Loch sat down on the grass, looking at Jenny. He wanted to feel angry but couldn’t. He was just tired.

“Dammit,” he muttered, hearing Piper crying a few feet away.

Harper just looked down at the body, frozen.

“Harps,” Loch said, quietly. She didn’t respond. “Harper,” he spoke louder, her eyes twitched but she still didn’t move. “Come here please.”

She looked at him, face expressionless but Loch could see how much she was hurting. It was in the eyes, buried deep, but he saw it. She was close to breaking. It couldn’t have been Jenny’s death. Harper had seen people die before. There had been a girl, close to her age back when the camp had been between the churches. Amber? Had that been the name. There had been others during the gaunt siege.

Was it because Harper had fought beside Jenny so much? Spent a lot of time together? They hadn’t been that close. Why was it hitting Harper so hard?

Why wasn’t it hitting him hard? Jenny had been fighting by his side for a long time now. She’d expressed interest in becoming a Bannerman. She’d been the second person to join the Clan after Brian. A member of his regular party.

Shouldn’t he feel more from her death?

He was sad and angry. But it wasn’t toward the elves. The Silver Bark were enemies. They wanted what Loch and his people had. They shouldn’t have been on Earth but it was the fault of the Connection. It pushed the Clans to Advance and grow, that meant finding new worlds to move onto. Maybe someday that would happen to humanity. Would they travel through portals to new worlds that had just been Connected? Would they travel to new worlds and take them from those that already claimed them? All in the name of Resources and Advancement?

Loch didn’t blame the Silver Bark. They were just doing what the Connected System forced them to do. Maybe back when their world had first been Connected, they had fought back against the Connection, like Loch wanted to. But they hadn’t succeeded, or hadn’t even tried, just accepting their new life in the Connected System.

Maybe they had no choice. Loch had seen how quickly others seemed to accept the Connection. There were those in the Clan that moaned about their new lot in life, Loch thought of the two bankers Ben and Simu, but none of them were so angry that they wanted to fight back. Only Loch. He’d created a quest about fighting back, and both Brian and Jenny had accepted it, but neither seemed as angry about their new lives as Loch was.

They might not have fully accepted it, but they were willing to move on.

The same was probably true of the Silver Bark. Loch wondered if it was his Trait, Unfettered, that caused him to be different. Caused everything to be different. If no one in the Silver Bark had the Trait, or something similar, they would have eventually just accepted their new situation and made the best of it. Growing their Clan, claiming territory and Resources because they needed to.

And when a portal opened up to a newly Connected world, they did what the Connected wanted them to. They traveled to the new world and worked to claim it and its Resources.

He blamed the Connection, now more than ever. If it had never appeared, Jenny would be alive. She was only in her mid to late twenties, Loch had never even found out her actual age. There was a whole life ahead of her. He felt guilty because he knew next to nothing about her past life. He knew about her now, how she was as an Adapted and what her goals were. But she’d never talked about her past life, and he’d never asked.

Maybe he should have.

Were her parents still alive? Any siblings? Had she even had a boyfriend, or girlfriend, before the Connection? If there had been no Connection, what would she be doing at that very moment?

The Connected System had killed her.

But Loch didn’t have the energy to be angry at it. No more than usual. Jenny was just one more thing that it had taken, one more tally added to the list. It was a long list.

“Found her sword,” Brian said, holding the weapon. It looked small in his hand. “She’d stabbed it through an elf bastard’s heart. Must have gotten stuck.”

He looked at the body at his feet, giving it a swift kick. The whole body lifted off the ground, falling back again in a different position. He gave it another kick, spitting on it.

“Harper,” Loch said again.

She shook her head, eyes still a little unfocused, but she moved, coming to sit next to him. Loch reached out, putting an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in tight. She resisted at first but then all strength left her, head leaning against his shoulders.

“Are you all..,” Loch stopped himself. Of course she wasn’t alright. “Want to talk?”

She didn’t respond. He knew she wanted to, but just needed time.

When she’d first become a teenager, that had been one of his weaknesses. When she had a problem, he wanted to deal with it immediately, to talk about it, even if she kept saying no. It had taken time, but Loch had learned that at those times, Harper didn’t need to talk, she just needed her father to be near. So he’d sit down on the floor in her room next to her bed, or on the couch next to her, and just be there. Sit quietly, just a comforting presence, until she was ready.

She wasn’t ready yet.

“Brian,” Loch said, getting the big man’s attention. He’d been focused on Jenny’s sword, just staring at the blood on the blade. “Start looting the elves and finish up with the rest of the monsters, get some of those other folks to help out. Take anything halfway decent, leave the garbage. Gather up the Wendigo bodies for burning.” Brian nodded, starting to walk off with sword still in hand. “And see if anyone can get some meat and hides from the dinos,” Loch added, glancing at the large triceratops. He shifted a bit to where he could see Piper. “Pipes, hand out some of the bags and see what you can do about freeing up space in your bag. I think we’re going to have a lot of stuff to bring back.”

“Okay dad,” she said, wiping at her eyes.

She gave Jenny’s body one last look before moving off.

Loch was proud of her.

“Dad,” Harper said, quietly.

“Yeah honey?”

“I killed someone,” she said.

Loch started to talk but Harper kept going. He stopped. Something else he had learned, when she wanted to talk it was best to just let her go.

“I’ve killed before. Lots of times. But those were monsters or undead or looked like monsters,” she pointed at one of the visible Bugbear corpses. “But those elves? They’re like us,” she said, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. “They look like us.”

He thought about pointing out that the gaunts looked human, but they had obviously not been. Gray colored flesh, skinny. Humanoid looking but more something else. He thought about all the fights she’d been in, all the things she had killed, and realized she was right.

Until today, they hadn’t killed anything near human.

“And it wasn’t in defense,” she continued. “Yeah, he would have attacked us, but at that moment he wasn’t. He was just talked and I popped out of the Shadow Realm and ran my tonfas through him. I knew he was going to try and kill us. To try and hurt you and Piper. Hurt the others. I couldn’t let him do that. But he was…,” she trailed off, taking a deep and slow sigh. She looked up at Loch. “Dad, I stabbed him in the back. Not for what he was doing but what he could do. Maybe you could have talked to him and made him leave. Maybe he would have left on his own. He sounded like he was ordering the rest to attack but.. And now Jenny is…”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“He was honey,” Loch said, voice gentle. “He was going to try and kill us all. Maybe if you hadn’t killed him, distracting the elves to start the fight, more of us would have been killed.” He shifted so he could look directly at Harper, making her meet his gaze. “It was defense honey. Sometimes the best, and only, defense is to go on the offensive first.”

Harper gave a small smile.

“That makes no sense.”

Loch returned the smile, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Loch said.

He leaned back, looking in her eyes. She looked a little more confident, a little less worried. He wasn’t sure if she fully believed him, but it was getting her to start thinking in the right direction. Loch wasn’t sure he believed himself. In the old world, that kind of thinking got people arrested or started wars. But in this new world, it was survival of the fittest. The best defense was a good offense.

The best way to keep people like the Silver Bark from attacking was to make them scared to do anything.

Behind Harper, he could see three people approaching. It was the twins and the leader of the new group. Standing up, squeezing Harper’s shoulder, Loch walked over to meet them. Stephanie was rubbing at her shoulder. Loch could see a fresh bloodstain. Had she been the one that the first arrow had struck?

“Are you okay?,” he asked.

“I will be,” she replied. “Your Healer is good. Wish we had one earlier,” she shook her head. “Might have been able to save a couple of the ones we lost on the way here.”

“Healers are pretty rare,” Loch said. “Besides Julia, there’s only a handful back at the Clanhold.”

“What’s a Clanhold,” one of the twins asked.

“It’s the name the Connection gave to our..,” Loch paused, not quite sure how to describe it. “We’ve been using Coe-Brown as our base. The Connection calls it the Clanhold.”

“And you’re the Clanchief,” Stephanie asked.

Loch nodded.

“Yeah, I am. We’ve got a council that pretty much runs everything.”

“You’re pretty damn strong,” one of the twins said. “Saw a bit of your fighting and it was crazy.”

“No kidding,” the other twin continued. “Insane. Flashing and jumping, swinging that big axe. Just how high a Level are you?”

Before Loch could answer, the other twin started pointing at him, eyes wide in excitement. The teen was almost jumping up and down, he was that excited.

“Wait.. oh shit.. Wow… You said your name was Brady right? Lochlan Brady?”

“Dude, chill,” the brother said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

“Brent, it’s him.”

“Him who?”

“You freaking idiot. Remember that Ranking Board thing? The name at the top….”

He’d never stopped pointing at Loch. It was starting to make him uncomfortable.

“The Ranking….,” Brent started but trailed off, turning to look at Loch with wide eyes. “No shit.”

“Can someone explain it to me?,” Stephanie asked.

“Dad is the highest ranked person on the Board,” Harper said from next to her father. Loch hadn’t even realized she’d gotten up.

The twins were still looking at Loch like he was a celebrity. He didn’t like it. Trent’s eyes moved to Harper, recognition flashing.

“You have to be Harper Brady,” he said, instantly calming down. A hand ran up to smooth his wild hair as he stood a little straighter.

Glancing at Harper, Loch saw her roll her eyes.

“Ignore them,” Stephanie said. “They’re always like this.”

The twins didn’t seem to take offense, they were still staring equally at Loch and Harper. Then they started looking around the field, stopping when they saw Piper. She was over by a couple Bugbear corpses, holding the Spatial Bag open as one of Josh’s people pushed armor and weapons into it.

“How many people are in this Clan,” Stephanie asked.

“About two hundred and fifty now,” Loch answered. “I’ll be honest. We barely have enough food and we’re in the process of erecting walls and other defenses.”

“You got beds and shelter?”

“We’re cramped and filled to bursting,” Loch answered. “In the process of building more lodging. But yes, there’s beds and shelter.”

“Space for a handful more,” she asked, motioning at the twins and then turning to include the rest of her people.

“Of course.”

***

It was a larger group that made camp that night. Even with the losses. Stephanie’s group had lost four in the fighting. Stephen Cross, from Josh Hauser’s group, had been killed. With Jenny, that had brought the total to six.

Six too many.

There were a total of nine survivors from Stephanie’s group. Nine more mouths to feed and shelter. But they were nine battle tested survivors. All were Levels Six to Eight and all had been in a couple of battles. Stephanie had said that a couple were reluctant fighters, wanting to be crafters or something else. But that was still a good number of fighters to add to the guard or adventurer ranks. Most were Common Class with a couple Uncommon but only Stephanie had a Class that Loch hadn’t come across yet. She was a Bladesman.

Cerie had said it was a Class similar to Striker but more focused on bladework, with a couple of special Abilities that Striker didn’t have. Striker was meant to be a fast attacking Class, with Bladesman slower but dealing more damage.

Strikers could only wear medium or light armor where Bladesman could wear heavier. Not that Stephanie had any armor. She wore hockey pads. There were a couple of people back at the Clanhold that could wear heavier armor but no one had a full set. The only place they could get armor of any kind were from the Dungeons and with the number of people needing to enter, and the respawn timers, it was taking a long time to get full sets.

Someone, Loch forgot who, had suggested confiscating any armor rewards from the Dungeons and working to get full sets to give to people. They thought it best to gear up one person fully instead of spreading it out. Loch agreed with the idea, but didn’t like the thought of taking Dungeon rewards.

They’d all get full sets eventually.

If people were risking their lives, they deserved what they received.

Loch sat off to the side, back against a tree, as most of the people gathered around the small fire. Tents had been set up, spreading out haphazardly and on top of each other. The clearing they’d found, after leaving the scene of the battle, wasn’t large. Just barely enough space. Loch had been reluctant to start a fire. There could be more Silver Bark or Bugbears in the area, but gave in. The group needed the warmth.

The pile of bodies wrapped in sheets off to the side was a reminder of what they’d lost. No one had wanted to leave the dead behind. The Wendigo had been burned, the dinosaurs and Bugbear’s piled up next to the destroyed corpse of the Triceratops. It hadn’t been completely skinned or butchered, but the hunters had gotten a good amount of the meat and hides. The scavengers would get the rest.

Loch could hear them in the distance, long howls and growls. Brian, Julia, Piper, Harper and Elora ignored the cries. Josh’s group, quiet and somber, looked up occasionally. Stephanie’s people seemed to twitch at every cry.

Except the twins. They didn’t seem to care, focused on Elora. The elf fascinated them. They were mostly curious how and why she had left the Silver Bark. No one doubted her loyalties. They’d all watched her kill two of the Silver Bark elves, had seen them viciously attack her. Elora tried her best to ignore them. It hadn’t worked.

Piper and Cerie sat off to the side, against another tree. The fairy had her glow turned up, providing light for Piper as she wrote in one of Kristin’s notebooks. She asked Cerie questions about the Connection, Classes, monsters, the Silver Bark and other worlds, writing the answers down. Harper had barely eaten, before crawling into the tent she was sharing with Loch and her sister. He was still worried about her, but until she was ready to talk again, there wasn’t much he could do.

Loch hated that uselessness. They were his girls. If they were sad or hurt, he wanted to help them. It was hard waiting for them to come to him. Kelly had always been better at it.

Leaning back, he looked up at the moon visible through the trees, wondering where Kelly was and what she was doing. He missed her. Pushing those thoughts back into the depths of his mind, he started looking through the many notifications he’d received.