It took an hour, and fending off another attack, to get the small boat to shore. For once something was going their way, as the moment the hull bumped the grassy landing a System message telling them they had entered a new territory popped up. Not seeing any factions or important information within it, Ray dismissed it without going over it fully. Annoyed that they weren’t able to get further down the river, but more than happy they had accomplished their goal of getting out of the area, Ray was looking forward to getting home.

They ragtag group scrambled off the boat and up the hill to the road. Several undead eyed them from the inside of cars, and Ray was positive he saw some hulking mass shift back into a building, but nothing was willing to come out into the daylight to try and eat them. He was glad at least that stayed true.

They cautiously made their way down the rough road along the river. They travelled in between the river and a familiar-looking industrial complex with large round white towers. Some kind of petroleum manufacturing plant or something else that dealt with liquids that needed to be stored in large quantities.

Their walk was quiet. Eerily so. While the group did see undead here and there secreted into tiny pockets of shade or luring inside of the occasional open building, nothing else seemed to be moving in the area. Ray had yet to see any large quantity of wildlife, but this area just felt … dead.

“This is eerie,” Nyx said quietly, mirroring Ray’s inner thoughts. “Like we aren’t supposed to be here. Like nothing living is supposed to be here. This is not right Ray, we need to leave this place. Quickly.”

“This place is of the unliving,” muttered one {RANGER} quietly as he eyed the industrial complex.

Ray agreed. “Let's go, double time. Let's get away from this place and around it. Home, here we come.”

The group moved more quickly, the wounded Verrick being supported by two of the remaining {RANGER}s. They moved at a quick jog, throwing away their ability to be stealthy in favor of getting away from the complex. At one point Ray had the distinct feeling of being watched, and the sense of danger he felt grew to the point he actually began to sweat. After several minutes, however, the feeling began to slowly diminish, all without them having to fight something. It was at the point that they crossed a wide by-way, a six-lane road, away from the complex that the feeling faded entirely.

Pausing on the other side, the group turned to look at the industrial complex for a moment before they collectively shuddered. Slowing down a bit, they walked the length of the complex, but heading inland away from the river in the direction of their territory. The further they got from the strange factory, the better they all felt.

It took them another four hours of walked at a steady pace, picking their way through debris and over rubble before he saw the telltale green fog.

“There it is! Damn, that took forever,” Ray muttered as they crossed the barrier. He immediately got a System message giving him an update on his territory. He happily noted that there were not any changes that he could see.

{EXPLORATION}

{ENTERING HEX 1341}

{STATUS}

CONSOLIDATED

{FACTIONS}

1

“Great, all’s well in the land of Ray,” Ray said grinning like an idiot. They weaved in and out of the tall buildings, dropping all pretense at stealth. While Verrick and the Aelvin were a bit wary, Ray knew that the team from Argyle had wiped the territory clean of any creatures and undead. That meant that unless someone, or something, moved in somewhere that they were completely safe to move as they saw fit. And seeing as none of the buildings had a skull icon over them, the zone was still cleared of enemies.

Moving far quicker than they had in the other territories, the group exited out into an open space containing their base. They all froze when it came into view, even Ray was stunned by what he saw.

Derrick had done some work.

The four buildings that had been melded together at the base were now fully fused, with a full twelve stories to work with. What was more, though, was that there were now sky bridges from the main ‘trunk’ of the fortress to neighboring buildings. Those buildings were a solid block of system-reinforced concrete at the base, keeping the sole entrance to the growing complex at the main building. The entrance itself had changed as well. What used to be what amounted to a plain tunnel leading to the center now sported a reinforced guardhouse complete with matching towers featuring pillbox bunkers at their base and a portcullis over the top.

Even from here, Ray could see multiple people moving back and forth across the new bridges. Far more than he remembered even being in the territory before.

Heading towards the main entrance the group stopped as they a voice called out in a challenge, “Stop there! Don’t come any closer!”, yelled one of the men from the tower. This gained the attention of several other people working just outside the entrance, who promptly ran into the tunnel for cover.

Far from the welcome that he was expecting, Ray responded a bit nervously, “Get Derrick! I’m back from my scouting trip!” It took a few minutes of people bouncing around, but eventually, the engineer ran out of the mouth of the tunnel.

“Raaaaay!” the man practically screamed the entire way over to him. He slid to a stop in front of the group. Looking up his eyes widened as he recognized the Aelvin. “And Verrick too! Dang, you have been busy! Let’s get you all inside, I have a lot to update you on. A ton of things have happened since you’ve been away.”

He led them past the guard towers and into the tunnel. It was well lit and Ray could see people moving in and out conducting their day, completing tasks, or even stopping to chat. As their group passed by most people turned to stare at them. Ray saw wonder, awe, and even fear. There was also a few looks of disgust, for whatever reason.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The tunnel opened up into a large atrium. All four floors had been merged around a large central pillar that led up to the other floors. The entire ground level had been converted into a large cafeteria, and food court, and had a row of shops that had been had built using whatever was at hand. In stark contrast to the well-built structure that housed them.

“A half day after you left we had several groups of survivors cross into the territory that were being chased by hordes of undead,” Derrick explained as they walked. “I took the Goblins and Orkin out and we grabbed who we could and moved them here. The fighting was pretty bad for a while, and we lost people from both groups. Eventually, though we whittled down the hordes to nothing and won. The survivors saw that we were pretty entrenched here and chose to join.”

Ray nodded, “How many people are here right now? There seems to be a ton, particularly if you expanded sky bridges to other buildings. How did you have enough Power to do that by the way? It hasn’t been long,” he wondered aloud. “And how are we on food and supplies? I have so many questions.”

Derrick just laughed, “One question at a time Ray! One question at a time. The first group was about forty people and only had people in it, humans to be precise. The second group was Orkin and a bunch of Goblins. There were about seventy between them. The most recent group was an Orkin-Human mix and the smallest, seventeen in that one.”

“That’s… a lot of people in a short amount of time. We haven’t run into many people, even the survivor enclaves are not that numerous. Several territories are just… empty. Where are they all coming from?” Ray wondered.

Derrick shrugged, “The first group had been moving for a while. They couldn’t find a building or place that was completely infested to bunker up in. Apparently they started out as a group of more than three hundred,” he shivered. “Their casualty rate was horrendous. The Orkin though, they just followed the waves of undead. Apparently they hunted for fun, raiding buildings when they could. But even with that level of battle lust fighting all the time gets tiring. So they settled here when they saw our ‘amazing fortress’.”

“Yeah, you’ve done wonders with this place for sure,” Ray said, admiring the interior. “How did you get all this done?”

“That last group that came in? It had twelve Orkin and five humans and get this; the humans were architects and building engineers. All of them,” the engineer replied, giddy. “Four of them have a similar class and abilities to me. Having a few more {STRUCTURAL ENGINEER}’s made improving this place speed up a lot. The last guy? You’re gonna want to meet him Ray because what he can do may be the solution to your travel dilemma. The only issue is that its going to be insanely expensive, but I want to let him explain.”

“This is impressive, My Lord,” Verrick said tiredly, “But may we be shown to our quarters if possible? We need to rest and heal.”

Derrick practically bounced from foot to foot, “Oh man I’m sorry! I get excited. Let’s get you guys to the barracks, for now, I will have Cassie swing by. She is one of the new arrivals and has a {HEALER} class. This whole class thing is weird but crazy useful. That little lady has saved a bunch of lives so far with her actions. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been anything like a resurrection that has popped up. We did have one person that was able to be brought back when the damage to their body was headed fast enough coupled with CPR.”

“Sounds like both practical first aid mixed with abilities has the potential to bring someone back, but isn’t guaranteed unless the conditions are ideal,” Ray mused. “Regardless, having a healer is important. Get Verrick and the others over to her, we can talk more later.”

The engineer told him where he could find his room and then said his goodbyes, leading the crew off to wherever this {HEALER} was. Ray and Nyx were left to their own devices so, seeing as they had nothing better to do at the moment, they headed up to get some rest.

As the pair traveled through the massive building they couldn’t help but marvel at what had been accomplished in only a few days. The place was coming alive, with more than a few people greeting him as they passed. More than a few more also avoided eye contact as if they were afraid of him. Something he would have to ask Derrick about later.

Ray got to the center pillar and found an open elevator cab waiting for an occupant. Interested, he stepped into it with Nyx right behind him. She had been watching everything in silence and only opted to say something once he had chosen the seventh floor, where Derrick had said his room was, and the doors closed. The elevator took off, making Ray stumble as it moved far quicker than he had expected.

“Something here is odd,” she said slowly, finding the right words. “Some of these people seem terrified. Others seem jubilant. Regardless, there seems to be a significant gap in the mindsets of the folks here. Derrick is a good person, but I don’t think he is a people person. I don’t think he has noticed anything odd. I also haven’t seen Rivea since we have gotten back. She is certainly someone who should have come and greeted us.”

Ray couldn’t help but agree with everything his canine companion had laid out, and he said as much. “I completely agree. Lets go check our rooms, drop off our stuff, then go find Rivea. She should be able to shed some light on the situation until we can talk with Derrick and get the full situation laid out.”

The elevator slowed to a stop and dinged, the doors opening to a hallway filled with evenly spaced doors. The pair walked down the hallway until it turned. Derrick had said their door was at the very end, passed a guard room of some kind. It was when they turned the corner and saw what was in wait for them that they instantly knew something was very, very wrong.

Turning the corner Nyx went into combat mode and dodged as a huge Orkin smashed a club into the floor where she had just been. Ray drew his handgun and, spending Power to alter the round, unleashed six imbued armor-piercing bullets. All six passed through the Orkin, killing it instantly, and continued down the hallway killing at least five more of the dozens of large green men that packed the hallway.

Ray didn’t stop to count.

“Fuck! It’s a trap!” he said, backpedaling. The doors behind him slammed open, disgorging more Orkin into the hallway. Panicking slightly, Ray slapped his hand to the wall and spent a huge chunk of his Power to cause concrete spikes to explode from the walls. The hallway was immediately filled with death as nearly every Orkin in that area was perforated by the makeshift attack. It also served to completely block the Orkin’s reinforcements from surrounding them. Now his enemies were only in front of him, and that may killing them all the easier.

Nyx had been far from idle while Ray attacked those coming in behind them. Unleashing her bark ability down the hallway threw the Orkin there around like so many pinballs, as if someone had picked them all up simultaneously and began beating them into every available surface. The confines of the location only served to amplify her attack. All too soon the hallway was devoid of things to kill.

Panting slightly, Ray looked at his Power reserves and winced, he had dropped all the way to sixty-one. That attack had been costly. Hopefully, he had enough to figure out what the hell was going on and fix it. Thinking back he hadn’t seen any overt signs that anyone was hostile. But he also hadn’t seen half the people that he knew before he left. There were yellow flags everywhere, but only one big red one.

Rivea was not present and Derrick didn’t seem to care.

He charged through the bodies, slamming into the door in front of him and taking it clean off his hinges. He burst into a large room devoid of any furniture. It sported a vaulted ceiling giving it the impression of being much larger than it actually was. Although there was no furniture the room was not unoccupied. In the center was a large wooden rack and a small table. On the rack was an unconscious Rivea, naked as the day she was born and in human form. On the table was a cauldron, and in front of that cauldron was a large, armored man with bat wings.

Turning towards him the man frowned and Ray could clearly see that he was not human. The horns on his head and deep red skin immediately brought to mind a demon of some kind. When the man picked up a cleaver and opened his fang-filled maw to speak, Ray knew he was in for a fight.

“This intrusion is … most unwelcome.”