“Come on,” Piper said, racing down the stairs.

“Wait up,” Nicole yelled, already starting to fall behind.

Piper looked over her shoulder, seeing Nicole a full flight of stairs away. With a sigh, she slowed down. Sometimes it was hard to remember how much stronger in every way she was compared to her friend. They were both thirteen but Piper was Level Fifteen with a Rare Class. Nicole wasn’t old enough for a Class yet. Her Attributes weren’t Advanced.

But Piper also wasn’t old enough to receive a Class, neither was Harper, but they’d both done it. Cerie didn’t know why the two had managed it. She thought it had something to do with their families Trait, Unfettered. Something else that they shouldn’t have but did. The fairy had no problems keeping up, she hovered a couple feet over Piper’s head, glowing green with wings buzzing so fast they were almost invisible.

Slowing to a walk, Piper let Nicole catch up.

“Sorry,” she said.

Nicole just laughed. Piper smiled, glad to have a friend again.

Not that it had been that long. Only a couple months, but it felt so much longer. So much had changed in so short a time. But having someone to hang out with was great. Piper loved being able to just be a teenager again, even if it was for brief moments when she wasn’t off fighting with her father and sister.

She hated fighting but knew how important it was. That monster, the Wendigo, had been horrifying. And the elves? They had scared her. They looked mostly human and had wanted to kill her and the others. She hadn’t liked fighting them but what choice was there?

They walked into the lobby and stopped, looking around. People glanced at them, some bowing heads and saying “my ladies” to Piper. She tried to ignore it but each one made Nicole chuckle. Maybe it was better out in the wilds fighting monsters. At least they didn’t embarrass her constantly.

Every little girl dreamed of being a Princess but now that she was something like one, Piper wanted a different dream now. She wanted two really. First was to see mom again. The second was for the world to return to normal.

“What do you want to do?,” Nicole asked.

“I don’t know.”

There really wasn’t much to do. There were a couple musicians now in the Clan and one was performing that night, but that was still hours off. It wouldn’t be until after dinner. Addie, the first musician to show up in the Clan, had gotten a Bard Class and could make illusions and such with her music. It was pretty cool to watch the first couple times, but as there weren’t that many performers in the Clan, Piper had seen all of their acts multiple times.

Even though she’d seen Addie perform a couple of times already, they’d still go and see it tonight. What else were they going to do? Sit around in dark rooms and read?

That was later, what could they do right now?

Pre-Connection, Piper had remembered getting bored. Even though she had a ton of stuff; books, art supplies, tablets, streaming TV and the internet; it was still possible to get bored. But now that all that stuff was gone? Piper realized she hadn’t really been bored back then. There was nothing to do.

They could do some more training but that wasn’t anything Piper could work on with Nicole. Cerie had said that what the teenagers did before unlocking their ability to Level at age sixteen could heavily influence what their Class choices were. In some parts of the Connection, Clans would decide for the teenagers and from an early age up until Sixteen, they would be training in the direction the Clan wanted them to take so by the time they unlocked the ability to Level, they already knew what their Class choices most likely would be.

Piper had heard her Dad talking about the workers, the people that didn’t have Pre-Connection Skills that translated to their Post-Connection world, or the ones that didn’t want to delve Dungeons and fight monsters. They were being used for their physical labor. Dad hated it, Piper hadn’t been quite sure why, but he said that it would mean their Class choices would be limited and based on being workers. So they would always remain workers.

Elora, who Piper still found a little weird to be around, had simply said that “such was the way of the Connection.” She went on to explain that it was that way in the Silver Bark. If people did not choose to strive and Advance, to grow stronger either in fighting or crafting, then they were good for nothing else but labor. The Connection still had a use for them, creating Classes like Porter or Digger. They could still Level but they would always be the lowest rung of society.

Piper understood that part and then realized why it bothered her Dad so much. It bothered her too. Which is why she had decided not to train with Nicole. She didn’t want to push her friend in a direction that she ultimately didn’t want to go.

Not only that, but Piper was so much stronger. She was stronger than a lot of the adult men in the Clan. It was so weird.

A door off to the side of the lobby opened, Kristin walking out. She was followed by a group of people. Piper counted eight as she and Nicole moved back to give the group more space. The room was where Kristin worked with any newcomers, getting their information and names. This group had three men, two of them carrying real swords and the other an actual mace. That meant they had seen fighting. Maybe even had Classes. There were two women, one of them also had a sword and the other nothing. That last one was looking at the three kids, talking quietly to them. One of the kids looked to be eight, another ten and the last either or close to Pipers age. A boy, the other two girls.

Pretty typical for a thirteen year old boy. Black hair, somehow still had a Boston Red Sox baseball hat. He held a bat over his shoulder. The end of it was stained darker. Piper wasn’t sure if he’d been the one to use it or someone had just given it to him. Probably the man with the mace had given it to the boy when he’d gotten the weapon. It was a scary looking thing. Long handle with a big metal ball on the end, a spike off the top, rounded knobs around the rest of the ball.

The boy turned and looked at her. He smiled, waving. Piper waved back.

Kristin led the group away, the boy giving Piper one last look.

“Ooohhhh,” Nicole said, actually giggling. “I think he likes you.”

Piper rolled her eyes. She didn’t have time for boys. It would be nice to have someone else the same age around. She liked Nicole, but it was hard to find things to do with the limited amount in the school. She knew everything about her friend. They had all that time to talk. It would be nice to have someone new to talk with.

And he was kind of cute.

***

Harper enjoyed the music.

She’d been a pop fan, sometimes going into more of the newer country, barely the 90s metal that her father would sometimes make her listen to on car trips, but what Addie was playing sounded good. Harper wasn’t sure what genre it fell into. The college aged woman played some recognizable songs. Jewel, Sheryl Crow and stuff like that. Some Taylor Swift and even some stuff by male singers. She threw in some more bluesy and folk songs, and even some original work. It was hard to keep the setlist varied when she was one of the few musical acts and ended up playing every three nights or so.

Harper had caught enough of the shows that she was starting to know Addie’s original works by heart. The slightly older woman, she was only eighteen or nineteen compared to Harper’s own fifteen, was really talented. Her father had told Harper that Addie used to have a Youtube channel and had slowly been gaining followers. Harper figured if the Connection hadn’t happened, it would have only been a matter of time before Addie had hit viral fame.

Now she was stuck singing in a highschool cafeteria after the apocalypse.

The room was pretty full. Not as full as it had been the first few nights Addie, and the others, had started singing and performing. Everyone in the Clan, who had been off duty, had come out to see and listen. It was something different. A throwback to Pre-Connection. People had missed music and socializing. But the newness had started to wear off and fewer people would come.

They’d still come, just not as often. Harper could tell the newcomers because they would be there every night and then would eventually stop showing up all the time.

She saw a couple dozen people she recognized from seeing around the Clanhold. Far fewer that she actually knew the names of. Most of the people recognized her, which is why she was hiding in the corner where it was darkest, trying to avoid being noticed. She didn’t want to distract from Addie’s show.

Stolen novel; please report.

At first she had liked the attention. Technically she was a Princess now, even if her father didn’t call himself a King. He was one, which made her a Princess. What girl didn’t want to be a Princess? And all the bowing and ‘milady’ was great at first. But it ended up getting old. She was surprised at how quickly it had gotten old.

Had real nobles felt that way? Probably not.

But she had. Maybe it was her father rubbing off? He hated that kind of attention and everytime someone called him Lord, it was all he could do to not say something. He’d given up trying to get people to stop. She had too.

Piper was off to the side with a group of kids her age. A girl and a boy. Harper thought the boy was a newcomer. They were talking quietly, occasionally stopping to listen to the music. Piper had it lucky. She was young enough that the people her age didn’t care about her father’s position and the ones older didn’t think using a thirteen year old to get to her father was a smart idea.

Most thought the same about Harper, leaving her alone. But there were a couple that thought Harper being a little older, it was only two years but to them it was far more, and her power Level, her place in the Clan, meant she was a doorway to her father. And the few people her age? They knew what being the daughter of the Clanchief meant and treated her differently. That’s not what Harper wanted.

There were people dancing to the music. Harper wanted to be with them. To just let herself go and move to the words and sounds, to dance. She loved dancing. But if she got up into that small crowd, she wouldn’t be part of it. People would defer to her, give her space, take steps away from her.

She had thought about leaving. Grabbing her weapons and armor and going to find something to kill. She got no experience from the spawn field just outside the berm, but she bet Darren Holmberg would let her take a patrol. There were always random monsters found when on patrol. Maybe nothing that would give her experience, but something to kill.

The image of her tonfas piercing the back of the elf flashed through her mind. She closed her eyes, pushing the picture down. Elora was right, but Harper couldn’t get the idea that she’d killed someone out of her head. Monsters, even undead, during the heat of battle, those weren’t okay but understandable. It was in defense of herself and others. But she had stabbed the elf in the back. She had made the first move. Elora, and her father, called it defensive. Harper could understand what they meant, but was having a hard time coming to grips with it.

“Hi Harper.”

She knew that voice. Harper took a breath, slowly releasing it, before opening her eyes.

“Mike,” she said, forcing a smile.

She’d never liked Mike Turner. He’d always been strange. Arrogant, too forceful, always thought he was right. She liked his mom. She was great. Ed, his dad, was okay. Harper knew that her father had tolerated Ed Pre-Connection and now heavily relied on him. Mike had always liked Harper and not just as friends. Even when she’d been thirteen or so it had been obvious.

Harper had tried hard to not give Mike the wrong signals. She thought she had succeeded but he had never given up. He’d never really come and asked her out, she would have said no, but it was comments, gestures, the lingering stares. Part of her had wished he would have asked, so she could say no and get it over with. But part of her had doubted he would have given up.

Post-Connection, things had changed. Not for the better. Mike was still Mike, couldn’t or wouldn’t take the hint, but something had changed with him. He was creepier.

Harper didn’t like that group he was hanging out with, his new team. The older guy, Roger, was a blowhard. He was easy to ignore. Theodore was strange and even creepier than Mike, but in a different way. She had thought it when first meeting Theodore and Roger, saving them from the Gaunts. He hadn’t improved, just gotten creepier.

Mike’s creepiness was different. Theodore’s was just a strange kind of creep. It was like he was staring at her all the time, staring at everyone in the Clan, sizing them up. He had serial killer vibes. Theodore reminded her of the serial killers she had seen in documentaries and stuff on Youtube. Mike gave off stalker vibes.

She was stronger than him, much stronger, and really had nothing to worry about but that didn’t seem to bother Mike.

“How have you been?,” he asked, talking a little loud and leaning in too close to be heard over the music.

Harper fought the urge to step back. She had to be polite to Mike. His dad was important to her father. But Harper knew her father would tell her to do what made her comfortable. If she wanted to shout at Mike to go away, her father would back her up. She just didn’t want to cause extra stress for him. She could deal with Mike Turner.

“Good.”

“Don’t get to see you as much,” he continued.

“I’m pretty busy.”

“So am I,” he said. “My group has been getting pretty strong. We might be the second strongest in the Clan.”

Harper knew that wasn’t true. Officially the top two teams were Davis’ and Drew’s groups. Mike’s was third. Fourth if the unofficial top team was counted, which was her father’s, of which she was a part. Harper knew that Mike was ranking his team second after her father’s but it wasn’t worth saying anything.

“We’re thinking of trying the Crone Dungeon soon,” he added, trying to sound impressive.

Harper gave him a sharp glare. That was incredibly dumb of them.

“What Levels are you?,” she asked. She didn’t want to care, didn’t want to give Mike a reason to continue talking, but she did feel bad if she didn’t warn him. “No one has run that Dungeon since it was created but we know it’s a tough one.

“I’m Level Twelve,” Mike said proudly.

Harper was impressed. He was Leveling pretty quickly and almost had caught up to Davis and Drew. But what else did his party have to do but Level? It wasn’t like her father tasked them with any important assignments like he did Davis and Drew.

That must have really bothered Mike. Davis, who Harper knew Mike considered a rival for her affections, no matter how misguided Mike was, and Drew who was a newcomer. Both were ranked higher than he was. Not that there was an official ranking in the Clan. Aside from the Councilors, and the Bradys, everyone was supposed to be equal. Unofficially, it was human nature to classify and rank people. Harper had done it with her friends in high school, even all the way back to middle school. She knew that all the Clanmembers ranked all the others by what they did, who they associated with, how often the Council needed them. There were dozens of criteria. No official list, but there was an unofficial one.

And Mike wasn’t on the important people list. It had to bother him.

“I don’t know if that’s high enough,” Harper said, still wanting to keep Mike from doing something stupid.

She could tell he was starting to get angry. Mike hated being told what to do, at his ideas even being hinted at as bad.

“I think we can handle it,” Mike said.

Harper tried to think of another way to warn him but couldn’t think of anything Mike would listen to. At the end of the day, it was his dumb decision. The Clan would miss the strength that Mike and his party represented, but if they were dumb enough to get themselves in over their heads, that was on them. She’d still tell her father and let him figure out a way to keep them from getting themselves killed, but she didn’t want to try and argue with Mike anymore.

She shrugged, seeing the action making Mike madder. He probably took it to be dismissive, like she didn’t believe he was strong enough. Which was true, she didn’t.

“I think Davis and Drew’s groups are scheduled to try it out in the next week or so,” Harper said, remembering what her father had told her after the last Council meeting. “Talk with Alison and she’ll put you on the list.”

Mike’s eyes filled with anger that quickly disappeared. He smiled. Harper wanted to cringe back. There was just something extra creepy about that smile.

“Maybe I’ll see if she can slip us in first,” he said. “We’re ready now, even if they’re not.”

He said the last with a sneer. Harper sighed. There was no convincing him. He really did think his team was stronger. They were strong, and had gotten some decent equipment from their Dungeon runs. Drew and Davis were still better. Harper actually felt herself lagging. Her father, sister and her were busy, almost non-stop fighting it seemed, but they weren’t running Dungeons. They were fighting stronger creatures, but not in ways that the experience added up quickly. Her father was still light years ahead of everyone else, but the gap between her and everyone else was closing.

She needed to start running Dungeons again. They were the fastest and most efficient way to Level. She didn’t like that her lead was diminishing.

Mike seemed to sense that she was done with the conversation about the Dungeon. He looked at the small crowd of people, the women and some men that were dancing. He turned back to Harper, smiling.

“Want to..,” he started to say.

Harper knew what he was going to ask, but not sure how to respond. Luckily she was saved.

“Hey Harper,” Davis said, walking over from the entrance. “Mike,” he added, with a friendly smile.

The smile was but the eyes weren’t. They shifted from Mike to Harper, asking a question. She gave a small shake of her head. Nothing was wrong, yet.

“Davis,” she said, stepping away from the wall and Mike.

She reached Davis, arms spreading to give him a hug. His arms wrapped around her. They held the hug for probably longer than necessary, not that either wanted to release it, but for the appearance it gave Mike Turner.

He grunted, walking past them.

“See you later,” he grumbled.

“Good timing,” Harper whispered, releasing the hug but grabbing Davis’ hand.