Travis contemplation and leveling up happened rather quickly, but still he almost forgot that Gary was waiting for him. Before closing his journal, he added one point each to endurance and strength bringing them to 15. He had a thing for symmetry and now had three attributes at 15.
With one point left he thought about adding to his already impressive reflexes but had considered learning magic, in order to do this he would need a higher intelligence. It was high enough to learn and use basic spells, but in order to be any good he would need a couple more points. Knowing that he put his last point into intelligence raising that to 11. Travis walked out of the HQ and gave Gary his new journal and bag.
Gary Grigsby - PC
Race - Human
Tier 3/Level 5
Class - None
Subclass - NA
Faction - Joint Task Force
Alignment - Neutral
Base Attributes
Strength: 7.5
Intelligence: 6.5
Reflexes: 6
Endurance: 8.5
Charisma: 8
Secondary Attributes
Luck: 8.5 Willpower: 7 Perception: 5
Upgrade Points: 9
“Once again, Gary, congrats. You have been a loyal member of the team since before we were a team. If it wasn't for those damn kobolds chasing you, who knows what would have happened,” Travis said to him before shaking his hand again.
“You're damn right, Major.” His tone lost its perpetual air of half-seriousness for this next part. “Really though, Travis, thank you for saving our ass, but most of all, thanks for taking me and my daughter in. She has grown more as a person than I honestly thought possible, and a large reason is because of you and Clyde.”
He went in and gave Travis and Clyde a hug before walking off. Before he was gone, Clyde called out, “Gary, when you use your points, remember what we talked about.” Gary nodded and was out of the door.
“What did you tell him to do?” Travis asked.
“I told him to focus on strength and endurance. Don't waste points on things that won't help him, like intelligence.” He gave Travis a sideways glance, and they started laughing.
“So what's going on? Why did you need to come back for me?”
“Shit, it's a long story, Clyde. We should get some sleep and talk about it on the walk.”
“Come on, Trav, can you give me a hint, something? You weren't supposed to be back for at least a few days. Something pretty crazy must have happened.”
“A ton of shit happened. We found a medieval-style village with a sheriff that talks openly about this being a game. He's some kind of construct, if I had to guess, which sounds crazy even by today's standards. Then they were attacked by an undead army, and we had to fight off a Lich, a spider-riding goblin, half-tiger-half-orc, and some other kind of huge fucking monster.”
“Oh yeah, before that, we got a bounty to track down some monster that was killing villagers at night, but I wanted to get you first so we left. But on the way back, we ran into the monster, and it turned out to be some type of vampire. Though not the good-looking one's people love so much in the US.”
If Clyde didn't know Travis better, he would think that was a joke. As far as they knew, the world was normalish except for the areas destroyed or overrun by monsters. That alone sounds like a lot of crazy, but it doesn't prepare one to hear about villages sprouting overnight, sheriffs, undead armies, and other shit.
“Okay, yeah, let's talk in the morning.” Clyde laughed but awkwardly. He got the impression that things were going to turn another corner. As if everything they had been through wasn't enough.
“One thing, though. I put up a fence around the back half of the base. That spell drains me like crazy, but I did it in sections. Paul keeps saying how we need more people and it's making me nervous, so I wanted to get it up. If that last attack wasn't done by halfwits, we would all be dead he thinks. With both of us gone, things might get hairy.”
“We basically are betting on the fact that we won't be attacked. Even with all of us here, if we got hit by the undead like they did at the village, it'd be a shitshow for us. I do have an idea to boost base defense while we are gone. Alright though, go tag in your replacement; I'll see you first thing in the morning.”
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Travis went into his room, which was formerly the large office in the plant. He knew he had to do some soul-searching. For all the advantages he had been lucky enough to receive, it was clear to him that he wasn't using them to the fullest.
Thinking back to his time in the Middle East. Imagining if he had just one of his new abilities and the things, he would have done with it. Charging into enemy strongholds and taking out important people. Getting behind the lines to steal important documents. The things he would have done would put any Hollywood A-lister to shame.
Yet so far in this new world, he seemed to pussyfoot around. With his skill and power plus the only working firearm, he should have charged in to kill the Lich King. Not only would it have saved lives if he did it faster than it happened, but he would have gained experience which made him even more powerful.
There was an alignment in the journal for good and evil, which meant that there was going to be pure evil in this world. There was in the world before too, but that kind of evil usually thought they were the good guys. Ask a Jihadi why he was doing what he did, and you'd get some story about US imperialism or religious purity. No one would say that they just wanted to watch the world burn.
Well, that happens now, and a man that was a one-man machine in Syria now can't get out of his own way. That stops now. He understood that his last operation in Syria was traumatic, but he needed to put that away. Easier said than done, though, until he had an idea.
-
Gary was telling his daughter about how he split the skull of an actual vampire. Sure, it was lying there surrounded with a broken leg, but Travis knew he was up to the job. A simple head nod, or maybe he said, “finish him,” he couldn't remember. Regardless, he is the one that ended the thing, and now he had his journal.
He had to admit to her that he was jealous of Javier and Paul. Johnny-come-latelies that were chosen as player characters and got more responsibility than him, even though they weren't as close to Travis and Clyde as he was. He was on a roll until there was a knock at the door.
“Its me, guys. Sorry to bother you,” Travis said from outside.
“Holy shit, come on in, man. I was just keeping my daughter up with our tales of adventure.”
Travis laughed. He loved seeing Gary happy. Too often over the past couple of months, he wasn't.
“I love it, Gar, but listen, I came over to speak to your daughter. Do you mind?”
Gary was a little surprised, so in regular Gary fashion, he said, “she's right here, man, talk to her.”
“Dad, don't be rude.”
Travis held up a hand, “no, it's okay, Sophie. I know this looks strange. Actually, Gary, if I'm honest, I wanted to talk to her in her role as a medical professional.”
Before Gary could ask about some type of physical problem, Travis looked at him and just said, “mentally, Gar.”
Even Gary wasn't so crass as to push further hearing that. He just shook his head a little, embarrassed for giving him a problem but also feeling awkward because people like Gary didn't think men talked about their feelings. Especially men like Travis.
“You mind walking with me, Soph?”
“Not at all. Assign your points, Dad, but remember what Clyde said. Don't go thinking you need to be super charismatic so you can hit on the older ladies at bingo.”
The joke was so ridiculous that he had to laugh, then he gave her a hug and went to go read his journal.
It was early October, but so far it hadn't gotten very cold. They were both dressed in just pants and long-sleeve shirts. Travis headed off towards the new wall that Clyde had built. He saw Omar manning the watchtower. He and Raul did a lot of the nighttime watches, since they didn't have real daytime jobs, not really.
“So what's going on? Something's bothering you?”
Travis walked for about 20 seconds before finally starting to talk.
“You ever see those movies where the big tough guy gets told he should talk to someone or is in a session with a shrink, and he refuses to talk because he's so badass?” His descriptors were sarcastic, but the question was not.
She laughed, “yes, I know the type, in real life too.”
“Okay, good, because that was pretty much me. I like to think that I don't fit into many cliches, either about soldiers or just ‘alpha males’.” He did the quotes because he felt silly calling himself that, even though that is what he was, or at least what he was supposed to be.
“There was an incident, well, no, there was an operation in my last tour in Syria. It went to complete shit due to incompetence, heartlessness of my commanders, and my own mission-oriented priorities. Well, afterwards the army wanted me to talk to someone, and I never took it seriously. I knew I was out, so it's not like I had to, but to keep my benefits and whatnot, I did do some.”
“Did it ever help?”
“Not until the end. I had this guy who was straight textbook, and he thought he could answer any problem with something from the book. I mostly just told him what he wanted to hear. But he got hurt, and I had this new doctor, a woman. Dr. Ramwani, an Indian woman who contracted with the army. She knew what she was doing.”
They continued walking. “Are you hoping that I am like this female Indian doctor?”
“Well,” he looked at her and smiled; she did so back. “It would be nice, but I understand everyone is different. You said you have some experience in mental health, right?”
“Some, I took a couple of courses and assisted at a hospital for a few months. Mostly just short-term stuff for people involved in horrific accidents or survivors of patients that died.”
“Let me ask you something, what did Dr. Ramwani do that you thought helped?”
“Honestly, she just let me tell my story. She didn't try to fix me or give me some mental exercise I should be doing. She never prescribed any medicine. I would tell her what was on my mind either in the present or what was keeping me up with regards to the op, and she would listen. Then afterward, she might talk me through a coping mechanism or just empathize.”
Sophie walked with him, trying to think of how she could get him to start telling his story without it seeming too obvious. It turned out it wasn't hard because he desperately wanted to do it. They continued walking for a couple more hours, and Travis told her about how he had to leave his friend behind and was responsible for the deaths of dozens of civilians.
It was pretty clear that he was not the main arbiter of those people's deaths. Forces above him were far more responsible, yet someone like Travis very rarely passed the buck. He was in charge of the mission on the ground, and he had ordered in the jets and the evacuation. Even though if he refused the order his superiors could have had someone else do it on the spot, but that didn't matter to him. What mattered was the outcome and his role in it.
Even with that she talked to him about shared responsibility combined with the inevitability of what took place. If he wasn't there who knows how much worse things could have been. He had delayed the strike for as long as possible while saving most of the men in his unit. The fact that he had to leave his injured buddy behind was a brutal fact of war, but not a personal failing. He seemed accept her first points but the one about his 2nd in command Brandon didn't take. He would live with that for the rest of his life.
At the end of the ‘session,’ though, Travis felt like a 50-pound weight was lifted off of his shoulders. He hadn't talked about it for so long, even when it had kept him up at night or found him with the thousand-yard stare at random intervals.
Travis knew that he didn't have PTSD like many of his comrades had. It wasn't driven to drinking too much or drugs, he never had suicidal thoughts. He could work and sleep, even with the dreams. But now that he was thrust back into the role of “Major Porter,” he felt like he was attached to a bungee cord holding him down when he should be flying high.
His talk with Sophie, at the very least, seemed to loosen the restraint, and he grabbed a couple of hours of sleep feeling lighter and more excited about his powers than any time since this started. The road ahead may be rough, but Travis wouldn't be driving with the emergency brake on.