"What is going on here?" said a neutral and calm voice over the shellshocked crowd. With only these few words, the people seemed to calm down quite a bit.

Andrew gently pushed people aside so he could see the reason for the commotion. Sarah realized at this moment that her holding the lanky man by his collar couldn’t look too good. But it was too late.

Andrew looked at her with a resigned face and lifted an eyebrow. Sarah wanted to speak up, but he held up a hand and shook his head.

"I want you to welcome Sarah." He shouted to the still-quiet crowd while pointing at her. "She was alone for a long time. She had to undergo even harsher mutations than Alex. And she is just very happy that she is among fellow humans again." He turned his head to her and nodded encouragingly.

"Yeah, that’s right." Sarah said while still trying to wrap her mind around how Andrew calmed the crowd so fast.

Even though a few looked at her with suspicious looks, most of them nodded in understanding. Some around her even patted her back and shoulders and murmured some encouraging words.

Andrew nodded again and spoke to the crowd. "Alright people. There is still a lot to do. Our supplies for the coming winter will not come by themselves."

The crowd booed a little and threw some jokes at Andrew. But they almost immediately went to work again. This showed very well, how they liked and respected him at the same time.

The fire-guy, who had long since freed himself from her grasp, also wanted to scurry away.

"Stay." Andrew only said and the guy froze like someone who had been caught while doing something forbidden.

Andrew came close to Sarah and looked at her with a slightly worried face. "I hope I won’t regret this. And please stop attacking my people."

"I didn’t attack him." Sarah answered with squinted eyes. She really didn’t like it, when someone else just assumed something about her. "He happens to have an energy specialization. And I have an open slot. So I got a little excited."

Andrew seemed like he wanted to start arguing with her, but let it be in the end.

Andrew patted her shoulder and went to the fire-guy. "Xavier." He started speaking to the man, who was trying really hard not to look into his eyes. Andrew put a hand on the man’s shoulder and spoke to him in a soft voice. "I’m proud of you."

Xavier let out a small laugh and scratched his head in embarrassment. "Thanks Andrew." He said in a choked-up voice.

Andrew waited for a bit until the man had calmed himself a little bit. "Explain."

The lanky man brushed his black hair out of his pale and haggard face and started telling his story with some hesitation. "So you know how I need to do the odd jobs for the kitchen, right? They… uhm… they just let me do the fire by now, because… Well, it doesn’t matter. You see, I hate making fire above all else. It is so exhausting and frustrating. So after what felt like one hundred tries, I really, really wished for the fire to start burning. And then it just… happened."

Andrew turned to the side a bit to hide his consternation and massaged his temple. "So basically." He started while holding his hand over his eyes. "You were so lazy and extremely bad at something that it awakened a big enough wish in you to gain this ability."

Xavier, who had stretched out proudly until now, slumped down in shame.

Sarah, on the other hand, felt her heart burn up. That made so much sense. Whenever she awakened to a specialization, she felt an intense desire. The only question was how she could manage to awaken this desire to make fire.

Andrew took a deep breath and turned to Xavier again. "I know it has been hard for you to find your place here. But you can do something that nobody else can. For now, help out the kitchen staff with your abilities. And tomorrow, go over to Tobias. You can make an important contribution to our group."

Xavier nodded without speaking and stood up on shaky legs. He suddenly hugged Andrew and ran off afterwards.

Andrew let out an exhausted breath and turned around toward Sarah. "You see what we have to deal with here. The people seem fine on the outside, but most of them struggle and are afraid." He paused for a while, searching for the right words.

"Just don’t do things that frighten the people. We need more trustworthy and strong people like you to protect us and hunt for us. Can you do that?"

Sarah felt a small sting of yearning for belonging somewhere in her heart. So she resolutely nodded in affirmation.

"Then welcome to the caves." He told her and patted her shoulder again. "And now." He said suddenly, startling her a little. "We will go meet up with the leaders. I’ve seen how strong you are, and these mutations… You must be quite a bit stronger than our hunters. And we think you might help us break through a bottleneck. Are you willing to talk about it?"

Sarah had a feeling that they were probably stuck at level nine for a while. She knew all too well how frustrating it was to not be able to advance anymore. "Sure. But I really want something to eat. All this talk about kitchen stuff made me realize that I only ate gross stuff until now."

Andrew looked at her in bewilderment and laughed out loud for a moment. "No problem." He told her while still slightly chuckling. "You can have all the food you want tonight. The kitchen staff will bring it over once it's ready. So let’s go."

Sarah was looking forward to seeing more of their camp, but they went straight to the biggest cave, which was only a small distance away.

They arrived there quickly and walked into the cave. It was dimly lit by torches that stuck to the wall at certain intervals.

A few people waited for them silently, their features barely visible in the dim light.

Sarah recognized Melissa, Dennis, and Alex. But she hadn’t seen the fourth one until now. He had straight black hair and a very bad posture. His skinny body rested on the ground, looking pretty frail and weak. His whole appearance seemed unkempt and fragile, but his eyes were completely different. There seemed to be a fire burning in them as he stared at her without even blinking once.

His gaze was kind of burdensome, so she took a sneak peek at Alex. He was the large and burly man she had knocked out and bitten in the shoulder to feed on his magic power. He also stared at her, but with a lot of suppressed anger in his eyes. This would be fun.

Andrew stepped closer to them and waved his hand at Dennis. The lanky teen stood up hastily and left them with quick steps.

"Why is he leaving?" Sarah asked curiously.

"He volunteered to help hunt some nocturnal critters. I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons he didn’t want to be here was you. You should apologize for your behavior to him later." Andrew answered her in a subdued voice while guiding her to sit on the ground. "The person you don’t know is Tobias. He is our… researcher, you could say." He explained to her while nodding at Tobias. Who didn’t do anything in response.

Andrew didn’t let himself get irritated by him and cleared his throat. "Thank you for coming." He spoke loudly into the round. His eyes rested a while longer on Melissa than the others, without letting it be too obvious. Sneaky guy.

"First of all, let me introduce Sarah. We found her next to the oddity and brought her with us. She initially attacked Alex, but it turned out to be a misunderstanding." After this point, he stared into the eyes of the agitated Alex. "And she will apologize and answer his questions later."

Alex tensed up but said nothing. Andrew breathed a sigh of relief and continued. "First and foremost, it is important that we can break through the bottleneck. So, do you mind sharing your status screen with us first, Sarah?"

"Sharing my status screen? That works?" She asked in a skeptical voice and wanted to try it out. As always with the system, this intent, plus her vocalization of it, seemed to suffice for it to spring into action. And it promptly showed her status screen to the group.

Details:

Level: 14

Name: Sarah Anna Fischer

Class: Nightmare

Race: Mutant

Status: Normal

HP: 205/205 SP: 150/175 MP: 300/310

Achievements:

* How the hell are you still sane?

* Poison gorger

* More than a human

Affinities:

Mind (Mid) Body (Mid) Energy (Low)

Specialisations:

Mind (2/2)

Invasion

Nerve Control

Body (2/2)

Adaptation

Mutation

Energy (0/1)

Basic Stats:

Strength: 13

Dexterity: 13

Endurance: 15

Resistance: 10

Intelligence: 22

Force: 10

Special Stats:

Magic Power: 14

Life Force: 32

Mental Power: 17

Active Skills:

Mind infiltration (Invasion)

Passive Skills:

Poison Body (Adaptation)

* Poison and acid resistance

* Walking hazard

* Mutated glands

Metamorphosis (Mutation)

* Skin:

* Dense skin (1 LF)

* Bone structure:

* High-density bones (2 LF)

* Muscles:

* Strengthened fibers (1LF): Strengthened muscle fibers. Slightly tougher and stronger.

* Brain, nerve system, and sensory organs:

* Predator's eyes (1LF)

* Organs and processes:

* Magic Power nourishment system

* Special mutations:

* Nightmare's tail (class specific, 5LF)

* Nightmare’s horns (class specific, 5LF)

Suppression (Nerve Control)

Struggle (Conditional passive)

Slightly crazy

Mean eye

The whole group was looking at her status screen with gaping mouths. For a few seconds, Sarah asked herself if they had collectively experienced some kind of brain seizure. But then they began bombarding her with questions.

For what felt like hours, she explained every little detail about her experiences with the system. How she got the specializations, achievements, class, and everything else. Somewhere in between, a sweaty smelling guy pressed a plate full of food into her hand, which she absentmindedly ate while talking to the group. What interested them the most, was how to break through to level ten. They also talked a lot about the skills and spezialisations the group got, which was also very interesting for Sarah. There was apparently an absurd amount of options. And practically everyone seemed to have skills that gave them some sort of resistance against poison and against fear.

"I still don’t understand it," Alex said in a grumpy voice. He had been quiet for most of the time, apart from a snarky remark about her race being mutant instead of human. Luckily, the others didn’t seem surprised or deterred by it.

"You expect us to simultaneously tear down a so-called resistance and accept the magic power to fill our bodies? How do we know it won’t kill us?" He asked in a threatening voice, a vein bulging on his forehead.

"It won't," said Tobias with a trembling voice from the side. "I just did it."

Sarah looked at him in amazement. He was literally trembling on the ground, like a leaf in the wind. His eyes also seemed to glow a little bit right now.

This time, everyone looked at him with gaping mouths.

"Are you serious?" asked Andrew, flabbergasted.

But before anyone could pry further into the overloaded Tobias, someone came running down the cave.

"Dennis and Vanessa!" the woman shouted when she came to a sliding stop.

"They didn’t come back, and we can’t find them!"

Andrew stood up immediately and held the heaving woman by her shoulders.

"Tell me everything."