The Sargeant walked through the camp, looking around seeing where help is needed.

A couple of entrepreneurial people had set up what looked like a store. It looks like there was a healthy barter system going on.

"Good morning Sargeant."

He turned around and saw an older man whose skin looked like old leather. The Sargeant Responds, "Good morning, . . sorry I don't know your name."

He cackled. "Not many do. Most call me Craig, so feel free. What can we do for you, Sargeant?"

"Not much, thank you, Mr Craig. What are you trading here, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Just Craig, no time to be a mister anything, just Craig, and we do leather and leather armour."

"Armour?"

"Yes, my daughter-in-law saw how the plants were growing and planted some veggies out back next to the river the first day we got here. Didn't expect much, ha, were we surprised. She got the skill from that. So when we heard that you guys were going to stay a couple of days to clear the tunnel, she went crazy. Planting every seed she could get her hands on. Do you know that the veggies grow in one day from seed to pick if you find the right spot? Well, she found the right spot. A kid saw the veggies and offered a monster hide in exchange for enough veggies for a nice big pot of stew. Word got around. So we traded the veggies for the hides that the people get from looting."

He looked around, making sure everything is running smoothly.

"Took the hides and then made armour. I used to have 'The Oldfangled Leather' in Worcester. We made leather purses and accessories. It was not a big leap to making jackets and pants with a few pouches at the right places to fit steel plates and stuff as reinforcements. Now we trade the armours for more hides and a bit of meat from the loot. We are still growing a bit of veggies, but for us and a couple of friends only, or when somebody needs some. So, do you need some armour or maybe some veggies?"

"No thanks, Craig, but I will mention your shop to the troops if you want, as long as you don't treat the troops differently than your regular clients. I don't want any favouritism." He saw Craig looking around again.

"I heard that there were some problems with gangs; please let me know if your people have any trouble. We are short of people that can fight monsters, so we are always looking for 'volunteers' to join us."

"Volunteers, ha, I like that."

He slapped the sergeant on the shoulder. "Thank you, Sargeant, we had some trouble, but I believe it's sorted now. Let me know if you need armour. I have to go and see that the kids don't waste leather. Later, Sargeant."

He turned around and vanished into the shop.

The sergeant stood in the middle of all the bustle. Life goes on.

Here and there, he heard people crying over lost loved ones.

He looked over to the hospital area.

He was not very happy with the Doctors that were running the tent. They had no magical healing abilities but still had their pre-pulse knowledge of medicine, and had somehow brought along cartloads of the stuff. Which they traded to the other people at exorbitant rates.

Strangely, the medicine seems to be working.

His problem with the doctors is that they didn't seem to want to put in the work on learning any healing spells. They are a significant voice among the civilians for the push to get to Paarl.

Guess their medicine is starting to run low.

He went over towards the info tent.

This was an idea of the captain. Everybody that enters the camp must give his or her name and who they are looking for. They wanted to make a list of the dead, but the list of names was too long.

The sergeant walked up to one of the tables where two old ladies kept records of the coming and goings. There were a lot of people milling around as he walked up to the table.

"Good morning ladies, is everything going ok here?"

One of the old ladies stood up. She looked like a retired headmistress of a high-class English school for young ladies.

She gave him a look as if he was a young would-be rapist trying to sneak into her paradise to deflower her precious little angels.

"Morning, Sargeant. When are we moving on to Paarl? I heard that the landslide has been removed." She looked at him as if it's his job to serve her tea.

"Yes, Mam, but the tunnel is impassable. We will have to take the old road, around the mountain." He saw her turn paler than she already was.

"Yes, Mis?. ."

"Margret Thatcher, not related to the iron lady." She said haughtily when somebody pulled on her arm.

"Maggie, leave the young man alone, let him do his job, come help me here I need to go."

She turned around to look at the other lady, and it was like Mr Jekyll and Hyde the way she changed. She helped the lady in the wheelchair, who gave him a wink and pointed to the next table.

He nodded at her and mouthed the words 'Thank you' before moving to the indicated table.

"Ladies." He greeted the women at the table. "Everything ok here?"

"Morning Sargeant, is it true about the tunnel?"

"Yes, unfortunately. We will be staying here for a bit until we are ready to tackle the old road."

The Sargeant was quite shocked to hear the old lady swear like an old drill sergeant.

She calmed down as she saw the surprised look on his face.

"Sorry."

She took a deep breath before indicating a mixed group of people, "These young people came in about a half-hour ago. They are from a boarding school up there." She pointed in the direction of Worcester.

"They said that there are still quite a few survivors in Worcester. They also encountered a pack of what they described as dog people about five kilometres away from here. They barely escaped with their lives."

He heard one of the kids' mutters "kobolds" and another, "it was gnolls, kobolds are lizard people, idiot."

What caught the sergeant's ear was a girl's voice whispering. "I hope it's not gnolls. Please let it not be gnolls."

He looked around for the source of the voice and spotted a teen girl standing near the tent but separate from the other.

He reassured the woman that he will send a squad out to go check, but he was focused on the girl. He waited till they were finished.

"Where are you all going? You got family or friends here?" They shook their heads. Giving him a sceptical look.

"You all walked from Worcester? That's a long, dangerous trek." He looked them all over, wondering who would be alive next week.

"You must decide before you move from this spot. Will you keep on trying to live in the past and become sheep to be hunted and devoured by the monsters, or will you force yourself to look forward and grow strong to not get crushed and eaten in the new world?"

He saw the fear in their eyes. As one guy spoke up. "Whatsit to you old man, you going to tell us what to do?"

They could hear a pin drop as everybody stopped to see what would happen.

The sergeant gave him a look while taking from his inventory a piece of rod iron. He calmly kept talking as he started to bend the iron into a knot, like a piece of rope.

"You must choose because there is no going back to what was before and as you no doubt saw out there. There is no place for the weak in this post pulse world. So if you just want to stay, do nothing and live on handouts, then take the road to the right and move up the road around the mountain or go back where you came from, but you won't be welcome here. There is no place for the weak here!"

With cold eyes, he looked at the kid.

"If you want to work, grow strong, learn to fight, and more importantly, learn to survive, even thrive in this new world, then go straight up to the left and find Corporal Augustine at the other end of the camp, he will sort you all out."

He saw the young punk had gone quite pale by the time he was finished with his speech.

"What's your name, boy?

"Jak . . .Jackson Pollok . . Sir."

The sergeant nodded. "An easy name to remember. Good day to you, Mr Pollok."

The hustle and bustle picked up again.

He indicated that they could leave. He caught the girl's eye and called her over.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She looked around fearfully but decided that she should be safe here with all the older women around.

The Sargent moved to the side, but still, in view of the woman behind the table, the last thing he needed was rumours starting about abusing his power.

He removed his camp chair from his inventory and told her to sit.

He noticed her tense and fearful posture and pulled a rock over to sit on. He held out his hand.

"Sargeant Paul Du Preez. I'm in charge of this camp's safety and security, me and my men."

They shook hands. He held her hand till she gave her name and then leaned back.

"Mildred (Milly) Evans."

"So Milly, tell me why you pray that the dog creatures isn't this gnolls that the other thought it was."

She started softly, but she raised the volume a bit when she noticed that he paid attention.

"I'm a gamer." She thought for a moment and shrugged. "I lived for games. I was studying to go into game design when I am finished with school."

She took a deep breath. "In most game lore, Gnolls are vicious creatures. Think Werewolves but smaller, with hyena not wolfs and crazy, like rabid hyena crazy. Their bloodlust makes them an enemy to all creatures. If they can't find somebody to fight, then they will fight among themselves. The lore that I know of them is that they are terrified of the full moon. They try to defeat opponents by sheer numbers. They rule by strength, fear and intimidation."

"They dislike goblins, kobold, giants, humans, demi-humans, hell anybody that's not a Gnoll, and manual labour. Gnolls eat warm-blooded creatures, mostly while they are still alive. They like the ones that scream. But the most terrifying thing about them is the way they reproduce. In the lore, it states that the Gnolls reproduce by eating the bodies of humans killed by a demon, then they will swell up, and two days later it will burst and out will pop an adult Gnoll. Ready for killing. So if this is a pack of Gnolls, then they were from somebody that had a zoo or something around here, But the worst is that there must be a demon nearby." The last was said in a whisper.

"Gnolls are no problem for experienced fighters, but if they get into this camp with all these people, it would be a bloodbath. Think rabid Nazi skinheads on PCP, that kind of crazy."

The Sargeant looked around at the people.

"Shit got to get some fighters out there to investigate."

He stood up. "Thanks, Millie. Let me get you back to your friends."

She stood up and mumbled. "They are no friends of mine."

He looked her over. "You got anybody you know here?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry, I always land on my feet."

She heard him whisper. "Fuck."

He stored the chair and indicated she should follow him. "I know a bunch of gamers that would love you to join them, they are a bit older than you, but I heard one of them say. Once a gamer, always a gamer."

She decided to follow him since she had nowhere else to go.

He introduced her to GSquad, and they promised to take care of her.

He nodded at her and left to tell the captain about the possible Gnoll pack and the maybe demon.

He walked up to the busy work area later than he wanted to. There were a lot of people milling around what looked like a blacksmith forge. Most looked like they were just standing around doing nothing.

"LISTEN UP, IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO DO HERE, THEN GO TO THE PERIMETER, WE ARE SETTING UP CAMP FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS, GO HELP BUILD A WALL AROUND THE CAMP YOUR LIVES MAY DEPEND ON THAT WALL. MOVE IT, PEOPLE!"

Most of the people dispersed, and the rest moved into orderly lines.

One of the Smits placed the piece of metal he was working on within a bin of oil and came over to the Sergeant.

"Thanks, Sargeant, they were driving me crazy, and they don't want to listen."

"No problem, Devin. I want to talk to you about moving your operation."

The guy scratched his head. "Aaah, it is Kevin, Sargeant. Devin is out with a team getting some scrap from the cars down the road."

"Ok." He softly sighed. 'Bloody twins'

"There can't be much steel on a car that you can use to forge weapons with."

"True, but we can use the coil springs, and there are a couple of shafts in the steering column and axels of the rear wheel drives plus gears in the gearboxes, and we found a couple of bakkies that they are going to rip the engine boxes out just keeping the chassis and maybe the load base, try and make some wagons, we got to try and use as much as possible, it looks like some of it are starting to break down as Gaea said."

"Ok. Well, why I'm here is that we are going to stay here for a week, so I want to move you guys over to the cliff over there. Walk with me, and I will tell you what I want." Kevin went over to the forge and talked to a man hammering away at a piece of red hot steel.

After securing his workspace, he was back with the Sargeant on their way to the cliff.

"I had the engineer going over this cliff, and he told me it's stable, so I want you guys to make your workshop anywhere from here to there. You guys are the first I'm talking to, so you get to choose the best spot. Just remember that. How are you guys set for firewood or charcoal or whatever you are using to heat the metal with?"

Kevin had a huge grin on his face. Like a cat that stole the cream.

"We are cheating."

The Sargeant kept quiet while giving him a sceptical stare.

"Ok, well, let me explain. Two days ago, when we came here and started setting up the workshop. We heard some complaints from some of the girls about some of the boys forming gangs again and demanding sex for protection."

He saw the thunderous expression on the sergeant's face.

"Don't worry, we took care of it, me, Devin, and Kalip, the blacksmith's apprentice, it's his place where you guys found the horses. We went over there and talked with them. I think you will find that they all joined you guys in the training after they saw the medic for healing." He saw that the Sargeant had cooled down.

"I still want their names."

"Sorry, Sargeant never asked their names, but I will remember their faces if I see anybody cause trouble again. Anyway, Sargeant, it seemed that one of the gang members awakened an affinity and got a spell, so the rest decided to use that as a scare tactic. After beating the shit . . . sorry, persuading the kid to change his profession from terrorist to apprentice we are now using and teaching him in the fine art of heating metal."

"What affinity and spell do he have?"

Kevin smiled. "Fire affinity, spell, he says it's easy to keep the fire in one spot. So we have him heating the metal in the furnace. He can now literally melt steel in his hands, he has the control down pat but must work more on keeping the spell going, but we will keep him busy and try to teach him something at the same time."

"Ok, but I want to see this kid when we get to your workshop."

When they got back to the workshop, the Sargeant saw a nervous, slightly overweight teen cleaning scraps around the forge.

The kid saw Kevin pointing him out at the Sargeant and looked around for a place to run when a cold voice stopped him dead in his tracks. "You run, and I will make it my job to find you. You don't want to run, boy."

Kevin watched as the Sargeant walked over to Dave and started whispering in his ear. Dave stood to attention and grew pale as he started to sweat. The Sargeant stood back up straight.

"You got that kid?"

Dave swallowed and nodded, barely able to speak. "Yes, Sargeant."

"Good."

He walked back to Kevin. "The kid will report every morning at 05:00 and night at 19:00 at my tent. You can have him from 06:00 till 18:00. I know that it might mess a bit with your production, but we need more people with magic. We need to understand how his affinity was unlocked. We need more magic users."

Kevin didn't look happy but could do nothing but agree.

The sergeant laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry if we can learn anything that might help you, then you guys are the first to know. Armour and weapons are a priority. We got a lot of people to keep safe."

"Ok, Sargeant, we will change our schedules around a bit. Now I got to get back to work if I don't want to fall behind."

He started walking away as the Sargeant turned around to go check on the wall.

He gathered all the people that he could that were standing around and doing nothing. Soon there was nobody around as word spread that he was gathering people.

He just shook his head as he walked, "Don't try to sneak away. I can see you back there!"

A few guilty-looking teens looked longingly at the retreating forge.

They reached the spot where a woman was bossing a bunch of kids around.

The Sargeant walked over to the solid build woman. "Hi Dacota, I brought you another batch of strong backs to help get the wall up."

"Hey Paul, thanks. We can always use more people to move rocks. You haven't found anymore with some artisan skills?"

He shook his head as they neared a lean-to where a guy was trimming rocks by touching them, and 'Crack' a piece of rock would fall off, leaving a perfect straight side. He repeated it six times and was left with a perfect stone block.

"Pual, this is uncle Graham Gharies, the only stonemason still in the western cape. Now I think he might be the only one in South Africa if not the world."

The Sargeant held out his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gharies."

The stonemason shook his hand. He was much older than the Sargeant first thought, maybe around 80 or 90years old, it's hard to guess with all the wrinkles and missing teeth.

He smiled at the Sargeant. "Thanks for the job, Sarge. I was going stone crazy laying and doing nothing. Since I started working stone again, I levelled up twice already."

He leaned over to Dacota and whispered behind his hand. Still, everybody in a ten-meter radius could hear him. "It's mos level up girly? That's mos what you young uns call it when you go all tingly, and the voice goes in your head?"

She lightly patted him on his stooped shoulders.

"Ja uncle, that's right. Where did you put your points, if I might ask."

The old man cackled, "One of my great-great-grandsons over there said I must put it in strength and constitution. I haven't felt so good in years. I might go visit some of those old biddies that came from that uppity old age home there at the big tent tonight."

He cackled again as he shuffled to the next stone.

Dacota just shook her head as she turned towards the Sargeant. "He is ninety-five years old, can you believe it. He looked terrible yesterday. His great grandkids had to carry him over here in a bed to try and show them what to do. He got so angry with them for holding the chisels wrong and wasting good rock that he leaned out of bed and smacked the rock, screaming, 'put the fucking chisel here, you worthless boy,' and there was a crack and the piece of stone just fell off the rock. They had to carry him around, his great-grandkids decided to bring live rats to him to kill till he reached his first level, but now you can see he walks around on his own."

The sergeant shook his head. "That skill should level up pretty fast. There is a lot of stone that must be cut. Get a medic over here to check on him regularly and make sure he has food and drink and lots of rest when he needs it. It's a pity he can't make the stones a universal size."

"I talked to him about that, but he disagreed. He said that the fact that the wall will be two meters thick will act as a giant 3D puzzle. It will be much stronger than a plain wall. Not his words, his words were much more colourful. But that's the gist of it, and it makes sense since we are not using cement. Let's go watch them put the wall up."

He watched for a moment as the old stonemason turned a round rock into a square block. Then a young girl walked up and inventoried the block as the next kid came over, placed the next stone down, and stepped back, waiting for the old man to finish.

He shook his head and followed Dacota to the wall building site.

To his amazement, the wall was all the way across the road and the river going into the cliff, and it was over one meter high. They have only left a section wide enough for the car chassis wagons to move through the wall.

"Gonna put a gate in there as soon as we find somebody with the right skill or somebody unlocks it."

Suddenly there was a commotion where the people were placing the blocks of stone.

So, they walked over to see what's going on. As they neared, they noticed that it was only one man that was jumping around with joy.

Dacota walked closer.

"What's going on, Samuel?" He stopped jumping around and walked up to her, and gave her a big hug.

"Hey Dacota girl, I levelled my bricklayer skill, and I got a new ability."

She smacked him on the shoulder as she smiled. "Congrats, what did you get?"

He hoped and skipped before stopping in front of her again. "."

"Huh? ? What does that do?"

He walked over to a couple of blocks and chose two that were the same size. He pushed them together and concentrated, suddenly there was a blue glow between the blocks.

He went to place the one in his inventory, both disappeared. He walked over to a section of the wall, placed the now rectangular block upright on one of the blocks outside the wall. Then concentrated again, another blue glow.

He invited them over to come and check the blocks. They looked in amazement at the now one fused block.

Suddenly there was an as loud screech from the other side of the camp. The sergeant spun around and screamed at the men standing around.

"Keep building the wall. We might need it in a couple of minutes."

He equipped his sword and shield that the blacksmiths made for him as he raced towards the other end of the camp. There was another long, then short and long screech.

That's the alarm for an attack.