Frank peered at the three books set before him. Two of them appeared to be from the same series, a recounting of the historical development of arms and armor in a distant part of history. The third appeared to be a hunting manual.

He glanced at the librarian. “So… How did you come to these choices, professor?”

Victor pushed his glasses up. “Would you believe me if I said I chose by instinct?”

Frank just stared at him a moment. “I mean, I’d be a little concerned, I think.”

Victor chuckled, waving at him. “Hah, don’t worry man. I actually have a Skill for it. When [Librarian] is active it does feel like some weird instinct, but it just helps me find books that will fit well with the reader. All of these,” he said gesturing at the books he’d selected, “will provide some synergy with the Skills you already have.”

The way the librarian said it caught Frank’s attention. “Synergy? Is that just Skills that work together, or is there some special System thing involved?”

He wobbled his hand a bit. “Yes and no. The first thing you have to understand is that the System doesn’t tell me much at all. The second thing is that the Skills I’ve unlocked so far seem to be built around helping others with their Skills. Everything I’m about to tell you is mostly guesswork.”

“Skills can be acquired in a few ways. Obviously, through books,” he gestured around at the shelves, “but also through actions. I, for example, got the [Librarian] Skill after a few hours of helping people pick up new Skills through books. To get a Skill through action, you have to meet certain prerequisites. My theory is that one of those prerequisites can be needing another Skill. That’s one example of synergy.”

Frank flashed back a few hours ago, when he’d been about to get the [Fabrication] Skill, but it had upgraded to [Artificer] because he had used his [Enchanting] Skill in the creation process.

“But the type of synergy I’ve seen a lot of so far, thanks to my [Librarian] Skill, is a bit simpler. There are Skills you can get which don’t, seemingly, do anything. They don’t give you any kind of magic, or have a flashy effect that makes itself obvious. Instead, these Skills are more passive, and tend to modify other Skills, or add a little something to your actions. These fall more in that category,” he pointed at his three choices he’d laid out.

Frank nodded thoughtfully. “Okay. So, you chose out a few that might boost my crafting Skills. I can understand what these two might do,” he said, gesturing at the historical books, “But what about the hunting manual?”

Victor smirked. “I mean, have you seen yourself? You’re walking around with some truly nasty looking antlers and a bandaged shoulder.” He jerked his thumb out over the railing, gesturing at the people downstairs. “There aren’t a lot of people here who’ve had to do any fighting. Those that have know conventional equipment won’t cut it after today.”

He pushed the books on arms and armor together. “These two would help you enchant and make better armor and weapons. That would make you very useful to the powers that be. This one,” he said, pushing the hunting manual closer to Frank, “would help you make use of the parts of creatures you’ve killed. You’d still be useful, but they’d have to give you a longer leash.”

Alarms going off in his head, Frank glanced around. He leaned in, voice low. “Do you think they’d try to… keep me here?”

Victor shrugged, and leaned toward Frank. “I can’t guarantee it. But, the world has changed. Some people have already picked up on that, and I don’t think it will be too long before the leadership of our good old ‘city government’ does too. They’re pretty experienced with taking and holding power. I mean, it didn’t even take a full day for them to take the library.”

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Frank nodded slowly. Yeah, providing emergency aid is one thing, but latching onto the System provided Skills? I’ve never seen the government move this fast on anything before.

He glanced down over the railing at all the people bustling around. People providing first aid, others shuttling reports back and forth as everyone tried to understand what exactly was happening in the city. He thought of the looters he’d seen, brandishing a gun at him. It might be a bit paranoid, but… worth keeping in mind.

Grabbing the hunting manual, Frank nodded at Victor. “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Victor nodded back. “Help who you can, and get as much out of these people as possible, but keep an eye out.”

Frank walked out of the building with a new perspective. There were a lot of people here doing good. There were a lot of people here who were lost, and needed a hand. What happens if the hand they grabbed onto won’t let go?

He stood at the door to the library, and looked around. Off to the side, on some benches by a window, a few emergency responders were wiped out, spent from the day. Near them, a young adult was comforting a few children, anxious and crying.

He shook his head. Victor might be right. It could happen. But I don’t see anything other than people helping people right now, and they need it.

He pushed his way out of the library and headed off to one of the buildings the city had claimed for shelter nearby. I’ll keep my eyes open, but I can do some real good here.

As he settled in for the night, he drifted off with a dim sense of satisfaction in his chest. It had been a long time since he’d accomplished so much in one day. It had been even longer since he’d contributed to his community, and he was actually looking forward to it tomorrow. He fell asleep with a small grin on his face. Just took the end of civilization as we knew it.

Karev softly closed the door behind himself, and turned to the others, keeping a rigid control over his expression. He could feel the emotions rolling off his counterpart in this, the Guide Ruto. Their apprentices, however, were none the wiser. Their eyes shone with a light of excitement that Karev remembered feeling himself, long ago, at his first Integration.

This Integration would be at least as memorable, unfortunately.

Karev gestured at the apprentices. “Terin, Fay, why don’t you get a start on organizing the new arrivals like we discussed? Guide Ruto and I have a few matters to speak on.”

The two nodded, eager to obey. “Yes, Master!” “Yes, Guide Karev!”

As soon as the door closed behind them, Karev fell to his knees, and let himself collapse onto the floor, heart beating in turmoil. He turned his head to look at Ruto, knees pulled to her chest perched on a chair.

She just looked back at him. “What are we going to do Karev? Why are there so many of them?”

He rolled onto his back, and dragged his hands across his face. “I don’t know, Ruto! We were supposed to get a small new society from Delenor. But the prophecy was wrong! I’ve never even heard of a planet called ‘Earth’ before. What kind of universe did they even come from?”

Ruto leaned forward. “That’s what I thought was strange! The prophecy was wrong!” She dropped into a hushed tone. “That means even the Oracle didn’t know about them. And none of them know magic. How did they even accept the System Integration?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Karev sighed. “I feel bad for Terin and Fay. They were looking forward to their first real Integration, but I don’t think they’ll have much of a part to play here.”

They locked eyes, and nodded.

“We need to call an Administrator.”