For the second time in only a few days David found himself scaling the lookout tower. And unlike the other time, this time he was fully expecting bad news. He followed Alex up the ladder and joined him and Sam at the top.

“Alright Sam, what do you have for me?”

She pointed downstream wordlessly.

David raised his hand above his eyes, straining, trying to see what Sam could. It took a little while, but he thought he saw movement. But it wasn’t the movement of a large group like he was expecting. It looked like a lone person.

“Why don’t you tell me what you can see.” David said. “I can only make out one person. Are there others?”

Sam shook her head. “Not that I can see. I waited a little, but so far it’s just that one person. I thought they might end up going back to join another group once they spotted our walls, but I think they saw us a few minutes ago, and they only seemed to speed up. They’re also limping, and likely hurt pretty badly.”

David did another scan of the horizon, looking for more movement. Why would just one person be coming here? He expected people to come eventually, but just one person? That was outside of his expectations.

“There’s something else,” Sam said.

“Hmm? There’s more?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to tell Alex because I wasn’t sure he would believe me.”

“Oh? Something he wouldn’t believe, eh? Well no need to keep it bottled up. What’s this other news?” Hopefully not another monster horde. He was confident they could hold, but without Kelly it would be… messy.

“It’s… Well, it’s Captain Kelly.”

“What about the captain?”

“She was flying.”

David stared at Sam. He surely must have misheard. Kelly couldn’t fly. If she could it would have solved so many of their problems. But Sam certainly believed she was telling the truth. His Sense Motive skill wasn’t foolproof, but there was at least an element of truth to what Sam was saying.

“Maybe not flying, exactly,” Sam continued, wringing her hands nervously. “It was more of, jumping up really high? Except I know she can’t jump that high. Maybe it was like she was being thrown? It happened a bunch, and the last time she went up really high, like, higher than this tower…”

David tried to process that information. He failed miserably. Why did he sign up for this job anyway? This should be something other people had to deal with. Kelly was crazy enough, and now he had to deal with her randomly flying into the air? Did she find a pair of magical moon shoes or something? God, he wasn’t even being paid for this shit.

“Scouting,” Alex said, drawing the gazes of the other two. “She was scouting. It’s genius, really. I’m not sure why no one else thought of it. Levi must have realized it during the trip.”

David resisted the urge to massage his temples, instead opting to clasp his hands behind his back like a calm, competent leader. One of these days he needed to unlock meditation, but there always seemed to be a more important skill he needed to pick.

“Can you perhaps explain, Alex?”

“Sure. So, you know the captain and I were talking about our lack of scouting, right? We don’t have anyone with a mapping skill that we could use to detect monsters, so we are stuck searching manually for them.”

“Yes, I do remember that conversation. If I recall Kelly was complaining about the, what did you call it, the mobbing speed?”

“Yep, that’s the one. The problem is it’s ludicrously easy for Kelly to torch all the monsters she finds. The only problem is finding them and travel time. On the one hand it’s good there aren’t more hordes roaming around, as it makes it less likely they will attack out settlement, on the other hand it makes it harder to level up as quickly as the time spent travelling vs time spent killing monsters isn’t the best.”

“What does all this have to do with Kelly flying?” David was profoundly grateful for Alex, as this game stuff was out of his element. He was doing his best to learn it, but sometimes he doubted Alex was actually speaking English.

“As I mentioned before, it’s for scouting. We’ve been thinking about this all wrong. Even people without vision skills have improved eyesight now, partly evidenced by how people don’t need glasses, so all we really need is height to get a good look at our surroundings. Kelly was being thrown into the air to get the height necessary to spot a group of monsters for them to kill.”

David took his time processing what Alex was saying. It made his brain hurt but he powered through. God, he needed some coffee.

“So, if I understand correctly,” David said, speaking slowly, “Kelly was being thrown into the air in lieu of a proper vantage point so she could look around?”

“Yeah, basically. Actually, going off of this, there’s probably a lot of other things we are missing. We’ve been thinking about this as a game and relying on skills to do things, but unlike games we aren’t limited here. There’s likely tons of things we are missing. We just need to merge normal Earth problem solving with game-like abilities.”

“Save it for later,” David said, holding up his hand. “We can talk about that stuff when Kelly gets back. Right now I want to focus on the person coming from the south. Alex, thoughts?”

“Right. Um, let’s see, Sam, you mentioned they were injured, right?”

Sam gave a short bob of her head.

“Maybe they were attacked?” Alex continued, thinking out loud. “It’s possible they started out as a larger group but were attacked along the way. Maybe more than once. The other people could be dead, or this person could be sent ahead to get help. Just because there is just one person now doesn’t mean they set out alone, although that’s still possible. Really though, I think you should just talk to them. Unlike Levi, I doubt this person has any significant combat power.”

David nodded.

“I agree. Alex, I want you to stay here with Sam. Sam, let Alex know the moment you spot anyone else. I’ll go down and receive this person. It shouldn’t take too long to find out their story.”

David’s head was swirling with thoughts as he descended from the lookout tower. He knew something like this was coming, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth. After his daughter was born he had tried to leave all this behind. No matter how skilled he was there was always a certain amount of danger involved in his line of work. But God worked in mysterious ways, and if he needed to take charge to protect those close to him he would. Hopefully his precautions would be enough.

David reached the ground and ponderously made his way through the town, searching for Duane. He didn’t actually need to search, but appearances needed to be kept. His ability to find individual people was one card he wanted to keep close to his chest. Another was his and Duane’s relationship. Better no one was aware they had previously known each other. It made what David thought was coming much easier.

After finding Duane and having a short conversation the two of them found five others to form a welcoming party. They had to wait over an hour for the wounded person, a young man, to reach the walls, where David then whisked him away to his office for questioning, Duane in attendance as the muscle.

“You said your name was Connor, correct?” David said, facing the wounded man across the table from him. “Why don’t you tell me about your situation. It looks like you haven’t had the easiest journey.”

Connor was covered in wounds, with a particularly nasty one on his left thigh. David thought he was lucky it avoided the femoral artery.

“Yes, it’s been…” Connor trailed off, staring at the wall before his eyes snapped back to David. “The main settlement is gone. I might be the only one left.”

David made sure to let some of the genuine surprise he felt color his expression. Out of all the scenarios he had planned for, this wasn’t one. The main settlement was gone? He needed more info.

“I don’t mean to doubt you, but can you elaborate? That news is a little hard to believe.”

Connor began his story, slowly at first, then gaining momentum.

“I was out scouting, which is why I’m still alive. It was a monster horde, but not like any others I had seen. There must have been thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. They came like a never-ending wave. The walls might as well have been made of paper. I’m not even sure their goal was to destroy the town. It might have just been in their way.”

“What were they?”

“Armored bison. Or something like that. They had armor covering their head in an upside-down triangle shape. It’s hard to miss. I was on my way back from scouting and saw the whole thing from a nearby hill. The town is just gone. You just can’t fight something like that.”

David wanted to swear. Most of what Connor said had been a lie, but not the part about the town being destroyed. He knew it was likely that some unsavory elements made their way here, but the bad news was outside his expectations. He needed to talk to others about this. If such a horde was roaming around somewhere their current defenses were nowhere near sufficient. It was possible they needed to move.

“So you then decided to make your way here?” David said. “That must have been a hard trip to make alone.”

“I almost died multiple times. Luckily I’m good at surviving.”

“No doubt. I have plenty of other questions, but those can wait for later. Duane, why don’t you take care of Connor? I’m sure he needs some food and rest.”

“Of course,” Duane said, locking eyes with David for the briefest of moments. “Connor you can follow me and I’ll get you situated.”

Eyes swirling with complicated emotions, David watched as Duane led Connor out. It was better David wasn’t personally involved, both because of his rusty skills and his position. It hurt to say it, but Duane was expendable. They were both aware of that. Someone always needed to be ready to take the fall, and David needed to retain his position.

Now that he was alone he slumped back into his chair, massaging his forehead. He knew this would be a hard job. But he was used to hard jobs. This was nothing new. His thoughts turned once more to his daughter, Lily, and his wife, Sylvia. His wife might still be out there somewhere. If anyone could survive, it was her, but the reality was some things couldn’t be faced. Not in this new world. But she might still be out there, fighting, and he had to keep fighting too. Fighting to keep Lily safe in this new world fraught with danger.

David opened the box in his mind he had thought long closed and shoved his emotions away for another time. He had his part to play and Duane had his. He knew this wasn’t the last time he would open that box. Moving with purpose David stood. He still had other things to do on his ever-growing list. It was time stop the self-pity and get back to work.