of metal out of every other. The vibrosense response from different materials, especially as I assimilated more and more towards Harmonic Sinew's Corporeal Threshold, had become finer and finer. Since combat had been mostly against things not even touching the ground I hadn't been able to get the full benefit of that Trait in combat, but its usefulness couldn't be understated.

From the outside, Alan's lab looked like a stone block with foot-thick walls and a folded up solar panel on the roof. It was, as far as my senses could tell, actually a perfect cube. Twenty by twenty by twenty foot sinking halfway into the ground even when the mana-formed walls continued below ground. Even from outside I could sense the half dozen tables with a number of random materials and his equipment laid out atop it. The man in question was standing perfectly still in the center of his cube, unmoving. If his status as a living being wasn't preventing me from seeing him beyond his ankles then I would have almost assumed it was just some weird feet-statue that the researcher had made for some reason.

After years of watching Alan work-- and succeed-- you didn't question his process. I strode forward confidently.