Michael’s acknowledgment was enough to encourage the skittish man to approach closer. Ten days had passed since Michael had met the trio of contenders that had included Shen. They had been the first other contenders he had met other than Phil, and despite the fact that he now had hundreds of contacts on his contender page, Michael remembered the three. He had shared a lunch with them after all.

Michael glanced around. There was no sign of Vince. It was not surprising. Shen did not strike Michael as a top contender. It was clear that Shen had slept inside of the outpost. Now two hours into the day, he was still present. Vince however, seemed to be the type to shoot high. He also seemed to be the type to look out primarily for his own benefit. As soon as he got to the point that he no longer needed Shen or considered Shen dead weight, he likely had abandoned him.

Despite easily recognizing Shen, Michael was not quite sure on what to expect. Shen had not spoken during the 15 minutes that they had sat down and shared a meal.

“Michael right?” the man asked tepidly. Michael nodded. Technically the guy could have just analyzed him and confirmed his name. Perhaps the guy did not know about that, or perhaps he just needed the opener.

“Yeah, I thought so. Glad that you’re still around,” Shen said looking down.

“I saw that Michele fell on day 6, although I see that Vince is still alive. Did the two of you split up?”

The guy seemed to be struggling, so Michael decided to help him get to topic. There was not much the two shared in common other than Shen’s former companions. Michael watched the man’s face contort in anger at the mention of his former companions. Whatever nervousness was lost.

“He killed her. Attacked from out of nowhere…” Shen said, shaking in furry.

Michael nodded. He had thought it might be the case. Of course the thoughts had always been tempered by the thoughts about why he had not then killed Shen. Michael could not help but ask the question.

“Then why didn’t he kill you?”

Michael did not really suspect Shen of being complicit, but he had to sate his curiosity. The question made Shen hang his head in shame. Shen quivered for a moment, his face had done a complete 180 from anger to regret.

“Because I ran away… She did not die immediately,” Shen continued choking on his words. “V…Vince struck her from behind, and she begged for help and… and I did nothing. Not until he came at me,” Shen finished apparently reliving the experience in his mind. Michael had seen characters in shows or movies that had supposedly gone through a traumatic experience. The actors had seemingly gotten it right.

“I’m sorry to hear that. She seemed like a wonderful person. What have you been doing since then? That was 6 days ago.” Michael was genuinely sorry for what had happened, but it was not as if he had known any of them well. He did not have the time to spend reminiscing or comforting Shen. Kyrie and his intention was to complete what they needed and leave as soon as they could. Michael could not help but feel annoyance at the thought this guy might want to latch on to someone he was familiar with. Michael knew he was not the type to be able to bluntly walk off given the situation.

“Oh, I managed somehow. Made it to this outpost. Teamed up with a couple of other contenders I ran into. I go out with them,” Shen said, pointing a finger toward the back of the outpost. There were a good thirty contenders either still sleeping or meandering about. Probably all had spent the night here the night before and were still lingering. There were too many for Michael to guess at who Shen meant, but it was glad that Shen seemed to already be in a party with some other like minded individuals. Less likely that he would ask to team up with Michael.

“That's good Shen. Glad to see that you are doing well, so what are your plans now?” Michael asked, and instantly regretted it. He was trying to close out the conversation, not get drawn deeper in. He did not need to encourage that the two of them were more than what they were, acquaintances.

“Uhhh… well for now I intend to hunt around the area. The old town district is kept pretty clear, but the industrial and freight district have plenty of undead. I’m going to get stronger… And I’m going to hunt down that bastard,” Shen said, his tone turning menacing.

Michael smiled softly. Then he had a thought. “Shen, would you like to join the Vargas city guard?” Michael gave a quick rundown on the faction leaders and Sarge’s vision of getting all of the Vargas city contenders to stand and work together. He could tell that Shen was immediately receptive. After a couple minutes, Shen was accepted into the faction. Michael took it a step further and shared the admin access. Neither Kyrie or him wanted to spend much time in the outposts when they could be out getting stronger and accumulating more resources, but there was no reason that Shen couldn’t take on the role.

“I’m giving you admin access. You should be able to add any companions or other people you trust to the faction,” Michael said.

“Thank you, I think some of the contenders in the area will likely join. If for nothing else than to get access to the information on the notice board. A bunch of the contenders that hang around the area started their own faction, the Skullbashers, but they don’t even have a notice board. Really, they just wanted to make a gang I think. You can see them wearing green bandanas around their head or like a necklace.”

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Michael glanced over. A majority of the contenders over in the area sported the green bandanas. None of them looked overly impressive. None of them carried any unusual gear. They had seemingly just made a faction just because, and picked the name ‘The skull bashers’ since they were bashing in zombie skulls and thought it sounded cool.

“Well glad to see that you are at least doing good,” Michael said, patting the guy on the shoulder. “I have to go check the notice board. Then we will probably get out of here.”

“Okay… I just thought I would let you know what happened, so that you could be on the lookout in case you happen to run into Vince,” Shen said, his face once again etched with regret.

“Thanks,” Michael said, with a gentle smile. It had probably taken the guy quite a bit of effort to engage Michael, to warn him. Michael felt slightly bad about feeling irritated at the prospect of the guy trying to latch on to him. Shen might not be at the front of the pack, but he was getting by in his own way.

Michael turned without another word and made his way to the notice board. Kyrie was already there looking into things. Things could be pinned on one side and they would show up on the interface on the opposite side under the appropriate category. The interface side could be swiped to scroll through all of the accumulated information. There was already quite a bit despite less than a week having passed.

“Make a new friend?” Kyrie asked, smirking.

“Just someone I ran into all the way back on day 2,” Michael dismissed. Then he grinned. “He joined the Vargas guard and I gave him admin access. He seems to hang around here a lot, so…”

“Perfect… I guess that will complete our job of spreading the faction to this area. Looks like he is a part of that large group of slackers.”

“Yeah, well all those guys with the green bandana already made a faction. They call themselves the ‘Skullbashers.’”

“Phhhtttt…” Kyrie snorted. “Really…? Well as long as some join our group and can get them the information, I’m sure things will work out. I wouldn’t expect the group of them to contribute anything that would be beneficial.”

“You’re probably right. However, I did find out that there are not too many things to grind in the old town… not really news to us since we hardly ran into anything on the way here, but he said that many groups hunt in the freight district to the north. Or the industrial district to the south. Perhaps we will go to one of those places after this?”

“Maybe…” Kyrie said, scrolling back to something she had already read through earlier. Michael read the notice that some of the other contenders under the Commander section.

[Note left by Contender Stan Reiley on Day 8: ran across an access into a storm drain in the Riverside district. Did not really intend to go in, but I noticed it was marked with a red haze. Possible Commander?]

[Note left by Contender Azealia Braumhe on Day 9: My team and I checked a manhole downtown. Same red haze in the sewer system. Returned real quick to let the rest of you know. We plan on investigating today.]

[Note left by Contender Barrett Grooves on Day 10: It is not only in the downtown area. I went North to the outpost in the residential districts. The sewer up here also has a red haze.]

[Note left by Faction leader Sasha Bennett on Day 11: It is likely that one or more of the six commanders are under the city. It is far too large of an area for us to have to search, everyone search your area. If you run into anything unusual, update on this thread.]

There were a few more posts from contenders in different districts on day 11 that indicated that they had verified that the underground drop red haze extended to their area. The red drop really did show up wherever people opened an opening to the sewers or storm runoff system.

“What do you think?” Kyrie asked after he had read it all.

“I’m thinking I guess we are the only ones from the faction in this area, so it is up to us to check…” Michael trailed off. He really did not like the idea. Rule number 1, which he had already broken once, was to stay out and away from bodies of water. It was still the only rule he had cemented on his list.

“Do you think there are a bunch of red drops down there, or do you think it is just one?” Kyrie asked greedily.

“I don’t know. There might be more than one, however I would think that they would only have one or two commanders at most in the sewers. For the viewers sake, I doubt they would have all six of them be some sort of sewer monsters.”

“That makes sense,” Kyrie said. “Although if the red drops are indicators of the commanders and only a couple of them are underground I am surprised that the others have not been found. Our faction already has over 1200 people in it.”

Kyrie scrolled back to the faction’s home page. It had the faction name, name of the three team leaders, and gave the number of current members. They currently had 1,278 contenders in the Vargas city guard. Finally, there were a couple of sentences detailing the purpose of the group, and a list of the threads that had been started.

Michael glanced over it. “Perhaps the commanders are all going to emerge from the underground, and this is our chance to get them in their infancy. I told you about my run in with a catacomb entrance, or… perhaps they are just developing at different rates… or they have killed everyone who witnessed them,” Michael theorized.

“Ha, well not super excited about going underground, but taking them out in their infancy would be nice… There is not much that the two of us haven't found out. Someone listed all the basic skills that we just looked through. Then there is also a thread, where people have posted different tier up methods that they have found. There are already 8 of them. Perhaps we should add the two that we have, and say they are on the market.” Kyrie smiled.

Michael nodded. They could get the information out there and perhaps hope the old shop keeps out. After reading and then adding his own entry, Michael decided to start another thread.

Contenders to be weary of

[Note left by Michael Nacht day 12: Figured it would be beneficial for our faction if we kept track of known dangerous contenders in the area. Be wary of Vince Masters, he killed one of his party members and attempted to kill the other for the drops.]

It was a good idea, in Michael’s opinion. His note was simple, but it would potentially help others from falling victim to Vince. Even more importantly there was potential for other names to be added, for Michael to be weary of. With satisfaction, Michael checked the interface. His new thread was now added to the list of threads. With that he was ready to go and see what the water channels underneath the city had to offer.