I was devastated.

All this time, I had been sure that Annie was somewhere safe, running the show, whipping other people into shape. That was just her - she was a beacon of positivity and a natural leader. But that wasn’t always going to be enough. These were dangerous times.

I feared the worst.

But as long as I didn’t know for sure one way or another, I was going to assume that she was alive somewhere. And she had always been there for me, so I was going to be there for her. Nothing really changed in my plans overall, but it put some new urgency into the situation.

It was time to stop fucking around and go after those bikers.

I pulled out a bunch of food and started to mechanically devour as much as I could handle. Whenever I felt that I was getting full, I put, one after another, a point into complex reasoning, spatial awareness, willpower, and two more into perception.

I endured the accompanying pain and discomfort stoically, even when I nearly blackened out. No matter what, I was completely and utterly focused on advancing my mental abilities as quickly as possible. After each point invested, I would get up and do squats, crunches, sit-ups, push-ups, and whatever other exercises I could think of doing in the seclusion of my hotel room to push along the recovery of my physical stats as well.

Later that night, I finally laid down on the soft mattress, too tired to keep working out, but not able to fall asleep either. Lying on my back, I stared at the blank ceiling, remembering the last few years, my dependency, and the bright, cheery presence of Annie in my life.

Had I done enough? Was it too late now? At least, I had made some progress this evening, but this was only the start. Eventually, I managed to relax and finally fell asleep.

Early the next morning, I was woken up by the sun shining through the window right into my eyes. At first, I was disoriented, thinking that I was back at the bed and breakfast, that the last two weeks just had been a bad dream, but then the reality came crashing back.

And it wasn’t really that everything was terrible. Overall, I enjoyed myself a lot more now than when I had been stuck in my wheelchair, the excitement and thrill of fighting monsters, overcoming the odds again and again was positively addicting. But there was a cost to all of this, and for me, that cost was Annie. If something had happened to her, I didn’t know if I could be happy again. Perhaps that sounded melodramatic, and it probably was, after all, Ben had gone through worse, arguably, and was doing surprisingly fine. But that didn’t change how I felt at the moment.

It didn’t help that my head hurt like a bitch from jamming down all those mental points and that the muscles in my body, especially my abs, chest, and ass were screaming in pain. But I clamped down on all the discomfort with an iron fist, determined to push myself as much as humanly possible to become stronger.

With a groan, I got up from the bed, and, after a brief trip to the hot and smelly bathroom, stuffed myself with as much food as I could fit into my stomach. I washed down the last crumbs with a half-gallon of water and was ready to start my day.

I stepped out into the hallway, careful to not make too much noise. If there was anything I wanted to avoid at this point, it was being bogged down by unnecessary social interaction, making small talk, or having to explain myself. I was on a mission and didn’t want to delay any more than necessary.

Outside the morning air was pleasantly fresh, the perfect condition for going for a run. Immediately, I started jogging down the road, breaking into sprints about every hundred yards. After twenty or thirty minutes of doing that, I stopped for a break to do push-ups, squats, lunges, and a few other exercises, before going back to the running routine. Soon, my legs were burning like hell, and every step was becoming pure torture. But I forced myself to keep going. This was something I had to go through if I wanted to become stronger. No pain, no gain!

Occasionally, I met a few people, some aimlessly wandering around, others moving with a purpose. But to my surprise, few of them spared me as much as a glance. I mean, there I was, running up and down Main Street like a maniac, and not even dressed in sports clothes.

But then I saw the reason for the lack of interest. Up ahead, there was a large group of people doing exactly the same thing as me. Or at least a variation of what I was doing. Not that it looked all that similar – where I was laboring hard to squeeze another sprint out of my exhausted body, these people seemed to be flying almost effortlessly across the asphalt, as if running was part of their DNA. And their speed was mindboggling. Of course, there was the occasional lumbering ox among them as well, but all in all, this looked like a group of people that took working out quite seriously.

Curious, I continued forward to take a closer look.

Every single one of the people in that group sported some serious muscle, some with bodies that would make any bodybuilder proud, others leaner and faster, like an Olympic sprinter or one of those Kenyan distance runners. The presence of Cobra and Lil’Pope among them made it fairly obvious who I was dealing with – the EFU.

Fucking acronyms. But whatever. And these guys, and girls, did look like elite physical specimen. I had no idea how well they could fight, but there was no doubt in my mind that every single one of them was extremely fit.

For the most part, the group simply ignored me, barring the occasional glance in my direction when I lingered right outside their area, watching what they were doing. Not that there was anything fancy about it – they were just doing a simple, yet effective workout, with suicide sprints, push-ups and the whole nine yards of strength and speed exercises one might think of.

From what I could tell, Lil’Pope was the strongest of the bunch, but it wasn’t by a huge margin. There were another couple of men that were quite close to him in strength and seemed slightly more mobile than the big biker. Cobra, however… he kind of stuck out. There was an elegance to his moves, a sinuous deadliness, that none of the others seemed to be able to match. And while most people exchanged a few words or smiles with others, there was a bubble around Cobra, that none dared, or cared, to burst. Everything about the guy gave the impression of a lone wolf, a killer.

I shuddered while leaning against the wall of the Starbucks at the intersection of Main Street and Darcy Street.

If, or better, when I was going after the bikers, this guy had to go first. Because I wasn’t going to be able to sleep calmly while he was alive. That was one man who wouldn’t even blink twice before cutting my throat in my sleep. And he could easily pull that off too, the way he looked.

Just as I was staring thoughtfully at him, Cobra raised his head, as if he had felt me staring. His searching gaze found me immediately, and his grey eyes seemed to pierce right into me, causing a shiver to run down my spine. He didn’t smile, he didn’t smirk… he didn’t really show any emotion. And that, perhaps, was the scariest part. There was just an empty void where others would display some feeling, be it disdain, dismissal, or elation.

No wonder he was the right-hand man of Big Pete – two peas in a pod.

Slowly, I did my next set of strength exercises, lost in thought on what to do about the bikers. Until I heard the snickering.

I looked up and saw that the whole group of EFU jerks was standing there, looking at me huffing and puffing to do my set of twenty pushups. Some were smirking, others openly laughing. Granted, some of them seemed somewhat indifferent, a couple of them even encouraging. I’d remember those. But the rest seemed just a whole bunch of arrogant assholes.

But I didn’t care. Let them think whatever they wanted. I wasn’t here to show off or to impress. I was here to get back into shape. And if anything, their disdain pushed me on.

That said, I flipped the finger at them. Just a small act of defiance, because, well, I just couldn’t help it. There was a risk that they would come and beat me up, but whatever. Well worth it.

I didn’t have to be worried about it, though, because the only reaction I got was some hooting and laughter, and then the group turned back to its own training, completely ignoring me. The way they reacted even gave me the impression that my small act of defiance had garnered some measure of respect.

I could only shake my head. It had been barely two weeks since the transition, and people already had lost some of their basic decency and dignity, acting all arrogant if they had power and subservient and meek if they were weak. Might makes right, or something to that nature. Which was a scary prospect for the future.

But then again, maybe this had always been there, just beneath the surface. It wasn’t from nowhere that bullying had become such a big problem in modern society. And trolling. The moment people feel safe from reprisal, they live out their most base instincts - it made them show their true, often callous nature. And the same was true now.

Not that everyone was bad.

But the way the bikers had taken over initially, with at least tacit permission from the majority of people, and how powerful individuals now seemed to be able to just get their way by using force… that did not bode well for the future.

Which made it all the more critical that someone stepped up and put some limits on them. I hoped that it wasn’t me that had to do that. What we needed was a leader, and I wasn’t that. I was more of a loner all in all. Not that I didn’t want to have social interaction… but I couldn’t deal with people-problems that well. So, no. I’d support someone like Ben, though, or Annie.

Which turned my focus back on what I had to do.

I did another set of suicide sprints, followed by squats and then slowly made my way around town, shaking out my legs. I needed to find the place the bikers used as their base. Obviously, I could have asked someone for directions, but if the bikers started disappearing one after another, I didn’t want any trace pointing my way.

It took me perhaps another thirty minutes of jogging, with periods of stretching in between, to finally find what I had been looking for – a few bikers standing guard in front of the Holiday Inn further up on Main Street.

It was odd to see people with swords just hang around, lazily lounging on some beaten up armchairs they had pulled out of the main lobby of the hotel. As guards, they did a terrible job, utterly oblivious to what was going on. But then again, they didn’t really have to be overly alert. It was in the middle of Lake Placid, a sunny day, and no one was going to challenge them on their home turf.

Not that I was going to complain about their lack of zeal. It would make taking out a few of the bikers easier.

I spent a few minutes stretching my legs, and back, surreptitiously studying the layout of the hotel and the coming and goings of the bikers. There seemed to be a fair number of them, even more than I recalled having seen before. Probably they had recruited new members into their gang during the last days. Again, more opportunistic behavior. Not that I was surprised. Power was attractive.

I also noticed that there was a guard on top of the building that I hadn’t seen before. And that guy was a bit more alert than the others, it seemed. I could feel his eyes drift over me a couple of times, not yet suspicious, but undoubtedly aware of my presence. Of course, one biker on top of a hotel wasn’t going to be able to cover all the approaches to the building. But nonetheless, it added a bit more of a challenge than the fools upfront.

Deep in thought, I fingered the teleportation ring on my left ring finger. By now, it seemed to be about fifty percent full, so it might be another day or two until I could use it again. That would be one option to get in there… but the problem was that it wouldn’t get me out again.

Not wanting to attract undue attention, I finally began jogging again, trying to get a feel for the rest of the town. Of course, Annie had pushed my wheelchair around town quite a bit, but we mostly had stuck to the main roads, with the shops, businesses, and, well, stuff to see. Obviously, Lake Placid was more than that.

But I quickly realized that the inhabited part of Lake Placid was actually relatively small. Most of the more outlying parts of the town had been abandoned, it seemed, and the population had begun to concentrate in the city center. Astoundingly, there was the beginning of a city wall, replete with a walkway behind the parapet, that already blocked off some of the streets.

This was a massive change.

Was it really that bad?

But then again, I could understand. From what Ben had said, there were nightly monster attacks, and people wanted to feel safe, me included. And a proper wall would go a long way toward that goal. But who was building that? And why would they do that? Was there like some type of payment system in place? Otherwise, it seemed unfair that some people got to train their stats and become stronger, whereas others labored in the heat to build walls…

Just another thing to figure out.

Slowly, I made my way back to the hotel, all the while thinking about ways on how to get inside of the compound of the bikers. It wasn’t enough to pick off bikers in dark alleys one after another, assuming I’d be even able to pull that off… I had to find Annie first and foremost.

And I still wasn’t entirely certain that I wanted to just kill all the bikers. Some were real asshats, and I didn’t have too much compunction taking them out. And some were really dangerous, like this Cobra guy.

Just going and killing them, though, seemed... extreme, but we lived in a different world now, and I had to face the reality that normal moral constraints were hopelessly outdated. I was aware that I sounded a bit like a hypocrite. One moment, I was complaining about how horrible it was that people behaved opportunistically or used their personal power to get ahead. And then, a few minutes later, I turned around and planned on snuffing out the lives of a bunch of bikers because… because I didn’t like them? Or because I felt threatened and could? Or revenge?

It sure sounded petty. And callous.

But so what? It wasn’t that I was picking on the weaker. I was taking on a whole fucking gang because they had wronged me, because they had probably taken Annie, and because they were just pushing their weight around making everyone’s life miserable.

It was late morning by the time I got back to the High Peaks Resort, and the others were sitting around in the lobby, reading books, or just dozing off in the warm air that drifted into the building.

“Hey Daniel, what’s happening?” Ben asked as I came in.

“Eww, you are drenched in sweat,” Sue complained the moment she saw me, speaking almost at the same time as Ben.

“Well, I was working out, instead of chilling,” I shot back defensively. Somehow, Sue knew how to hit my buttons. I didn’t know how or why… but I felt defensive all the time around her. Yet, I was oddly attracted too, which made for a somewhat awkward balancing act in my reactions.

“Some of us, Jimmy excepted, have plenty of muscles, Daniel. So, unlike you, we can afford to relax a bit and read a fantastic book,” Sue responded, widely grinning while flashing the cover of a cheap romance novel, which showed a muscled, half-naked hunk of a guy holding a skinny, lightly clad woman in his arms.

Before I could come up with a suitable response, Ben got up from his chair and said: “Either way, perfect timing, Daniel. It is almost noon, I figure, so we should go to the Best Western for the contributions.”

“The what?”

“The contributions… you didn’t think that people just worked their hearts out or hunt monsters because of the goodness of their heart, right?”

“Well… I wa-,” I began to say when Sue barged into the conversation. “He fucking did! I knew it!”

“No, I-.”

“It’s ok, Daniel,” Sue said in a condescending tone that grated on my nerves more than anything else she had done before. “Of course, you would think that everyone is altruistic.”

She walked out the front door, pearling laughter trailing after her, as I was left sputtering in outrage.

Jimmy clapped me on my shoulders as he walked out. “Get used to it.”

Shaking my head, I followed the others down the street, curious to see what this was all about. Clearly, it was some type of reward system, but I did wonder how this could be operationalized. Would people just state their accomplishments and then get rewards based on that? Was there some lie detector that prevented cheating? Or did people have to bring some trophies back as proof of what they had done? Labor was easy enough to measure, at least as long as it wasn’t effort that was evaluated but output. And even effort… one could measure hours of work put in or something like that.

As we got closer, I could see a massive crowd of people milling around the Best Western Motel, many chatting excitedly with other folks, some standing quietly, waiting for… something.

And what they had been waiting for became clear soon enough. A man dressed in well-made armor stepped out from the Best Western with a large purple crystal in his right hand, and a blue crystal in his left hand. Right behind him was a man that dwarfed even the giant Lil’Pope. He was fucking ginormous – eight feet, arms the size of my waist, and weighing in at around six or seven hundred pounds at a guess. And he carried a heavy table as if it was a child’s toy, with a box balanced on top of it.

Once the giant had put down the desk, the other guy placed the crystals on top, took a step back and raised his hands.

As if he had cast a magic spell, the crowd around the parking lot immediately turned quiet, waiting for the man to speak.

“Greetings, Placidians. Another week has passed, and it is time to assess contributions. By now, you all know the procedure. Crafters, workers, hunters, and guards put your hands on the purple crystal and state your contributions in hours of work or results achieved. Let’s avoid the unpleasantries of lying. Those of you who have risked their lives killing monsters or otherwise accumulated mana, transfer your contributions to the I’tisch League of Cities and then place your hands on the blue crystal.”

Right after the man was done, he stepped back behind the table and motioned for people to line up. People jostled a bit for position, but overall, people were surprisingly well behaved. Perhaps the reason was the giant who glared at anyone who started to make trouble, which shut them down instantly. Even the bikers didn’t cause a scene and took up position in the line just like everyone else.

“Jimmy, what does it mean to transfer your contribution points?” I whispered as we entered the line relatively far at the back.

“You call up the ladder and will your contribution toward the faction that you are supporting…” Jimmy said matter of fact as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

“Uhm, like how and what is that ladder you are talking about?”

“Ladder, like in ranking… and you just think ‘ladder’ and think of, well, the ladder… and then it should appear in your vision. Same as with the character screen and explanations of skills and such,” Jimmy explained patiently as we shuffled closer to the crystals.

Well, fuck, that would have been nice to know. Not that it would have benefited me a whole lot. But still.

I wondered if the elves were on there too. What about the gars and weyrs… were they a faction? And…

“Jimmy, so… what does that do?”

“What do you mean by ‘that’?”

“Like, the contributions, ladder position and all that,” I explained, my voice probably reflecting my confusion.

“So, remember how I mentioned that all of this was just one giant competition to see who would get control of the new land and the dungeon? Well, this is it. Whoever ends up in the top spot of the ladder position at some point, wins the race. When that is, and how many points we are talking, I have no idea.”

“So how do contribution points factor in, and what are they?” I asked.

“Basically, the mana you have accumulated,” Jimmy explained.

I was horrified. “You mean, you are giving up your mana.”

Jimmy only chuckled. “Oh no, no one would be going for that… but it is a fair worry, I had the same fear the first time. You keep the mana. All the system does is give credit to some faction on how much you have achieved. One for one with the mana you have collected. And that is important. It isn’t how much mana you have incorporated into your cycle, but how much raw mana you have obtained. I’m sure you are familiar with the horrible conversion rate of mana if it isn’t the color of your core.”

“Hell yes, I fucking hate it,” I groused, before focusing my mind on the ladder screen. I had to see it for myself. Now that I knew that such a thing existed, it was easy enough to call it up.

Faction

Ranking

The Brood

1

Darkalves

2

Gormod

3

Azkeron

4

Albar

5

Mountain Alliance

6

I’tisch League of Cities

7

The Ovgard Conglomerate

8

Havenoord

9

Troll4Love

10

2BR8

11

The John!

12

Reach4the*s

13

Now, that was interesting. A larger than expected number of factions and the I’tisch League of Cities ranked closer to the bottom than to the top. And then there were those four at the bottom…

“Jimmy, what is up with those last four factions?”

“Hah, some people thought it was funny to declare their own faction. Quite pointless, but I suppose that doesn’t matter to the trolls.”

“So, the second to last, is that…?”

“Yup, our very own John. Everyone knows him. I take it you have run across him already?”

I just nodded while my thoughts churned around my head. This might be a way forward. From what the others had said, the I’tisch League of Cities wasn’t half bad, but it still was an overlord that was going to tell us what to do. Supposedly one could earn citizenship years down the road, but until then, if one of the full citizens said to jump, you’d better be ready to do so. And I wasn’t really keen on being on such a tight leash.

“Jimmy, what is in it for us? Why do people contribute points? Why work and declare their contributions?”

Jimmy pointed toward the table. “Well, it’s getting started, so you can see for yourself. Chad is about ready to announce the first results.”