4.
My head hurt. That was an understatement. I couldn’t think, blasts of pain pulsed through my skull were painful enough for me to want to ram my head into the stone walls to end it. I think I just figured out what happened when you pushed a skill further than your stats could handle. The desire to know more, to keep reading, to push through the original light pain, the ache behind my eyes, had been a terrible mistake. I stumbled free of the library, one hand braced against a wall to hold myself up, the other rubbed vainly at my temple to try to reduce the pain.
I weaved my way back into the dining hall, I could make out the blurry forms of Miguel and Agatha sitting at the table, along with a few others. My impaired vision had been the latest symptom and what had finally broken the libraries hold on me. How long had I been in the library? The hours had melted together as more and more knowledge poured directly into my mind, translated by my skill. It had been addictive, like a direct link to wikipedia.
The newcomers had been here for a while, they were all dressed in the warm jumpsuits that had been stashed in the dormitories trunks. The search for one that could fit me had been long enough that my impatience had led me to reading for too long as I waited for my temper to fade. Now, as I sat down next to Miguel, and across from Agatha and a blurry shape that looked like a woman, I was cursing myself.
“What happened to him?” the blur next to Agatha asked. Her voice was a dagger to my ears, amplifying the headache that muddled my very thoughts. Perception and Intelligence were needed to power the translation skill, now my senses were on the verge of useless and my mind was sluggish, the thoughts formed as if coming through a deep bog.
“I don’t know. He took a translation skill and went into the library a few hours ago,” Agatha replied.
“Skill overuse. I think.” I did my best to whisper but it did nothing as the bolt of pain hit me. As I sat there in silence it took a moment for my mind to connect the dots. The unknown woman knew what a skill was. We had missed some in our brief hurried sweep it seemed. Unfortunate, but not the end of the world, having gotten two of the three of us skills was good enough. Now my only worry was if the fragile bonds we had built over the brief morning could withstand the arrival of the main group. In most cases I would have said no, but this certainly wasn’t most cases. Miguel wouldn’t leave but I wasn’t sure about Agatha. Did I need her? I didn’t know, but knowing she was searching for her granddaughters was good leverage and I really didn’t want to spend time searching amongst the others to find someone else who could be leveraged the same way.
“Good to know. I’ll warn the others who have skills not to push them too far,” The woman said, then promptly stood up and left us. I let my head sink to the cool tabletop. The relief was brief but welcome.
Maybe just a quick nap.
I woke up to find the headache had faded to a mild annoyance and my eyesight was mostly normal. My hearing wasn’t as sensitive and my sense of smell could fully appreciate the smell of hot bread. Looking around I didn’t see Miguel or Agatha but the table all around me was filled with people wearing jumpsuits eating bread and soup. My own stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day. Ignoring the hunger I looked around trying to find either of my two new companions so they could get me up to date. Instead I locked eyes with the second-most person I didn’t want to talk to.
The middle aged man who had already been gathering people to him. Now that I was closer I could see the crows feet around his eyes. The deep tan of a man who spent his time outside. The plethora of military tattoos on his forearms. Shit. This was bad for me. Someone who had training with, what looked like, a cadre of subordinates appearing with me. If I wasn’t careful I’d end up just being another tool for him.
“Good to see you awake. Name’s Dan Noble.” His grip was iron but he didn’t try to crush my fingers in some type of dominance display, which I appreciated.
“Name’s Will.”
“Miguel said your name was Billy?”
“You can call me Will.” I needed him to see me as someone more serious. Bill would have worked too, but I wanted some distance from him. The familiarity of my nickname would be for my group members, Will would have to work for the rest of them.
“Ok, well, they said you were able to get a translation skill and got into the library for a few hours before returning and passing out on the table.”
“Yup.”
“Mind telling me what you found out?”
“Let’s get a group together, my guys and yours and whomever else wants to be in on it. I read what basically amounts to the owners manual for the fort and the journal of the last castellan who manned the fort.” If I was being forced to spill my hard earned knowledge, I wanted a large group of people to see it was me and not Dan Noble who presented the information. Dan controlling and presenting the information would be an early step for him to establish control and legitimacy amongst us. I didn’t know if I could beat him directly in that regard, and the longer I looked at his unwavering gaze the more sure I was that I couldn’t. At least not without drastic measures.
“Alright. Let me grab my guys and you grab yours and I’ll see if anyone else wants to come in on this debrief.” Dan turned around and immediately motioned to some of the guys I had seen him talking to earlier. I straightened my back and now looked over the heads of everyone around me, quickly finding Agatha and Miguel along with the girl who had been examining the ocean. The last of the fast reacting people, the scruffy blonde guy, was leaning against a wall with a blood stained pole of driftwood next to him as he ate a bowl of steaming soup.
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I pushed aside my own pang of hunger as I walked over to my group. I would have to find some time later to eat because it was going to be a long night if my reading had been correct. It made me glad for my pain induced nap, because I don’t think we were going to be getting any sleep for a while.
“Finally woke up,” Miguel said with a smile.
“Yeah. Be careful with your skill, the exhaustion is no joke. Hit me like a dump truck, I could barely see and the migraine was enough I debated throwing myself off the fort walls.”
“Sounds painful. What stats does your skill take?” This came from the girl who was slumped on the ground next to Agatha. She had hazel eyes and her skin was so pale I wondered if she had ever seen the sun.
“I’m Bill, nice to meet you.” I offered her my hand and her handshake was firm but brief.
“Bobby. What stats does your skill take and what were the exact side effects of overuse?”
“Translation takes Intelligence and Perception. I had a monster migraine that made it hard to think, my vision turned to shit and my hearing grew painfully sensitive. Also I think I was struggling to smell, but I can't be sure of that since I was in too much pain to pay attention.”
“Interesting. What’re your stats?” Bobby asked. Now, Miguel and Agatha hadn’t asked me what mine were and I hadn’t asked what theirs were. This felt like an important moment here, a way to build trust amongst all of us, but part of me wanted to keep it a secret. If I was right about stats, and the reading I had started before the translation skill had been overtaxed suggested I was, stats were going to be king. I would be offering them my secrets here and now.
I made the choice to build trust.
I opened my stats with a thought and imagined projecting it outward to the trio leaning against the wall in front of me. It was easy, something intuitive that told me it was possible, just like I had known how to dismiss the screen when I first saw it. A pit remained in my stomach and the whisper at the back of my head had turned into a scream that I was making a tremendous mistake. They read my stats and then without a word Miguel projected his for us all to read. It was weird to see the words floating in the air but I was quick to skim his stats.
Miguel Hernandez
Perception: 5
Intelligence: 6
Strength: 4
Constitution: 5
Vitality: 5
Endurance: 7
Dexterity: 7
Mana: 0
Skill: Dash
Looking through his stats I was impressed by his endurance and dexterity. He wasn’t fully grown and I had a feeling his strength would climb with time. Most of my own stats were higher than his but I was a man in the middle of my prime who spent considerable time in the gym and wasn’t a slouch with the classroom either. I was relieved to see the first person I had picked out had been such a good choice.
Roberta Mullens
Perception: 9
Intelligence: 9
Constitution: 5
Vitality: 5
Endurance: 5
Dexterity: 5
Mana: 0
I understood why she went by Bobby. Roberta was such a terrible name. Her higher intelligence and perception scores were a bit shocking though. Also all three of us had a five vitality. Could five be the baseline for us? I didn’t think my own endurance and dexterity was below average. Though it’s hard to argue against the numbers. Something else to think about.
Agatha Jones
Perception: 8
Intelligence: 7
Strength: 3
Constitution: 3
Vitality: 3
Endurance: 3
Dexterity: 3
Mana: 0
It appeared that age could degrade stats as well. Agatha looked to be in good shape for a woman in her seventies, but she was still in her seventies. I wanted to spend more time on this, to further this bonding moment but from the corner of my eye I caught Dan and the others gathered at the table closest to the staircase that led towards the walls.
“I’m going to meet with Dan and those others and tell them everything that I read from the library if you all want to come with me.” They nodded as a group and I offered Agatha a hand up from the floor which she shot me a grateful look for.
“Will here was able to get a translation skill and entered the library and read up. He’s going to be telling us the pertinent information about what he discovered.” Dan took control of the impromptu meeting immediately. I pushed down the prickle of irritation and looked around at the group of people he had gathered.
Seven more of the military, or ex-military, guys. They were all younger than Dan by close to a decade and covered in tattoos and good posture. Another ten were looking to Dan as if to save them, seven men and three women. The ten others were all in their mid-twenties and looked to be in decent shape, but they had their eyes glued to Dan. All followers who would stick to whomever they felt was the strongest, the person who could keep them safe. I’d have to peel them away from Dan sometime later.
The only one not in the cluster of Dan groupies was the blonde man. He stood off to the side barely inside the group and his emerald eyes kept sweeping over us before veering away when anyone threatened to make eye contact. He kept his bloody stick in one hand and a crust of bread in the other. Weird guy.
“I read, for all intents and purposes, the owner's manual for the fort. How to activate its defenses, where all the supplies come from, how to activate the war golems, stuff like that.” I went for nonchalant and I think I nailed it as the words ‘war golems’, got jaws dropping.
“How do we activate the defenses?” Dan didn’t let his shock keep him down for long.
“That’s where we have a problem. If you go down the stairs there's a room with a big hole in it. It’s the equivalent of a furnace. You throw anything down there and that flame at the bottom will convert it to power to keep the fort working. From the journal of the castellan I read, the former garrison was running low on magical items to throw down there and were resorting to tossing their own dead and the dead fish people. Magic items give a lot more power than a non magical corpse and the defenses were slowly being worn down. It appears the fort and the castellan died right before we exited the caves.”
“So how are we getting the fort back online?”
“We need to harvest something they called mana hearts out of some of the bigger monsters that will breach tonight.”
“Tonight? We’ll be attacked tonight?” Dan’s voice had taken on a hard edge and his cadre of soldiers grew instantly alert.
“Oh yes. Every high tide comes with a wave of sea monsters. The largest of them have mana hearts inside of them. A crystal heart, like a giant geode in the middle of their body. If we toss those down to the furnace we should be able to get the defenses back online.”
“Fuck. Alan, I need you to start finding the most able bodied people. We need to fortify the front gate. Mendez, Tony, we need weapons. Try to get those cabinets open in that locked room. Ferguson and Jones, gather a detail and start hauling corpses into that furnace room. Deacon and Marsh, I want you two to go to the top of the walls and see what we have to work with. If we can unlock those big ass crossbows I’d feel a lot better,” Dan snapped his orders out instantly.
“If you get enough bodies into the furnace, I’ll be able to open those weapons cabinets and unlock the scorpions on the roof, along with the crossbows stored up there. I don’t think we’ll be able to get the gate repaired without mana hearts though. The gate repair takes a lot more energy,” I blurted out before the soldiers could run off.
“Good to know. Mendez and Tony, you’re now on body detail. Deacon, go with Alan and try to round up some more people. Put the fear of God in them if you have to. Marsh, check the food supplies, I want a full list of everything we have, also, let's find some water bottles or something and start filling them up from that cistern in the kitchen.” Everyone broke away from Dan, leaving us standing there awkwardly while he looked around at us.
“I think you’ll be of the most help if you go back to the library and learn as much as you can. The rest of you, I’m requesting your help in hauling corpses into the pit until the fort comes online,” Dan asked us. Better than ordering us, but still I didn’t want to have to be seen taking his suggestions. If only they weren’t the best options.
“I’ll head back to the library and see what else I can find,” I agreed with him in an attempt to look harmless. It would take time and work to break his natural hold on the group. In the meantime, I would just skim along to the side and wait patiently while I built my own powerbase.