A powerful engine started up behind me, its roar loud enough to vibrate my teeth. “All right,” I said with a smile. I’d always had a fascination with anything that had lots of horsepower. Besides, riding inside the tank would give me a moment to allocate my stats.

I found a ladder, but merely used it as a handhold before leaping to the top of the vehicle. I followed a group of three Peacekeepers as they entered an open hatch. The inside of the vehicle was long and narrow with two rows of chairs built into the walls. The floor and walls were solid metal and the only window was a clear door leading to a two-man cockpit.

I slid into the nearest chair, ignoring the looks of the alien commandos that sat around me. I had much more interesting things to occupy my attention.

Allocating stats felt good, like feeding some primal need.

I had gained eight levels, bringing me to twenty-five. The number looked satisfying, but I noticed that the bar showing progress to the next level had turned grey and no longer displayed a number. It seemed I had finally reached the cap – I vaguely remember Talith mentioning one during our training. It seemed like years ago.

I had sixteen free stat points, and my class bonuses had given me eight each to Will and Perception. I quickly put a single point into will, bringing it to the cap. Perception had reached the cap from the class bonuses.

Fuck. My stomach felt as if it dropped into my knees and my whole body felt cold and numb. I had lost a point. It seemed bonuses from leveling would be lost if the cap was already reached. It was only a single point, but the regret overwhelmed me for a moment. First world problems, I guess.

The concept of a first world was kind of pointless now, wasn’t it? Was America even a thing anymore? Sebbit had told me that most of the world was intact, but I also knew that monsters and dungeons weren’t the only dangers. I was pretty sure that a single high-level criminal could take on any police department that relied on pre-apocalypse tactics.

I shook off the brief lapse into introspection and looked back to my stats.

I still had fifteen points to allocate. I considered ignoring the physical stats as I could always buff myself with eldritch energy, but it was also true that those augments benefitted from having a higher base. Focus, however, was still my lowest stat and had been increasingly useful since I gained the ability to create a doppelganger.

I agonized over it, but in the end my love of round numbers won out. I split nine points between Endurance, Strength, Agility, and Reaction – rounding each out at twenty. I poured the remaining six into focus, bringing it to seventeen. I looked over my status page with glee, my stats truly were starting to look impressive.

I began scrolling through the rest of the updates, but they were mostly meaningless health or XP updates – but two caught my eye. The first was a warning that my progress towards the corruption feat had increased by ten, but it came with absolutely no clue what that meant.

The other was an entirely new feat:

Herald of War Ⓛ - Where you walk war follows. You have slain hundreds upon the battlefield and anointed yourself in blood and earth. Your wounds close and your stamina returns with each kill you make. This effect is proportional to the strength of those whom fall before you. Beware, the very presence of a Herald on the battlefield fills the hearts of both friend and foe with an overwhelming desire for battle.

It was a double-edged sword if it caused my enemies to fight harder than before, but it was also reassuring to have a way to heal myself in battle. It also felt completely tailored to my current situation. Was it merely a coincidence or was it —

“So. You’re finally back with us. Feeling any better?”

I shook my head and looked up to find a blue-scaled face directly across from me. Catayla had changed her form fitting jumpsuit for one of the black, bulkier versions and carried a rifle much larger than her usual armament. She’d also managed to find a bandolier filled with shiny metal orbs. There were dozens of them, and the belt carrying them had to wrap around her chest twice to accommodate them all.

“Oh. Uh Yeah, much better. It’s like scratching an itch.”

I leaned back in my chair and smiled. I probably looked goofy as hell, but I didn’t care at this point. The vehicle kicked forward at the same time and the engine became louder. The floor began to visibly vibrate and the force of the sudden movement nearly pushed me into the soldier sitting next to me.

“I need to cover a few things with you, so listen up.”

I nodded and held eye contact to let her know I was listening. The vehicle began to shake even more violently as I heard gunfire coming from above. At the same time a deafening boom rang out, and the tank tilted slightly to the left before righting itself.

“We are going to sweep the battlefield,” she yelled above the racket of the oversized engine. “We rendezvous with team A in approximately two and a half minutes. At that time…” she paused to point to the rear wall of the transport. “That wall will blow out and we exit and secure the area. You’re going to be third out the door – just behind me. Do you understand?”

“Got it,” I said. Time to start paying attention to my surroundings - a warzone wasn’t the best place to fuss over my stats. “Stay behind you and secure the area. Simple enough.”

“Good. Finn we’re going to need you out there – your ability to build defenses is going to save lives today. Focus on defense, leave the offense to the big guns.” She patted her comically large rifle fondly as she spoke.

I began to nod, but my head was flung back into the wall behind me as the transport ramped up a hill and came down on the ground hard.

“You’ve got it,” I whimpered. “Here to help.”

“Good—” she put two fingers against one ear and broke eye contact as she looked down and to the left. “Incoming! Hold on to your asses, ladies.”

I copied the Peacekeepers as they pressed their foreheads against their knees. I looked up at Catayala to find that she was the only one still sitting upright. She had a small circular tablet that she was typing into furiously with a single clawed finger.

“Go! Go! Go!” she yelled. Before she finished the final word, I was surrounded by a blue energy shield and the world fell out from under me. I was still belted into my chair but there was nothing beneath me but a thin blue membrane and the hard, rocky earth.

An explosion of orange and red flames lit up everything behind me. To the front was nothing but the ground, which was quickly rising to meet me. I landed with a bone jarring thud as a cloud of dust surrounded me in a hazy fog.

I began to fumble with the buckles securing me to the chair. As the noise picked up around me my heartbeat rose as well. My hands began to sweat and I couldn’t find purchase on the metal clasps. I could hear screams and gunfire, but I couldn’t see what was happening.

In frustration, I turned the fingers on my right hand into blades and began to cut and smash my way out of the chair. I sliced at the belts and pummeled the chair with my elbows and feet. It eventually slid off me as a tattered scrap of cloth, steel, and plastic.

By the time I stood up, the blue shield had completely faded, and the dust had settled enough that I could see a a small group of Peacekeepers standing around me. They had formed a ring and were shooting outwards at shapes that moved just out of sight. I looked, but couldn’t find Catayla among them.

I remembered her orders to focus on defense, and the first thing that came to mind were the hexagonal barriers the Peacekeepers set up throughout their base. The shields would protect us, and the Peacekeepers obviously had training using them.

It took me less than a second to create the constructs. They quickly grew up from the ground until we were surrounded by a ring of hexagonal barriers. The shapes were perfectly designed to be fit together, and I quickly began to construct a roof above us, merging the hexagons into single dome.

I had to credit the Peacekeepers for adaptability, as they immediately took cover and began to fire through the small gaps in the barricade. It was as if this was a routine thing they had trained for a thousand times. Perhaps it was.

As the alien women fired into the shifting fog, I looked back in the direction of the transport. I couldn’t see through the fog, but the light of a large fire pierced the veil of smoke and dust like a beacon. Two more explosions appeared as short bursts of light and sound before fading into the constant rhythm of gunfire.

A strong hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. A large head encased in black armor stared down at me and yelled a few gruff syllables, but I was unable to understand the alien speech.

“I don’t understand,” I yelled while pointing to my ears.

The Peacekeeper looked at me for a moment before nodding. She pressed four outstretched fingers together and pointed using her whole hand before using two fingers to mime walking. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it, but her message was clear.

I dismissed a hexagonal shield and the Peacekeepers fell out in two single file lines, charging across the battlefield. I followed, but chose to place myself between the two lines. I was amazed when they instinctively closed ranks around me, protecting me from every side. It wasn’t much, but I felt much better having meat shields.