Now that Frank was sitting in the dungeon, he got to work. Being in the dungeon gave Frank a sense of security. Time constraints faded away to distant issues the moment he was subject to the dilation inside. He’d probably have two or three days of just him and Felix before the others arrived with another load of stuff. He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d talk to him about, besides getting his full recounting of what had happened, so he could compare it to Maria’s.

Since Frank was already thinking about combat, his focus drifted towards Felix. He’d need to ask Felix how his magic worked. Frank had only seen him summon the sword, but given he’d talked about cooling the cellar it was likely he could do more. Depending on how strong the ice was, it might be better for Felix to switch to a spear. He didn’t have any training yet, so there was a chance that he could still make the change. On the other hand, he could have been using the sword for years to defend himself and hunt in the dungeon. Frank would just have to have that conversation later.

Seeing that Felix was still struggling with himself, Frank decided not to broach the topic now. He’d let him settle down. Instead, he refocused on his writing. He spent several hours focused on explaining combat as he understood it. He felt he’d managed to get down every straight forward thing, and much of the ideas he was able to come up with were narrow enough in application that they weren’t particularly worth practicing. It wouldn’t do any good to just list all the different things you could do. He’d have to reduce things down to straight forward points and explain how to practice it. That was going to be a difficult task. Just thinking of enough stuff that he could start sorting through it was hard, actually connecting everything into something understandable was going to stretch Frank’s mind to its limit, he could already tell.

He considered and wrote until he could no longer maintain any focus, then got up. Frank walked around the room, stretching his legs out, and then focused on Felix.

“Are you okay?” Frank asked, trying to sound suitably concerned.

“No,” Felix answered. “I want to leave.” He spoke quieter than he normally did.

Frank stared at him, waiting for him to continue. He’d never been good at pep-talks or motivating.

“I need to be here,” Felix said, after a long pause. “Why would He have me wait there if not to help you, but I’m weak.”

He looked down. “Every time I cannot focus on something else I just think of being trapped here, unable to leave, again, and again. Every ten minutes I make myself stay.”

Frank nodded. “Maybe if you do something that’ll help. You should practice with your sword.”

“I don’t think it could get worse,” Felix said. He didn’t move to do that right away though, instead staring off at nothing for several minutes. After a time, he did stand.

Frank went over the basics of sword-fighting with him. Felix didn’t take to it well at all, but he tried. It took over an hour to get him properly practicing the most basic swing. He wasn’t going to get very far in one day even if he was locked in, but with his current mental state put off-balance by being in the dungeon, the only progress he was going to make was therapeutic. Frank let him swing away, hoping that exertion would calm him. He was in no mood to write at the moment, so instead, he chose to sleep.

He woke after seven hours, refreshed, to the sight of Felix drenched in sweat, swinging the sword. The form Frank had shown him was completely absent. He was just going through the motions, obviously exhausted.

“You should stop,” Frank called out to him. “You are doing it wrong and you’ll hurt yourself.”

Felix’s shoulders tensed at the noise, and he stopped, his ice sword melting into water which soon dissipated. His arms dropped to his side, and he exhaled. “I did stop. I couldn’t stay stopped.”

Frank nodded. That he could relate to. “Is there a reason you made yourself a sword? Could you make your ice into a different shape?” he asked him.

Felix cocked his head slightly. “When I first received my blessing, that was the form it took. It was His will, that my gift took this form.”

“Oh,” Frank said. That kind of closed off broaching the subject of switching to a spear. Still, he wanted to learn more about the specifics of Felix’s magic. It’d simultaneously give Frank and understanding of the man’s capabilities and potentially provide a useful framework for understanding magic in general.

“How hard is your sword when you summon it? Have you tested it against anything?” Frank queried.

“It cuts through bone,” Felix said after thinking.

“Have you tested it against metal?” Frank continued.

“No,” Felix said.

Frank nodded. “Does the ice have to stay touching you or can you potentially create a weapon for someone else or throw something?”

“As long I have enough mana, it doesn’t go away if I don’t will it. I don’t have to keep touching it.” Felix responded quite openly to Frank’s questions.

“So you could potentially create say a javelin to throw?”

“I think so. But it’d be too cold for anyone else to touch barehanded.”

Frank was intrigued by that. “Too cold?” he asked, carefully.

“If something besides me touches it, they get frostbitten,” Felix supplied.

“How much can you have at once?”

“I don’t really know. The more I have out at once the harder it is to create any more. Maybe fifty pounds? I’d probably be exhausted by that, though.”

“So if you were to let some of it disappear it’d be easier to make more?” Frank questioned.

“I think so,” Felix said.

Frank looked thoughtful. “Do you have to create the ice touching you? Could you make it on the ground in front of you to deny someone stable footing?”

“I can only make it from my hands,” Felix replied.

Frank questioned Felix about it for quite a while and came to the conclusion that Felix would be best off throwing things. He could make a javelin, throw it at someone, then immediately let it dissipate and summon another one cheaply. Then if he needed to, use his sword in close quarters. Not needing to carry a stack of them with him would be a huge advantage. He’d broach the subject later.

Felix in turn, asked Frank a few questions, clearly not wanting to deal with his own thoughts at that moment.

“Why do you use a mace?” He asked Frank. “Aren’t swords better?”

“First real weapon I found was a mace. That’s all there is to it, honestly. I didn’t have a choice until I’d already started travelling that path,” Frank shrugged. “They have their advantages. Easier to handle can do more damage to armoured opponents in some situations.”

“Would you choose it for yourself if you could decide what weapon you started with?”

“As in, do I think it’s the best weapon? Definitely not. I’d much rather have started with a spear,” Frank said.

“Why a spear?” Felix asked, curiously.

“Most of the people who were around at the end used spears. They tended to live longer,” Frank replied. Besides him, only Peter hadn’t used one out of the melee fighters, at least among the last couple dozen people. He’d never felt he was less effective in a fight, or even that his allies who had used swords or other weapons were, but as their numbers slowly wore down, it became clear that the shorter the weapon range, the less likely survival was.

Felix frowned at Frank’s explanation. “Why does Bill use a sword then?”

“It’s what we have. Equipment, stuff the dungeon gives a description for, is just better than mundane weapons. If I had a good spear I’d have him use that instead, but that’s not something I have control over.”

Felix nodded, just slightly. The conversation died off. After a minute of silence, Frank went back to his writing. He worked on his more general document; which by now had almost everything he thought was likely to be useful. He just needed to turn it into something easily understandable and organized. That was much easier to do than the combat manual, it just took time. Frank tired of editing before more than an hour had passed and put his paper down. He glanced at Felix.

He was sleeping, presumably having tired himself enough with his sword to overcome his nervousness. That meant that Frank had his thoughts for company, and little else. All there really was to do was to work on his documents and mull over his actions. He tried the former and made little more progress. Then he stood up, stretched, and paced the room. It was going to be a very boring time.

After pacing, he started thinking. The first thing that came to mind was the castle, and what he needed to do with it. The property walls, fortunately, had wrought iron along the top and were tall enough that nothing would casually go over them. They were scalable, probably without too much difficulty, but that was fine. Most properties didn’t have walls at all. The grounds themselves, however, needed work. The trees had to go. There needed to be clear sightlines from the castle out to the edges. That would be a lot of work; some of them were quite huge. He’d have to figure that out. The outbuildings as well; the garden shed and the workshop would need to go. With the whole plot clear cut, there’d still be other things to attend to. A place to keep watch on the roof, the fortifying of all the windows, and the blocking off of the main door. None of that would be easy, and it wasn’t Frank’s expertise.

It led neatly into what he realized would become a major problem. He had no skilled help. Maria and Bill were perhaps competent, and Felix and Rina tried, but none of them were skilled at anything he had an immediate need for. Right now, unlike previously, there still might be enough people with the knowledge he needed. It’d have to be a priority to find them. With only four companions, he couldn’t even properly defend the castle. There simply weren’t enough people to safely split up, long term. Frank felt like he needed at least a dozen in his group. Then groups of four or more could come and go while still leaving the castle occupied.

He’d need a mason and a carpenter. The latter was probably much easier to acquire than the former. If he could find a smith, that’d be even better, but the odds on that were so low he didn’t have much hope. A doctor would be helpful, as would anyone skilled in combat. Beyond that, there were a lot of potentially useful professions. Seamstress, tailor, leatherworker, plumber, quartermaster, and due to the books sitting in his bag, a linguist all came to mind. Actually recruiting people seemed like it might be a serious problem, given how that had gone so far.

He had a conspiracy theorist, a religious fanatic, a middle-aged woman, and the most stable person in his group, by all appearances, hated him. That the feeling was somewhat mutual was little comfort. He clearly could not attract the people he wanted. What was there to do then? Frank could probably hire someone, offer them supplies or equipment in exchange for their expertise, but getting anyone to stay? He didn’t see it happening right now. Not until things really went to shit.

Would anyone else have better luck? Frank thought about it. Bill, maybe. The others, definitely not. Any recruiting pitch would also encourage people to try and take advantage of him. He wasn’t worried about being overpowered, but if someone snuck off, what could he realistically do? This wasn’t like his previous group, where survival so thoroughly depended on staying together that walking off alone was literally suicide. People wouldn’t feel like that yet. Given the current situation, who would want to leave the safety of the government perimeter to go off into an empty suburb?

Frank filed that line of thinking aside. He’d not be able to act on it for a while. Instead, he organized all the stuff off to one side, and then went back to staring at his writing. The next day and a half passed without incident. Felix slowly became less tense, Frank showed him some basic swordplay, and he picked at his writing like a scab, making a bit of progress.

Then, the other three arrived. They put down everything they were laden with hastily. Frank noted that much of it was not well held. Perhaps one of them had rightfully realized that since they didn’t have to carry it anywhere, as long as they could hold it long enough to enter the dungeon, whether it was properly secured was irrelevant. Frank looked up from his notes, and Felix stopped swinging his ice blade.

Frank addressed everyone else present. “Now that we are all in, we are going to relocate to the halfway point. We’ll take as much as we can easily carry, and we can resupply from here whenever we run low.”

Rina gave him a questioning look.

“Easier to go to where the water is than ferry it back and forth. Less travel means less risk,” Frank explained to her. “For now, get as much as you can easily carry and set aside if we run into an enemy. I’ll deal with anything that shows up for the trip in, but stuff happens, so don’t take too much.”

Felix walked over and hefted a pack which he’d prepared in boredom hours ago. Bill and Rina had to open their packs and rearrange a bit, while Maria was ready to go immediately. Frank grabbed his, then donned his shield and wielded his mace.

“Let’s go. Once we get there nothing will be pressing immediately, so you can take as long a break as you want,” he told them.

It was with some relief he set off, as no one had decided to cut loose and leave. He thought it sad that he’d been thinking of their inadequacies only two days ago, but still didn’t want them to leave. The trip in was almost the same as the first time he visited the dungeon. The mixed-up animals appeared regularly, attacked him, and were dispatched.

“Are they going to just go after you too?” Bill asked after the fourth one.

Frank tilted his head. “Why don’t we test that. You take the lead and I’ll be behind you to help if need be.”

Bill stepped out to the front as they walked down a mostly featureless hallway. The next creature to appear had the shape of a cat, but with sharp, porcupine-like spines that shone ominously. It was about the size of a medium dog, not quite knee height at the shoulders. Its eyes were uncannily like a human’s. It yowled, then charged straight at them. Frank stepped slightly to the side of Bill, standing behind him, to see whether the creature diverted towards him.

It did not. It simply attacked Bill, the nearest person. Bill was not successful at cleanly dispatching it, so Frank intervened and crushed its skull before the man got himself injured.

“Doesn’t look like it,” Frank said. “I thought it would, but I guess whatever caused all those husks to go after me was either innate to them specifically or there was some other reason that I have no way to understand.”

“Could it be a dungeon versus outside thing?” Rina asked. “Maybe whatever targeted you can’t do anything inside here?”

Frank thought that over. “Maybe. Not sure how that could be confirmed though.”

Bill voiced his agreement for Rina’s idea. “I think it’s obvious you are being targeted outside. Otherwise, why would you go back in time only to immediately get fucked over by those skinwalkers? There’s probably competing interests or something.”

Felix nodded along with that. Only Maria seemed to have any skepticism. Frank wasn’t sure what to think but decided that he couldn’t figure it out right now, so he’d wait for more information before thinking on it further. He took the lead again and the party continued onwards. After a few more brief encounters with enemies, they arrived at the halfway point. It was a spartan looking barrack, with three bunk beds across one wall, a desk and a shared bathroom whose sink was likely the source of freshwater.

Maria narrowed her eyes. “Isn’t this a little too convenient? We come in planning to stay for a while and now there’s sleeping quarters and a bathroom?”

Frank’s heart started beating faster. He gripped his mace tight enough his knuckles went white, before forcing himself to relax. Every bit of further evidence that the system was, in fact, communicating broke his calm a little more. At this point, he’d be an idiot not to simply accept it as fact. He took a deep breath.

“It’s almost certain either the system or something using the system is communicating with me. To what end I don’t know, but this is another piece of evidence,” Frank told everyone.

He proceeded to clearly explain every instance he suspected, including the fact that Rina had been reading Phantom of the Opera after he asked for the system to send a mask. That really disturbed Rina.

“The system made me read that? It controlled me?” she looked distraught at the thought.

“All it would have to do is arrange things so that you stumble upon the book,” Bill consoled her. “If it can conjure rewards out of nothing, why couldn’t it leave the book where you’d find it?”

She still didn’t look okay, but she nodded.

“What are you going to do about that?” Bill asked Frank.

“See if I can find out what it wants. Something communicated with Felix when he went deep enough into a diversion, so that’s always a possibility, but I don’t want to get stuck out there.” Frank told them.

“Can’t you use a compass? That was one of the things you showed us,” Rina asked.

“I can until I can’t. Diversions change reality. All it takes is a diversion where the compass stops working, or that’s unnavigable, or where I am unable to move. Then I’m stuck until someone clears the dungeon or I starve. Though I’ve never encountered one for self-evident reasons, there’s nothing suggesting a diversion couldn’t just kill you instantly,” Frank told her. David had first suggested that, years ago, when there were forty people exploring a dungeon. No one had been able to prove or disprove what he said, so it’d just become accepted that there was a real risk of just dying if you went deep enough in.

“Yea but the system is communicating with you. Why would it let you die like that if it wanted something from you? It did this,” Bill said, his arm pointing around the room. “No reason it couldn’t make the path in deeper safe.”

Frank thought that over but rejected just going and checking. Caution had been key to him surviving. “If that’s the case, whatever set this up can let me know. I’m not going on an assumption though; people I went into diversions with before disappeared one step in front of me and never returned.”

Bill looked disappointed. “There’s no way something this obvious isn’t intentional. I think you are making a mistake.” He didn’t try and convince Frank further though, content to let it be known he disagreed.

Frank shook his head in response and went to go put his stuff down by one of the bunks. The others followed suit. Soon, each person had picked out their bed. Frank ended up with a bunk to himself, while the other four paired off by gender, Bill and Rina taking the bottom bunks, Felix and Maria the top. Then, it was time to get started working.

Frank addressed everyone. “Right now, what being here gives us is time. That’s why I’m here; no other reason. I need to finish the things I’m writing. That’s one of the two reasons I’m here. The other is to make a coherent plan in regards to what I want to do. Your input on both of those things will be helpful, but I don’t think that’s going to take up an entire month of your time. What exactly do you want to do while you are here?”

Rina answered immediately. “I thought you’d have a plan.”

“There are things you can do to help me out, and you should practice with your sling and your sword,” Frank replied.

“Other than that, or even including that if you think there’s something more important you should be doing, it’s up to you. Just keep in mind that if I do tell you to do something I need you to actually do it. That was implied by you agreeing to come here with me.”

“What could I do that would help you out?” she asked, after thinking for a moment.

“When I start detailing specifically what I want to do, any suggestions you have. And once I’m done with the new version of my explanation of this situation, making copies by hand.”

“Okay,” Rina turned to think.

“Do whatever you want for now, if you want instruction on using your weapons, I can give you something to practice,” Frank said to everyone.

He walked over to the desk, papers in hand, and pulled out his notes. He’d deal with the primer on the system first, that way he could get the others to make more copies of it. He got to work as the three who’d not already spent a day in the dungeon began to lounge. He wasn’t surprised they were feeling tired. New places, a stressful situation, and especially what had happened with Lana and her friends made for an unrestful night followed by an exhausting half-day.

Frank had all the stuff that he thought was important already, so he merely ordered it on a page, trying to make it flow. The process was miserable. Everything he put down felt stilted and poorly expressed. He gave up in frustration, instead of returning to his manual of combat. That at least was more fruitful. He wasn’t any closer to getting it done, but as he started trying to order his observations, they naturally led to connections that he hadn’t consciously thought of. He worked on it on and off until Rina got up and wandered to his desk, asking him to instruct her.

He showed her a sword move, and then set her practicing it. Bill dragged himself off the bed he was reclining in and practiced it too. Felix and Maria were going over Bible verse, which one of them had procured the book, Frank did not know. Eventually, Rina ran out of steam and sat down. She addressed Frank.

“So how much longer before you finish writing something?” she asked.

“I’m figuring out the best order to put things in for the expanded document,” Frank replied. “No idea how long that will take.”

A bit of enthusiasm crept into Rina’s voice. “I can do that if you’d like. I did PR for my job. And everything else no one else wanted to.”

Frank considered that. His estimation of his abilities when it came to this was low enough that it might just be better to let her arrange it. He could always check it over and get Rina to make changes.

“Sure,” he said. “Do up a draft and I can look it over to make sure nothing important was missed. My notes are on the desk.”

Rina nodded, then continued resting.

With that now off his plate for the time being, that left only two things in his queue. Making a concrete, specific plan to move forward, and his manual on combat. He couldn’t delegate either off to someone else, he’d have to do it himself. No one had the needed knowledge besides him. That was a heavy burden. Frank didn’t have a hero complex. Any hint of that had been brutally destroyed when he watched Vince get cut down while he was helpless to aid him when he fled and left Garrett to his fate. The desire to help others, to do good, that had rekindled with his rebirth was not something that drove him onwards.

If it did, everything would be easier, but what kept him going was fear. Fear of death, fear of solitude, fear of failure. Frank knew that. He just wished it wasn’t the case. He could always improve his Stability, mute it, dull it, but that would dull everything else, and he’d be like he was before. And he knew he would fail if he was simply the Frank of old. He needed to be something more, and he felt inadequate compared to that which he ought to become.

Frank mulled over what he had done so far. When he looked at it logically, no one else alive would have any hope of accomplishing what he had in such a short timeframe. Yet he felt like he’d failed on multiple fronts. If it’d been Peter or David or Vince or Garrett, Frank knew they’d be much better off right now. All his gains were, when he looked at it honestly, the result of the advantage he had from already going through this, rather than any innate quality he possessed. It begged a question Frank had not a hint of an answer for; why him?