I wasn’t the most moral person around. In my opinion morality depended mostly on where one stood. Everyone was the hero of their own story and 21st century office life had the most important of all stakes, livelihood. Thus, I played politics, threw people under the bus, claimed undue credit, manipulated for gain and rarely got caught. Nevertheless, all my unfairness came with a side of sympathy, damage control and some reluctance. Simply put, my actions caused harm and I mitigated said harm where possible, and then felt bad about it. But it wasn’t my job to fix the world. Some others didn’t care at all, fully motivated by self-interest and raw pragmatism. Elias took the fucking cake though. We crowded behind the rearmost cart, discussing his request far out of earshot.
“He’s not joining us.” Mel remained adamant.
I begged to differ, “Well, he seems strong and we’re a bit down when it comes to combat assets.”
“Gabriel, he suggested we eat our dead to conserve energy. He’s completely insane.”
“He said he’d abide by our wishes. Seems like he’s willing to compromise.”
Jerry wasn’t a fan of the guy either, not that he did anything useful himself. “He fought Kris ‘for the right to lead’ as if this was some kind of contest because he disagreed we should take care of the downtrodden. He wanted to exile them, or enslave them, or execute them, and then eat them. He didn’t care. Are you going to take him on the next time it happens? Because I’m not sure I can.”
I tried to placate him. “Look we tell the guy as long as he follows our standards he can stay, otherwise he can fuck off. He managed it on old Earth and doesn’t exactly sound like asylum material, just ruthless.”
He wasn’t having it. “In the very first conversation I had with him, he told me how liberating it was to no longer be bound by society’s rules, how he was free to follow his impulses and be his real self. He was happy the world ended.”
At least Barry stood on my side. “Eh, he ain’t too bad. Deals fairly, and just ‘cuz he was happy ‘bout it don’t mean he’s an enemy. Hasn’t been even after y’all made him leave.”
Mel fumed, although she kept it to herself. Elias asked for Barry right away, because the two were in business together. Barry supplied him with what he wanted but couldn’t source by his lonesome in exchange for ‘very generous pay’. A smuggling operation aimed at an exile might have genuinely surprised me, if it hadn’t been Barry doing it. Good for him, and also good for us. Dude might’ve been understandably miffed about the whole left to fend for himself thing. Luckily Elias opted to let bygones be bygones instead of airing his grievances in violent fashion against our poorly defended selves.
Walt involved himself as well. He involved himself with everything nowadays. He, much like Mel, suffered from survivor’s guilt. “And yet there are no guarantees that he will keep his behavior acceptable. Everyone should get a chance at least, but how can we trust a person who only cares for themselves and lives entirely by their own rules? It is hard to believe in someone who looks down upon and does not understand empathy, who considers morality nothing more than a tool.”
I sighed. “And we’re in such a wonderful position to choose. There’s no point in refusing him. You don’t honestly think that he’s going to obediently stay out here and chill by himself, right? He’s going to follow us at a distance anyway. We might as well put him to work instead. Or did you plan on fending him off, every step of the way?”
Elias creeped me out, I played devil’s advocate regardless because an easier trip looked pretty good right about now. Aside from a stray Errant here and there, trouble stayed out of our way, but our first true obstacle waited for us past the river with more on the horizon. The giant lake-centered bowl we lived in could be divided into two sub-sectors, possibly more.
In this case, the stretch of land between the river west of the old village and the one to our south made up one of those sectors. Everything else was at least the second. Our live-fire historical reenactment of ancient armies disagreeing with each other butchered the residents of our little territorial pizza slice, leaving things quiet here as a result. Apparently no such event took place south of the river, according to Elias it positively teemed with nasties and different ones from before the eclipse to boot - worse ones.
“I’m not convinced having him along would be any better,” Mel said.
“Neither am I,” Jerry agreed.
There it was again. We’d gone around arguing in circles a few times already, always ending with no reasonable counterpoint besides ‘no’. Fortunately I had a method for dealing with them. Pig-headedness worked both ways. Under normal circumstances my opinion didn’t matter much, nor would it have been offered for something like this, except for one particular complication.
“Well too bad, because I want him on my team.”
Our best fighters bit it during the eclipse and Jerry’s lack of action compounded the core problem - our exodus sucked at fighting. Levels were pretty high overall, for mages especially, but there was more to combat than stats. In fact, Mel appointed me of all people as a prime military asset, to general agreement no less. I didn’t really consider myself anything special. Oddly enough no one cared about my feelings on the subject.
Ah well, they’d been worn down enough by now.
“I don’t give two shits about the past, we have problems which need solving right now and Elias is looking like an awfully handy solution to our most immediate one. If you want to put him on probation that’s fine. If you want to tell him to fuck off after we reach greener pastures, also fine. You can make up conditions all night for all I care. But if I’m going to be clearing the way then I want everything possible at my disposal to do so and I won’t budge on the matter. How many saved lives is he worth? Can you make a guess? Because the way I see it, one is already enough.”
Neat, my speech left them all silent and thoughtful.
When the time came to reorganize our chain of command, a perfect storm culminated and struck a lightning bolt on my reputation, illuminating it for all to see and to my great displeasure. Glory hogging suited me perfectly, responsibilities did not. At first Jerry, the useless prick, pointed out I’d done the most ‘damage’ to the Greatbeast and fought with Kris at the end while the rest fled. For all of ten seconds, yeah.
Quite a few folks also credited their lives to me. Mending wasn’t only a healing spell, but a political one too, stacking up supporters by ensuring their survival. My image problem escalated further when someone recalled my mad dash through the enemy lines, and then another retold my willingness to fight despite heavy injuries. A disheveled and lonely return to the group followed by consistent volunteering, both in the tunnels and out of them, further exacerbated the issue. The desperate saw a different picture than what reality sketched out, they glorified what gave them hope and suddenly remembered all my bar boasts. A rare lack of outward shellshock painted a target on my back too.
Mel knew it was all bullshit. She milked my newfound status ‘for morale’ anyway, unable to resist controlling the narrative. We conspired to an extent, yet my own agenda took priority. She gave me the stink-eye for a bit, and then sighed. “You know what? Fine, he can stay. He’s your problem now, enjoy. I have enough to do dealing with this mess.” She pointed at the charred waist-high pile of burned building and the beginnings of a campsite, centered on the old fire pit.
Jerry turned his nose up and refrained from arguing further with no support. The rest returned to scavenging the slagged remains of the Farm and saddled me with the task of giving Elias, sitting by the campfire, the good news. “Heya.”
“I heard.”
“The fuck? How?”
Stolen story; please report.
Note to self, never play poker against this guy. “It is a trick of my ability. Regardless, you were right. I would follow the group and use you all as meat shields and finally take what I wanted for myself and strike out from there.”
I raised an eyebrow and felt increasingly like shooting him in the face. “Jesus dude, rein yourself in a bit. You can’t just say shit like that.”
His face remained completely blank. “I am being honest. Nor did I lie earlier - I will act as part of the group and work towards the survival of all, even if I disagree. But I will not hide my true self.”
Sure, buddy. So… as far as this guy was concerned, he did nothing wrong – sensibilities be damned.
“Eh, whatever.” If he’d heard everything, there was no point in pretending otherwise. “I’m really only interested in your combat potential, so out with it.” And if he forsook decorum, I’d play along.
The first thing I asked about was his kit. He was a bruiser, so physical endurance and magical speed with a focus on the latter. His somewhat oddly named class shared properties with touch casters. TC’s were all about the punches and booms though, Elias tended more towards subtle. Some one-four’s probably did too, but people usually picked the obvious path, often with ham-fisted results.
All bruisers shared a creepy infection-type ability. Unlike the exploding tattoo marks used by touchies, this one left no mark at all, besides a prevailing sense of wrongness, but that might just have been Elias general vibe. He waved away questions about restraints or limitations besides energy. He straight-up refused to go into the particulars of his skills. However, his demonstration made it clear his creativity and control were the limit there – from him to sling to bullet to tree to the air around it, allegedly straight to the lungs and finally through the blood into the brain.
Once ‘his energy was one with the target’ he could… do things. Dude excelled at circumventing the info-ban, although the censorship committee gave increasingly few shits these days anyway. Only some kind of System-standard energy barrier prevented him from instantly winning every confrontation. The same defensive force apparently gave us our darkvision too, and made the last few, internal steps relatively ineffective. Thank the System. This jived with some of the early reports about the infamous Sandshits. They sanded down entire limbs very quickly from the outside, if left undefended, yet took their sweet, tortuous time destroying victims from within.
Regardless, he explained his fighting style was to go forward and then keep going. Mobility used to be his big weaknesses, even if he figured out some workarounds. And then he got the free point. It still didn’t make substantial enough of a difference for him to dictate engagements. Internally, I wondered whether his self-proclaimed downsides weren't exaggerated, considering he’d made it through the games. He also shared tons of little insights about energy, classes, abilities, skills, stats and even gear.
So how did a lone bruiser surviving by himself in the boonies come to know so much more than we did? The flickering campfire combined with his clinical demeanor turned everything he said into a fucking horror story. Maybe I could rope Barry into a bet. 100c that I’ll wake up screaming tonight.
Once again, the secret sauce was theft with a few sprinkles of evil this time. His session of the Ascension games proceeded neatly, no surprise considering his fighting style. He cleaned up a few contestants himself and relieved them of their possessions while making his way to the arena. Meanwhile, the remaining aspirational Ascendants managed to kill each other one way or another. In a stroke of luck, it ended with only one other participant, conveniently lugging a ton of spoils into the final stage.
Elias forewent the boss-fight after one look at the thing – notably different from what our people reported - and set up an ambush instead. He refused to elaborate on how he pulled it off in an open field. With success no less, he captured the last humanoid survivor effortlessly. First he tested if the auto-translate worked, and then he tortured the poor alien for information until the portals appeared. He finished up with an execution, looted the corpse and exited, sole survivor of his battle royale. Most likely.
The interrogation lasted the better part of the evening before we parted ways. Elias started to get under my skin with all the nonchalant mentions of gruesome shit he did. Previous accusations had been confirmed, this guy just didn’t give a fuck. If it seemed effective and he could, he would. If his actions caused someone else to suffer unimaginably - well too bad ‘cause that wasn’t his problem. He complied, without complaint, with my final order of acting as a font of knowledge for the nerds. Afterwards, I lit up my pipe and meandered aimlessly round and round the Farm.
Other stuff occupied my mind, primarily the burdens of leadership. My first order of business was leading a team over the river and culling the local Errant population, a bunch of frosty fucks. Problem one was establishing a landing zone, they piled up on the other side, either unwilling or unable to cross and I wasn’t sure which option to root for. Problem two was ranging further inland, hopefully turning the region into something traversable. Usually not an issue, except our caravan moved at a snail’s pace.
The river crossing had been an obvious enough obstacle and we were equipped to deal with it. Our systematic dismantling and stockpiling of all materials magical had more purpose than setting us up with some inkling of ‘wealth’. We planned to maximally exploit the malleability thereof. Our carts were all shiny green, so they would be dismantled, then turned into a bridge which we’d shove over the river. Of course, test runs would be required to make sure it was safe. Then we’d move over the wounded and rest of the stuff. Finally, we’d break down the bridges and reassemble the carts on the other side, and away we’d go.
Of course, we needed to sustain ourselves in the meantime, especially because the wounded, myself included, ate like crazy. We did have an extra mortar now, the body-snatched Terrence wore it like a helmet. Alas, a few burned up in dragon fire, now red veined and useless. To complicate matters, portable energy for firepower purposes competed with a desire for burgers. More needs further skewed the energy equation, like nonstop enchanting for beasts of burden, ammunition resupply, armor repairs and whatever else was involved in the logistical nightmare of an entire village on the move through hostile territory.
Our income wasn’t anything to write home about either. The administrative burden had lessened at least, so the freed clerks all hunted for levels instead. Even Jen, at first she spent most of her time in a recovery coma, only wakeful for a few hours each day. Then she sensed herself slipping and put the point into physical endurance as a last resort, which healed a decent chunk of her to our great relief. She still needed carrying around but it was progress and leveling up helped her recovery, so she went a little crazy and sped up the process.
That was another reason we had to leave our old haunt behind. All the somewhat intact bodies left outside and behind were missing, including the twice-fallen on the enemy side. Only the utterly destroyed were recovered, and sometimes identified. Drag marks and mud trails led north and suggested a major, highly empowered population hike for the Forest of Death.
Considering the sheer danger a foursome of low level individuals posed upon their re-emergence, we suspected the ‘heavy infantry’ of wood encased people had met their end before accumulating any significant amount of levels. The place was really going to do its name even more justice than it already did. Well, thinking about it only helped so much. I stopped procrastinating and stashed my overused pipe along with all my other possessions in my temporary tent.
First things first. I had a point to spend. A circle of people, none of them my friends, ushered me into the rage cage and locked it, by reforging it shut. Then they kept watch. We built it out of magic metal bars and the whole thing looked brutal, especially in the gloom. I was at zero energy and devoid of any equipment besides my civilian attire. Tying people up hurt them more than it helped so we quit the practice. Even so, crusted blood, miniscule dents and torn clothing fragments littered the thing. I opened my interface and stared at the little plus icon next to each of my stats. True to intent, I followed my gut.
And my gut said I was good on most fronts.
Mobility was a given, I didn’t have enough to overwhelm anyone besides the speedless, yet sparring showed it was also enough to prevent me from being overwhelmed. Some new ideas there too.
Defense was kind of on point too. My shield-sword functioned well enough and there were more options to get creative there. Besides, offence was the best defense anyway.
Which left power, of the magical kind. Jerry went the physical route and received all the expected benefits. His magic swords, appearances notwithstanding, weren't all that different from mine. We experimented a little, repeatedly smashing them against each other. His won the 'fight', but not by much. His ability, like all his skills, had been upgraded at the end of the Ascension games. It hadn’t made a difference on any front besides cost-efficiency. He summoned them in pairs now. A bit odd, since he picked speed for the ‘upgrade’.
The underlying mechanics were vague as shit, at least Elias’ findings and Jerry's weapon durability lead supported that my swords improved with more magical power. I’d probably launch them harder too. A magic focused weapon mage benefitted from magical power, simple really.
Ultimately the dragon truly convinced me. I was barely able to harm it despite going overboard. The games were certain to involve fighting other System-empowered, which meant I had a disadvantage to overcome. Even Elias’ ability was mostly neutered against our strongest endurance mage, a dude called Kim. If something rendered my offence ineffective then it removed a good chunk of my defense as well, and my mobility wouldn’t do much anymore. MP was the cornerstone of my kit, thus I would reinforce it.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Ready.” The group answered.
Mentally pressing the button locked in my choice. A pleasant lightning lit my veins. The stat instantly shot up by close to a hundred.
I’d been holding my breath and let out a long exhale, whispering ever so quietly underneath - couldn’t alert the fools.
"Power."