Despite only working for four hours with the construction crews, Blake was absolutely exhausted. Thrice he’d summoned his Stone Golem to haul heavy stones that needed lifting. Those had been the only moments where he got a breather.
He watched all of the other construction crew members work even when they were empowered, and he was incredibly thankful at how the mechanics of his card worked. While he could sit back and order his golem around, the others weren’t so lucky.
All of the others that worked on the construction crew had abilities that either changed their bodies or the world around them. If they were unlucky enough to have a Stone Fists, Stone Claws, or other body modifying cards, then they had absolutely no break for the entire four hours they worked.
The cards empowered them and increased their strength, sure, but there was still no break.
When empowered, they made a huge amount of progress smashing rocks, digging up the ground, and, if their card allowed it, lifting broken stones and moving them. Although, very few cards increased strength to a level that made it worthwhile.
When the others weren’t empowered, or while Blake’s stone golem was on cooldown, then they could only pick up a stone or pickaxe and work their bodies.
It was a pleasant day under the sunshine, but even with the nice ambient temperatures, sweat caked all of them. The pungent smell of acrid human sweat permeated everything.
Blake didn’t see how it was physically possible for people to be able to work eight or more hours doing this every day without completely destroying their bodies. For normal people anyway.
There were a few men and women around who had the physique of bodybuilders even without cards. They could probably keep going forever and call it ‘a light warmup’ before gym.
Blake considered spending some time lifting iron in the gym back in the apartment complex.
After cracking open a particularly hard boulder, Blake was on a breather. One of the other workers near Blake was talking to himself, so Blake figured he’d drum up some conversation.
“Hey, what’s your name?” Blake asked.
“Corvo,” the older man with the dark hair answered furtively. His eyes darted left and right, like he was worried they were being watched. “They don’t like it when we talk to each other.”
“Then I’ll make this super quick. Why are we digging here? What are they going to build?” Blake matched the volume of Corvo’s whispering, hoping to generate some trust.
“I don’t know, and you’d do well to not ask questions. You just do what your daily work orders tell you, and then you leave. It’s as simple as that. Skate by on the minimum, and don’t let them notice you. Believe me!”
This guy was terrified. He clearly didn’t want to be here, yet it sounded like he didn’t have much of a choice. Well, if the choice was between starvation and exile, or hard labor, the choice was pretty simple.
The golden handcuffs grew tighter.
Although now that Blake had time to think about it, he wondered whether it was really that simple.
The world outside the city was still mostly the same as it was before, a wide open world full of food and opportunities and danger. Sure, some of the animals were a little bit more deadly now, but so were the people.
Blake realized he’d known the answer to his question all along.
A lot of the people in the construction crew hadn't actually used any powers while they worked. A lot of them had relied on simple tools and backbreaking hard work to get the job done.
Maybe some of these people really didn’t have a choice because they didn’t have a power card.
If the construction crews were offering the chance at someone’s very first power card for doing overtime, then it kind of made sense why people would be here doing such hard work.
“Do you have any cards?” Blake asked.
Corvo shook his head.
“Is that why you’re doing this? At a chance to get one?”
The man made a noise that sounded like a hiss. “Stop talking to me, or you’re going to get us both in trouble! Can’t survive without power in a world full of the powerful.”
Corvo turned and stomped away from Blake, and he pointedly moved to a place along the rock wall far away from anyone. Corvo clearly wanted to fly under the radar.
A few minutes later, another of the construction crew members came up next to Blake. “So you want to know what they’re doing here, do you?”
“I’m just curious what we’re working on, that's all.”
The newcomer leaned in conspiratorially. His breath was rancid, and he had a mouth full of blackened teeth. “I’ve heard that Clay wants us to find something buried in the earth around here. Apparently, he’s hell bent on locating it, whatever it is.”
From the way this guy spoke he was probably one of the local crazies. But those unique kinds of people still tended to have a way of finding things out.
“Have you ever met Clay Atlas?” Blake asked.
“Met him? Nobody’s met him. He just sits at the top of his tower sending work orders out to everyone whenever he needs something done. Sometimes he delegates it, like to Foreman Barnes, but as far as I know, nobody’s ever actually seen him in person. Oh, he appears on the big screens before the nightly duels, but lots of people don't believe that he’s real. I know plenty that think there’s nobody in charge, and nobody at the top of that tower.”
“If there’s nobody in charge, then how are we getting assigned work orders?” Blake asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t actually have any answers, just questions. But as long as they keep a roof over my head and rations in my belly, then I do my work. Eventually the truth will come out.”
“Hey, thanks for the information. The name’s Blake. What’s yours?”
“Call me Kez. Kez Winters. I see that stone guy that you can summon to help you out. Where’d you get a card like that?”
“I just found it in the forest,” he said casually.
Everyone who saw Blake’s card was instantly interested. The attention made Blake a little uneasy, but he could use it to his advantage. If Blake could do something nobody else could, then he might be able to use it to garner interest in his unique abilities.
“I have never seen anything like that. I bet you there’d be plenty of people who would be willing to trade you for the ability to summon a monster.”
“I’m sure there would be, but I’m not interested in getting rid of my buddy,” Blake said.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Well, new boy, just watch out. The City Lord’s men keep an eye on all of the powers that we Challengers use here on the work sites. I’ve heard stories about them coercing people into trading their cards even when they don’t want to. A unique card like yours? Prime for the taking. So just watch out.”
Blake nodded apprehensively. “Thanks for the heads up. The system won’t let them force you to trade a card though, right?”
“I’ve seen it done a couple of times before. Just remember that the system isn’t the only way they can control you. If you have a family, they can threaten them. If you got friends, or a girlfriend, they could make their lives hell to get you to give up your card. Technically the system still asks you whether you agree to the trade, but when you’re put into a position where it’s your loved one on the line or a power card, which one are you going to choose?”
Blake nodded. He didn’t like the sound of that, but this guy was right.
If someone in a position of power wanted to get you to do something, they damn well found a way to force you to do it.
That was the worst thing about power. The moment anyone got a tiny sliver more power than they had before, they immediately wanted more.
Blake was not immune to this. When he had the opportunity to get a second card, he reached out and took it.
He’d been relieved that Harry had relinquished his claim to the Shale Skin card and had let Blake take it. He hadn’t even given it a second thought. He saw the card, felt the power waiting for him, then reached out and took it.
Now that Blake was here in New Meridia, he found that he did want to level up his cards and maybe even go to one of the arena duel nights to test his mettle.
If he could do it without wagering any of his cards in a duel, he would. Perhaps he could try a duel out in the apartment building’s practice arena before approaching a real duel.
Out of his current three cards, the only one that he would really even consider parting with was Shale Skin. Even then, he would only want to trade that card if he had no other option.
If he summoned his wolf and mounted the creature just right, he’d be able to ride on its back. He was also interested to see if the card would evolve into a stone suit of armor with a sword, just like Frank’s evolved card had.
Blake had no idea how a wolf would hold a sword, but he figured it would be interesting to see, nonetheless. Perhaps upon evolution, the monster wouldn’t be a wolf at all, but something different instead.
When Blake was finished his four hour shift, his arms, legs, and back ached. He could barely continue holding the pickaxe he had slung over his shoulder. He'd used up all three charges of anima to summon his Stone Golem to work for him.
For the other two and a half hours he tried to get to know as many of the construction workers as he could, while avoiding the scrutinizing gaze of the New Meridia security force.
Whenever he was talking to someone else, the security force became much more interested in him. So he tried to keep conversation subtle and to a minimum.
When Blake’s work order timer expired, an audible melody played in his mind like an inbuilt notification sound.
Today’s work order has been completed.
The cards you used today have been granted experience, and you have received a daily ration pack.
Your daily ration pack has been sent to your apartment.
Blake had chosen to pick up one from the workplace once he was done and picked it up from the foreman. He untied the cloth wrapping to find roughly a day’s worth of food.
It was a little on the small side compared to what he would normally eat before the world went to hell, and it certainly didn't feel like it was worth the four hours of hard labor he’d just completed. But it was better than starving.
The inside of the ration pack was divided up into different meals. The breakfast section had a tea bag, a sachet of instant coffee, and some apple cinnamon oats. The lunch contained a sandwich with meat, cheese and pickled mustard on it, and the snack section contained a small serving of beef jerky and dry crackers, along with a small portion of dried fruit and nut trail mix. For dinner, there was pasta, meat, and spaghetti sauce, along with a little grated parmesan cheese.
It was enough for him to get by, but he wanted to see how much regular groceries were if he bought them from local suppliers. Although for that he’d need to find a way to make some actual money as well.
From what Blake had gathered, money was called credits. Old world cash was useless from the system’s perspective and couldn’t even be exchanged.
After Blake finished work for the day, he sat down on a park bench and watched people walk by. There was already a New Meridia style of fashion that he observed on many of the people walking past.
A lot of the jackets that people wore had a strange diagonal piece of fabric which hooked into a button or a clasp at the left collarbone. Occasionally there would be a second button around the midsection of the jacket, but not always. Blake had never seen anything quite like that and wasn’t sure what to attribute it to.
A new style meant there were tailors and seamstresses who were making clothes of a certain cut. So, there really was work here for everyone.
Both Blake’s mother and father had likely been put to work as well. Maybe she was even working on these New Meridia-style clothes.
As Blake ate half of the stale sandwich from his ration pack, he got up from the park bench and tried to get the attention of someone who was wearing one of these jackets.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Blake asked as he stepped in front of a skinny man who looked like he was in a hurry.
“Uh, I guess, what can I help you with?” The man replied.
“I just want to know where you got that jacket.”
“Oh, it's one of those ones made by Atlas’s men. If you need clothes, you can just go along to the Needs Center, near Administration, and they’ll give you some. We had to leave our homes with nothing but the clothes on our back, we're very glad we got here when we did.”
“Thanks. I’ll look it up.” Blake returned to the bench, finished his sandwich, then headed back to his apartment to have a rest before attending the arena duels that night.
Visiting the Needs Center was a good idea. Blake had basically no clothes other than what he wore. His car was totaled, and it wouldn’t be long before things started to get really bad. The worst part was that he had no clean clothes to get changed into for the duels tonight.
Blake opened the map of New Meridia through his interface and plotted a route to the Needs Center. He walked through the streets of New Meridia, self-conscious about the dirt and grime that covered him.
The Needs Center was inside the massive tower in the center of the city. The whole bottom floor seemed to be devoted to helping people who had lost everything. They could come and access necessary supplies whenever needed.
As Blake approached Atlas Tower, he was immediately struck by its sheer size and scope. The entrance was a towering double-door affair that opened automatically as people approached it. There was a bank of elevators behind a security desk that led up into the tower, and Blake noted a couple of interesting signs.
One-half of the elevator bank was for taking people up and down from apartments. The other half was for something called The Challenger’s Climb. Blake made a note to ask someone about what that was.
Two armed guards stood outside the entrance to the Needs Center beneath a sign that said, ‘Rebuilding New Beginnings After The End Of The World’. The doors themselves were made of heavy-duty metal, and the Atlas security force stared Blake down as he approached.
As he got closer, they took one sniff and their faces twisted up. “Are those the only clothes you have?” the security guard asked.
“Yeah, and I’ve just done my daily work order. I can’t afford to buy anything, but I need clothes to be able to keep working,” Blake said.
“Head on through,” the other guard said, and pointed to a wide desk to the side of the room within. “They’ll be able to sort you out with a basic pack of supplies. Go on through.”
Blake headed in and explained his situation. The woman he spoke to went out and retrieved a pack of supplies for him.
She placed a backpack down on the counter. “If you’re working, then you should have a roof over your head, yes?”
Blake nodded.
“Good. You’ll have blankets, toiletries, basic amenities. That makes my job easier,” she continued. “I’ve put two sets of heavy-duty work clothes in the pack, along with two informal outfits, and one Atlas jacket for you. If you’re going out and engaging with anyone of a higher social standing, we’d recommend you wear your jacket. You’ll be taken more seriously. Also, there are some basic food supplies in there. A bag of rice, dehydrated fruit, and some soup crackers. Did your work crew explain how you can get more ration packs?”
“Yeah, I get one every shift,” Blake said. “But how do I actually make credits to buy things for myself?”
“That’s a tougher question. Technically there’s no wrong answer, but it all depends on what you can do that people are willing to pay for. If you’re a Challenger, you could always sign up for duels. Oftentimes the winner will get a cut of the proceeds.”
“Gambling, you mean?”
The woman shrugged. “Our whole way of life has changed. We need to evolve with it.”
“One more question. How would I go about talking to the people who made these jackets? I think my mother, who I’m trying to find, might have helped with them.”
The woman’s face turned soft and commiserating. “That’s not possible, hon. These jackets are generated by The System. Nobody actually makes them.”
“Oh. Well, thank you for this.”
“You’re very welcome. Come back if you ever need anything else!”
Blake took the pack and shouldered it. He headed back to his apartment, and immediately hit the shower to wash the stink of the day’s work off.
Exhaustion took him over as he stepped out of the shower and slipped on a set of clothes. He sighed with satisfaction at the softness of the cotton, then collapsed on the single-seat couch in the corner of his lounge room.
His eyelids felt heavy, and his arms and legs felt like lead. He wanted to stay away, but sleep took him. He managed to set an alarm for a few hours’ time before he fell asleep. He’d awaken with just enough time to get down to the arena for the night’s duels.