Charity is only a waystation on the road of Justice.
Pre-Fall minister.
The Camp of the Mooneyed felt like a hybrid of the city of Cheat and a classic farm complex. While there had been no obvious path leading there, Monica Silvers had been able to guide the two wagons across the forest and up the hills that surrounded the area.
Mid-way, they’d met with a scout of the Mooneyed keeping watch. The diminutive woman on her Canid mount had prompted him to seek them out rather than stay hidden, and he’d wasted no time rushing to the Camp while the slower-moving Talent House expedition carts followed.
The Camp was surrounded by a handful of fields, all fallow. Everything had been harvested long before, although Miles spotted what looked like an orchard of sorts, given how heavy the apple trees looked. They were not aligned like you’d expect a proper orchard, but still suspiciously well-spaced.
The main structure was large, with well-cleared spaces around it. It was a mixture of stone and an enormous wood trunk palisade with an upper walkway and parapet.
“Where’s everyone?”
“It’s daytime,” Monica replied.
Miles almost facepalmed. The fact that the 3-foot-tall woman wore permanently heavy glasses with side shields that enclosed her face entirely was so now familiar that he forgot the Mooneyed were actually nocturnal.
There was a Talent that was supposed to provide similar night sight without the drawback of being half-blind in daylight. Sweep was in the repertoire of one of the guards back in New Sandusky, and while he suspected the passive was not quite as good as the native Mooneyed’s eyesight, Stu would probably find himself at ease in that environment.
Once they reached the camp gates, Miles immediately realized the problem. While the gates were large, probably to allow for the harvests, they were also scaled for Mooneyed use. The large wagon used by the Talent House was certainly not going to fit.
Monica immediately apologized.
“We don’t have beasts of burden like you do. Some of the mounts that are not used by scouts, but that’s not the same.”
“We’ll make a camp next to the door. Hopefully, it’s not too risky.”
“Almost all buildings in the camp are Taller-sized.”
Miles thought for a few seconds before laughing.
“We’re not staying long, hopefully, but I suspect we can keep watch on the draft teams during the day and your people at night.”
“That works.”
The inside of the Camp was quite unlike cities or farms. Some buildings looked almost modern rather than Ancient, but they were widely spaced with lots of room. Pathways crossed the interior. The only trees were all clumped into a small mini wood to one side, which also looked like an orchard of sorts. It was almost like being in the countryside, yet in a town, in sight of a wall at all times.
A duo of Mooneyed, wearing farmer-style overalls and large dark glasses, came out of one of the low-lying buildings and beelined toward Monica. She exchanged a few quick sentences while the scavengers took the sights.
“I don’t think the elders will be up and around already. Why don’t you settle down? Marcus and Yves will be showing you.”
The building they were led to had normal-sized furniture, although it was a bit dusty.
“I apologize. The last Taller… died a few years ago. There’s been no one since.”
“What happened? Monica mentioned that some of the people did not get Changed after the Fall.”
“The Four Families were not, yes. No one knows why everyone in that building stayed unchanged. There were six men and four Taller women.”
“They were inbred?”
“It’s more like there was only one woman born in an entire generation. And she did not want to go on to mother dozens of new Tallers.”
Ouch, he realized.
“The Mooneyed had sworn to protect them, but now, we have no one. Well, until you showed up.”
Miles restrained a laugh, as this was not a laughing matter.
“I guess we don’t need much protecting.”
“Are there that many…” the small man asked.
“Way more than that. A few million, even with just this continent.”
The lighting in the building was subdued, and the four older Mooneyed seated in front of Miles and Petra did not need to wear glasses. Monica did not either, nor the two men sitting on her side. Miles found their eyes slightly unsettling. They were huge for the head, far larger than eyes ought to be. The proportions of the Mooneyed body evoked children, but the face was very different and unmistakably Changed.
Monica introduced the two men. Hank Marek and George Silvers were the other two scouts who had followed them to Washington D.C. Hank had obtained Spotter – an Agility and Empathy specialization apparently based around spears, Miles remembered from the lists – and George was an Explorer, a more basic and generic Agility one.
“I’ll have to take stock of what potential you have. At least you have some basics. You lucked out that the Ancient was making self-serve sets for the first days. The later parchments require knowing what to do with them.”
They finally started the actual discussion. Two of the elders were also named Silvers, which seemed to be a common name among Mooneyed. That was not surprising; Monica had told Miles that there were less than two hundred Mooneyed overall, and everyone was a distant relative of everyone else. That had made him wonder how they fared. Marrying was probably a bit difficult, with few prospects, and some of them very closely related.
“So, you can help,” John Silvers started.
“Somewhat. We did not have too many problems, only a few Canid packs, which we drove away.”
“It’s not going to be the same if we move.”
“I’ve been in the eastern coast zone before I was even a Metal sorcerer. I can only admire how you survived here.”
“Survive is the word. Our people rode the early Fall out, before that freak storm came and left us, and our dogs Changed after a month. Then, the beasts started to rise, and we held out. We had a sacred mission then, protecting the President of the United States.”
Miles hesitated briefly.
“The old United States no longer exists. We have the Union of States, but it is not the same one.”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“We guessed,” John Silver sighed. Even after the old President died, after his wife died, we could only endure. People had been attacking us to get at the resources we stockpiled just before the Fall, and we repelled them until no one came anymore. The Great Beasts are not as numerous as they once were, but they’re still there. The same mana that allows our mounts to rise allows the fauna to rise as well.”
“That’s a bit of a surprise there. Monica told us how she could feed the same parchments of the Ancient to her mount.”
“That people could have the same skills was a surprise for us. And we need those.”
John turned toward Monica.
“While you were away, Hiram Marek got almost killed by an Ursid pair. His mount dragged him back, but she got mauled, too. Neither will do scouting anymore since Wounds died six years ago and isn’t there to help. And that could have been worse.”
“Ouch,” she said.
“That is why we’ll do whatever it takes. I, for one, am tired of seeing a scout die every year. Even on relatively good years, which this one isn’t.”
Time for negotiation, Miles thought.
“We need some additional strength to get to Washington again. While the road was okay, we discovered significant threats closer to the city…”
“And the ruins themselves had lots of what you call Greater Beasts,” Petra added.
“And if you raise our scouts, they will help,” John Silvers confirmed.
“So we have thirty build bases, one for each combination of master qualities. Your roster is 21 scouts, including you and the other two,” Miles prompted Monica.
“And excluding Hiram. I mean…”
“If we had a Fixer with the right level and build, he’d probably be up and around in a month. But that requires a fairly high level, a build that we’re unlikely to get, and a parchment that we don’t have. After the expedition, maybe.”
A handful of Mooneyed drifted in. They were all bright-eyed, he thought, even with their weird, large eyes. Mutters started upon hearing Miles’s pronouncement.
“Some of this would be easier if we had Foster here for Gauge Endurance. We’ll make do until we have someone.”
He whipped out some of the talent tracker parchments.
“Monica, organize your fellow scouts in age order. It’s relatively fast, as you’ve seen, but we need to check everyone first. I won’t explain this time.”
“Very odd,” Petra noted as Miles tried to sort the intake.
“Nearly one-third with Agility as a primary, and another third with Empathy.”
The assembled scouts of the Mooneyed, save for the hospitalized Hiram, waited with bated breath for the pronouncement of the two Tallers.
“You said that Hank has Agility and Empathy,” Monica observed.
“And we’ll have to measure him as well. And your cousin.”
“I’ll fetch them.”
John Silvers just arrived as Petra and Miles finished sorting.
“Your scouts are odd,” Miles said. “There is a lot less diversity than we’d have expected.”
“Is that why we never had any Talents?”
“Possibly. You might have had a Hero one day, but it would have been tricky to spot. But here’s what we think will be the best spread of specializations. It is heavy on support and front-line, with very few with ranged capacities.
“What I’d like is to test for Deadeye – that’d be Norris? – and give him Gauge Endurance. It’s the only heroic specialization that fits your scouts which provides a second-tier competence in that Talent. That will give us a better view of who can get what, or rather how much. Your scouts all have rough lives against Changed Beasts, which means higher potential in our experience. But that’s not a guarantee.”
“I have absolutely no idea how any of that works. As I said, we need you.”
Petra and Miles started going over the specializations they’d selected.
“Overall, that makes 13 Talented scouts, plus the three that came with us. With potentially 3 to 6 Talents each.”
“Each equivalent of a mount-skill.”
“Correct.”
At that moment, Monica re-entered the barracks, dragging both Hank and George.
“They thought they could wait it out, as they were already raised.”
“It’s a bit awful,” Miles said.
“Either your scores are horribly low, or your level is also too low,” Petra explained to George, who sported a pinched face.
“I’d use a Level parchment. With Zoom, you should have 17 in Perception, but you don’t seem to have more than 16, so I suspect you can’t take an additional Talent in that area.”
Miles whipped out a basic parchment. He had an extensive store of the basics since the advanced build sets he had brought were mainly without qualities and certainly without levels.
“Well, that kills that option,” Petra noted as the parchment failed to light.
Miles dug into the box of the parchments and pulled out the Deadeye one to verify, and sighed when he spotted the Level that was there.
“I’m sorry, I can’t give you an upgrade.”
“Well, that’s still three mount-skills more than anyone else.”
Monica squeezed her cousin’s shoulder.
“Don’t worry. There is time for that later, they say.”
John waved the scout away.
“You still have that far-sight – Zoom, I assume. This will go well when needed. Does this change anything?” he asked Miles.
“No. And I have Deadeye out, so let’s start with Mr. Crosby Norris.”
The scouts were fascinated with the process and the flaming burn of parchments. They’d heard of it from the three original scouts, but that was the first time they’d seen it happen. The newly raised Deadeye got a handful of archery skills and the Perception-based Gauge Stamina. The sensation of power levels almost freaked him out, but he quickly figured out the relative power levels of the present.
Unsurprisingly, John Silvers, the elder Mooneyed, was above all the other’s levels, although the Deadeye could use Petra’s level 7 as a reference. The scouts ranged from level 2 to 6, and he confirmed Miles’s previous guess of a level 6 for Monica.
“Raising levels is easy when they are low,” Miles announced. “Just because you’re currently level 2 does not mean you can’t rise to the minimum level expected.”
After concurring with John Silvers, Miles pulled out the various parchments, starting with the highest levels, which, unsurprisingly, were almost all the veteran scouts in their mid-twenties.
Of major interest for everyone was the Stock Fixer candidate, but unfortunately, he was capped at level 6, one short of the level 7 required for Regrowth. With more talent energy and a parchment for that one made, however…
“So, 11 scouts final. Plus, a few adjustments for both Monica and Mr. Marek. Too bad Ms. Jonas – the other Ms. Jonas, I mean – doesn’t have enough talent energy to raise Strength as she’d be a good backup choice.”
“Will this be enough?” John asked.
“It’s not that balanced. You do have two sorcerers, an Earth and Fire Shaper at least, with the Deadeye as another range combatant, but the rest are all close combat.”
“With names like Blade Whirler and Swordbringer, that’s obvious.”
“Sharp Discreet and Spotter, too. Thankfully, you do have a Combat Fixer and two more Fixers.”
“Barring a mass attack by beast hordes, you can probably safeguard a medium group just fine,” Petra added.
Monica Silvers
Female Mooneyed, 20 years, 11 months
Improviser
Level: 6 (8000 XP needed)
106/219 stamina (+15 per hour)
0 unallocated skill points
XP: 5796
STR: 15 (2000 XP needed)
AUT: 13
AGI: 17 (880 XP needed)
Fast Draw (40)
Deflect (58)
PER: 16 (2000 XP needed)
Accurate Pierce (38)
DEX: 18 (1822 XP needed)
Reconnaissance (60)
EMP: 17 (1296 XP needed)
Precise Hand (23)
+6.0 Perception for skill checks
Unshakable grip on a weapon under 40 pounds
+11.9 Dexterity for skill checks
George Silvers
Male Mooneyed, 20 years, 6 months
Explorer
Level: 4 (5000 XP needed)
79/79 stamina (+16 per hour)
0/20 mana (+17 per hour)
0 unallocated skill points
XP: 4351
STR: 16 (1946 XP needed)
Blocking (36)
AUT: 14
AGI: 18 (1516 XP needed)
Steady Shot (22)
PER: 17 (1055 XP needed)
Zoom (21)
DEX: 14
EMP: 16 (2000 XP needed)
Insight (20)
Require 21% less light to see
22% less fatigue
+3.6 Strength for skill checks
+2.0 Empathy for skill checks
Hank Marek
Male Mooneyed, 21 years, 3 months
Spotter
Level: 5 (8000 XP needed)
142/142 stamina (+15 per hour)
3 unallocated skill points
XP: 1300
STR: 15 (2000 XP needed)
AUT: 14
AGI: 19 (2000 XP needed)
Jolt of Endurance (43)
PER: 14
DEX: 14
EMP: 17
Anticipate (56)
+5.6 Perception for skill checks
+43 stamina