Mark was caught off guard and wondered how they even knew that name.
As if reading his mind Major Dureal said.
“A report from Private First Class Ava Thompson to Sergeant Davis stated that you may have come in contact with the being known as The Caretaker.” Major Dureal said.
Mark, could see he already believed it.
It made sense now. Clearly, Ava had taken Mark's comment about speaking with the system the other night more seriously than she had let on.
Mark was frowning. He was angry at himself for letting that comment slip.
“Mark, listen. We are not forcing you to do or tell us anything. The only reason Ava knew it was even possible to talk with the system was because she was there when Jonathan and I spoke with it.”
Mark's gaze turned up to look at her in surprise.
She was level-headed and spoke with confidence.
“Look all we want is an exchange of information. We just wanted to know if you know anything that we don't”
Marks warning from the Caretaker hadn't been very in-depth, but he did learn a couple of things, and here was a group of people who were in a position to do something with the information.
“Look. We don’t know each other well yet and trust is earned not given. So I’ll start by telling you what we know. If you have anything to add after that go ahead” Sam said.
Mark noted that the moment Sam had started speaking Major Dureal had stopped. As if he knew the right tool for the job was not a hammer. Choosing to let her speak.
“When we killed the first Guardian we got a meeting with the Caretaker. It explained to complete the first rite we would have to kill all of the guardians and then he would answer all of our questions, But he also hinted that each guardian would drop an item that would greatly help the sector it was in. This is also another reason we believe killing all seven is important. ” Sam paused when she got to this point, she looked towards Major Dureal for permission.
After a pause and what must have been some kind of go-ahead signal between the two he sat back in his chair the wood groaning.
“... The item we got from the first kill was a type of super energy-rich liquid, drawn from the creature’s blood. The eggheads are still testing it, but apparently, it has the ability to clean away massive amounts of Corruption. Right now it is impossible to replicate so it's locked away. However, we also wanted to know if you saw anything on the corpse of the second guardian that could have fit this description. If so, could you provide us with the corpse's last known location?”
The information about the items was new, but the rest fit what the Caretaker had told him.
Mark also had a sneaking suspicion he had one of them in his inventory.
The Corrupted seed, he had originally kept it as a way to test out his skills, but now it turned out he had grabbed something pretty important.
If it was supposed to help them as the Caretaker said then it was very valuable. The problem was whether he told them that he had it.
He looked around the room and saw all three of them were waiting for an answer.
The thing was they had resources he didn't. He understood their desire to find out more. It was partly the reason he had kept the seed in the first place. If showing them the seed would help the whole sector then he wasn't selfish enough to believe he was the only one that could figure this out.
So far they had shown him a level of trust and Sam was right. You had to show trust to receive it.
Not sure whether he was making a big mistake here or not he held out his hand and coated it in Prana. Once that was done he pulled the seed out of his inventory.
The Corrupted seed appeared in his hand.
“This is what I pulled from its corpse. It has a staggering amount of Corruption. To the point that even touching it increases your Corruption value. I believe its what you are looking for” he said.
Three sets of eyes moved to the seed as Mark continued.
“You covered everything I know on the First Rite and more, but the Caretaker also explained how Corruption works. As a whole, it changes the very nature of anything it comes into contact with. Twisting it to a darker form. That's what your CV stands for. The more you have, the more you change both physically and mentally. Now you may already have guessed that, but what you may not have known is that Prana is one of the best ways to combat its spread. It's just a guess, but Prana's defensive side may not only be accelerated healing. I think that both Resistance and Prana play a role in how much Corruption you take on and how it affects you.” Mark paused for a moment to let that sink in.
“The Caretaker mentioned that high-level healers are capable of expunging Corruption from others later on and right now the biggest problem I can see is that we simply don't have enough healers around. It is going to be a huge issue later when the Corruption starts to grow out of control.”
The room was silent for a time while they thought things through, but Sam chose to speak up first. “If what you are saying is true the harder we fight the more Corruption we will accrue?”
Mark nodded.
“And we currently have no way to clear it,” she said while biting her lip in thought.
“Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve cobbled together a way to help someone suffering from Corruption but the way the Caretaker made it sound, it's not the norm and probably a little janky.” Mark said.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“But you can get rid of it?” Jonathan suddenly asked more interested.
Mark nodded.
“Well, Mr young you bring with you a whole host of problems, but no one ever benefited from shooting the messenger. So rest assured we shall take your warnings to heart. However, you paint a bleak picture of an already bleak situation. What would you suggest?” Major Dureal said.
Mark had not been expecting to provide a solution, but here he was being asked for one. He could think of one obvious step they could take that might help.
“Have some of the generalists start focusing their points into Prana. Yes, it is not directly combat-related, but having someone in each of your squads that can heal would go a long way in preventing deaths, and eventually, they might be able to clear corruption.”
They continued ironing out the details, but eventually, the Major agreed on an increase in the number of healers.
He noticed the Major kept looking at his watch as if waiting for something.
They finally got to the question he knew was coming when he had brought the seed out.
“Mr Young this item is very important to everyone would you allow our people to take a closer look at it?”
Mark nodded and said.
“How long would they need it for? I also have tests I want to do with it, it responds well to Prana”
“Well I’m unsure, but I Would imagine a day or so,” Major Dureal said.
Mark shrugged his shoulders and put the seed down on the Majors desk. There was one factor here that made giving the seed away less of a problem. Sam had told him about the system feature for summoning items that were stolen and he had tested it. It had worked as advertised. So Mark's thoughts were simple. If they chose to shaft him or make accessing it difficult he would just summon it back to his inventory.
“Just so we're clear, I'm lending this to you. Don't let it feed on your corruption that will end badly and remember, no skin contact”
The major nodded leaving it where Mark had set it down. Sam was inspecting it closely. The Major checked his watch once more.
“Are you waiting on something?” Mark asked tilting his head.
“Oh, it's already 5:59?!” Sam exclaimed.
Mark was about to ask what was so important about the time when he felt a vibration move throughout the world.
Something he was quickly associating with the system announcements.
Dungeons have been implemented to slow down the rate of integration.
***
The collective corruption will gather together into areas and form Dungeons.
Cleanse the Corrupted from the dungeon to avoid the surrounding area's corruption rate from increasing by a level.
Rewards in Dungeons are doubled.
***
System Map will unlock in 48 hours.
Right, how could he have forgotten? The system had warned them this would happen when it had made the Marketplace available. It was looking like dungeons were going to start popping up randomly. Or at least in places where there was high Corruption in the area.
“Right on time,” Major Dureal said looking grimly at the notification.
“Don't worry Dad, you have the scouting teams on the lookout, if they find one nearby they will let us know,” Sam said softly.
Mark watched the interaction but remained silent.
Major Dureal sighed and said.
“I think that’s enough for today. Mark, we are both trusting each other a lot here. I just hope you can come around fully, soon. Everyone is going to need to put in our all if we are to survive this.” he said this with steel in his voice.
Though Mark could see all of this was taking its toll on the man.
Jonathan got up from his seat and stretched. He no longer looked exhausted, In fact, it looked like he was ready for battle right now.
“Yo, Mark why don't we head down to the wall? We will be a little early but at least we’ll get good spots” he said.
Seeing that the meeting was pretty much over Mark agreed. Sam hung back to speak to Major Dureal.
The two of them traveled in silence until Jonathan decided to break it.
“So you said that you can get rid of Corruption. If I paid you would you be willing to burn mine away? Right now I’m sitting at around 21% and I can feel the discomfort you were speaking about.”
Mark’s eyes widened in shock. How many times did you have to get hit to have your Corruption that high? Sure Marks was higher, but he had been messing with the stuff directly and taking on other people’s to get to where he was. This guy must have been through an absolutely ungodly amount of Corrupted to be that bad.
“Yeah sure we can speak about it tomorrow. I’m working the medical tent so pop by there and I’ll have a look.”
“Sweet,” he said nodding.
When they got to the wall they were let right through. One of the officers did have to take Mark's name and as Major Dureal said it was approved.
The evening light was already beginning to fade. When Mark had climbed a large set of stairs and got to the top he could see a frankly staggering number of people up here. Clearly, they weren't the only ones who thought to come early. The people parted when they saw Jonathan coming. Most looked on in awe or determination when he passed, but a few looked at him with jealousy or even open hostility. The upside of this was that no one paid much attention to Mark.
Jonathan led them to a spot that was facing a large subway terminal. Now that Mark had a closer look at the wall he could see that portions of the stone looked fused together. Like cracks had been refilled or molded back together numerous times. To be honest none of it looked like uniform stonework but if one looked close enough they could recognize the damage.
Jonathan spoke once more.
“We’ve found that during the night, Corrupted flood up from the subway stations. There are also the Ghasts to worry about. We do our best to keep them out of the camp but the odd few do get through from time to time. Now with the Dungons starting tonight, we are not sure what's going to happen.”
Mark looked around at the people on the wall. Every now and then someone would call a target and take a potshot out into the roads below. Mark saw most were using a rifle or some form a long ranged weapon. There was a tense air about the place.
Right now they were made up of soldiers and civi’s. Probably only 40% here were soldiers, but that was changing as time went on.
Marks Prana was just reaching full when shift change began. Like a mass exodus, the civilian population made a swift exit. Soldiers started to take more and more of the wall. Neatly lining up and forming ranks. Mark noticed a clear space was left around the two of them.
As time went on more people started joining them too. Greeting Jonathan in a familiar way. Mark noticed their uniforms all had bands of color down the shoulders and legs. Jonathan wore a simplistic uniform with red stripes on it, but Mark noticed that of the group that was joining them at least half wore blue stripes and a few wore white stripes.
Putting that together he realized that the color denoted your main attribute. Red for Aura, blue for Mana. Mark thought the white could be Generalists.
The last natural light was fading from the world when Sam rocked up and joined them.
“Ready for your first raid?” She said a huge grin breaking out on her face. It was in stark contrast to the rest of the people up here.
Night descended and Mark found excitement churning in his chest.