Frank had after Rina spent the whole day working on it, reviewed her first attempt organizing his notes into a workable document. It was better than his, noticeably. That was a bad feeling. Rina being better at something left a sour taste. It shouldn’t, especially when it was something he’d rather have someone else do anyways, but it did. After examining it, there were about half a dozen significant changes to be made, which Rina said she’d do after she slept next.

Meanwhile, Bill, Maria and Felix had been sitting around bored or practicing their weapons under Frank’s guidance. Frank had given them each personal instruction, but there was only so much time they could spend practicing before they wore out mentally. Monotony was a tiresome thing. After giving up for the day, Bill went over to Frank, who was at that moment still working on the combat manual.

“Hey Frank, uh, what exactly are you going to have us do while we are here?” he asked. “I’m willing to practice my sword, with what I’ve seen I’m more than willing, but that’s not it, right?”

Frank looked at him. “What is it that you want to do?” He planned to take them to clear out the floor of the dungeon regularly. If he waited a day there’d be a new batch of monsters each time. All four of them needed combat experience. Unfortunately, this dungeon wasn’t strong to level up in effectively for anyone unless Felix was lower level than he expected. Other than that, they’d have to find something to do when he wasn’t discussing his plans with them.

“Well, fight things?” Bill said after a short period of consideration.

“We’ll do that,” Frank replied. “Probably tomorrow, and then every day until we leave. But that’s only going to be a couple of hours. You’ll still have the rest of your day.”

“I can handle that, I’d just lose my mind if we just stayed in this room for however long it takes for everything to get done. Fuck, that’d be brutal.”

Frank nodded. Having been interrupted he no longer felt like continuing with his writing. Instead, he went over to confer with Rina. After seeing what she’d done with his primer, she might have a real niche she could fill, instead of just being additional manpower.

“What do you think about handling all the writing we need?” Frank asked her, getting her attention. She’d been practicing her sword, but upon hearing that she stopped immediately. Her face split into a real smile.

“I’d be happy too,” Rina replied, and her voice sounded happy.

“Well, that’s good. Tonight I’m going to discuss plans, and some of that will include recruiting,” Frank told her.

“I did the job postings on craigslist at my work too,” Rina informed him.

“Even better,” Frank said, after taking a moment to remember what craigslist was.

He let her go back to swinging and then busied himself for several hours before he noticed the rest of the group start to slow down. It was time to start planning. Frank got Bill to heat some beans on the stove, and then gathered everyone around to take a meal while he started talking plans and strategy. That was how Vince had structured every meeting. It was always over a meal.

“I’m going to lay out what I want us to do once we leave here,” Frank said, addressing everyone. “Specifically, what we are going do to help this situation, and how to go about it.”

He looked around the room, pausing to invite any questions. When none appeared, he continued.

“First, we need to recruit more people if possible. Especially people with skills. Immediately, I want to find a carpenter and a mason. There’s a bunch of work we need to do on the castle to make it more defensible. Additionally, we could use medical knowledge and a cook. Because of this,” Frank said, holding up the book he had yet to translate, “we might also need a linguist or someone who can figure this out. Finally, if we can find a smith that would be ideal, but I’m not hopeful. There are a bunch of other useful skills people could have, but those are the main ones.”

Frank looked everyone over. “Suggestions?” he asked.

“We could use archers, bowyers. I know you said that they become obsolete, but wouldn’t it help to have them now?” Maria queried.

“Yea,” Frank admitted. “But it won’t be a priority. I can already throw a rock hard enough to kill someone,” Frank replied.

“We could use a typewriter or even a printing press. Someone who knows how to operate one could make getting information out there so much easier,” Rina said. “My hands cramped real bad when I was making copies before, so even the typewriter would help. Maybe offer a reward for one or something?”

“I have no idea where to find either of those,” he told Rina. “Best we can do is put up a flyer or something for it.”

Rina nodded.

“Why is a cook important?” Bill asked.

“Need someone to make the food, especially when we are no longer using cans. Anyone here know how to cook a deer over a fire?”

“I can dress an animal,” Maria replied.

“So can I, but when it comes to cooking it.” Frank looked to the side. “I’d rather have an expert do it. You’ll understand eventually.” Eating in the apocalypse sucked. Especially without a cook. The amount good food contributed to his wellbeing last time was not to be underestimated. When the last cook died, that was the worst deterioration of things up until they lost Anna. People became mean in a hurry when food quality suffered.

Maria frowned at his response, but then schooled her facial expression. Frank ignored that, instead continuing to speak.

“What I think we do is head over to the safe area and put out flyers, and just try and recruit people. Rina can write up the pitch, but we’ll list who and what were are looking for. So we need a list of skills we need to find in people and a list of items we need.”

Felix offered an opinion. “We should just have someone set up a table with the information and then sit there and recruit.”

Frank nodded. “I was thinking that would be the best option. Direct people to our recruiter, then the recruiter can direct them to the castle. I don’t want to make it known exactly where we are if it can be avoided.”

“What if those three give it away?” Maria asked.

“Not much I can do about that unless you think we should have killed them.”

Maria shook her head immediately.

“So, once we start recruiting, we also need to start working on the grounds. Someone can stay back to deal with the trees, and then we need to secure a trailer to transport materials on. We’ll need to do some fortifications, and it’ll take supplies. Lumber, stone, brick, whatever. So day one, that’s what we do. Grab supplies. Then we also need to get a boat set up on the shore nearby. Doesn’t need to be big or complicated, even a canoe. We just need it there in case we need to flee that direction. For the supplies, we’ll need to find a trailer, so I think two people go out biking to find that. One person goes to set up the recruiting, and one person starts removing the trees.”

“So we are going to split up then? You were super against that. I get why too,” Bill questioned.

“We can regroup here and confirm our identities via the dungeon, then report our results,” Frank said. “I don’t want to split up, it’s dangerous. I don’t see us getting anything done in a reasonable time if we don’t though. This month will be the last chance to prepare before you will have to fend for yourself at least part of the time.”

The conversation continued, until after a few suggestions, Frank had worked out a bunch of practical concerns to be dealt with immediately upon exit. Rina wrote it down in list form for him. That done, the meeting ended, and Frank went to bed.

When he awoke, he made himself breakfast and then worked on his combat manual until everyone else was up. Then, he gathered all four of his companions and made an expedition out into the dungeon. He did not participate in the fighting, instead letting them handle opponents. Sometimes he’d have them fight as a group, other times he’d single out one of them to fight alone. Maria, Bill and Felix all were able to do this effectively. Rina was not much of a solo combatant at all, unfortunately, and Frank had to step in with her and only her.

He could see the confidence she’d gained from being given something useful to do fade away each time she failed. When the four of them fought together, she was able to stay calm enough to act according to whatever strategy Frank had told them, to intelligently use her sling, even provide support in melee with her sword. But faced with a single enemy, and nothing between her and it, she panicked.

She didn’t turn and run or drop or sword, but her poise was lost. She became clumsy, her attacks were ill-timed, and the things that she had been taught flew out the window. Even her accuracy with thrown stones that had noticeably improved over the few weeks she’d been practicing fled her. Frank didn’t know what to do about it. If she couldn’t handle herself then she couldn’t be alone, and she’d end up limited in what she could do to help.

There had to be a solution. Increased stability would help, of course. But it wouldn’t fix everything. It might stop her from panicking or freezing up, but her composure, she’d have to learn that before she could maintain it. Frank had never had to harden someone. By the time he was in a position where he might be senior to anyone, everyone left was already hardened. He was at a loss for the moment. He decided, in the end, to stop having her fight alone for now, and just keep it to group battles. He could try and figure it out later.

From there, she recovered a bit now that she was no longer asked to fight by herself. Maria, Felix, and Bill took to it well though. Frank led them through the second half of the dungeon floor, systematically sweeping through it out to the start of the second diversion. It took five hours in all, for the group to end up back in the midpoint safe room. Everyone cleaned themselves up and grabbed some food, before resting.

Rina didn’t talk to anyone, instead, after washing herself, she sat down at the desk and started revising the document according to Frank’s suggestions. It took her only an hour before she brought it to Frank again. This time, he felt it was solid, and gave her the go-ahead to start making copies of it. She did exactly that, throwing herself into it for several hours, making half a dozen copies. Felix, for a time, came over to help, copying out one himself, but seeing that she was not going to talk at all, he let her be.

There was no real privacy in the room. The sheet from the extra bunk had been hung up to form a changing room of sorts, but given the risk of being attacked anywhere outside of it, there was nowhere to go. Everyone could see Rina struggling, but after watching Felix fail to get a response, no one moved to talk to her. Instead, they went about their own business. Bill practiced his sword, his immense vitality allowing him to recover within half an hour from the exertions of the day. Maria simply relaxed on her bunk, staring upwards. Frank continued with his document.

He made progress that day. Watching the others fumble about had given him some ideas on how to say things. He’d now gotten a rough draft of the basics of how to stand and hold most of the weapons the system might offer. He’d observe again tomorrow, hopefully, it would clear a few more things up. When evening came, Frank called another meeting. This time, it was about the specifics of what supplies they needed. During that, it came up that someone would need to fulfill the role of quartermaster. Frank didn’t hesitate to assign it to Bill, for now.

“Why me though?” Bill asked, perplexed.

“Because you don’t have any other important skills besides fighting. If we aren’t fighting, then you’ll have nothing to do, so you can handle this for the time being,” Frank told him.

“That’s fucking lame dude,” Bill said. “I’ll do it but that sounds so goddamn boring.”

“It’s probably more boring than starving to death or freezing to death or dying of an infection,” Maria spat at him. “This is life or death. Get your head out of your ass.”

Frank gave them both a look. Maria was genuinely angered by Bill’s attitude, and honestly, he understood completely, but he’d also warned her about her conduct. Bill looked back at Frank aggrieved, while Maria turned away, unwilling to meet his gaze. Since she hadn’t directed it at him, and she seemed to realize she’d stepped out of line, he’d just make her apologize afterward. Even if she wasn’t wrong.

The discussion continued, and in the end, they had a list of things they’d look for. For clothing, they needed high-quality boots, and the means to maintain them. Frank was firm on this. They’d run out of usable footwear near the end, and that had meant that those in the party without high constitution had damn near been crippled after a couple of weeks on the move. Frank also wanted to, if possible, outfit Bill and Felix in riot armour. That’d mean finding a police station with it. Maria and Rina probably would struggle to find any that fit, but he’d look for them too. Other than that, high-quality socks in large quantities, and lots of clothing that properly fit. They already had adequate winter clothing scavenged on their way to Seattle, so they were set there.

Medical supplies were needed too. Rina had, in her only input the entire meeting, suggested just the entire pharmacy section of a grocery store of all the pills, vitamins, supplements, medicine, and medical equipment available. That might not be a bad idea.

Beyond that, they needed more food, building supplies, and a typewriter.

The day ended with that, and Frank went to bed once more. When he woke up, a similar day repeated. For a few days, it was more of the same. Clear half the dungeon, rest, have a meeting in the evening, repeat. Over that period, Frank managed to rough out about a third of what he wanted to say on combat into something he thought was intelligible. Rina had made forty copies of the revised document, and everyone was more comfortable fighting. Rina’s inability to fight solo remained a significant problem, but Frank still had no solution, other than potentially just making her do it until she got over it. That carried the risk of just causing her to have a breakdown, or of her leaving. Neither was a preferable outcome.

Eventually, though, the number of abominations became noticeably larger. After the first week, enemies stopped appearing solo. Several days after that, their level started to increase. By two weeks in, there was no way any of his companions could be expected to fight solo. They moved in a tight diamond, Bill at the point, Maria and Felix on his flanks, and Rina working from the rear.

Frank started working especially with Felix, getting him to practise throwing spears. It took quite a while before he could consistently make a sharp spear, weighted properly for throwing and sufficiently aerodynamic to fly true, using his ice magic, but once he managed that, Frank started getting him to practise hitting targets. Usually, he’d affix an empty can to a far wall and Felix would throw.

While he was not accurate, he could launch them pretty hard, and with the addition of that threat, Frank rarely had to help them. If things went well, two enemies would be down before they even closed into melee range, due to the ranged support provided by Felix and Rina. That did something to counter the rising density of creatures within the dungeon.

There was a point when it became just too much, though, and Frank had them abort a run through the dungeon prematurely, returning early to the safe room. The ever-increasing number of monsters out there meant that it was no longer within his companion's abilities to handle it. It was time to stop and look to leave. They had one final meeting that evening, and there Bill broached the subject of heading into the diversions once again.

“Well, have you thought about trying to get magic powers?” Bill asked, as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“The system hasn’t given any sign that it wants me to go,” Frank responded.

“You said it yourself though, nothing has dropped for two weeks now. There’s no loot for it to stick something in.”

They’d received odds and ends over the first week and a half of grinding, but nothing super valuable outside of a third health potion. A self-repairing shirt that went to Felix, and a spear, which Frank had handed to Rina, leaving them with an extra sword. Other than that, a couple of scrolls which had turned out to be nonsense was all that had been on offer. Frank had wondered if there was some penalty to the rate of drops based on someone’s level. That would make a lot of sense. After the number of enemies had started to increase, though, nothing more came.

“We’ll do one run tomorrow to clear out the path back as much as possible. I’ll take the lead on it. If there isn’t a specific sign by then, so be it, and we will exit,” Frank said. They needed to thin out that part of the dungeon so they could easily haul their stuff back out anyways. There was still a decent amount of food, plus everything else they’d brought.

At the news of being able to leave, Felix, Rina, and Maria all visibly perked up. Maria had been better behaved since then but was struggling to be stuck in the same room as everyone else the entire time. Rina was in poor spirits, and Felix was still uneasy being in a dungeon at all.

The past two weeks had seen all of them improve their combat ability. Felix had levelled up twice, Maria once, and Bill said he was close as well. Everyone had grown more comfortable working together and individually, with the exception of Rina still being unable to fight alone. Against unintelligent enemies, the other three were probably capable of handling themselves. Against an opponent who could think, anything could happen. Frank had earlier decided on getting equipment to spar with. Blunted spears, wooden swords, and the like. They’d need to start practicing against real people. None of them besides Bill had a grasp on anything but the most basic techniques. They’d need a long time to get there, and ideally wouldn’t be fighting at all, yet. Circumstances demanded otherwise.

After sleeping, Frank roused everyone for one last sweep through. It proceeded, with Frank taking the lead and doing most of the fighting, quite smoothly. Numbers were no match for Frank’s mace, not when the enemies in question were rarely even slightly intelligent. It was after a spear thrown by Felix finished off the last of a group of wolves with big tortoise shells on their backs and huge fangs that curled out of their mouth and down under their jaw, that something happened.

Experimental Abomination(Level 4) defeated. Felix awarded 300EXP. Frank awarded 100EXP.

Bill noticed it first, on the ground in front of Felix. “Hey Felix, look down.”

Felix glanced towards Bill first, then down at his feet. He picked something up and held it for everyone to see. It was a single, tattered paperback; Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne.

Bill’s eyes immediately lit up. “If that’s not proof you should go, then there’s nothing that’ll convince you,” he told Frank, excitedly.

Frank frowned. He really didn’t want to take the risk. He knew there were good reasons to, and the book made it extremely likely that whoever was communicating with him wanted him to go. He wouldn’t be in control, if he did, though. That was enough to make him pause. Being the one making the decisions, that wasn’t what he cared about. If anything, he wanted the opposite. But ultimately, even if he was following someone else, he always had control. He could always leave. If he just wandered off into the diversions, then every time he stepped into a new one he’d be putting it on faith that someone else would keep him from harm. Someone he didn’t know, who’s motivations were a mystery.

Yet, at the same time, what real choice did he have? If he wanted to convince people to follow him, there really was only one option. He recognized that. He wasn’t charismatic, he wasn’t a genius. The only way he could progress was through pure power. If he didn’t take this opportunity, and then failed to rally people around him, he would be relying on someone who he wouldn’t know whether they existed to step up and lead humanity forward. Would his documents be enough to help things along? There was no way to know, but he doubted it.

Frank hesitated, waffling on going, while they finished off sweeping through. Finally, having returned to the safe room, he sat down on his bunk and exhaled deeply.

“I’ll be going into the diversions,” Frank told the others, forcing himself to make the decision. “That means we need to talk about what you will all do if I don’t return.”

Bill looked at him, utterly confident. “There’s no way we’ll fail to make it back. This is an obvious freebie.”

“We?” Frank asked.

“I’m going with you, at the least. Maria and Rina might want to come too,” he said in return.

“No you aren’t,” Frank denied flatly. “I’m not taking on any additional risks. You will all slow me down. I need to travel as quickly as possible so that I can make it there and back with the supplies I’m able to take with me. None of you can match that pace.”

Bill’s eyes widened, face aghast. “No fucking way! It’s fucking magic dude. I’m not fucking sitting here and letting you get it while I don’t!”

“Yes you are,” Frank replied. “If this works, we can look at having you all explore out while I clear the dungeon after a set time to extract you. But I’m not bringing you along.”

“I can match your pace. I don’t even need to stop. My vitality is so high. Remember?” Bill exhorted.

“I don’t think it’s the best course of action, and so that’s not what’s going to happen. You are all going to leave the dungeon with the rest of our equipment. Wait a couple of hours tops for me, then leave if I don’t show,” Frank put his foot down and flatly closed the discussion. Bill went to argue further, but Frank just shook his head. “I’m not going to discuss this.”

Maria cut in, taking away any opportunity for Bill to keep going. “What exactly do you want us to do if you don’t show?”

“Go to the Provisos with all the information you have. Make your best judgement about what you can do to help things, whether working with them is worthwhile. If you can get there, spread the information to Portland, Vancouver, Victoria, San Francisco; as far as you can. If you stay in Seattle but don’t join up with the provisional government, recruit enough people to staff the castle. Look for a woman named Anna, with auburn hair, a prominent hook nose, and big bags under her eyes. She’ll have a slight Eastern European accent. She was a healer when I went through this the first time. I don’t know where she was from exactly, but it was Washington, as far as I can tell.” Frank gave them basic instructions.

“Past that, the future is too unpredictable to give more advice,” Frank opined.

Maria nodded. “Okay, that’s all doable. Is this Anna chick going to be useful?” She asked.

“She was the second most important person besides David to my survival,” Frank said.

Rina had been taking notes, Frank noted.

“Before that, though, we need to pack everything we need to keep up and bring it to the safe room. Then you can all ferry it out, besides what I need,” Frank told his companions. “No time to waste, with how fast things are appearing now, we want to get everything over before the critters come back.”

That decided, everyone started hauling things back. Frank took the smallest load, in order to be able to react to anything happening, but with how much food they’d expended, it would only take one and a half trips to return everything. He left his pack, supplied for his trip, back in the midpoint room. He’d start exploring out from the midpoint, in the hopes that there might be additional resting points further out from the centerline.

When all was said and done, everyone stood in the starting room, and a brief goodbye was shared.

Bill was still put out, and Maria simply nodded at him. Rina, surprisingly, hugged him and told him to be safe.

“This is His will,” Felix said. “I know you will succeed. I will wait,”

Then, Frank waited for Bill to disappear, before turning back to the midpoint. He jogged at a rapid pace, unsustainable to a mundane human. Frank was no longer that, however, and he knew he could keep the pace going for days. At the midpoint, he filled every waterskin he had managed to acquire, checked that his pack full of food was properly prepared, and ensured his compass was safely stowed away. He donned his mace and shield, then struck out, picking East over West at random.

***

Ghulam stood over the corpse of a kobold. The ugly, reptilian creatures had kidnapped a couple of people, in a repeat of what happened in Redstone. Here, it was not a mysterious stranger to the rescue, it was Sean. The man had organized the town into a credible defence and then led a raid with almost fifty people. Ghulam had participated. It had gone off without a hitch. The hulking figure of Sean had simply overwhelmed the kobold chief with his superior physical strength, while the others had the numbers advantage to deal with the rest of the things.

Sean had done many things. The densest part of the place had been walled off, watches were set. Strangers needed to be vetted to enter, to lower the risk of skinwalkers. Ghulam had already identified two and killed one himself. He had planned on just passing through, not revealing his status as a doctor, nor that he had a wisdom score of twelve, specifically to identify his enemy. But when he saw the first skinwalker, standing there chatting with an unsuspecting woman, he couldn’t help himself. All his feelings of fear, self-loathing, and helplessness that those things had caused him, the fact that he’d been forced to leave his friend behind to his fate, it all came to the forefront of his mind. There, standing in front of him, was the thing that had caused his plight. He’d felt white-hot rage then, and had shouted out what it was, before leaping upon it himself. He’d only had a stick at the time, but he’d broken it over the things head.

Many hours later, Ghulam had watched, tied up, as they tested and confirmed that the thing was, in fact, a skinwalker. His bonds had been removed then. He’d stayed for two days, culminating in his current situation, standing in the ruins of the encampment the kobolds had created. He would leave tomorrow. He’d received much from this stop, but he had a goal that beckoned still. His daughter. Seattle, first, then he’d find a way to his daughter. Once she was safe, he’d look to make amends. Somehow. Hugo was probably dead, but he had kin. His daughter was with the mysterious stranger. She’d have a good chance of being fine. He could help Hugo that way. Help her as best he could. It was the least he could do.