CHAPTER 100: Swan

“These tracks are layered. Several large groups passed through here at different times. I’d say the most recent was two weeks ago,” Lamar said as he squatted as much as possible on his bad knee. He used [Notice Signs] to understand what he was looking at.

After two days of rest, the swelling was gone and only a mild strain could still be felt within the tendons. He kept a soft brace on it, though he wondered at its usefulness considering it wasn’t made to protect against stats like his. A quick or powerful movement could pop the material easily.

During that time, Nick had been exploring. Or you could call it looting. Definitely looting. With a lot of enthusiasm.

The room in the sporting goods store that he stayed in was now piled high with video games, movies, snacks, electronics, batteries, and anything else he found and wanted to keep. He focused on conveniences and food, ignoring things that had been considered valuable before the [System]. Most of this stuff would be useless soon too, if not for their base Rift that could integrate these items with it. Lamar wasn’t sure if Nick was doing it because he wanted the stuff or just because it was something he never would have done with people around.

When Lamar asked why, Nick had brought up the old RPG video games.

“You could walk right into a house and smash their pots or open their chests. They never said or did anything. As a kid I wasn’t sure whether to feel guilty for stealing from the NPCs or happy that they allowed me to take their stuff. People aren’t in these houses or stores, but now I can do that in real life,” Nick had answered with a grin. “I wanted to know what it was like.”

“What if those things belong to people?” Lamar had asked in response. That had caused Nick to frown and get serious.

“If the people are still alive, I don’t think they’ll have much use for them.”

The big break in Nicks exploration had come when both he and Lamar had looked north at the same time.

“He’s heading back to Jackson,” said Lamar, feeling the appointment connection to Adam.

“Guess we’re truly on our own. He isn’t coming back for us,” said Nick.

“Maybe he just trusts us that much. To make our own way back,” Lamar added hopefully.

“If that’s what you think, then you need to pay better attention to him,” Nick lamented, then shrugged it off and went back to exploring.

Eventually Lamar had become able to move at a pace that would allow him to fight somewhat, so Nick brought him to one of the bigger roads in town. In front of a school there were a lot of signs of movement across the lawn and tracked into a full parking lot. Windows had been blown inwards from the school, and cars were smashed and ripped up. Lamar couldn’t help but sigh at it all.

“Invaders?” asked Nick as Lamar stood up.

“I would think the torn-up cars would be a dead giveaway,” Lamar stated sarcastically.

“It could have been mutated beasts.”

“Doubtful. The tracks look like people were pulled and dragged out of the school. We spend so much time trying to get away from school, then the apocalypse happens, and we all huddle back in them. Anyway, it wasn’t even once. It looks like there were similar things that happened repeatedly over the weeks. There are shoe and boot prints, bare feet, drag and scuff marks, and then lizard tracks. Large lizard prints that walk on two legs,” explained Lamar.

“Yeah, invaders.” Nick gripped his knife tightly.

“Let’s check out some of the other public buildings,” said Lamar.

They found another school building, this one for elementary school, and the same pattern was there. Large numbers of tracks being led off. Multiple times in some of the places.

They checked building after building, following tracks back and forth. Outside a small corporate center, several churches, a grocery store, they found similar signs. After a few hours of it, Nick was getting frustrated.

“Do we try to figure out what happened? Or just wait until you’re up to run for Jackson?” Nick asked, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Let’s hold up on answering that,” Lamar said as he looked at some dead grass in front of a church. “I found something different…and fresh.”

He kept low and followed some patches of withered grass bent the wrong way. The spots were very small and might have been caused by dogs. There wasn’t much of an indentation in the dirt.

The trail didn’t lead into the church, but to the bushes on the side of the building. The bushes looked like they were growing from the ground to the wall and up to waist height. Lamar got low. He could see some signs of disturbance very low down.

Using his knife, he cut away the branches that spiked outwards and found that the bushes were broken off into a tunnel on the side against the church wall. A tunnel that was much smaller than Lamar could fit in. He pointed it out to Nick.

Stolen story; please report.

“Guess we get rid of the bushes?” asked Nick. “Should I go to a hardware store and get a shovel or hedge clippers?”

“Quit thinking like a level zero, you newb,” Lamar teased as he grabbed a bush with his gloved, non-broken hand and easily pulled the bush out of the ground.

“Good point,” Nick nodded. He went further down the wall and the two started yanking out bushes. They just saw more walls behind the plants as they went, until about three quarters of the way down they found a window. It was about two feet tall and three feet wide. Behind it was just darkness, even with the sun out.

“You have a plan?” asked Nick as he stared at the window. It would be a tight fit no matter what.

“We could break into the church and try to find this room. Or we could break the window open. We could also just smash the wall in, but that might fall on someone if there are people inside.”

“That’s a lot of breaking things, Lamar. Now you’re thinking too much like Adam,” Nick chuckled. He tapped the hilt of his knife on the glass so as not to break it. Then he waited.

Lamar strained his hearing, trying to make out motion or talking behind the window. Nothing happened.

“Are you sure people were in there?” asked Nick skeptically.

“You saw the bushes and the ground. I’m pretty sure someone small went in there.”

Then Lamar addressed the window.

“My name is Lamar. I’m human and from the Sentinel Army in Jackson. We’re looking for survivors and found tracks leading here. If you’re well, please give us a signal, otherwise we’ll be trying to break in to make sure no one needs help.”

While Lamar spoke, Nick used his [Dim Presence] and [Mask Signs] skills to disappear. He wasn’t turning invisible, just becoming harder to notice. Lamar couldn’t find him when he did that unless he used [Notice Signs] to counter one of Nick’s skills.

Lamar waited for a few minutes but there was still no reply. He turned to find Nick, but instead heard a yelp coming from the front of the church. Hurrying there, he found a young woman. Her arm was held by Nick, and she looked terrified. She also looked dirty, dehydrated, and like she hadn’t eaten in a while. Lamar couldn’t help but notice she would be pretty if she was in a normal condition.

“So there’re people in this place?” asked Nick, a little more forcefully than Lamar was comfortable with.

“N-no. Of course not. I was hiding here alone,” the girl said.

“Oh, good. Then it doesn’t matter if we just kick the wall in,” threatened Nick.

“No! Don’t do that!”

“Why not?” he questioned.

“I-it’s just mean to ruin perfectly good buildings,” she stammered out, obviously lying. Lamar breathed deeply.

“Nick, can you go get some of the healthier food and some water and sports drinks?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” said Nick as he let go of her. He gave a wink to Lamar. “How much, do you think?”

Lamar raised an eyebrow at the woman. “Enough for five…ten…huh, 20 people. Thanks, Nick.” Lamar reacted to the woman’s twitches as he guessed numbers.

“You got it, buddy. Be right back.” Nick then faded out of perception again and Lamar was left alone with the woman.

“My name is Lamar, and that was Nick. He didn’t mean any harm, just wanted to make sure you wouldn’t run.”

“Why would I run?” the girl asked suspiciously.

“Please don’t play around. We’ve been following tracks all day. There were invaders here a few weeks ago and they took a lot of people. We’d like to know more about it.”

The women frowned and still seemed hesitant.

“Why would you want to know more. If you were smart, you’d run for it without worrying about others. The things that they’ve done…”

“Don’t worry about us. We’re pretty strong and we’re both scouts. We can call in quite a few fighters experienced with the invaders too.”

“How did you get strong?” she asked, now curious.

“It started with goblins, and a classmate named Adam,” said Lamar. He briefly explained what they had been doing since the invasions, and how Adam had convinced police, the US Army, and civilians to fight and level up.

“Then the general guy from the videos was real?” she asked, jaw agape.

“Yeah, why is that so hard to believe when the [System] sticks messages in front of us and gives us spells and skills?”

“It’s just, I saw those videos. They looked impossible,” she said dismissively.

“Didn’t you just see Nick disappear? That used to be impossible but isn’t anymore,” Lamar insisted.

“You think this Adam General will come help if you talk to him?” she asked, growing a bit concerned.

“Adam Clemens. The General is just a nickname someone gave him. And of course he would come to help. Killing the invaders is most of what he thinks about.”

“Scary,” she said with a shiver. “Killing isn’t the same as rescuing people.”

“No, it isn’t. Adam will do both. We’ve been raiding invader bases since before the invasions. We’ve rescued tens of thousands of people that we’ve found. Now, if you’d answer a few questions miss…”

“Swan,” she said firmly.

“Swan?” Lamar asked with surprise. She glared at him.

“Yes. Swan. My mama said I was the ugliest baby when I was born but was destined to grow beautiful.” Her words were a challenge to Lamar. One he knew to ignore.

“Ok, Ms. Swan. Your mama might have been right. I look forward to seeing you once you have the chance to get some food in you for a while. Now, what happened here and how did you survive?”

Swan told her story to Lamar. The town had gathered at public places. They had shared and supported each other, even though no one knew what to do on a larger scale. Then the invaders came. They killed a few people to make examples of them, and then started raiding buildings.

The church was run by Swan’s father, and she worked to clean it and teach Sunday school. There was a hidden room in the church. It wasn’t large, but when the invaders had come, the other adults chose her to watch the children in it. She had a healing spell and was already treated well by the children as their Sunday school teacher. It had been tough keeping the children quiet as the rest of the people were dragged out by hissing lizard men. The tracks that Lamar had followed were from one of the more unruly boys who kept sneaking out to try and find better food.

Several times while Swan was talking, she almost burst into tears as she described it. The fear, the loneliness, and the uncertainty. They didn’t have much food, and they couldn’t venture out due to the raids occurring over several weeks. The children were all starving and thirsty, relying on an old hand pumped well in the back. The only reason the children didn’t get sick from the water was probably due to her being a “Support [0]” with the [Slight Heal] spell.

“Actually, that’ll help us out too. I broke my arm when we fought some invaders north of here. Do you think you could heal it?”

Swan began sweating with concentration after her fourth cast of [Slight Heal]. Lamar had become used to Tier 2 healers, as well as not taking damage. He tried to remember how long it had taken Abbey and Ed to heal people back in the beginning, during the goblins, but even that wasn’t comparable since even then Abbey had leveled. Plus, Swan was already worn down from starvation.

Still, she kept it up until he was able to flex and move his hand adequately. It would still take more heals to get it fixed all the way, but for now he felt he could use his bow.

Swan sat on the ground as Lamar waited for Nick to get back, surprised at how long it was taking. Then he was even more surprised when Nick came running around a building almost at full speed.

“Bad news! They’re here. A group of invaders are right behind me!”