Chapter 73 – About Us

Ash twitched, slowly waking up. She gave a slight groan as she felt the top of her head, finding a bump from the impact. Impact? Where was she? She slowly took stock of her surroundings without opening her eyes.

She was lying on her back on some sort of padded surface. She wasn’t restrained. She could smell smoke. There was a little warmth radiating from her right. She couldn’t hear an…

“Ash, before you panic, just hear me out.” Hope's voice rang loudly in her mind.

“Where am I? Where are we?”

“A lot happened. Just know that the person you are about to meet has no ill intentions toward either of us. I won’t tell you to trust him but just don’t panic.”

Ash almost snorted. When had she ever panicked? Well, those times in the challenge sections of the tower didn’t count since she was just figuring things out. Just as she was about to ask more questions, she felt something tap her side. That something then clattered to the ground, having bounced off her armor.

She opened her eyes and saw a rocky ceiling that narrowed up to a small gap before the darkness didn’t let her see any more. She could see a small curl of smoke rising up into that crevasse, likely there was a fire. She was positive there was one since she could see the flickering light on the cave ceiling. Turning her head to the left, she saw a rock wall. Turning her head to the right, she saw a very strange looking pile of metal.

The metal was piled in an odd shape and leaning against what looked like a blackened log. It had been painted in browns and greens before someone threw some sort of shredded cloth over it. Just as she was about to sit up, the pile of metal shifted, and everything came into focus.

What she had thought was random scrap, was actually a suit of armor, unlike anything she had ever seen. The faceplate looked like an angular skull with several lenses for eyes and a strange metal mesh for a mouth and chin. Then the lenses clicked and glowed blue before the pile of metal spoke.

“Good to see you are awake.” It said in a slightly distorted voice that was halfway between a human and beastly growl. “Please, stay calm.”

Ash considered the request for all of a half second before she sat bolt upright and backed up as far as she could go, running into the wall of the cave behind her. “What are you? What do you want?” she asked and heard hopes voice in the back of her mind saying something about not panicking.

The armor tilted its head slightly then it seemed to bob and move up and down faintly. Finally, it spoke again. “Stay calm, I think this might help.” It said, lifting its hand and holding its palm to her. She noticed a few pebbles dropped as it opened.

Ash then watched as the hand moved up to grip the side of the head. There was a slight pop and the head tilted forward. She then realized it was not the creatures head but a helmet. And the being within was a human… kinda.

In a much clearer voice, with much less distortion, it… he spoke again. “Hello, my name is Matt. It is nice to meet you, Ash. I, ah, talked with Hope and she told me a little about you.” He then set the helmet down. “I promise that I mean you no harm and only wish to talk.”

Thinking quickly, she determined that what she really needed was to buy time and th…

“Ashley, I swear to the System if you don’t chill out…”

Ash flinched as Hope’s voice rang in her mind. She let the threat hang empty as she took a deep breath and decided to trust her core. “Ok, let’s talk. What happened? Are they still after me or did you scare them off or…”

Ash stopped, noticing that Matt had relaxed a little. As he let his posture slip, she also noticed the rifle that had been pointed right at her. She hadn’t even seen it due to its strange design and how it was resting across his lap.

“Can I just show you the tape? It will be a lot easier than giving you the blow by blow, as it were.” Matt asked. He seemingly stowed his weapon since it vanished from his hand. That made her feel slightly more comfortable.

“Um, what’s a tape?”

*****

Matt sighed. While he hadn’t expected any trouble, the woman was the highest-level person he had seen other than himself and that Lucas character. He had really mistaken her as human at first but his identify said differently.

Versipellian. Level 49

The race name sounded familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place it. He still decided to be the nice guy and show her what he meant. “Let me just show you.” Matt said as he summoned his tablet and ran a cord from his helmet to the screen. He then pulled up the relevant video, hit play and turned the screen toward her.

The moment he did, her eyes were locked onto the tablet. She scarcely blinked as the recording played, showing everything from when they first spotted movement to coming to the cave. While she was being entertained, he took a moment to study her.

Ash was in most ways very human looking, a very tanned complexion that he compared to someone from Latin America. He would say that she was slightly more muscled than the average woman he had seen but it was hard to tell through her armor. Really the only thing he had to go off of was her neck and forearms but those could be telling.

Her face had a strong jaw line, and he hadn’t missed that her canines were slightly more pointed than they should be. Her ears were also pointed but not like an elf. They looked like a normal human ear, but the tips came to a finer point that extended more vertical compared to an elf’s backward slant.

Curiously, he was unable to sense her emotions or anything with his trait. It was like she was a void in the world within his domain. He briefly wondered if he could actively affect her like he could with his calm aura. He still thought he could do other domain things, but the emotion and intent part might not work. Then his mind went down the rabbit hole, was it that he couldn’t sense her or, was she immune.

Those ass hats earlier sure weren’t immune. He thought back to the ‘fight’ that had taken place. It was barely a fight thanks to Van. But also, thanks to Van, he only gained a single level from the whole experience. It was fine with him but sitting at 59 when he could feel that 60 wasn’t far off was annoying.

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He was just wondering about her race again and the meaning that sounded so familiar when she heard a gasp. Looking back to her, he saw the shocked look on her face and heard the audio for when he had cast his domain spell. “Ah, um that.”

He fell silent again as she looked between him and the screen several times. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. “Asylum. I seek asylum with your people.”

Matt frowned since this was not at all what he was expecting. “Why do you want asylum when you can just become a citizen? That’s kinda how the System does things with cities and all.”

“I…I…umm. I didn’t know that was an option?” Ash sounded truly confused at the offer. “Why would you grant me citizenship when you could control me with a lower class?”

“Yeah, that’s not the way we are doing things where I am from. Well, not right now anyway.” Matt had to stop for a minute and consider. “Actually, that might not be true. We took in a bunch of refugees and the System set their status to slave, but we are trying to convert them all to citizens without limiting their paths. My patron explained everything to us before we took them in, it’s kinda this whole thing.”

Ash stared at him like he had a dick growing out of his forehead. “What do you mean refugees? Patrons? Limited paths?”

“Phew. Oh boy.” Matt blew out a breath and held up a finger stalling for time to think of how to phrase everything. “What do you know about System events?”

“The System forced us into an event, and we had to win, or we would likely all die.”

“Yeah, that’s not quite right. There was another option. At least, our city was given an option to take in refugees from fallen cities and we also had the option to make a bid for refugee status should our city fall.”

Ash was hanging off every word. “What do you mean city? Is that just what you call your tower?” She had started to lean forward, clearly fully committed to learning more.

“How about some food? We can talk while we cook and eat.” Matt asked, having the feeling that this would be a long conversation.

Ash looked a little shocked. “You know we don’t really need to eat any more, right?”

Snorting, Matt replied as he pulled out a folding grill and set it over the coals of the fire. “We don’t need to, but we still can. There is more to a hot meal than just putting calories in you. A warm bit of food or hot tea can do wonders for the spirit.”

He noticed that she watched intently as he pulled out 3 large steaks and set them on the grill top, after he sprinkled some salt and pepper over them. Then he pulled out a kettle and put it next to the grill so it would simmer on the side. “Why 3? There is only the 2 of us, right?”

Matt looked up then. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. This is Echo.” He gestured to the drake that he had been leaning against. “Say hi to Ash.”

The color drained from her face as Echo opened his eye to Matts right. The iris around the slit pupil flaring blue for just a moment before his head lifted off the ground and angled to face her. He then rippled his scales along his body as he stretched out and gave her a long sniff. The drake then smiled, showing its rows of massive teeth before laying back down and watching her with just one eye.

“And Van is outside. He’s the core of my mec… um construct. You will meet him later. I hope it’s not too much of a shock since you have an awakened core too.” Matt said as he poked the meat with a pair of tongs that he kept clacking together because of deep seated masculine instinct.

“Umm…” Ash was suddenly looking a lot less sure about this situation.

“Its fine, he is my bonded familiar. We swapped bits of our souls a while back and now we are stuck together. He’s mostly friendly, as long as you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Mostly friendly?”

Matt chuckled slightly and glanced over to Echo, who was faintly grinning. “Yeah, he has a bit of a prankster side. He goes round and round with this crazy alchemist back in Vil’ Krad.”

“How did you meet him?” Ash was curiously looking at him now and even scooted a bit closer.

“Oh, a while back I found a trial orb and after running the trial, I ended up with a summoning token. Echo, you know you can talk right?”

Ash looked shocked. “He can talk?”

Just then, Echo sent out a series of mental images. It showed a brief impression of the field of souls and then some of their exploits afterward. All in all, it was around 100 different impressions only half of which were food or the people he liked to be around.

Still looking like she was about to pass out, Matt cut Ash some slack and filled in the context. “To be fair, I get a little more emotion and intent through our bond but the dungeon reward on his arm lets him share images with people.”

“Dun… dungeon?”

Matt flipped the steaks and filled her in. “Yeah, we have one of those too. It was originally corrupted, but I purged it with Echo and a couple others so now we have a low tier dungeon that people can run. Actually, I am pretty sure it’s part of what some of the others are calling ‘The Path’. They get you up to E grade then you do the trial and dungeon back-to-back. With the rewards, it sets you on a better path to actually use your new class.”

Seeing that Ash was still staring at him like he was crazy, he tried to fill the silence. “Ahem, ah… How do you like your steak?” It was lame, he knew it, she knew it, hells Tori probably just face palmed, but Ash didn’t mind at all.

“Rare please.” She then seemed to notice what she did on reflex and snapped out of her little daze. “I mean, however you want. Please don’t make any special accommodations for me.”

Matt didn’t mind at all, he poked at the steaks and figured they were getting pretty close, so he stood up and pulled out one of his better acquisitions. From his storage ring, he summoned a folding table and 2 folding chairs. After finding a mostly level place to set them up, he pulled out a couple plates and cups. He began explaining as he went.

“I got tired of always sitting in the dirt when I ate, studied or was otherwise needing to sit. The plates and stuff are from my house, I kinda grabbed a set of 4 on reflex. One of the carpenters in the city was making these tables and I snagged one before I left.”

“I am just going to assume you are telling the truth and that I’m not really dead and this isn’t some sort of strange afterlife.”

Matt shook his head as he pulled off the meat and set them aside to rest a moment. Echo began sniffing at his, but Matt clacked his tongs at him, reminding him to let it rest so it would come out better. Getting a huff in response, Matt moved over and pulled the kettle off and poured some into the tea leaves that he put in his French press. If it works for coffee, he figured it works for tea.

The entire time, Ash just sat on his sleeping pad and watched intently. She then seemed to have a thought and began looking around.

Matt noticed and made a logical assumption. “Your gun is behind you toward the top of the sleeping pad.” He watched as she found the short rifle and stowed it in her storage device. He suspected it was the necklace she wore but wasn’t positive.

Walking back over to the table, Ash sat down and waited for Matt to join her. “Can you tell me more about this city? You called it Vil’ Krad, right?”

Matt nodded and began to tell her all about it as they both tucked into their steaks. Echo naturally ate his in one go before curling up around the fire again. The drake liked the meat but oddly never begged for seconds.

He talked about the city and what it looked like. She was very interested in the nature of its construction, having apparently come from a walled city in her old world. Ash seemed interested in the hub and spoke pattern that it was in, saying her home was a grid style and lamenting the design on more than one occasion.

Ash also asked about the people, specifically the other races and where they came from. She seemed to be fishing for something so Matt explained what he knew. He ran through the races that were there when he left and tried to recall some of their home worlds.

After a few more leading questions, he finally just got tired of it. “Ash, you can just come out and ask. I’m not sure what you are trying to find out, but I don’t really intend to hide anything.”

Looking thoroughly embarrassed, Ash finally got to the point. “Ah, well, the thing is…” She took a deep breath before continuing. “The reason I fled the tower is because I have a bit of a past. I’m not a criminal or anything.” She quickly added before looking down at the table and the steaming mug in her hands. “Well, not a real criminal anyway.”

“I got the impression that there was some sort of prejudice going on when Van and I talked to Hope.” Matt said in a soft tone. “You don’t have to share but also know that if you do decide to come back to our city, a certain amount of trust must be had. I won’t share secrets but at least I’ll be able to vouch for you.”

She looked shocked for a moment before responding quickly. “No! Ahem, no. it’s fine.” She let out a long sigh. “Honestly it might be a good idea to share with someone besides hope.” She still hesitated, looking like she was struggling with where to begin.

Matt topped up their cups and leaned back in his chair. “Whenever you are ready.”