Recollection

A report was slammed down on Syd's desk by a man in his late twenties. The man was wearing identical to Syd's, with the biggest difference being a mass of quills on his right arm.

"Boss, you aren't gonna like it. We've already had a breach in that place."

"Great, more things just keep popping up. Can't it just slow down so I can take a break already? Take two teams and sweep the area and fix the wall if you can."

With a quick salute, the man rushed out of the room. Syd picked up the report and scanned through it.

He reclined back in his chair and sighed. After disappearing for two days, Eric got into another fight before coming back.

Was the kid just unlucky? After all, he was contracted to two birds that were thought to be bad luck charms.

Thinking back on it, he had known Eric for a lot longer than he thought. Opposed to knowing him personally, he was familiar with him through his former mentor Curtis.

Curtis was his occasional drinking buddy, although he knew little about him. The one thing he could say is, he praised the boy to nearly no end.

No matter how much he praised the boy, he would never say it to Eric. He said he would never praise the boy himself not to let it got to his head, and to be strict with him.

When ever Syd asked him why, Curtis would always dodge or deflect the question like he knew something that he couldn't say.

Curtis also was a very proficient hunter, and often bringing back common tiers and rarely uncommon tiers that he chalked up to luck. The only ones that could chalk taking down an uncommon tier, to luck, are peak bonding realm and low to mid understanding realms.

Even if they took one down, it would never be a completely clean kill like how the ones Curtis had. His mysteriously clean kills and him hiding something had made him an anomaly, but unfortunately he died in that place two years ago.

That place was a now derelict district on the west side of the city, and the site of this greatest loss. It all happened two years ago in the previous beast tide.

Before the tide, it was one of the city's busiest districts, until a rare tier got in and razed the area. Countless people died there to that damn beast.

Syd's mind drifted back into the hellscape of that day, standing with his now departed brothers in arms. One by one, they fell to the cruel chimera that stood before them.

With every attack, it created what they could only describe as a bubble of air. Evey time one of these bubbles would pop, it would slice the surrounding area.

With every pop of a bubble, a new bisected would appear on the battlefield until three remained. Syd was lucky. He had a simple countermeasure for the bubbles.

By heating the surrounding air, it would disrupt the slashes. The final two with him had their own too, the Curtis just shooting the bubbles, and his former boss blocking them with earth armor.

They could barely hold out, never mind harm the creature. It was only a matter of time before something went wrong, so they choose to make an opening with their lives.

Both of them bought Syd enough time to get under the beast and impale its heart on his spear, but fell to its claws and wicked fangs. After felling the beast, Syd could only see piles of gore and limbs and devastation.

He was the only one to survive that hell, a fact that haunted him every day since. He only gained three things from that day; his title as captain, his new spear, and finally regret and visions of that hell.

These things just strengthened his resolve to protect this place, yet before he came to terms with everything, he was like Eric. After watching the boy immerse himself in work as if to throw away everything reminded him too much of himself a two years ago.

It was painful to see someone that was spoken highly of by someone he respected in such a state. The last time he had seen Eric, he was grasping at straws.

The more he thought about the boy, the more he felt guilty. He also realized he had been avoiding him, purely out of the guilt of what had happened that day.

The best he could do now was help Eric out of the hole he found himself in. He got up from his chair and walk towards the door to do something he should have done years ago.

Syd opened the door to Eric's hospital room, only to two birds, two boys and a honey badger. Eric looked completely different from the last time he saw him.

He had gone from a mess to seemingly normal. What's worse is Syd was now at an impasse on what to do; should he chastise him or comfort him?

Eric had disobeyed a direct order to not fight, and disappeared, nearly committing dereliction of duty, and caused a panic. On the other hand, he seemed to have figured something out and fought off an unknown invasion into the city.

"Eric, I have no idea if I should lecture you or to reward you. Let's just go through the list, shall we?"

Both Eric and Conor turned towards him as he walked into the room and continued.

"First off, you informed us of the tide, possibly saving lives, then you sorted out whatever shit was making, you make shitty choices, and finally you and Conor found and fought off a pack of wolves that got into the city."

"That doesn't sound that bad. That sounds pretty good."

"Would you not interrupt me before I finish? Secondly, you fought until your body was falling apart, you disobeyed orders from me, ran off for two days, causing a panic and wasting personal time, and finally you ignored my direct command not to fight until the tide had started. Now, what should I do with you?"

Before Eric could answer, a man in plate armor ran in.

"Captain, it's finally starting. The beast tide is here."