“What the hell is a Ranking Board?,” Harper asked.

“Harper,” Loch scolded.

She didn’t apologize and he didn’t say anything else. Loch was just as confused and surprised as she was. They all were. Eyes were unfocused as each of the people in the field looked at their notifications. Everyone seemed to forget the dozen or so Lynxia corpses.

“Cerie,” Loch said, a command, not a question.

“I was not expecting the Ranking Board to be initiated this early into Earth’s Connection,” the fairy said from where she was sitting on Piper’s shoulder.

Loch focused on the small green glowing fairy. She shook her head, not meeting his eyes.

“I would have mentioned it if I had known it was coming.” Her eyes glowed a brighter green as she accessed her data. “Typically the Board does not become active until One Thousand Connected reach Level Twenty-Five. As far as we know, there are no Level Twenty-Five on Earth.”

“There’s one way to find out,” Harper suggested. “How do we access the Board?”

“The same way you do your Status.”

Loch thought the words Ranking Board. A new Notification appeared in his vision. Larger than normal, filled with columns and not paragraphs. The same fonts and general design. There were two columns. Connected and Clans. He looked at the Connected first, not really surprised to see his name at the top. There weren’t many that he recognized. Both girls were in the list, not near the top. It showed the top 100 Connected on Earth. He looked quickly but didn’t see Kelly’s name.

It would have been nice to see her name. A way to truly confirm that she was alive. He hadn’t given up hope, and wouldn’t, that they’d see her again. She was alive.

But having confirmation would have been great.

No Levels were shown. No other information beyond just a name.

LOCHLAN BRADY

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

The top ten. Loch had no idea how close they were to him. What was the Level gap between fifth and sixth? Fifth and a hundredth?

“Why doesn’t it show Levels,” Davis Millman asked.

“That is odd,” Cerie replied, knowing the question had been directed at her. “Typically it does.”

Loch sighed. That was happening too often. There were just too many things that were outside Cerie’s knowledge. Loch understood that each planet’s Connection was going to be different but Cerie had the history of dozens, maybe hundreds, of Connections stored in her database. Not a true fairy, though she looked like one, Cerie was basically an AI database.

She shouldn’t have been as surprised as she was being.

“That’s all Earth names,” Jenny said. “Shouldn’t there be some of these invaders on the list?”

“No,” Cerie answered. “It would serve no purpose to have the invaders in the Ranking Board as most of them would be Level ten and above, some of the higher Leveled would be Twenty or even at the planet’s cap of twenty-five.”

Loch hated that Earth was designated a Resource Planet. As soon as it had been Connected, portals were opened to other planets in the Connected System, or Connected Worlds. There were just too many uses of the word. It was driving Loch crazy. Those portals allowed alien Connected, beings like the humans of Earth who had their bodies Adapted to work in the Connection, to enter the planet. The difference was that the earthlings started at Level 0 while the aliens could be at any Level.

Except for Earth’s Level cap which kept the highest Leveled invader at twenty-five. Loch wasn’t sure if that meant only beings that were Twenty-Five and below could enter or that the Connection would force them back down to Twenty-Five.

How would that be, he wondered, if he was forcibly deleveled? Would he notice the loss or would the Connection just make him like he had been at the lower level? Would the cap keep him from Leveling past Twenty-Five? His Leveling had slowed recently, mostly due to partying with lower levels in the Dungeons. Not that his progress had slowed to a complete crawl, but it was noticeably harder. Others wouldn’t catch up, but he wasn’t Advancing as fast as he had gotten used to. It felt slow. He shook his head, dismissing that thought.

It didn’t matter. He’d get there when he got there and find out.

Loch knew he had to focus on the matter at hand.

“What is the point of the Ranking Board,” he asked.

“What does the Connection want from the Connected?”

“To strive and advance,” Loch muttered, reciting the words from memory. He’d seen them in enough Notifications.

The Connected System wanted its Connected to Advance through the Levels, gaining and using Spirit, what basically amounted to magic. The Connection fed off the Spirit used.

“The Ranking Board is a means to push the Connected.”

“By pitting us against each other?,” Jenny asked.

“In a way. Not necessarily direct confrontation, but by seeing who is higher, the Connection tries to drive competition. It wants the Connected to strive to be at the top of the rankings.”

“But how can we do that if we don’t know what Levels anyone is?,” Davis asked.

“I believe it is tied to the Evaluate Skill.” Cerie floated off Piper’s shoulder, her wings fluttering as she flew around in a lazy circle as she thought. All eyes were following her. “When the Ranking Board normally activates, most Connected have higher rank Evaluate so they would then be able to see the Levels in the ranking.”

Of all the people in the new Northwoods Territory of Clan Brady, Loch had the highest Evaluate Skill. Others could just see the name of whatever they focused the Skill on. Loch could just see the name, but he also got a feeling of the overall strength of the item or monster. At least in how it compared to him. It didn’t make the Skill that useful when used in a group setting. Everyone else in the area was much lower Leveled than he was. Their overall power levels were different.

Anything that felt equal to his Level would be almost too tough for anyone else in the area, even Harper and Piper, who were the next highest Levels.

Cerie’s explanation made sense.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The Connection always wanted its Connected to push themselves.

Forcing them to gain rank in a Skill would just be another way to make the Connected push themselves to Advance.

Loch hated the Connection.

Looking at the list, he focused on the names, trying to use his Evaluate Skill.

Nothing happened.

He mentally shrugged, not really caring.

He was in the top spot, but didn’t care. There was nothing to prove to others in the world. Loch didn’t care about being the strongest. He just cared about protecting his daughters and protecting the people in the growing Clan Brady. He still didn’t like the idea that he was in charge of the people.

Especially because he was the strongest.

Earth, most of it at least, had seemed to grow beyond the strongest being the ones in charge. Might didn’t make right.

But now apparently it did.

To an extent.

While Loch didn’t care about the individual ranking, he was curious about the Clan ranking. That list was much shorter, only twenty names. Most likely a Clan had to be a certain size in order for it to qualify.

Surprisingly, Clan Brady was in the middle of the pack. The highest ranking was a Clan Yoshi. The second highest Connected in the ranking was named Yoshi. Loch assumed it meant that Oroku Yoshi was pretty close to his own Level.

He dismissed the Notification.

Others, probably this Clan Yoshi, would be interested in the Ranking Board.

Loch was not.

He was afraid he’d probably need to care at some point.

Just not right now.

Loch looked at the combat Notifications he’d received, seeing that he had gained a Level. He’d felt his Core filling, enough Spirit experience to get a little ways to the next Level, making a mental note to assign the points he’d received. He dismissed the Notifications, turning to look back towards the school up on the hill not that far away. A small group of people were rushing toward them. He recognized Darren Holmberg, who was in charge of the guards. With him were six of those guards and one of the hunters that the Lynxia pack had chased out of the woods.

“Harper, can you Shadowskip over and have them send someone to get Jeff Johnson,” Loch asked. “He could use these hides and will probably be better at skinning them than any of us. And if not, he could use the Experience.”

“Okay,” Harper said, without any of the reluctance a fifteen year old girl would normally show a request from her father.

“Also whoever is in charge of gathering and preparing meat. Should be able to get a bunch of meat off these things.”

“Cat steaks,” Davis said sarcastically. “Yum.”

Harper’s body melted into a nearby shadow. Loch tried hard not to think that it was cast by the dead body of a monster. He turned to watch the approaching group. The angle of the sun put their shadows behind them. When Harper appeared, it startled them.

Loch’s sharp eyes, which were only getting sharper as his Perception stat rose, noticed that only Darren didn’t react. He slowly turned, talking with Harper. One of the guards detached from the group, running back toward the school.

Harper melted back into the shadows.

“Done,” she said a second later from behind Loch.

***

“Glad all the hunters got back safely,” Darren said.

They had returned to the school, leaving the guard contingent to watch the treeline. Their patrol routes had just gotten increased. It was going to have to happen at some point as the former ball fields would be turned into farmland.

Loch sat in what was becoming his chair. There were two desks still in the open area behind the counter, the two offices given over to Darren and Ed Turner, who was really running the Clan and the school with Loch as the figurehead. Loch had been given one of the desks, the other set aside for Kristin, Ed’s assistant. He didn’t really want a desk, but they had all insisted.

Even as a figurehead, there would be a lot of stuff on Loch’s plate.

Darren was currently sitting at Kristin’s desk.

Loch was leaning back in his chair, watching the double doors that led into the school’s small office. There was a counter that he could barely see over from his position, the glass and wood doors open. Stairs led from the higher floor of the office to the lobby of the building, the entrance off of it. He could just see the top of a guard’s head.

“Yeah,” Loch muttered, angry at himself.

“Not your fault,” Darren said.

“We should have anticipated that there’d be monsters in the woods. It’s a lot of woods and with the Connection changing things…,” Loch trailed off, sighing.

Darren nodded. The woods had no name, not every forest did. In Northwoods, there was a lot of undeveloped land. A lot of forest. Between Route 4 and Bow Lake Road to the north, which ran at an angle away from 4, it was really nothing but forest. The homes were only on the two roads, nothing coming off in between which left hundreds of acres of forest. More now with the Earth’s size increasing due to the Spirit from the Connection.

There were a lot of trails through the woods. The snowmobiles had used them during the winter. Miles and miles.

Prime hunting grounds for deer. There were bears and coyotes. From his back deck, which faced those woods, Loch could hear the coyotes at night.

He’d just never thought that there would be more in the woods. His trail cam had caught a bobcat a couple of times but that was far different from a pack of them.

His fault.

With everything he’d seen since the Connection, it was something he should have thought of.

“Now we know,” Darren said.

A young man, mid to late twenties, he’d had a lot of responsibility thrust onto his shoulders. Not by Loch, but by Ed Turner, who had somewhat known Darren before the Connection, neighbors, and had known about Darren’s prior military service. That had been enough for Ed to appoint Darren in charge of the guards that had been formed at the town’s survivor’s former camp a half mile or so down the road.

It had been between two one story churches, a lot of open ground and not walls. Not very defensible. Loch still felt some guilt that he’d basically thrown his power around to get the hundred of so survivors to regroup at the school.

That wasn’t the kind of person he wanted to be.

It was the kind of person the Connection seemed to want him to be.

The school was better, everyone agreed.

But it still bothered Loch.

“Here they come,” Darren said, sitting up straighter.

Loch did the same, not wanting to but knowing he needed to project a presence. As leader of Clan Brady, he was the power in charge, and had an image to maintain.

Kristin was leading three men into the office. They walked up the steps and through the doors, stopping in front of the counter. She glanced at Darren sitting at her desk, eyes briefly showing annoyance and a look that told him that he better not mess anything up.

With a nod to Loch, she went back down the stairs. Probably to the smaller desk she had set up in the lobby. It made it easier for everyone to find her. She, along with a couple of others, were still running a census on the survivors, new and old.

Since establishing Northwood’s high school as a Clanhold, more and more survivors of the first weeks of the Connection were arriving. The school was not quite at max capacity, but it was getting there. Kristin was in charge of organizing the people, determining what Connection granted Skills and Abilities they had, along with any prior knowledge.

Two of the men looked nervous. The one that didn’t, Jeff, was part of the recently formed Council that was meant to be the guiding hand of the growing community and Clan Brady. Loch still hated that name, wishing he could change it, but he was the Clanlord. Another name he wanted to change, and that was one he could. Just had to find something he liked better first.

It hadn’t taken long for most of the people to start seeing Loch as some kind of a King.

They were all American, lived in New Hampshire. Monarchy’s weren’t supposed to be a thing any of them supported. And well the Clan wasn’t a monarchy, Loch sure felt like he was viewed as a King.

It was just surprising how quickly that had happened.

“You wanted to see us, Lord Lochlan,” Jeff asked.

He knew Loch hated that title, but this was technically an official meeting. Loch sighed.

“Yeah, come on over to this side,” he stood, along with Darren, as the three walked around the counter. “I’m sorry but I don’t remember your names,” he said to the other two men.

“Nick Franks,” the first said.

Tall and lanky. He had blond hair and beard, both close cropped. Looked to be around his early thirties, maybe late twenties.

“John Hill,” the second followed.

Shorter, a little rounder, bald with bright blue eyes. He was older, probably late forties.

“Nick, you were in charge of the hunting party right,” Loch asked.

The man looked a little afraid, like he was going to get punished.

“Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Darren said.

Nick nodded, relieved.

“Yeah.”

“What happened,” Loch prompted.