The Population team had found six Outlanders. I don’t know how they detected them. Maybe they just straight up asked everyone?

Amris brought them together and by the time I joined them they’d already decided that they were the Skills Team and that their job would be to consult with people who wanted to develop new skills for our current crisis. I thought it was a good idea and I said so. A lot of people in the city had specced into commercial or social skills that weren’t going to be a lot of use while we were fleeing from an army and short on supplies.

I felt weirdly ambivalent about meeting them. I’d got used to being the only Outlander around. It felt weird enough knowing that Amris was an Outlander but at least he was a friend.

There were two women and four men. The two women had made some interesting choices in solving the problem of defending oneself. One of them had gone full Orc. Her name was Sarah Eden and she would not talk about where she was from or who she’d been. She was a head taller than Amris and pure muscle. She had the hourglass figure that you sometimes see on very muscular women. The one where the top of the hourglass isn’t so much down to breast size as to the width of the chest and shoulders. If Arkadia had Twitter she could have had a dedicated following of simps and a side gig doing videos of her crushing various fruits with her thighs. She had a pair of hand axes hanging from her belt. Her class was JUGGERNAUT, a specialist sacred warrior combat class only open to Orc and Half-Orc. She’d been in the city delivering a gravely ill Orc child to the hospital so I didn’t have to explain the fever to her.

The other woman was called Varma and likewise would not talk about anything from her previous life including her whole name. I wasn’t even sure if Varma was her first name, or family name, or one she picked during character gen. She was much smaller, slightly shorter than me but she was still wiry and muscular. On Earth I would have said she looked South Asian. Her class was LIVING WEAPON, a dual magic and martial arts class that allowed her to channel elemental forces through her unarmed strikes. She moved with incredible grace and gentleness but she had a habit of cracking her knuckles with a sound like a rifle shot. Her knuckles were so calloused that her hands looked like rubber gloves stuffed with walnuts.

Varma was in the city to give a seminar on her techniques at the University. She had her own school in the mountains, far to the south, and half her students were currently sick with the Fever. She didn’t need me to tell her anything about the Fever either.

None of the men had specced quite as hard into badassery. The first one, Asser Motram was a Dwarf WEAPON SMITH. He worked in the city making weapons for the wealthy that were at least 70% decorative, even if they were also functioning weapons. He had the classic Dwarf ruddy complexion and full dark beard with only a little grey sprinkled in. He wore his hair in tight braids.

He seemed oblivious to the existence of the Fever and that made me wonder if it would be a good idea to send him to meet Master Armstrong.

Next there was a human who, on Earth, would have looked Arabian or North African. He introduced himself as Saleh Naji and seemed proud of his successful career as an ALCHEMIST. He must have been doing pretty well because he wore the finest clothes of all of us. He wasn’t as dapper as Amris but he had a certain opulent style.

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I was sure that he would be both welcome and popular in the Safehold. At least we’d be unlikely to run out of basic potions. Or booze. He was only dimly aware of the Fever. His only contact with it was that he’d had to make large batches of Fever Tea and cooling potions. The moment we started talking about it I could see him beginning to wonder why he didn’t know more about something that was so hard to treat and affected so many people.

The other two men had gone the elf route. Izaak Antos was pale, and blond, and looked like he might blow away in a strong breeze. He was also an ARCANE WIZARD. That meant that he had access to powerful magics but was dependent on books. Most of his books were still in his hotel room, back in Moonstone. Fortunately he had his travel spell book on him and with access to the Library he should be able to compensate for the lack of his personal library. He’d been in Moonstone to attend an Arcane conference.

He didn’t want to talk about how old he was or how long he’d been in Arkadia but this wasn’t the first outbreak of the Fever that he’d lived through. He didn’t know much about it but he seemed willing to learn more.

The final man was a Half-Elf Rogue. He was dressed in black and his face was shadowed by his hood. Rogue is a Type rather than a Class but at first he refused to be drawn on his exact class, or his name. Sarah chose that moment to start sharpening one of her axes. Amris asked him to look around at the Safehold, packed with people, and asked if he expected us to trust him if he wouldn’t trust us. The Rogue took a deep breath and introduced himself as Akira and said that he was a SHADOW WALKER. The rest of us all closed our eyes for a quick look at the class. I think he might have sneaked off if Varma hadn’t decided to put her arm around his shoulders, in a supportive kind of way, but with the heavy suggestion that if he tried to move away she’d put him on the ground.

SHADOW WALKER was the most stealthy class of the most stealthy type and was also the most edgelord thing I’d seen in Arkadia, though possibly only because the Vampire section of the tree was closed to me.

“Ooh, Parkour!” I said, still looking at the skill tree. “You can practise with me if you like. We can race.”

“Maybe you can both teach me,” said Amris. “I need the exercise and the challenge.”

“I’d love to learn too,” said Varma. “There’s probably a synergy with some of my unarmed skills.”

Akira started to look a lot more relaxed. “I was so worried that there would be some kind of prejudice against stealth classes. I swear I’m not a killer, or a peeping tom.”

“My dude,” I said, “I’m a Hyena-Kin. I’m the last person to have a go about other people’s builds.”

“None of us knew what we were in for when we picked,” said Sarah. “Not sure I’d have picked a buff orc axe fighter if I’d known that house-cat Librarian was an option.”

“I’m really enjoying Alchemy,” said Saleh, “But I am a little bit sad that I never thought of house-cat Librarian.”

###

After the others had left, and it was just Amris and I, Amris said, “Do you think he picked Akira because he’s Japanese and it’s a really common name or do you think he’s a westerner and a huge Weeb?”

“Could be either,” I said, “but whichever it is I’m sure he’s not an adult.”

“I know what you mean,” said Amris, “Maybe 15 at the most.”

“At the most. Could easily be younger,” I said. “And I don’t think he’s been here long. Probably not as long as me.”

“We’ll have to keep an eye on him,” said Amris.

“He’s not going to make that easy. Not with that chip on his shoulder and those stealth skills.”