3.

It wasn’t so much a castle as a fortress. Four oily black walls with silver pictograms etched in columns down its length. I guessed at how high the walls were as I craned my head back to stare at the top of them. Maybe thirty feet? Hard to tell but they were impressive enough that Miguel, Agatha, and I had frozen in front of the battered iron doors that hung off twisted hinges. A scene of great violence was painted here, blood dripped off the walls and more of the crumpled heaps of broken stone lay piled all around the gates. The heaps of slick black stone were similar enough to the walls of the fortress I had begun to have suspicions about them.

“Who’s going in first?” Miguel asked, as he peered through the agape doors deeper into the fort. I could feel Agatha’s eyes on me already. I sighed through my nose loud enough that both of them could hear as I walked through the doorway.

The difference in temperature was immediate. The walls blocked the wind and there were a half dozen remnants of fires in the rectangular stone courtyard. Circular pits full of bright red glowing embers, the heat of them enough to elevate the courtyard to uncomfortable instead of painful. Flat gray stones were visible around the fire pits, otherwise the courtyard was covered in a few inches of snow. Directly in front of me was a second smaller wooden gate, set in a stone doorway, standing open. Miguel and Agatha followed behind me but both immediately moved closer to the fire pits.

A thread of fear wormed its way through my gut; the abandoned fort of black stone was intimidating.I forced my face to remain blank as I walked across the courtyard, heading straight for the open gate. If the rules were working the way I thought they would, this fort would be a key area for our tutorial group. If I, and to a lesser extent my group, could get the leg up by being the first ones to pilfer this area, it’d give us an advantage on everyone else.

Before I crossed the gate a white stone caught my eye. It was laying haphazardly on a stone, triangular and with pictograms of silver running down it. It had the same sheen to it the fortress walls had and I reached and grabbed it before I could stop myself. It was the size of my hand, heavier than it should have been. Warmth pulsed through my palm, warming my cold flesh. The moment stretched out, the world slowed down to a standstill as the stone whispered to me. The stone pushed its intent on me, the thought of a singular burst of motion, of the draining of my Dexterity, Endurance, and Constitution. I knew instantly that I could absorb this with a thought and that I’d instantly have this ability. This skill.

“Guys! Keep your eyes out for stones like this!” I showed the stone off to them. The gremlin in me wanted to hold onto it and its power. To be the first to have a skill in the group, to be able to move faster than humanly possible in a burst of speed. Repressing that urge was harder this time. Instead I forced myself to look at Miguel as he walked closer to look at the stone. His thin face, the shaking limbs, the sadness that coated him like a second skin.

“Here you go, Miguel.” I handed the boy the stone. I watched as the understanding bloomed on his face as he held it. Agatha peered over his shoulder to look at the stone with a confused face.

“I’m certain it’s a skill,” I told her, seeing as Miguel was lost in his thoughts as he stared at the stone in concentration.

“Skill?”

“An ability. Like a superpower. I could feel its intent when I picked it up. It’ll give you a burst of speed but at the cost of some of your stats,” I told her. The stone's intent had been so clear to me, more clear than any book I’d ever read.

“Permanently take a stat?” Agatha asked with a hint of alarm. She had picked up the terminology faster than I had suspected she would.

“No, more like exhaust it. Just get tired after using it,” I reassured her with much more confidence than I actually had. I was fairly certain that was how it worked, but I wanted to double check before absorbing one myself. At least that’s what the intent of the stone had pushed on me.

“You want me to have this?” Miguel whispered, breaking free of his trance-like focus of the stone. A plethora of emotions crossed his face as he looked at me. I had a split second to choose the best response that would keep him close to me in the long term. He was fragile right now, all of us were, but he was especially vulnerable. If I could build bonds of trust now, they wouldn’t be easy to break.

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“Fits you better than me. Just keep an eye out for any more.” It was even true. My lower Dexterity score would make the Skill harder for me to use.

“Thank you,” Miguel responded absently as the stone started to sink into his hand. Miguel’s eyes unfocused and his face became slack as the stone melted and was absorbed through his skin. Very psychedelic.

“You okay, Miguel?” Agatha asked, as she put a hand on his shoulder. Kind grandmother vibes. Which made sense since she was a grandma. I had to remind myself that not everyone changes their personality depending on who they were with.

“I feel great! I’m not cold anymore!” Agatha gave a little laugh and patted his shoulder as the boy exuberantly started to bounce around in his crocs.

“Well, I’m still cold as fuck, so let’s get inside of the building,” I complained while smiling to blunt the words. Miguel nodded along and the three of us entered the open doors. The temperature increased with every step down the long tunnel. There was a slight slope to it, leading downwards into the earth. The path turned back on itself and we kept going further down, every time we turned there was a set of metal gates standing open for us. Wall mounted lanterns glowed light blue with a steady flame that offered pale illumination. Feeling came back slowly to my fingers and ears, when finally after the third turn and nearly ten minutes of walking the tunnel expanded.

Dozens of blue flame lanterns were hanging along a wide hall.The slick black walls reflected the light to offer a dim light that suffused everything. The hall stretched out, the back end lost in the dim light. Long tables dominated the center of the room. Doors lined the edges of the hall, tantalized hints of further secrets to be discovered.

“Let’s split up. Try to find dry clothes and food,” I suggested as I walked on with my squelching shoes. I felt nervous about checking my poor feet, they had been freezing for hours in the icy sea water that had flooded my shoes.

I marched down the long hall toward the furthest door, letting the other two handle the closer doors and halls. As I walked to the end of the hall, the shadows yielded their secrets, a spiral staircase leading up and down. I went down without a thought, if the trend of heat continued I wanted to go deeper to get warmer for now. I’d leave the hall and all the doors to Miguel and Agatha.

It was only a single flight that led down but the temperature jumped enough I could feel sweat beading on my forehead. The staircase ended in a small room with a wide hole in the center of it. The floors were sloped down with the hole sitting snug, like a drain. Heat pulsed out of the hole, turning the room into a furnace. I peered over the edge of the floor and looked down. There was a light yellow flicker far, far, far down. A shiver of fear went down my spine as I tried to comprehend that. The fire was so far down and emitting enough heat to make me sweat. I had no desire to get any closer to it.

I sat down and took my shoes off. Water dribbled out of my socks as I wrung them out and set them down on the warm stone. My feet were a wrinkled mess, toes light blue from the cold. Not great. I just appreciated the heat and ignored my thawing feet and the implication of them. My socks were thin and would dry out soon enough, my shoes, on the other hand, I feared were a lost cause. With a casual toss of my hand I threw them down the hole. The impulse came so fast that I didn’t know why I did it; just a burst of annoyance and frustration, causing me to feed my only footwear to the flame.

North Sea Fort Claimed

Owner: William Brent

Forts Owned 1/ 320

Northern Forts Owned 1/64

Well that was interesting. I got up and stared down at the empty hole that had just devoured my shoes. Which let me own a fort. I sat there for a few more minutes, the warmth of the furnace room a luxury, before I got up and walked barefoot back to the hall.

I was met by a smiling Miguel and a relieved looking Agatha. Who were both dressed in much more appropriate clothing. Baggy jumpsuits of mottled gray and black, they were now completely covered with only hands and faces exposed. They looked thick and warm and a bolt of envy shot through me.

“There’s a bunch of them in the first set of rooms. Big closets and a ton of beds,” Miguel said in a rush.

“They’re dormitories. Also a big room full of toilets, another of showers, a library, and a huge room full of locked cages,” Agatha added.

“Same on my side. Rooms, bathrooms, showers, but then a room full of beds and medical looking stuff. Bandages and stuff, you know, and then the final room before the staircase is a big kitchen. Like a huge kitchen, there’s a bunch of food in there but it looks weird,” Miguel said in a rush. His stomach rumbled right afterward and convinced me that he hadn’t eaten any of the food.

“Oh, I found this in a room filled with black stones with the silver script. I think it’s a library,” Agatha said, as she held out another skill stone. My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the triangular stone. I plucked it from her gently, watching the older woman's reaction. There was a hint of hesitancy as she let me take it, a tightening around her eyes as I picked it up.

The intent came just like the last one. A press of knowledge filling my mind. Understanding, that’s what the skill offered. Comprehension of language, of written word. It was a translation skill that relied on Perception and Intelligence, both of which were some of my highest stats. There was a library and a stone for translating was in said library. The only way it would be more obvious was if there were flashing neon signs. I absorbed it instantly.

My palm burned, heat flowing through my veins as air left my lungs. Euphoria, pure unadulterated euphoria, my heart hammering against my ribs. My breath was short as I watched the stone melt and flow into my palm. It took only moments for it to happen, not even a few blinks of my eye and it was done.

Coming back to myself, I looked at the two of them and wondered how the skill worked. It told me what it did but not how to activate it.

“Either of you speak another language?” I asked. I looked at Miguel as did Agatha.

“The fuck you two looking at me for?” Miguel was looking at the two of us with an offended look on his face.

“No reason,” I deadpanned.

“I speak German,” Agatha offered, as she looked away from Miguel to meet my eyes. A trace of guilt lingered in her eyes.

“Hit me,” I told her. She spoke something that sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball. It took me a second as I stared at her uncomprehendingly until my brain snapped into action.

“Did you just call me a slab of beef?”

“Yes,” Agatha said with a wide smile.

“Where’s the library at?”