Marlene had quietly excused herself for a few minutes at Sara's request. As soon as the door closed, Reid grabbed Sara by the shoulders and pulled her into a hug, then grabbed Susan so the three of them were embracing each other. Reid could feel her breathing deeply.
"Lord Sara. I'm so proud of you." He looked to his wife. "We both are. Some of that definitely felt like it came out of left field, but I'm not going to complain about it. You were really something there, kiddo."
Susan nodded. "How are you doing, Sara? That seemed like a lot."
Sara separated, then shook out her hands. "Whew! That was... argh! Okay. Sorry I didn't tell you two that was going to happen. I got the feeling things wouldn't have gone right if I did, and I was so, so nervous when everything happened all at once - but oh my gosh, it worked. It worked so well! I didn't even know that was going to happen with the Lord Candidate thing, but I knew it was the right time to tell you about the contract, and then the Marlene stuff - don't be mad. She really is trying to help, she's just a little bit of a broken person, and I think I know how to make her be better, but it's going to take a while. But - argh! I have all this pent up energy now! I thought I was going to have to do so much more stuff there when everything happened and now I just, don't."
Reid let his daughter ramble.
"Oh! Mom, I didn't say it outright, but you have a higher rank thing than Marlene and you can give her orders if you want. The title's supposed to help you get better at healing even faster than before, and it makes it so you can teach people what you know - isn't that cool? And Dad, we have to get you back to the beacon and try things out again. I have options to do stuff here for you, and it might help with figuring out how to cure you. Oh! And I was serious about the interface thing. It's incredible. It's already letting me assign people to go be envoys to other settlements, and I've got a list of residents and their general skills, and I can set rules and regulations and I can do a bulletin thing where messages would go to everyone at once! It'll even let me do it for specific residents, or geographically to people in the settlements! Oh! That's right, I should do one for us, for this. Everyone should've seen the notification but.... hm. Yeah. I think like... this?"
NOTICE sent by [Lord Candidate Sara Calderwall]
Hi Everyone. You should've seen a notification for this already, but I've been made the leader of Sanctuary, and a few other towns that Sanctuary now owns. This was and is a planned change that Marlene and I have been working towards. The simple explanation is that becoming Lord Candidate was always a requirement for my path. In the same way I've led us to supplies and found things each of you needed, I'll be finding the right way forward for all of us in a much broader sense. My skill makes me uniquely qualified for this, especially in a world so full of unknowns. I'm honored to be the one that will lead us all through it. Now, nothing is really changing right away. Your guard duty rotations, work schedules, and ration distributions are all staying the same. My mother will still be in charge of healing, and Marlene will be responsible for our defenders and armed forces. I'll be setting up times for everyone to come and talk to me if you have questions, and if there are any questions that seem like everyone would benefit from hearing the answer, I'll be sending out another notice like this one. Thank you all!
Sara let out a long breath and flopped down into a chair, then continued rambling. Reid sat down next to her.
"So, like, not everything in there was part of my skill, you know? What I was saying to both of you - Dad, you telling me about power and stuff. And the sword - I really like the sword. But... the power stuff. I didn't want to talk about it then, because I was worried it would throw off everything else and then I might not have been able to stick Marlene with the contract like I did. Or she might've wiggled her way out of it. But, yeah. Dad, I'm not sure if I can actually do what you said, but I want you to know that I'm going to try. You and my skill both seem to be pushing me to take whatever I can get, and maybe that is a good thing. But what if it doesn't work?"
"If I was wrong - about anything in there with Marlene, she might've done things differently. If she wasn't as... nice? No, that's not the right word. If she wasn't as invested in seeing me grow as she is, Marlene could've taken the lord title for herself, and then she would be the one putting out contracts and making rules. Yeah, I did it, but so much of it was my skill, and I don't want to over-rely on things like that. Like, in a balanced card game, there's always a counter to anything that's really powerful, or there's some way around an effect. If I just only ever listen to my skill on stuff, I might miss something important, or I might lose something, or I might not get the right outcomes that I actually want. Like - there's things that it's led me to that just don't make sense. Like this one weird spot it kept telling me to go to, or leading me to your boots, which I knew you didn't like but you wore them anyway, and I just want to not ever only do one thing."
"I don't want to only rely on my skill, so I've been doing things myself. Like, during all of that conversation and with the contract I sent Marlene. I don't want to only rely on bonus xp, so I've been leaning into James's fighting training, and that way I can fight stuff myself and level up that way. I didn't want to blindly follow the skill's navigation, so I've been studying how to recognize different plants and rivers and stuff - and navigating by the position of the sun and the stars, which is really neat. I don't... I don't ever want to just have one thing. I don't want to become my skill. But, yeah. I guess what I meant to say was, just, thank you for the talk, dad. And the sword. And thank you, mom."
Susan hugged Sara from behind, and Reid found himself deep in thought. Sara was obviously struggling quite a bit more than he'd anticipated, with everything. He could still envision her, regal and powerful and bright - but the moment was a good reminder that she was still brand new to all of this. Just like everyone else. She'd just been able to adjust and take advantage of things better than most, even if she didn't always know how. Reid decided, after a minute, to share. He told Sara about the fight with the fridge, and he told everything true. How he'd been close to losing, how he was outmatched in nearly every way, and how he was certain he was going to die. Then, how the broken sole of the boot had saved his life. How it had seemed so improbably lucky at the time, and that he was now certain Sara's skill had something to do with his survival.
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"So, Sara - don't always blindly trust or only rely on your skill, but you can always listen to it. You saved me. So maybe the things that don't seem like they have meaning now will benefit you sometime down the road. Trust yourself. You're already doing good by saying you don't want to over-rely on stuff. Bertrand - he did that. I didn't know it at the time, but he tried to use a skill on me that control's someone's body. I resisted it, and when it didn't work, and he had nothing else to fall back on. So you're right. Don't rely on just one thing - build yourself up. And to do that, you're going to need power and the right tools and the right people. And I think you're well on your way to that."
Reid glanced at the clip point radius for a moment. The sword was a tool, but what if...
Sara's eyebrows shot up. "You can resist skills?"
Reid nodded. "I have a thing now in my status called Resistances, and one of the things there is just 'active skills'. Maybe we can get something similar for the two of you - I had to have two of them before it worked for me. But- ah, don't share any of that outside this room. And, it might not work for everybody like this - I'm not really sure what's possible for everyone and what isn't."
Marlene burst through the door. "Got your message. I'm here - what's the emergency?" Her voice was tense, but faded when she saw everyone sitting quietly.
"Good timing!" Sara hopped up from her chair, and guided Marlene to sit down. "The emergency is research. I need your help with a test. You said you identified my dad when he was in the woods and you saw literally everything in his status, right?" Marlene nodded. "Great! I just want you to do that again, and tell me what you see. Or! Hang on... -"
NOTICE: Lord Candidate Sara Calderwall has enabled identify result sharing for the local area.
"Done, and Dad - Marlene's contract has an information clause, so don't worry about oversharing. Okay, now do it."
Marlene gave another nod, then turned towards Reid and slightly narrowed her eyes.
Reid felt the pinprick on his ethereal self, and Marlene jumped in the chair. "Ow! Damn, what was that?"
Identify - ERROR
Reid rubbed the back of his neck and looked at Sara. "I saw that happen a few times with Bertrand's people. It's like - the bigger attempt the skill has to do something to me, the bigger the backlash they feel. This one guy tried to do something to me and ended up screaming on the ground."
Marlene looked pissed. "So you just decided to see if you could melt my brain? Come on -"
Sara waved her hands to get everyone's attention. "Hey! We learned something, okay? And that's what I'm trying to do here. And what we just saw was totally different from normal, right? So, it might be that whatever resistance you got, dad, made it so identify doesn't work! Or it could be that you're a higher level now. Oh! Marlene, use identify on me."
Limited Identify Successful!
NOTICE: This target exceeds your level. Raise your level or gain hierarchy over this being to glean more information.
----------------------------------------
Race: Human
Grade: G
Level: ?
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"Huh. Okay. Now do mom."
Identify Successful!
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Name: Susan Calderwall
Race: Human
Grade: G
Level: 5
Health: ?? / 40
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"Huh. I wonder... Okay. Everybody hang tight, I'm having Walt bring us one of the people that never actually awakened."
#
A few minutes later, Walt escorted a confused-looking old woman into the room. She was introduced, sat down, and identified.
Identify Successful!
----------------------------------------
STATUS
Name: Beatrice Patricia Anderson
Race: Human
Grade: G
Level: 1
Health: 9/10
STATS:
Constitution: 1
Dexterity: 1
Intelligence: 1
Perception: 1
Power: 1
SKILLS:
Cooking [Basic]
----------------------------------------
"Thank you, Beatrice! Walt, you can see her out now."
The woman left the room, and Sara clapped. "Okay! So, not a huge sample size, but I'm betting the awakening contract is protecting some information, and then being a higher level protects more, and resisting it stops everything! That's why Marlene can see so much information in an unawakened person! Marlene, thanks for your help here. I might have you work with me on this again, but I'm mostly going to re-read our system contracts to see if they mention anything interesting. I think we should really figure out if there's anything else the contracts are automatically doing for us that we don't already know about. Dad, like you said - we shouldn't take things for granted - so I want to know why things work the way they do - and if we can make them work better for us."
Marlene nodded. "Happy to help. While I'm here, Sara - I already started talking to some of the defenders about the changes in leadership. They're going to want you to make an appearance and talk to them sooner rather than later. And, they're wondering if they can start doing weapons distribution."
Sara looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'll talk with everyone tomorrow - today's just going to be me getting more information on a bunch of stuff... like identify. For the weapons, sure - everyone should get whatever fits them best, I guess? I'll leave the details of that up to you - oh, and I'll make sure James has a rank in the hierarchy too."
Reid barely heard Sara's reply. The mention of weapons put his focus back onto the sword. Reid had done some improvements to the clip point radius to bring it up to his current capabilities at his current level - but the weapon was ostensibly still one designed for him to use. It was made for his hands, his swing. Reid wasn't a pro with bladed weapons by any means, but it felt like he'd given his daughter a golf club that was sized all wrong. Sure, it might still hit something, but using it would be a pain and a hinderance.
Reid's head was still sore. He didn't feel the greatest. But the mis-sized sword gnawed at the corner of his mind. There was more he could do, or try, to make the weapon specifically Sara's. It could help keep her alive, or help her become more powerful. And Reid had already promised himself to not leave things undone. He pursed his lips and held out a hand.
"Sara - give me the sword."