The wind whipped the dust storm into a frenzy, but Miguel just wrapped the cloth more tightly around his face and hunched his shoulders against the furious windstorm. Using his spear as a walking stick, he followed Miss Teresa, doing his best to keep an eye on everything around him.

There was nothing visible but a thick wall of dust, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. After everything he’d seen in his young life, he knew just how quickly the world could turn on him. He’d learned that lesson the day after the world had transformed, and each day since then had served to hammer home that lesson.

Idly, he found himself wondering about his old friends.

Had any of them made it far into the apocalypse? He didn’t think so. If they had, someone would have found them. But it was easy to forget about them, to see those days like they’d been nothing but a dream. The new world seemed far more real. More consequential.

Certainly, more dangerous.

His mother’s death had served to highlight that, and the years had been filled with furious training, bouts of anger, and more tears than he wanted to admit. Colt always cautioned him to feel those emotions, but not to let them rule his life. And Miguel tried. He truly did. Some things just seemed impossible.

The sadness was easy to ignore. All he needed to do was keep busy, and his devotion to training satisfied that requirement. But the rage? That was far more difficult to abandon. It was with him at all times, pushing him forward at a frightening rate. In that way, it was easy to look at it as a benefit, but that was just an illusion. It held him back in ways he wasn’t quite ready to confront.

That didn’t mean he should abandon the idea of killing Roman. It remained a worthy goal. But he needed to be cold. Detached. He needed to focus on the task at hand, not the fury that seemed to hang from his shoulders like a thick cloak.

So, to combat that, he had turned to the meditative exercises Colt had taught him. Those worked. What’s more, they were necessary to becoming the best swordsman – or any other sort of fighter – he could be. The trick was remaining aware of his surroundings while he entered what Colt referred to as the sword trance.

He wasn’t perfect at it, but it helped center his thoughts.

Like that, he continued on until, suddenly, Miss Theresa stopped.

He stepped up and shouted over the wind, “What’s going on?”

She shook her head, then shrugged. They’d left the forest behind almost a week before, and they’d been traveling through the desert ever since. However, it wasn’t until the past couple of days that the storm had come, and in the wide-open desert, there hadn’t been anywhere to take shelter.

Like Theresa, he waited until the next person in line signaled for them to follow. And soon, it became clear why they’d briefly stopped. Someone – probably Colt – had found a cave where they could find solace from the howling wind and abrasive sand.

Once inside, Miguel let his face-covering fall away, then planted himself at the mouth of the cave. He couldn’t see anything, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from guarding the lone point of entry. If something wanted to get to his mom – or the others – it would have to go through him.

Like that, he stood sentry until, a half hour later, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder.

“Go get some food and water,” Colt said. “I got this for now, kid.”

Miguel looked back at his mentor. He looked much the same as always, though like everyone else in the party, he’d made a few concessions to the desert climate and the sandstorm. The most notable among those was that he’d wrapped a cloth around his head, the last bit of which he’d been using as a mask. It now hung free, revealing a week’s worth of salt-and-pepper stubble.

Nodding, Miguel assured the man that he would be back. Then, he stepped deeper into the cave where the others were huddled around a small fire. A spit was suspended over the flames, spearing through one of the desert lizards that seemed so pervasive. They were venomous, but everyone in the party aside from Miguel had enough Constitution to endure it.

That highlighted how ready he was to get his archetype. Then, he could begin to develop himself in earnest. Until then, the effects of his training were minimal. He could practice with weapons all day, but if he fought someone with even a few levels, he would stand no chance. He couldn’t even use anything better than Crude-Grade equipment to narrow the gap.

No – he’d learned his lesson the day Trace had taken him, and he’d taken it to heart. Theirs was a world of levels, and without power, he would inevitably become a victim.

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The next few minutes saw him taking a hunk of lizard – the tail alone had nearly ten pounds of meat, so he didn’t have to worry about rationing – and settling in to eat. Not long after he sat, his mother joined him.

“Are you okay, mijo?” she asked.

“Don’t call me that. It makes me seem like a little kid.”

She sighed, then leaned her head against the rocky wall. Facing him, she said, “Nice deflection. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he stated, tearing a piece of gamey meat with his teeth. And he was. Compared to the people they’d already lost, at least. So many had fallen prey to the sidhe. Miss Rebecca. Mr. Amons. Leif. Miss Michaels. Janet.

And that wasn’t even considering all the people who’d died before reaching Eber. Or the ones who’d been killed during the rebellion. Miguel hadn’t seen all of them fall, but he knew they were gone.

“We’re going to find somewhere safe,” she said.

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.”

“Does anywhere like that exist?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know. I think so. There has to be somewhere.”

He shrugged, then went back to his meal. For her part, his mother fell into silence before she stood and walked toward Colt, who stood guard at the cave’s entrance. Miguel truly didn’t believe anywhere was safe. So, he vowed to create his own safety. Before he could do that, though, he needed to get stronger. He needed to gain an archetype. And then, the work would really begin.

* * *

“He’s holdin’ up,” Colt said, not looking back as Carmen approached. “I know you hate how this is now. You want to let him be a kid. But that ain’t possible anymore. Best we can do for him is give him the tools to succeed.”

“I guess,” she said, eyeing the sandstorm. Night had begun to fall, cutting visibility down to nothing. “When do you think he’ll get an archetype?”

“Soon. If it’s more than six months, I’ll be surprised.”

“I hope so,” she said. Regardless of what he picked, the chance to level and gain attributes would give him the tools to survive. At present, that was all she could hope to achieve.

“When the storm dies, I’ll start scouting,” Colt said. “Katie find any water?”

Katie was one of the surviving members of the party, and she had the Geologist class. As such, she had an ability that had proven useful in finding water – a necessity in the desert. Without her, they never would have chanced the terrain. Instead, they would have followed the forest. Even with that ability to help out, Carmen had wondered if they’d made the right choice. But it was too late to turn back now.

“A little,” she said. “Enough for a couple of days.”

Over the next few hours, the storm continued to rage until, suddenly, the wind fell away. The sudden cessation of noise was odd. Eerie. But true to his word, Colt immediately set out to see if he could find some sort of civilization. While he was gone, Carmen took his place at the head of the cave, with Miguel joining her sometime around midnight. They didn’t speak. Instead, they simply watched.

That was how, just before dawn, Colt found them.

“There’s a town about two miles away,” he said. “Decent size. Maybe big enough for a few thousand people.”

“The residents?” Carmen asked.

“None.”

“None?”

“It’s a ghost town,” Colt stated. “Not a bit of movement. I looked around a bit, and there’s nobody there. But I think we should search the place, see if there’s anything there we can use.”

“You think we could settle there?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I don’t think so. There’s a reason it’s abandoned. I found a few bodies. They’re old. Months dead. Lots of claw marks.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. Carmen knew what he meant. If there was something around that could cause a thousand or more people to desert a town, then they wouldn’t stand any chance against it. But as he’d said, they could scavenge for supplies.

After that, they established a plan to shelter in place for a day. They’d been going nonstop for some time, and even with augmented attributes, they were all exhausted. So, they rested for the rest of the day, recovering their strength until the next morning, when they set out just before dawn.

The desert sky was completely clear, and the illumination from the moon and stars was more than enough to light their way. Still, they were all on guard for any threats. The desert seemed empty, but there were thousands of deadly animals, ranging from reptiles to massive scorpions, that posed plenty of threat.

As luck would have it, they made it to the town without issue. And it was much as Colt had described, though Carmen suspected that it had housed quite a few more people than he’d originally estimated. Without hesitation, they set about searching the area. By that point, they were all expert scavengers, so they made good time as they scoured one building after another. Still, there were more than a hundred structures, so it was late afternoon before they found something worthwhile.

“Maps,” Carmen said to herself, sorting through the scattered papers. Some of them had deteriorated a little, but they were still legible. “I think this place is called Farwood,” she mumbled, pointing to what she suspected was their current location. Then, her breath caught in her throat. “Seattle.”

Indeed, it was clearly labeled on the map, and if her estimates were correct, the city was only a hundred or so miles away. She looked up as Colt walked in, but before she could speak, he said, “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Monsters,” he said. “Saw them from the wall. Maybe two miles away. Group of ten. They’re some kind of bipedal creatures with dog-like heads. They weren’t wearing clothes or armor, but they carried primitive weapons.”

“Do you think that’s what drove the local population away?”

“If I was a bettin’ man, I’d say yes.”

“Shit. Gather everyone.”

“Find anything?”

“I hope so. Seattle’s northwest of here. I think that’s our best bet. If it’s still standing…”

“It’s our best shot,” he said.

Then, he set off. As he left, Carmen gathered the maps, as well as the few bits of supplies she’d scavenged. After that, she joined Colt and the others outside. They’d found precious little; the people who’d once lived there had taken nearly everything of value. But they’d still scavenged a couple of weapons, a few sacks, and even a leather breastplate that had been given to Miguel.

Carmen told everyone what was going on, and to their credit, they didn’t even bat an eyelash at the threat posed by the nearby monsters. After everything they’d experienced, that wasn’t enough to alarm them. They accepted the danger as a matter of course.

After that, they set off toward the city they hoped would be their salvation.