40.

The pillar he had liberated the riftheart from a five foot tall orange shaft covered in dense runic script. He could barely understand a sliver of it, but from what little he understood it was very complex mana equations. It was beyond anything the cyclops could have made and stood out like a sore thumb from the other technologies that the foundry was based around.

He looked down at the pillar and how it was blasted through the concrete floors. Fractures ripped across the floor originating from where the pillar had been shoved through it. Santi traced his fingers over the metal, feeling the warmth of it, the inner heat threatening to scorch his fingers.

Runes faded away slowly as the loss of the riftheart’s power caused them to go dormant. Santi watched as the dense script completely disappeared, just leaving the burnt orange pillar standing there alone. Lacking anything resembling the skill required to salvage it, he left the mystery alone.

Santi wandered out of the foundry as the rest of the scavengers started to enter. His team was cleaning out the rest of the area, searching for anything of value. Daniel and Hana had already scouted the area and Santi might doubt them on their ability to fight, but in cleaning an area out of its valuables, they were premier.

He stalked over to the entrance of the rift and sat down, churning [Air Current] around himself to keep cool. A steady stream of scavengers brought out metals and anything else of value. Most of it was trash, but the scavengers were still learning. In time they’d grow an eye for finding the treasure in the scrap.

Most of this scrap could at least be repurposed by the dwarves. Santi had to hold back a smile as a memory of hauling out a shiny black rock he had found in a rift came back to him. The thing must have weighed several hundred pounds and he had been sure it had been special.

It had been special. To a random monster that had enjoyed the process of polishing rocks. He could remember when the crafters had just stared at him in amusement when they told him it was just a plain old rock.

He had plenty of memories like that. Happy ones interspersed with all the shit. Days and moments of happiness and laughter. Things that had made him smile and feel alive that he could never have told anyone. He had even found love with Marjorie, if even for a little while.

Carla?

No, it was Veronica.

Daniela?

Santi froze, his mind racing as he pushed against the memories. Every memory that had been there and thought of…gray walls rose up, his mind growing cloudy. His thoughts twisted on themselves and he found himself staring at the rift.

What had he been thinking of?

Oh, that damn big rock he had hauled around. Stupid thing, he could have sworn he threw his back out carrying that. He felt a smile stretch across his face at the memory.

“You ok, bud?” Cam asked, having somehow sneaking up on Santi while he was staring into space.

“Yeah, I’m solid. Why?”

“You look troubled. More so than normal.”

“Naw, I’m solid bro. Just thinking of a good memory. Well, a funny memory at least.”

“Care to share?”

“No, I think I’ll be keeping this one to myself.”

“Keep your secrets then.”

The two of them looked at each other and then burst into laughter. Cam slunk down to the ground and leaned back with his hands on the ground behind him. He closed his eyes and looked up at the sky, his face smoothing out as he took a deep shuddering breath and slowly let it out.

“When I saw my Dad’s name, I freaked out. I’m sorry.”

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“Don’t be sorry, I understand.”

“Still, I acted like a dick and you were nice to me about it. Bianca helped me work through it.”

“Speaking of that, when were you going to tell me about that?”

“Never?”

“Never isn’t the right answer.”

“Yeahhhhh, it kinda just happened. Everything was dark and dreary and murdery. We were always together, we were the fighters and protectors for everyone. It was natural.”

“I didn’t need a play by play.”

“I could give you a play by play for real.”

“I’ll bury you in this desert.”

“The amount of jokes I have. It’s unfair how much stronger you are than I am right now.”

“Get used to it. You’re not going to surpass me,” Santi said with a smile.

“So, why haven’t we gotten levels yet?”

“We’re in a rift. The System doesn’t connect here. At least it didn’t with me and the first rift I cleared.”

“Weird. But, the kills counted?”

“Yeah, they’ll count. Just come out of here and the experience will land.”

“Thank, god.”

The two of them leaned back and just sat in silence together, the hot sun still annoying but bearable now that they weren’t fighting. Over the next hour or so more and more of the team came and sat down around them. Daniel and Hana were the first to show up, both of them plopping down with tired sighs.

Them showing up just reinforced his opinion that they had already searched the foundry and were just letting everyone else spin their wheels. Bianca was the next, sitting next to Cam but not close enough to touch. Chloe, Chad, and Tank all came stomping over last with frustrated looks on their faces.

“Nothing but rusty metal. Not. A. Single. Thing,” Chloe complained bitterly. Rayleigh marched by with Abraham and a gaggle of his groupies. They were all Acolytes now and could drag half ton steel machinery scraps behind them as they walked in and out of the rift.

Chloe waved at Rayleigh and received a smile and rolled eyes as the other girl walked by. Santi felt a frown crease his face as he started to look at the men around Rayleigh. She was the youngest by far, most of Abraham’s crew being several decades older than Santi and his crew.

He made a mental note to ask Yesi how many of Abraham’s people had gotten to evolve before anyone else. Santi made yet another mental note on paying more attention to the minutiae of camp life. The ability to bottleneck people on evolutions would be a powerful motivator to keep people working and not coasting along.

“Think they’ll be here much longer?” Cameron complained.

“Probably. There’s lots of stuff to take. We need the metal.”

“We have metal at home,” Cameron said.

“Not the good stuff though,” Santi said with a smirk. There was plenty of good stuff in the foundry that was better than the stuff they had on the outside.

“Think Grimvr and the others will make us armor? I always wanted to be a knight,” Cam said with a goofy smile.

“And a cowboy, astronaut, train conductor, martial artist, football player, baseball player, musician, and plenty of other dumb shit,” Bianca said with a smile at him.

“I could have done all of that,” Cam defended himself.

“I’ve heard you sing, you weren’t becoming a musician.”

“I woulda played sax.”

Everyone stopped and looked over at Cameron with a few raised eyebrows and some rolled fingers to keep the information coming.

“Saxophone is the sexiest instrument. Everyone thinks it's guitar, but it's sax.”

“So, you wanted to play saxophone to get girls?” Bianca asked, a hint of a chill in her voice.

“Only one woman I needed to impress,” Cameron said with a sly smile on his face. Bianca rolled her eyes and looked over her shoulder to hide her smile.

“Someone’s slick.” Chloe laughed loudly and Cameron had the decency to blush.

After that the talking faded away and they watched Abraham and his people strip the foundry down to its concrete floors. Santi never did see an orange pillar leave and he had to wonder about that a bit. Just who had installed that and what was the purpose of it?

Several hours later Abraham finished his work and he and his team shot a series of ugly looks toward Santi as they walked out of the rift. Santi rolled his eyes at the man’s blatant insecurity and rose to his feet with the rest of his team. He waved his people through the rift and followed behind.

The warehouse was hot, but after the hellscape they’d left it was pleasantly cool. All around them the former stuffed walls of the warehouse were in the process of being stripped clean. Hundreds of people were walking around and grabbing materials to take back to Homebase.

“You know, it’s a lot nicer here than it was earlier,” Chloe remarked.

“It’s still terrible, it’s just we came out of hell,” Bianca said. Hana and Daniel didn’t say a word, just fleeing as fast as possible as they headed toward the showers. They were rather disgusting.

Yesi was waiting on the other side of the rift, sitting down on a box with a bored look on her face. She perked up when she saw all of them come through. Her face scrunched up as she took in their smell and looks.

“Take a shower before you come into the house. Also, Santi, Tank, the Council decided to call a meeting. It’s tonight.”

“What the hell are they calling a meeting for?” Tank said with a confused look. Santi felt a sinking feeling in his gut. There was only one reason to call a meeting like this when most of the council was out of the picture. He just hoped this coup would be bloodless.