The dungeon was destroyed. The remnant goblins would disappear now that no one was in combat. Eight people were saved. Soon, it would be time to leave. Frank felt a little flicker of happiness. Another success.
“Thank you both.” Said Frank, acknowledging the two who had returned. They both looked like they had questions. Frank had no intention of answering them right now.
His first thought was the tent of the slain chief. Frank stepped past the blue motes of the disappearing corpse, heading to the entry. He ducked inside, parting the flaps as he did so, his eyes adjusting to the sudden dimness. The surroundings were illuminated only by candles.
It was a tidy, well-arranged room. Little resemblance was borne to the squalid lean-tos of the rest of the encampment. On the floor near the back was a neat pile of furs. The room itself smelled lived in, but not rank. It was completely at odds with everything Frank had known about goblins.
Nestled to the left of the tent was a box. The only thing in the room aside from the furs, and a candelabra. Frank walked over to it. It was a simple wooden crate, no lock, no seals, roughly hewn and nailed together. He kicked off the top, revealing its contents.
There were only two things inside it. A health potion, which Frank immediately grabbed, and wax sealed scroll. He unslung his pack and placed both inside. He exited the tent. Greg and Sasha were waiting for him. “When we get back, I have some things to tell you,” Frank told them, before heading out of the encampment.
Travelling back out the way he came, away from the tear gas, and once more looping around back to where everyone had waited, he saw that they had moved onward already. A perfectly sensible decision. Frank followed after them. Sasha and Greg had either stayed behind to check the camp or had gone back through the tear gas and were ahead of him. He did not know which.
Frank soon caught up with Jim, who was bringing up the rear. Jim looked at him with a mixture of surprise and relief upon Frank’s arrival. “You are alright! Glad to see. Are Sasha and Greg okay?”
“As far as I’m aware. They are probably examining the encampment. No doubt you got the message when the goblin leader was defeated.” Frank said.
“Startled me a bit. Glad to hear you are all okay. That guy who came out of the tent was the boss then?”
“Yea.” Frank let the conversation die.
The rest of the group had craned their neck to see Frank walk in, but everyone kept moving. The former captives were terrified. The pace was steady, fast even, but slower than they would move on their own. All eight of them looked like they would be sprinting through the trees, if not for the fact the presence of others provided more security than the thought of gaining distance.
A few minutes later, Sasha and Greg also returned. They both gave Frank serious looks, before moving to the front of the party, leaving Frank to bring up the rear. The walk was uncomfortable, three of the party deeply suspicious of Frank, eight terrified still at the thought of being captured again, and the rest quiet and serious in the response to the circumstance.
They returned to the highway unmolested. Greg called a halt and looked over the rescued. Frank watched, impassively. His mind was mainly focused on what he wanted to say once they returned. Greg carefully checked them over, their dirty, ragged condition and soiled clothing indicating the hardship they’d been through. Most were actually okay. Bruises and lumps where they’d been struck, rope burn. All wounds that would heal on their own. One woman, however, pointed to her side. She’d been struggling the entire way back, so it was no surprise that she was the worst injured of the lot. She lifted her shirt, exposing her navel, and an ugly, inflamed line on the side of her abdomen.
Greg frowned at the sight of it. The others merely need scrapes and cuts cleaned and bandaged, but she was in serious trouble. Frank hesitated for a moment, considering whether to volunteer his recent find. A health potion was incredibly useful. The bit of joy he’d felt melted away like it had never been.
There he was hesitating while someone had a wound that could very well kill them. Triaging not whether he could save her, but whether it was worth it. Frank felt a stab of guilt. Every hard decision he had ever made seemed to weigh down on him, twisting that guilt into self-loathing. His mind recoiled.
He slipped off his pack in haste, setting down his sword, then flipping it open and withdrawing the bottle. The act of doing so immediately made him feel less horrible. No one appeared to notice the sudden break in his calm. He took the potion in hand and brought it over to Greg and the woman.
“This will heal you.” Said Frank, handing the woman the potion. She immediately recognized it. Everyone who completed the tutorial got one, as far as Frank knew. He walked back to his pack. He removed the food and water that he had originally brought for the benefit of the prisoners from his pack as well. Then he closed it, slung it back over his shoulder.
The woman called out to him in thanks, before downing the potion. Frank nodded to her, and then addressing no one, in particular, took his leave.
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“I’m going on ahead.” He didn’t wait for further comment, wanting time to think in solitude. The walk back to town gave him plenty of time to think.
There were two things on his mind. The first, his past. He remembered the horror of the initial situation. The absolute confusion and bewilderment. He’d been worse off than any of the people he’d met in Redstone. Then, the slow but sure tempering of his will. Others had protected him then. If he’d been alone, he’d have died within a few days.
But there had been others, people with the strength of will and the conscience to look after others. Vince and Garret, the leaders of the disparate group who’d found him shivering in a building on the outskirts of Prince George, terrified and hungry. A soldier and a cabinetmaker. It’d been Garret, the woodworker, who’d helped him the most.
The fact that he was not a hunter or a soldier or a fighter had inspired Frank. He was just a man who made cabinets in his garage. He told Frank that before this he’d never been in a fight. Yet there he was, leading the way. And as the imminent threat of death gave way to the siren song of power, of levels, Frank had emulated Garret as best he could.
He’d thought, then, all he needed to do was get stronger. If he was strong enough to fight anyone or anything he could lead the way, like a Greek hero facing the daemons and monsters of the unknown. For a time he had. For three long, trying years, he’d trained himself. They travelled, searching for others, helping and saving those they could. A little band of heroes.
It kept him going. Every trial seemed worthwhile and doable when he faced it with the belief he was a hero, that it was his duty and purpose to save others. Every success had rejuvenated him, every human saved and the enemy defeated gave him the strength of will to carry on and continue.
Frank even felt he was the hero he aspired to be. Third amongst their band of heroes in strength. Vince and Garret both trusted him.
It had come unravelled when Vince died. The first time they faced another species subject to the rules of the system. They too had their heroes. Achilles slew Hector. Vince died to their champion.
The captives they had fought to save, remained captives. The group, dozens of his comrades, scattered and routed by the death of one of their leaders, could do nothing but flee. He never saw any of them again. What happened to Garret, Frank never found out. He alone made it back to their base of operations.
He would have died there, alone, hopeless, except for the fact another group happened upon him as he wasted away. And there he met Peter and David, along with the half dozen that followed them in the beginning. They asked him politely if they might make use of the base since it was unoccupied.
Frank assented, halfheartedly. It’d been David this time, who had dragged him back up. His cleverness, insight, and cold logic. He’d seen in it the secret that could have saved Vince, could have prevented the tragedy. If they’d just made the decision not to risk themselves against a force that had appeared nearly as powerful. If they’d made a hard decision.
He’d looked up to David instead. Modelled himself after him. Closing off his compassion in favour of hard-hearted reason. For a time, this was successful. They took few risks, David always the voice of caution. Frank became a valuable force, strong by the standards of the group. But the situation around them worsened. The other humans they met, other survivors, became less and less. Their enemies, more and more. The opportunities for avoiding risk deserted them. And so they’d suffered over and over, losing friends, lovers, brothers every time.
He’d closed off more than just his compassion, as things got worse. He realized that now. Somehow he’d avoided the topic as it happened. Emotion eschewed entirely. He’d completely disassociated himself. Everything came through a layer of detached cynicism and muddled irony.
Saving Bill had jogged him awake. Not waking up ten years in the past. Not the knowledge he was starting over. Defeating the field dungeon had done it as well. He felt. Both bad and good. He’d have to figure out what he wanted to do about that. There was no role model to copy this time.
The second issue was much simpler, and Frank chose to move his thoughts to it. What to tell everyone else. Just claim to be a time traveller? He was one after all. How should he explain what he knew about the system? Eventually, part of him just said screw it. Lay it all on the table.
But was he going to? Part of him wanted to. Just put it all out there, leave everyone else to feel what they will. But another part of him wondered if there was a cleverer way to go about it, and yet another part of him wondered if some of the things he knew might actively be detrimental to their odds of survival were they to learn of it.
The destruction of humanity was not an inspiring topic. Some might fight desperately against such a fate, others might give up when they learn it. But those that fought would do so with the stoic determination and acceptance of the pagan Norse, and those that could not face death so calmly would panic and falter. Assuming they believed him.
At the very least, he’d tell them what stats did, explain equipment, dungeons, and deedss. Give everyone the advice they needed to get started. But he wouldn’t stick around. There were things he needed to do. No one here had flashed the needed competence to help him right now except for Greg and Sasha. Greg was the leader here, and Sasha had a husband. Neither would be likely to leave with him.
Frank put that aside, deciding to decide whether to tell them more when the time came. He looked over his status.
Frank HP 59/59 Level 7 Human (505/1280EXP) MP 0 Assassin(5/5) SP 26/46 Strength 11 Knowledge 6 Agility 9 Intelligence 10 Constitution 7(4) Stability 10 Vitality 6(5) Wisdom 4
He'd need to choose a new deed next level. Then there was the reward he'd received besides the sword. An Oracle. One of the better rewards you could get from a dungeon. The ability to get the system to answer a simple question. As long as you were sufficiently specific without asking about a specific individual, it would respond accurately if it knew.
Frank pondered what to do with it. Two things came to mind. The first, an obvious option. Ask about the whereabouts of a sufficiently powerful item or equipment the system thought that he could obtain now. It was the most common thing people used them for in his past. But there was another question that tugged in his mind, now that he thought about what he could get an answer to. Where there other time travellers? He could find out.