When Dylan sat up and opened his eyes the next day, he felt as if he’d been asleep for months. Sunlight reached in from the window and played across his bed, highlighting muscles that his instincts told him should be stiff and sore after everything he’d put them through in the Tutorial. But his body only felt relaxed.
The benefits of finally having the resilience stat.
His mind was still a bit fatigued, but that was understandable. Despite everything he’d physically endured the other day, it was the mental pressure that had taken the greatest toll during his trials. Repeatedly struggling with mana exhaustion. Straining to simultaneously compete against the wills of two bosses. And those mana patterns…
It was already good that Dylan woke up feeling as calm and refreshed as he was.
He supposed a part of his relief came from the fact that he’d unburdened himself to his father last night. After learning Fairbasin wasn’t the only place struggling with dungeon breaks, he couldn’t help but think of what Chester had mentioned about the possibility of the world advancing. A mana storm with enough size and power to cause such widespread chaos seemed even more in line with what the Guardian had told everyone to expect than a storm only affecting Fairbasin.
Once Dylan had taken a minute to come to terms with the truth of the town’s situation, he’d told his father about everything he’d learned. The coming instability of the world going through a second Awakening. Mana storms that could tear space apart. Mark. And the special Boon War that Chester had mentioned would signal the beginning of the world’s full advancement.
His father hadn’t quite seemed to believe it all, but with everything that was going on with the dungeon breaks, he didn’t discount it either. He’d mentioned that he’d pass the information along at the next meeting of the town’s leaders. He’d also told Dylan to be prepared to be summoned to give an in-person report about the situation once Fairbasin had time to focus on anything beyond its immediate needs.
With his father’s words, Dylan had felt as if an invisible pressure had loosened. Keeping the knowledge of the world’s advancement had made him feel like he was carrying the weight of an unknown future, and after he’d left the Tutorial, there was no one around him that knew about or helped to hold it. But now, it would no longer hang solely on his shoulders. His father had picked up a piece of the burden, and if everything went well, more pieces would soon be spread to people better equipped to handle them than he could ever be.
In the midst of the relief he’d felt, Dylan had wanted to continue talking about his time in the Tutorial. He’d wanted to share his class and ask about the missing dungeon core, but his father had stopped him. Looking at Dylan, he’d recognized that his son was verging on the edge of exhaustion induced euphoria and had said as much. He’d told Dylan to go to bed and sleep, reassuring him that they’d talk about everything else the next day.
Now waking up, Dylan could clearly feel that his mental state was better, but he did wonder how much of his father’s insistence that he rest was actually for the reasons he’d stated. Thinking back, he could recognize a little bit of the euphoria his father had observed, but he didn’t think that alone was enough to stop them from finishing their conversation.
Maybe he just let his built up concern from the past week cloud his judgment, making him think I was in worse shape than I actually was. Dylan pondered for a moment. Or maybe he wanted to hide his own exhaustion.
With a tier three resilience, his father was much more resistant to fatigue than most people, but he must’ve been running himself ragged in the past few days. After the inevitable difficulties he’d faced traveling in the middle of a dungeon break, he'd immediately moved to help maintain the town’s safety in the midst of the emergency, and then, instead of using what little opportunity he'd had to rest to actually recover, his father had spent his time waiting and worrying over Dylan's safety in the Tutorial. It would be no surprise if the man was even more drained than he’d been.
Dylan frowned. He pushed himself out of bed and got dressed.
Clean clothes. No more tears, no more grime. Even though the bloodstains were gone by the time he’d returned, he’d still felt their shadows caked across his skin. He hadn’t had the opportunity to wash properly yet, but just putting on fresh clothes made him instantly feel cleaner. No more damage beyond the frayed threads at the bottom of his left sleeve. No more stains beyond the hint of grass painting the fabric around his ankles.
He took at deep breath and looked out the window.
Probably early afternoon. Did I really sleep that long?
When he left his room, Dylan found the house empty and a note on the rough wooden table.
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Dylan,
Mayor called a morning meeting. After that I’m with the guard.
Back around dinner.
If you go out, stay close to the center of town.
~Dad
Before I forget, hold on to the mana crystals you got in the Tutorial. With the dungeon out of commission and the town cut off, we won’t be getting more any time soon. We’re trying to pool everything we’ve got to maintain what’s left of our critical infrastructure while keeping a small reserve for the guard’s manatech equipment.
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Dylan let out a frustrated sigh. It was easy to understand why the town wanted to stockpile mana crystals, and thinking about it, he agreed with the necessity of it. With Fairbasin physically isolated, the communication array was the only way to maintain any sort of connection with the outside world, and it couldn’t work without mana crystals. A lot of mana crystals. And that was just one place where they were needed.
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Normally, the dungeon provided enough of the things to keep everything in town running, but until something changed, mana crystals were now a non-renewable resource. The small amount brought back by those returning from the Tutorial were very likely to be the last batch Fairbasin would get without fixing the break.
Still, Dylan couldn’t help feeling disappointed. He’d wanted to use some of his crystals to make more Mana Surges before maybe experimenting with a few new cards. But he knew that what he could do with the mana crystals was unlikely to do much for the town as a whole. It would be selfish to keep them to himself if they could be better used to help everyone survive the current crisis.
But how much of a difference could such a small handful of them really make? He only had six.
Maybe he could find a way to keep half. That would be enough to max out his Mana Surge deck limit. Assuming he didn’t mess up the creation process.
I’ll talk to Dad about it when he gets back.
After having a quick meal, Dylan stretched and looked to the door.
I can’t avoid what’s out there forever.
Fairbasin had changed. He knew there was damage. He knew there was death. But he didn’t know the extent of it all. He didn’t know how many of people and places he was familiar with were still there. And how many weren’t.
Suppressing a slight tremor in his jaw, Dylan stepped forward and walked outside.
The contrast in brightness was enough to force him to raise his hand and squint his eyes. It took a few seconds before his vision adjusted enough for him to get a good look at the houses around him.
Dylan and his family lived closer to the middle of the city than to the wall. Because the escaped dungeon monsters had to cross more than half of Fairbasin to reach their neighborhood, the damage he could see didn’t appear to be too bad. Most of the houses had chips and scratches covering walls that outline broken or boarded up windows. A few of the doors had been replaced, while others—those Dylan assumed were the least damaged in the first attack—seemed scarred but functional.
Obviously, monsters had been here, but it wasn’t the site of a heavy battle. The bulk of the creatures should have been focused on the city wall and the buildings immediately behind it.
Wild dungeons typically created beasts of rage and instinct, corrupted by the impurities extracted in the process of filtering the world’s ambient mana to create mana crystals. While they could show cunning and intelligence, it was rare for them to attack a distant target when another was closer. Unless there was a significant gap in power, few of the monsters would take a detour when faced with what they saw as prey.
Looking around, Dylan suspected that the heart of the town would be even less affected, but he felt a skittering dread about what he might find moving in the other direction. Still, that other direction is where he decided to go. He wanted to see the worst of the damage first, and then, the rest of what remained would be there to help soothe his nerves with the proof that the core of Fairbasin continued to stand.
Turning toward the nearest section of the city wall, Dylan walked down the simple street. As he went, the buildings that surrounded him appeared much the same as what he’d already observed. But there were no people. If it weren’t for the signs of recent repair surrounding him, he’d have thought the neighborhood deserted.
It wasn’t until walking for nearly two minutes that he finally found someone. A middle-aged woman was working to board up her windows. Most had miraculously escaped any damage, but judging by the supplies around her, she intended to cover them all.
Mrs. Paise, I think. Dylan wasn’t quite sure. The two families didn’t run in the same circles, their only tenuous connection the proximity of their houses.
The woman glanced at him as Dylan passed by, her green eyes duller than he’d remembered. But maybe that was just his own mood affecting his perception. He nodded to her; she blinked and returned to her work.
When he turned onto a larger street, Dylan found himself unconsciously tracing back the route he and Alyssa had taken in their frantic run on the day of the break. He was heading to Mitchell’s.
The bar was located close enough to the wall to be a popular spot for those just returning from their work outside the city but not so close as to be caught up in the messier trading areas often found around the wall itself. It was about as far from the center of town that Dylan felt his father would be comfortable with him going.
As he walked, he found more people hurrying around him. Some showed the same dull eyes as Mrs. Paise while others were more emotive. Flickers of fear, anxiety, and anger flashed across stubborn determination.
Dylan moved out the way of any foot traffic. He didn’t have any tasks right now and didn’t want to get in the way of those who did, but the further he walked, the slower he found himself moving.
The creeping presence of destruction unfolded itself in front of him. The superficial damage he’d seen around his own house gave way to the aftermath of what could only have been an increasingly desperate fight.
Large cracks grew and expanded along the walls of the buildings he passed. There were almost no doors or windows left intact. Wood was splintered, masonry shattered. Most of the foliage was torn and trampled.
Dylan lightly bit down on the inside of his lips as he passed by the broken storefront of a shop his mother used to frequent to buy seeds and smaller plants.
Only a minute later and he saw what used to be a bookstore collapsed into ruin, existing now as barely more than a pile of stone and wood scraps. He didn’t know what kind of battle had happened here, but it was clear that after it was over, the building was no longer salvageable. It looked as if someone had knocked down what had remained of the walls and piled them together with the rest of the debris. Maybe it was a sign of the owner giving up after losing everything or maybe it was clearing the way to rebuild after everything was over.
Dylan couldn’t say, but as he continued forward, he found an increasing number of similar sites.
He couldn’t help but think about how so many things had gone wrong all at once. Without warning, just before the dungeon broke open, the town’s protective cover had been overloaded to the point of near collapse by the mana storm. If either the break or the problems with the cover had happened in isolation, the town would have most likely been fine. If the storm hadn’t spread throughout the region, support from the government could have pulled Fairbasin from the desperate struggle against things getting worse.
But knowing how events had compounded to create the situation didn’t change anything.
Buildings manifested themselves into increasingly broken ruins as he trudged forward, and although it was obvious any bodies must have been cleared days ago, the more shattered the wreckage, the more likely dark stains would appear that were best to avoid thinking about.
When he finally reached Mitchell’s, Dylan found nothing.
There was no crumbling ruin, no pile of debris. The space the building had once occupied was simply empty. The ground had been smoothed over; a small field of fresh dirt lay before him. It was as if the bar had never existed.
It wasn’t the kind of work dungeon monsters would do. Neither was it the haphazard demolition he’d seen on the way. It must have been cleared and leveled by the survivors of Fairbasin, and for them to do that so meticulously, even with everything else going on right now, meant only one thing Dylan could think of. It had been bad here. And probably more than just broken building bad.
Losing track of the minutes that passed him by, he stared at the earth.
“Thatcher,” a muted voice called from the street behind him, “you’re back.”
Dylan turned.
It was Lucas Teller, the thin boy who’d invited him to join the group of students that’d come to the bar after class on the day of the dungeon break.
“I’m back,” Dylan repeated quietly.