Chapter Six: Anger, Depression and Acceptance
Before Rory regained the energy to stand on his own, he was found by one of the members, who was checking the many bodies.
“Are you okay bud?” asked a gangly ginger boy in his late teens. Helpfully, he held out his arm for Rory to grasp and helped haul Rory to his feet.
Once Rory was on his feet, a flicker of light shone in the boy's eyes and the lad suddenly gaped at him
“You're level 9! Are you the one that can create fire out of his hands? Everyone thought you had died back there. "
With a start Rory realised the twinkle in the boy's eyes had not been a trick of the light but of him using analyse on Rory.
Before anything else could be said by Rory, the lad took off, running back to the main group. "I’ve got to let everyone know you're still alive!” Rory heard him say as he sped away.
Sighing at the prospect of answering another barrage of questions, Rory steadily limped towards everyone. By this point, people had been split into several groups. All the people that had survived had been helped one way or the other to get back to the main group for whatever treatment could be given, Rory had been the last one found due to the fact no-one else had gone so far into the army of dead plants yet.
A group still searched the bodies of the plantling and thoroughly dissected any that so much as wriggled, while two more groups were tending to the dead, one carefully carried any of the people that had died and placed in neat rows while the other group dragged any plantling bodies and chucked them on a big pile.
Half the group was clustered together by the pond, some were helping tend the wounded while the rest seemed to be having a heated argument. Eventually, Rory reached the main cluster where the shouting had stopped and most people had turned to face him and watch him approach.
Upon reaching the group, a myriad of different expressions greeted him from joy and happiness at seeing him alive to anger, hate, and loathing.
One of the happy faces at seeing him was Peter, whose sharp business suit was now ripped and torn in numerous places, multiple scratches lined his face, who upon seeing Rory’s gaze fall on him walked up to him and gave him a big hug and a pat on the back “It’s great to see ya Rory, I'm sorry I shouted at you early, I feared the worst when you stopped setting those nasty fucking plants on fire.”
“WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO HIM LIKE HES A HERO! MY WIFE MARIE DIED BECAUSE HES TOO SELFISH TO SHARE HOW HE CAN MAKE FIRE. HE NEEDS TO BE STRUNG UP UNTIL HE TELLS US!” Ranted this balding man in his late forties whose face was red with rage and had veins on his forehead and neck visibly pulsating with anger.
“Yeah, make him talk!”
“coward!”
“greedy bastard!”
Several other people voiced support against Rory, with white knuckles tightly gripping their weapons. They even took a step towards Rory.
Suddenly, people moved in front of Rory to block the angry crowd. Samwell stood next to Peter and several of Rory's old group stood with them, as well as several other unknown people. Both sides practically growled at each other, one spark, and they seemed likely to explode into violence.
“You all need to calm down!” demanded a woman with straight shoulder-length blonde hair who, while fairly tall for a woman at 5’9”, nevertheless seemed to tower over everyone with the confidence and authority she exuded. “we’ve been through this several times. Peter and Samwell have explained what Rory has told them about not being able to teach anyone magic and, frankly, I believe them. Also, if it wasn’t for Rory, we would most likely all be dead by now, as we were vastly outnumbered back there and they were slowly picking us off one by one. It was down to Rory’s fast thinking with the fireballs and then him selflessly trying to lead the plants away from us that made it so we could destroy enough of them to retreat.” The women’s words seemed to help. While it didn’t exactly calm everyone, down it was enough to placate them, make them feel embarrassed and defuse the situation.
Relieved that he was no longer in danger of getting lynched, Rory relaxed somewhat and quickly analysed a few people, including Peter, Samwell, and the new woman.
Human (classless) – level 3
Description – Humans are a newly integrated species to the system. While they do not excel in any one category, they are a well rounded species who more than make up for their weaknesses with luck, ingenuity and due to the sheer quantity of them.
Human (classless) – level 4
Human (classless) – level 6
Everyone had gained a lot of levels from the battle, but the blonde women was the highest person he could see while most were around level three.
Rory was brought out of his contemplation when the women starting talking again.
She clapped her hands together to get everyone’s attention. " Great! So now that we are over trying to put the blame on someone, we need to get back to the matter at hand." Taking a second to catch her breath she then turned and addressed a middle-aged couple “Eugene and Helga, have you got a number on what I asked you for?”
Clearing her throat, the one who was supposedly Helga replied, “We have Abigail. 27 people died from various injuries. We’ve laid them all in one place to see what we want to do with the bodies.”
“I’ve been checking on the wounded. 82 are currently wounded and all but two should be fully recovered in a day or two. Madison can’t believe how quickly people are healing. She’s actually had to break someone’s arm as it had already started to heal before it could be put back in place. two of the wounded aren’t expected to make it though as they have crushed windpipes and are barely holding on,” Eugene reported.
Sighing in frustration, Abigail pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just great. First time we are majorly attacked in this damnable place and ten percent of us die and nearly thirty percent of us are out of the fight if anything else should happen,”
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Before she could go on with her rant, Eugene spoke up again.
“About those numbers Abigail. There seems to be more of us here than what were in the induction room.”
Abigail’s head snapped towards Eugene as murmurs rippled across the crowd. “How is that possible?”
When Eugene shrugged in reply, Abigail address everyone else. "Is there anyone here whose induction room wasn’t filled with monsters?”
About a quarter of the group put their hands in the air and after a quick interrogation and a quick count it turned out that about a hundred and thirty had started in a different room as themselves, same featureless space but minus the horror defying monsters, they had appeared in the same cave system as everyone else and had assumed we were from the same group as them.
With the confusion with the extra members cleared up, Abigail started organising everyone, giving select groups tasks. One group was sent to gather as much firewood as they could. Another was given the unenviable task of stripping the dead bodies of anything useful and then stacking them so they could be burnt, as it has been decided to burn them as they lacked the proper tools or any tools for that manner to bury them.
The third and largest group were tasked with their greatest need, food... They had plenty of water. They also seemed secure for the time being, but they had no food as any that had been brought with them had been consumed hours ago. The fourth and final group were made up of anyone that was good with their hands, such as craftsmen, tinkers, etc. They were asked to make anything useful they could, such as tools, weapons, and shelter.
Rory was given his own special job as chief fire starter. Once wood had been collected, he was to use his powers to cremate the bodies and then keep the camp fires lit as the group had voted to make camp in the clearing.
With nothing else to do for a while, Rory sat down on the grass to experiment with his magic. Curious about his child of lightning blessing, Rory once again examined his inner self. Not much had changed as three Orbs still orbited his heart. The orb of Fire was exactly the same and so was the one he suspected of being lightning. It still gave him a headache just looking at it, The orb Rory thought represented his mana had increased in size by at least a quarter.
Concentrating on his lightning orb, Rory tried to fight through the blinding headache, but no matter how much he concentrated or tried to draw on the power like he did with the flame orb, nothing happened. The orb refused to bend to his will, and the only thing he earned for his efforts was a searing pain in his head.
Luckily, the pain quickly departed when Rory stopped concentrating on it and after ten minutes, he was back to normal. Disappointed by his failure, Rory switched approaches and decided to experiment on the orb of power available to him.
The lack of range during his previous fight could have cost him dearly if it wasn’t for the balls of moss that had come to his and everyone’s rescue. Determined to change this weakness, Rory experimented with the orb and the power that it contained within. Trying to shoot a lance out of his hand, the orb easily responded to his will exploding out of him, but he was only able to conjure forth a simple jet of flame.
Trying again, Rory concentrated on the orb, trying to contain the power before it exploded out of him. Rory managed to contain a quarter of the power that had reacted to his will. The rest came forth as normal. before Rory could do anything with the contained power, his concentration slipped. however when it was released rather than coming out as a jet of flame it exploded in a fiery burst, the resulting shock wave knocking Rory onto his back, but otherwise did not hurt him.
Embarrassed about being knocked over but encouraged by the development, Rory set about trying again.
Several hours later, Rorys control over his power had increased to the point he could now control roughly half of the power that responded with each spell. With this new development, Rory also got a welcome notification.
Ding – Skill: Flame manipulation earned.
You have earned through hard work, dedication, trial and error and a blessing that helps you cheat, the skill flame manipulation. Fire and heat are yours to control. you have learned how to manipulate this element. Your flames are easier to control and direct and you are able to control fire and heat, not created by yourself to a limited degree.
Flame manipulation - lvl 1
You have taken the first steps into mastering this unruly element. While you are still limited to creating flames from your hands, you gain the ability to project flames away from your body. Further levels will ease restrictions and unlock new abilities.
As soon as the skill notification appeared, a fog seemed to lift from Rory's mind and what had before taken intense concentration to contort the fire, now clicked into place easily. Raising his hand to the sky, a baseball sized fireball materialised an inch away from his hand and hovered there. With a thought, the fireball shot quickly away into the sky, where Rory lost sight of it.
With Rory’s objective completed, he wondered around the clearing to see how everyone else had been progressing. Everyone seemed to have been busy and while the group that had been sent to forage for food had not returned yet plenty of progress in other tasks had been made. Most striking of all was a long bonfire had been made at the edge of the clearing and the now naked bodied of the dead were slowly and respectfully being loaded onto it for cremation.
Next to the bonfire was an even more massive pile of wood, but this one was made of the discarded bodies of the plantlings. Rory was disturbed at first as the plantlings seemed to have been mutilated in death, with their whip like vines having been torn off resulting in Amber coloured blood staining the ground around the pyre and it looked like their mouths had been caved in.
Seeing Rory's obviously disgusted expression, one of the people working on stacking the plantlings explained. “turns out that the little buggers are quite useful, scary but useful, one of the lads cut himself when moving one of them and it turns out their teeth are sharp as daggers they should make good teeth for a saw blade and their vines are as strong as fishing wire and will be perfect as rope and twine. We had a really hard time collecting their vines but turns out their own teeth cuts through them easily.”
Slightly less disturbed by the grisly display, Rory asked if they were done with the bodies so he could burn them. As soon as he received a nod in return, he wasted no time. Striding up to the macabre idol, Rory let his power over fire roar to life, causing a thick jet of fire to sprout out and quickly set everything it touched on fire. The plantlings turned out to be even more flammable in death, especially so their blood, which when it caught fire, sputtered and spit before racing along the rest of the trail of blood, consuming the bonfire in flames almost instantly. Such was the heat of the fire that Rory had to hastily take several steps back, and it still felt like he had lost his eyebrows in the process.
With the plantlings disposal dealt with and seeing that they hadn’t finished with the fallen yet Rory headed over to the main gathering of people next to the pond. Nearly everyone was busy with one task or another. Rory saw a decent pile of what looked like crude saws where a strong branch had had the plantling's teeth attached to it by vines. Rory saw rudimentary wooden shields held together by rope, Spears had been quickly sharpened, Rory even noticed someone had made a flail with them having attached a vine to a long piece of wood and attached a small piece of wood with teeth embedded in it to the other end. Several people had also created fishing nets and seemed to be using them to great effect, as already there were a couple dozen arm sized fish, which were completely white and sported whiskers nearly half as long as their bodies, lay flopping on the bank of the pond.
Simple shelters also seemed to be in the early stages as well. Someone had had the brilliant idea of staking four large branches deeply into the ground and running a line of vines from each side to the other. They had then hung large leaf fronds over it which were supported by the two lines and created basic shade.
Rory’s curiosity soon ended as they had finished preparing the dead and it was now time to cremate them. It was a bizarre sight seeing the 29 dead bodies, as the two with crushed wind pipes had also now passed away, laid out stark naked surrounded by wood. Everyone still in the clearing had gathered for the cremation and there was no big speech or any fancy words. People had just said goodbye to whoever they knew and apart from a few mourners that had to be pulled away, that was it.
With a quick request to start from Abigail, Rory set fire to the pyre, setting light to wood and human flesh alike. The realities of the situation soon became evident with people running to be sick and gagging due to the unimaginable smell of the burning flesh, forcing everyone to quickly abandon their vigil over the dead.