It was getting late. Going through the library had taken longer than Loch had thought it would. He refused to call it ransacking, even though that was essentially what they did. That word just evoked images of destroying property as searched through it. They’d been careful and treated everything as if it was their own. No destruction.

At least not in the Library. Some of the houses had truly been ransacked.

The sun was setting. They wouldn’t get far before night fell and no one wanted to be traveling at night. Loch expected the moon to be pretty full, the sky was clear for once so the stars would be out. Thankfully the constellations remained the same but with the planet getting bigger, their relative positions started to change.

The group was too large to stay in one house. Loch had thought to use the one that he, the girls and the Millmans had stayed in, as it was the closest to the Library. But they’d need to push on a little further to find two houses side by side for the large number of people.

As the others kept moving, Loch stopped in the middle of the street. He looked to his left, seeing the granite stone arch that led into the Cemetery. When they’d left the Library, he’d walked into the parking lot that had a view into the Cemetery, hoping to see Drew and his party. He knew it was hopeless. What could be seen of the cemetery wasn’t the Dungeon. He wondered how they were doing. How far had they gotten?

Unlike most Dungeons, the Challenge one’s time distortion worked differently. It was still compressed compared to real time but not as much. It had taken Loch and the girls a couple of days to clear the Dungeon. He didn’t expect to see Drew’s party at this point. They should be a couple days behind Loch and the others, depending on how each group got delayed.

He looked to his right and slightly behind, just able to make out the hob mound further down route 202. Not seeing Davis and his party yet was a little worrying. Maybe they would be in the next house, but Loch didn’t see any signs and no one was coming out as his group walked past.

It wasn’t a good sign.

He could see Harper looking that direction as she moved up the road.

Loch had to hope that the hob’s dungeon was larger than they thought and it was what was delaying Davis. Nothing else. That was the only reason.

He looked at the Grandfords, not seeing Lucy’s scavenger team or signs of their passing. But it shouldn’t have taken them as long inside the store. They should be further west up Route 4. Loch and his group would probably overtake them the next day.

How much had they managed to get?

He hated worrying about the groups of people he had ordered out. It was a lot easier when he was the one in danger. But ordering others and not facing it himself? Loch hated it. The idea just didn’t sit right. He understood the reasoning, the logic, he’d spoken it enough times trying to convince himself. It never worked. Just understanding didn’t mean anything. The logic made sense. He couldn’t be everywhere. The others needed to Advance and gain Levels. There was just too much for him to do himself.

It all made sense but Loch couldn’t convince himself that it was okay.

He hoped he never would be able to. That was how he’d remain grounded, not become a power-mad tyrant. Or one of those that stood by and let others fight when they remained safe and sound. That wasn’t the kind of leader Loch wanted to be. Worrying about his people, while still letting them do what they needed, that was how he’d remain himself. Or so he hoped.

He joined the rest in moving past where the gas station had been. The giant hole from the Worldcore’s removal of the fuel tanks was now filled with water and debris. He was tempted to go look, to see if there was anything in it, but passed it by. They walked past the entrance to the old metal recycling company’s lands. Looking down the hill all he could see was trees with glints of metal poking through. There had been multiple buildings, lots of trailers.

There had to be something they could salvage.

That was the plan for the morning. Loch and his team would explore the grounds, sending the scavengers ahead.

As they approached the first house past the entrance, people stepped out, waving at Loch and his team. They all waved back, recognizing Lucy and her scavenging team. Seeing the house was claimed, Loch’s team and scavengers moved on, wanting to find a house that hadn’t been raided yet. Loch slowed, walking over to the porch that Lucy stood on.

“How’d it go?”

“Okay,” she said, sitting down on a bench. Loch leaned up against a post. “There wasn’t much left that the hobs and animals hadn’t gotten into. The smell of rotted meat, milk, fruit and veggies was horrible and the mess was even worse. The hobs and animals had to have gotten into a couple of fights as there were bodies all over the place. We managed to grab a couple swords. They’d even knocked down a couple of the racks.”

“You said okay..,” Loch prompted.

“Yeah,” Lucy smiled. “The stupid hobs and animals left the canned stuff alone. We got a lot of soup, veggies and other prepackaged stuff. Somehow the taco kits survived. I’ve missed tacos.”

Loch laughed.

“No lettuce, tomato or other fixings,” he pointed out.

“I can handle just the meat and cheese,” Lucy said, her expression dropping. “Just the meat I guess since we don’t have cheese.” She looked down at the ground, her excitement gone.

“Hey,” Loch said, making her look up. “You did good.”

She nodded.

“Probably won’t be worth going back again,” Lucy said. “Not much canned stuff left and by the time we’d get back, the hobs and animals would have been there again and…”

“Nothing else worth grabbing?”

“Saw some pallets in the back but not sure if those are worth the effort to get them back to the Clanhold.”

“Good job,” Loch said, standing up straight. “Get some sleep and head back to the school. Take a day or two to rest once there.”

“Thanks but we’ll probably head back out once unloaded,” Lucy said. “I managed to get almost half a Level in Spirit from this trip and seeing the condition of the Grandfords and this house,” she gestured at the building behind her. “I think we need to hit some of the homes further out before winter sets in and everything gets damaged, spoiled or ravaged by animals.”

Loch thought about ordering her to take the break, but she was right. He hadn’t been inside any of the nearby houses yet but could imagine the condition. The perishable food would be gone, rotting and smelling. Some of the houses would have been damaged and exposed to weather, causing further rot and molding, ruining some of the other items they’d want. The longer the homes went without being raided, the worse condition they’d be. Lucy was right, they had to start hitting some of the further out houses before winter set in.

Her scavenging team, none of the scavenging teams, could afford to take a break.

He thanked her again, told her to pass it on to the rest of her team, and left Lucy sitting on the porch as he walked to the house that his team had claimed for the night, not looking forward to going through the closets, drawers and memories of another family again.

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But he would, because he had to.

***

It was the larger group that gathered in the morning. Three teams of scavengers, Brian, Jenny, Julia, Harper, Piper and Loch, with Cerie flying around. Lucy’s group had six shopping carts full of stuff, each with a heavy laden backpack. Piles of stuff raided from the houses they’d slept in were on the ground. They worked to strap and pile as much as they could with Lucy’s group, putting some more in Piper’s Spatial Bag.

They didn’t want to put too much in the bag. Loch was hoping to find treasures and Resources in the recycling center, wanting to keep the bag free for that. And if not, there were plenty of houses between here and the Clanhold.

The scavengers moved apart into their separate teams, Piper closing the bag. Loch walked over to join them.

“Which team is staying behind,” he asked the two other scavenger team leaders.

Lucy hadn’t been given the option, even though she’d wanted to. She’d argued that she should and one of the other teams could bring the shopping carts and packs to the Clanhold, letting her remain. That had pissed off the other two teams. Loch had to step in and tell her she was going back. She’d gathered the stuff in the carts, it was her responsibility to get it back.

He hadn’t said it, but knew the others realized it, but the team with the carts would be very vulnerable on the couple day journey to the Clanhold. It wasn’t as easy to defend against an ambush when pushing fully loaded shopping carts up a heavily damaged road with hills. Lucy’s team was the strongest, they’d have the best chance to defend themselves.

The other two had been told to choose between them. One would follow behind Lucy’s team, hitting up a couple of the houses on the way back, grabbing what they could. A normal scavenging mission. The other would follow Loch into the metal recycling plant.

Both leaders looked at each other, nodding. The first, a man named Anthony, raised a fist. The second, Lou, also raised a fist. Counting down, they hit their fists against their palms. On one, each opened their fists. Anthony’s hand was laid flat, Lou’s fingers were in the shape of a V. Lou pumped his fist while Anthony just sighed, hearing moans coming from the rest of his team.

Loch smiled. Rock, paper, scissors was a time honored way of settling disputes.

“Let’s get moving,” he said.

The scavenger teams broke up. Lucy and Anthony waved as they started west up Route 4, neither looking all that happy. Lou was still smiling as he and the three other members of his team gathered around Loch.

Harper and Elora jogged down the slight hill toward the gates that led into the compound. Before the Connection, the white wall and metal gates had opened to a large area at the bottom of the hill, filled with trucks and a small building. There had been a larger building further back and to the side, putting it behind the other buildings on route 4. Loch had been able to look down into the compound but had never been inside. He didn’t know anyone that had. Now the containers and trucks were gone, the building gone. Trees had grown up in their place. He couldn’t see the larger building, but assumed it would be gone too.

Loch wasn’t sure what he expected to find.

Metal certainly, but this had been a place recycling had been brought. It would have been pieces of scrap metal, cans, random junk. It wouldn’t have been ore or iron bars. Anything here would have to be smelted, and whatever process needed to turn it back into something workable. Most probably wouldn’t be in sizes that could be transported, even in Piper’s bag of holding.

Loch badly wanted to call the Spatial Bag that. It’s what they had been called in so many games he’d played. In this one area, why couldn’t the Connection have fully followed gaming conventions?

Maybe they could set up an outpost with a smelting station? If there was enough metal that might be worth it. How hard would it be to set up a transport line from the plant to the Clanhold? A couple outposts, using the remaining houses, and clearing a smoother path up the road?

There was a quarry to the west and the Resource Dungeon to the north of the Clanhold, but having another source of metal would be worth having. Would any metal found be limited? It had been existing before the Connected System arrivaled. Did that mean it wouldn’t respawn?

There was only one way to find out.

The trip would probably be worthless, but Loch felt it needed to be done.

Brian followed after the two scouts, large club over his shoulder. Behind were Piper and Julia and the scavengers. Loch and Jenny brought up the rear.

He was surprised that the wall and gates were still there, figuring that would have been material that the Worldcore would have wanted. The building that had stood outside the gates was gone, nothing remaining, grass growing over the footprint of where it had been.

Harper and Elora, keeping pace with each other, walked through the gates. They didn’t stop or react, letting Loch know it was a normal entrance. He’d half expected it to be a Dungeon. As the others passed through, Loch stopped at the gates. He grabbed the metal, feeling how strong it was. Rust had started to cover it, not that they were that old or should have been showing rust, but it was the ambient Spirit in the air affecting them. Cast iron, he thought, pulling on them. There was a bit of give. He thought that between him and Brian, maybe even just Brian himself, they could pull the gates from the walls if they had wanted to.

They were gates though. Bars, with lots of space. Able to stop a car or truck from crashing through but wouldn’t stop arrows, spells or spear thrusts. They were useless as gates now. The metal was good and at least they could maybe grab them and stuff them into the bag if there was nothing out. Even if the metal couldn’t be smelted down and reused, they could break the gates apart and use the bars as metal staves.

Letting it go, he rejoined the others. Looking down the hill, all he could see was the top of trees. The plant had been in a bit of a valley, with Saddleback Mountain looming over it, a couple hundred feet down from the level of Route 4. Not that the mountain was large, in some parts of the United States it would have been considered a hill. The trees that the Connection had planted were twenty or thirty feet tall, some pines but mostly maples and oaks with wide spread canopies. Nothing of the ground underneath was visible. He could still see some glints of metal in gaps.

The hill itself was nothing but grass. The paved road had been replaced. He could see a couple spots of pavement, but most was grass. It had grown only a foot or so. Nothing moved that he could see.

Some of the hunters had reported finding snakes in tall grass. Adapted and Mutated snakes, as long as the monsters reported being seen in places like the Amazon. Not the foot long, tiny things that were found in Northwood. Loch had yet to encounter one, keeping his eyes roaming the grassy hill, just waiting for something to attack.

Harper was the first to reach the bottom and the treeline, Elora moving at an angle to examine the trees further down to the side. Harper moved to the left, eyes looking between the trunks. The others waited for Loch, looking into the new forest.

It was dark, barely any light penetrating the thick canopy of the trees, which were spaced far apart. Loch thought he could have driven a four wheeler easily between them. The floor was thick with exposed roots, making the walking uneven. There wasn’t any hint of a path or game trail. Loch wasn’t sure where to go.

He could sense the others waiting on him, but now that they were there, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. The forest was large. The original compound had been surrounded by forest, and now add in the acres and acres of new growth. That was a lot of land to cover. It could take weeks to really explore it all and that was with just staying in the new growth. He had hoped for a trail or something to indicate where to go.

Harper and Elora returned.

“Nothing that I could see,” Harper said with a shrug.

“I did not find a trail or anything,” Elora added.

Loch turned, looking back up at the gates. He tried to picture the paved drive that had led down. Had it been straight or at an angle. He thought it was straight. Turning he looked back at the forest. The smaller building, the offices he had thought, had been on the left side, maybe a hundred feet from where the slope had leveled off. The building was gone, but that seemed as good a place as any to start.

Loch walked along the edge of the forest, stopping when he thought he was lined up with where the building had been. He faced the trees, thinking that maybe he could see something further in. The shadows were different, more solid, like something was blocking the view of the trees beyond. Or maybe it was just a trick of the shadows.

One way to find out.

Loch stepped into the forest.