Frank was still torn, even as the night went on. Part of him wished he had just killed the guy and dumped the body. If he’d known Maria would be gung-ho about it he might have been swayed. The thought still made his stomach turn a bit, but he could have done it. It was too late to second guess though. He’d made the decision the moment he simply captured him, even if he let other people have their input. Granted, the back of his mind was still wary about Maria, and the idea of giving her leverage over him was not appealing, but in hindsight, it was clear it would have been fine.

He absentmindedly practiced with his new magic as he waited for morning. He used a coin, placed on his open palm, and carefully rolled it up and down his arm, trying to keep it from falling over as it went from finger to shoulder and back. What to do with him then? If there was somewhere he could be locked up or otherwise made unable to return, that would solve that. But otherwise, was he going to let him go free? That definitely wouldn’t work.

He shook his head, annoyed at himself, and tossed the coin aside. How to resolve this. Morning came without answers, and Frank checked on his captive. He was still tied up on the floor, in obvious discomfort. Frank greeted him.

“Got to figure out what to do with you, Daniel,” Frank said.

“Just fucking kill me you dishonest piece of shit. You think I don’t see the theatre? You just want to look good in front of the mousy one and then deal with me later,” Daniel responded viciously. Frank was impressed by how his strong anger seemed to prevent him from doing any real thinking, and how long he sustained it, but it didn’t make freeing him any more attractive.

“If I wanted to do that, you would have died last night and no one would be the wiser. The question is, what do I do with you now?”

“Fucking let me go then. What are you going to do, lock me in the cellar again?” Daniel frothed.

“No, I need to be able to use the cellar,” Frank deadpanned. “You are literally laying here helpless, completely at my mercy, and you are still trying to pick a fight. What’s the point?”

“The point is I’m no bitch and you are all fucking psychos,” Daniel responded. He stared straight into Frank’s eyes.

Frank just sighed and walked away. The guy had some sort of mental disorder to act like that. He got everyone up and then convened a meeting upstairs. “He’s deranged. He spent the night lying on the floor, tied up, cold, helpless, and unable to move, and all he wants to do is try and assert dominance,” Frank told everyone. “I don’t know what to do with him.”

It was Felix who spoke up, surprisingly. “I don’t think there’s another way. I spoke with Rina about it. Neither of us wants to die, and we can’t pretend he’ll just disappear if we let him go or hand him to someone else. What if no one had noticed? We’d have lost everything at minimum.”

Bill had an immediate look of shock, while Jerry went down the stairs while pulling out a cigarette.

“You aren’t really thinking of doing that are you?” Bill said, surprised and a little aggrieved. “Just killing him in cold blood?”

Frank mulled it over. “What other options are there? I don’t want to hurt anyone, but he tried to kill us.”

“Let me at least ask the local government if they can detain him or something first?” Bill said. “We haven’t even tried what was planned yesterday.”

“Why are you suddenly taking a moral stance? You’re the one talking about how we all need to toughen up for this, that you learned how to fight just for this kind of situation,” Maria asked.

“Because he’s not a threat right now. You can’t just execute someone when they are helpless,” Bill exhorted.

“Why?” Maria asked. “You didn’t stop when we left my fucking father behind. Left him to die just fine.”

Bill fell silent at that, lacking a response.

Frank cut through the silence. “Bill, go ask then. You, Rina, and Felix can go recruit people, and you can ask about it while you are there.”

The decision could wait that long. In the meantime, he went to find Jerry, grabbing a copy of his primer as he did. The man was smoking away outside, leaning against an exterior wall.

“Jerry,” Frank greeted him.

Jerry shook his head. “I don’t know if I can deal with this,” he said. “Stressing me right out. Really wish I had a beer in hand right now. It’s absolutely insane how things’ve changed. Before all this, you could just call the cops and it’s out of sight, out of mind. Wouldn’t even have to think about it.” He took a drag. “How do you just deal with this shit? Cold as fuck. You, Michelle, the Asian chick. What are you, Anton Chigurh? At least the couple that just spoked up sounded torn about it”

Frank didn’t reply right away. “I don’t know who that is.” He thought for a moment longer. “Couple?”

Jerry half smirked at that, but his face returned to its distressed expression almost immediately. “You didn’t notice? I thought it was pretty obvious just from how they were looking at each other.”

Frank shook his head. “Doesn’t matter either way.” He didn’t see it at all. He addressed Jerry’s query. “I’m not sure what you want to hear, but I see no reason to expect anything to go back to normal. You came out here, and I think that means you feel the same. How else can you be in this situation besides hard? I want to help people. I’m not setting up here planning on being a warlord. I’m setting up here because I need safety.” Frank handed the papers to Jerry. “Read this. It’s what I’ve figured out so far. Unless I’m completely wrong about everything, there aren’t too many choices.

Jerry nodded halfheartedly, and Frank left him to return inside. Bill was getting his bike ready at the front entrance, and it appeared that Maria planned to accompany him. Maria motioned Frank to the side as soon as he returned.

“I’m going with him so that he doesn’t lie,” Maria said in a low tone that only Frank could hear.

Frank nodded. “Makes sense.” There wasn’t anything else to say, so Frank walked over to Bill. “What time are you planning on returning?”

“As soon as possible,” Bill replied. “I don’t think we can recruit anyone with what’s going on here, so I just want to ask the Provisos as soon as possible.”

“Then I’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Frank said. Bill was soon on his way, Maria following, leaving Frank alone with Rina, Felix, Jerry, Michelle, and their captive. With both Bill and Maria gone, Frank wasn’t about to split the group up again. Instead, he made himself breakfast and started giving people stuff to do. Rina was going to write more copies of the primer, Felix would help him take apart the trees more, and Michelle was going to take inventory of what they had on hand for medical supplies, and then make a list of what would be needed. That afternoon, Frank agreed to show her the basics of melee combat. Finally, Jerry would scope out what he needed to start making a lookout point on the roof, as well as see what he could do to fortify the building as a whole, and finally look at what would be needed to construct a better permanent solution for the gate that Frank had broken than an overturned van.

After getting everyone else started, Frank grabbed Jerry and started talking to him about what he needed. The distraction of a task seemed to be at least somewhat helpful, and Jerry quickly threw himself into it. He examined everything and started writing a big list of what would be needed. “To be honest though, Frank, I’m not sure how long this will take, because I’ve never done any significant projects without power tools. Should be doable, though, given enough time and the right supplies.” He handed an immense list of specific building supplies to Frank. “I should probably go with someone to collect it all. It’s going to be a lot of trips back and forth.”

“Less than you might think. Did you read what I gave you?” Frank asked.

“I read some of it. It’s depressing,” Jerry said. He glanced to the side. “Hard to think about.”

“Read up on the part about your ‘status,’ it’ll explain some things you might want to know,” Frank told him. “For now, try and get ready as best you can for the projects. I’m going to work on clearing out the yard of the trees.”

“Damn shame about them. Those oaks were big and old,” Jerry said, before going back to his work.

Frank went over to where Felix was clearing away debris, and the two of them managed to get rid of the rest of the smaller branches by the time noon came. Frank took a break to eat, and while he did he remembered Rina had wanted to talk about something. He went to find her.

“What did you want to talk about?” he asked her.

Rina looked up from her writing. “When we went into town yesterday, the husks we saw swarmed over the bridge and attacked the people downtown only a little while before they went after us. I know you’ve been focusing on a bunch of things, but they came from where the fire was. The people there fortified the bridge, but I don’t really think they can handle it.”

Frank nodded. “And you want me to do something about it?”

“Is there anyone else who can?” Rina asked.

Frank shook his head. “Probably not.”

“Well, are you going to do something about it then?” Rina queried hopefully.

“We’ll see. There’s stuff to do here before I consider going there. Not today, probably not tomorrow. If it makes sense to do so, maybe in two days I can go see.” Frank said.

Rina frowned but nodded in acceptance. “What do we do when Bill and Maria come back? I don’t think there’s going to be good news.”

“We deal with the situation. He can’t be left to his own devices though. He’s a wolf,” Frank replied.

“Yea. Me and Felix, when we talked about it, I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t just hoping it went okay.” Rina inhaled. “I didn’t follow you out here hoping that it went okay. If that was what I was going to do, I wouldn’t have gone off with you that first day. I’d have stayed in Redstone waiting for the government.”

She seemed to be reassuring herself more than explaining anything to him, Frank thought. He let her be and went to teach Michelle the sword, as he’d promised.

That was a lot less sombre. Michelle was not particularly talented, but she was eager, and Frank had to stop her from throwing her entire body into every swing. Once he had her using the correct form for a very basic swing, he left her to it and went back to getting rid of the trees. He started hacking off larger branches and carting them off, whittling each Oak down until there was nothing but the enormous trunks left, which would need to be sawed into much more manageable pieces. Even a thick and sturdy branch was something that Frank could carry off, but a trunk wider than his arm span was out of his ability.

With there being nothing worth doing without a hacksaw anymore, Frank sat down to work on his combat guide, while keeping an eye on Michelle. It was good timing for him to finish because it wasn’t half an hour after he stopped his work that it started pissing down rain. Everyone fled indoors and awaited the return of Bill and Maria.

When they arrived, Frank jogged out at the sound of Bill calling to them and moved the van out of the way so they could return. Surprisingly, there was a severe-looking middle-aged man with them dressed in a black track outfit, who’d ridden back on his own bike.

“This is?” Frank asked Bill and Maria, upon seeing the man.

“Troy Fairson,” the man said, hopping off his bike and extending his hand to greet Frank. “I’m a police inspector. Bill said someone had tried to burn down this place while you were all in it as revenge. I’m here on his invitation to look into it. We do have a lockup area where we’ve detained a bunch of people who’ve tried to take advantage of the situation. If things are as they were told, we’d be happy to take him into custody.” The man got straight to the point, introducing himself and explaining his presence immediately.

Frank shook hands with him and then introduced himself. “I’m Frank. Come inside and we can talk about this.”

They entered the castle as a group, and Troy immediately asked if he could dry off. Bill led him to a bathroom, and Frank took that moment to give Maria a questioning look.

“There’s a secure building where the criminals are all being kept in. The guy we talked to was happy enough to show us around, and when we brought up what had happened, he went and found Troy. It was pretty straightforward. I’d still rather we just off that shithead, but this might actually work,” Maria said.

Frank felt a bit of relief at that. Not having to make that decision would be a weight off his shoulders. Troy and Bill returned two minutes later, looking much drier. Frank asked Bill to prove his identity.

Bill grimaced, but complied, giving himself a shallow cut, which immediately welled with blood. “It’s going to be me every time we don’t meet at the dungeon, isn’t it?” he groused.

“Anyone else would heal slow enough to risk infection,” Frank said.

Maria went off to change out of her wet clothes as well, and Bill went to bandage himself, so Frank and Troy started talking.

“What exactly happened?” Troy asked Frank, who explained his view of the events. Troy nodded, not taking notes or anything.

“So the guy is still here, tied up? Can I speak to him?”

“Sure,” Frank said. Hopefully, this Troy guy didn’t decide he wanted to release him. He’d rather keep a good relationship with everyone he could, but he’d make an enemy here if he had to. He led Troy over to the room that Daniel was laying in. Michelle and Felix had gotten him to the bathroom once, and he’d been given water, but otherwise, he’d just had to lay there on the ground for the past fifteen hours.

Immediately, upon seeing Daniel, Troy’s eyes flashed with recognition. “This guy’s known to police, big time,” he told Frank. “We’d want him out of trouble and safely put away regardless.”

“Why do you know him?” Frank asked.

“He tried to run over an officer during a traffic stop. Somehow got bail posted, but we’d been keeping tabs. He has a pretty significant record, honestly,” Troy told him.

“That bitch was trying to frame me!” Daniel responded to Troy’s statement. “Fucking looking for an excuse.”

Frank thought. “Do you know any names of the people he spends time with? Specifically, Tara and Lana?” he ignored Daniel’s outburst.

Troy looked at Daniel. “Same story every time,” He turned back to Frank. “No. He’s not a gang member. Just a crazy person with violent urges.”

Daniel bristled at that. “I’m not fucking crazy you pig!”

“What they do this time that you tried to burn them alive?” Troy asked.

“These psychos pointed a spear at my cousin! And a sword at her friend and me. Why aren’t you arresting them? Why aren’t you dealing with them?!” Daniel railed, bitterly.

Troy shook his head. “Yea, I can take him in and we can lock him up. Better for everyone that way. Makes me glad you folks took such an even-keeled approach to this. A lot of stupid violence happening. Not enough people to deal with it.”

Frank nodded in response. “I’m surprised you are organized enough for that honestly.”

“I’m surprised myself, but we’ve got some people who really took charge here, and so far, it’s going alright. My biggest worry is just how isolated we are. We haven’t even heard from the military base across the bay, or Vancouver, or Portland. Bill said you guys came over Snoqualmie, that makes you the furthest out anyone I’ve heard of has come from so far.”

Daniel started ranting at them both, to which Troy motioned to Frank that they should move somewhere else. Frank first looked at Daniel. “Shut up or I’ll shut you up.”

Troy grimaced at that, but Daniel subsided to just glowering at them until they left the room.

“As far as getting him back, if you have a trailer he can fit on we can just bike into town with him on it. One or two of you can come with me, get him handed over. I’d honestly feel a lot better getting back with an escort. There’s been, well, things happening. I saw the scorch marks in the yard on the way in, so you probably saw some of them too,” Troy said.

Frank nodded. “I can take you back with Maria. Probably tomorrow though.”

Troy nodded. “That’s fine, I told them I might be gone overnight. Not safe to travel after dark anymore. I don’t want to get jumped by another flood of those things.”

That decided, Frank convened a meeting with everyone and explained what would happen. He could see the visible relief on Jerry, Bill, Rina, and Felix’s faces. Even though Rina and Felix had chosen to accept getting rid of him as a necessity, that didn’t mean it sat okay with them.

Michelle made dinner out of the available food, turning canned chilli into something surprisingly good. She said she’d had to figure out how to make cheap food taste good her first couple years in America, as she’d come over with nothing. That finished, Troy started asking questions. Given how interested he was and how quickly he’d agreed to take Daniel off their hands, Frank suspected that he might have come primarily for information.

“Where’d you get all the special weapons?” he asked, having seen Frank’s equipment, among other things.

“The system,” Frank replied. “Rina, can you grab him a copy?” He asked her, which she did. “Pretty much everything I know is in there.”

Troy nodded. “Pardon me then, but I think it’s important that I read this now before it’s too dark to do so. I know that candlelight causes your vision to get worse, so I’m going to try and avoid reading outside of sunlight until we get electricity back up and running.”

He spent fifteen minutes going through it, and then another ten rereading parts. He put it down and had a serious look on his face. “That’s a pretty dismal situation you suggest.”

Frank shrugged. “Can’t change what is. I’m confident it is mostly correct.”

“Well, nothing I already knew contradicts anything here, and everything else makes sense.” Troy shook his head. “You’ve got a better grasp on this than anyone else in the area, I think. What made you decide to set up alone out here, given all that? You’d be safer downtown, and honestly,” he tapped the papers with one hand, “you could help a lot of people if you came to town instead of setting up out here. I know you probably have good reason to want to set up solo, but Frank, if half of what Bill said about you is true, you should be in town, leading people.”

“I’m not confident that I can lead anyone, or that I’d be the one in charge,” Frank said in response. “If I came would you just give me the authority to handle things as I wanted to? Any knowledge I have can be spread without me moving in.”

“That’s true, but at the same time, if you can figure more things like this out, then you shouldn’t be putting yourself at risk. Honestly, just this paper alone makes you too valuable to put yourself in avoidable danger.”

“The danger is part of what let me figure this out,” Frank countered.

Troy didn’t push that topic any further. “Just know that I can personally assure you a position of authority if you decide to come over.”

Frank’s eyes narrowed a little at that. Troy was more than a police inspector if he could make that claim. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Troy then started asking specific questions about the dungeons and other system phenomena, on which Frank was perfectly happy to elaborate. They spoke until well after dark when Frank decided to turn in.

“It’s a bit chilly here, honestly. You guys don’t have any firewood yet?” Troy asked as Frank showed him to a room to sleep in.

“We have the firewood, but we need to unblock the fireplaces first. They were all converted to gas at some point. If you happen to know someone who could reverse that, we can pay them in supplies,” Frank told him. “In fact, there’s a fair list of things we need, so if you know someone who could provide them, I’d be happy to trade.”

Troy nodded. “Give me a list tomorrow, and I can have someone ask around.”

Frank left Troy in his room, and then set the watch for the night, ensuring that someone would be monitoring outside, and someone else watching Jerry, Michelle, and Troy, who Frank had deliberately placed in adjacent rooms. The night was without any events of note, however, and in the morning, Frank, Maria, and Rina got ready to head downtown with Troy. Daniel was strapped onto the largest of the bike trailers. It was still a drizzle when they set out, leaving them quite wet by the time they reached their destination.

Troy got off his bike, spoke to one of the people keeping the perimeter, who then jogged away. Fifteen minutes later, he returned with several large men in police uniforms. Daniel was unbound, then handcuffed, complaining and threatening all the while, and then led away. Troy turned to Frank.

“If you come in down this road, I can make sure the watch here knows if there’s a message for you. I’ll keep in touch. Do send word if you figure anything else out.” Troy took his leave and followed after Daniel and his minders.

Frank turned to Rina. “The sword is in your trailer, correct? Take us to where the guy is supposed to meet you.”

Rina nodded. She led Frank and Maria over to an empty Starbucks, and they waited. “He said he’d be here just before noon, so we still have a couple of hours.”

Frank nodded. He looked around the little cafe. It was empty of anything valuable but hadn’t been ransacked. Someone had emptied it politely. He passed the time by continuing to practice with his magic, manipulating a coin to move all over him. Rina started making another copy of the document, while Maria just sat there awkwardly, until after two hours, a short, slightly overweight man arrived, red-faced from pulling a wagon with a big pile of stuff on it.

“Different people with you this time? Well whatever,” the man said to Rina. “You got that sword you were talking about? I got a dozen mechanical watches, four of em Rolexes, and two typewriters and a whole pile of ink and parts and shit. I don’t know fuck all about 'em so I just grabbed everything there, up to you to figure that out. Couldn’t find a manual on them, but they both work right now, at least.”

“Yea, we do,” Rina responded, fetching it from her bike trailer. “Here.” She handed it to him, trusting that Frank could deal with any shenanigans.

The man looked it over and then tested it on a coat. “Where the hell you find something like this? Some rich guy have it on the wall?”

“Does it match expectations?” She asked him.

“Hell yeah it does, nobody’ll try and mess with me if I’ve got this thing at my hip. You don’t happen to have a scabbard do you?”

Rina shook her head.

“Well, it’ll be.” He put the sword down on a table, and then demonstrated the two typewriters were in working order. The watches were all functioning fine as well.

“Honestly, the watches are a fucking great idea. I think I’ll halfway corner the market before anyone else realizes. If everything’s to your satisfaction, then I’ll take this here beautiful thing and be on my way. Still got a lot to do.”

“Is there any way we can get in touch with you?” Frank asked, speaking for the first time. “You got this stuff on pretty short notice. If you can do that I’d trade with you in the future.”

“Naw, I’m leaving the day after tomorrow. Kids are in Spokane. I need to go check on them. I’m just doing this to get what I need together for that trip.” He didn’t stay any longer, turning to leave right after he finished his last sentence.

Frank watched him walk away for a few moments, then turned to Maria and Rina. “Let’s head back, still a lot of stuff to do.”

——

Troy watched as Daniel was led to the makeshift jail they’d converted a hostel into. Seeing him safely locked in a room, he went back to the front and spoke to the person on duty there. “Send him to the tower tomorrow. I don’t see any point in keeping him around.” The woman at the desk nodded. “What room?”

“Sixteen,” Troy told her before walking out. He strode quickly a block and a half over until he reached a hotel that had lights on most of the bottom three floors. He walked inside, nodding to the man standing at the doorway with a baton, and immediately headed for the second story. Once there, he knocked on a door and waited.

“Come in,” a voice sounded from inside.

Troy entered into the room, which had been made into an office, and was lit by a couple of gas lanterns. An elderly woman was seated at a desk on the far side. She looked up at him. “What’d you find out?”

“He’s established himself at that castle Southwest of here. There’s a small group, and he’s recruiting more.”

“What do you make of him?”

“Someone tried to burn the place down in retaliation, and he just held him and brought us into it. But he doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d hesitate to just get rid of a threat. That means he’s not confident his companions are behind him. I talked to a few of them, but only one seemed 100% on board with him.”

“So you’d say he’s cautious?”

“Very. More cautious than is reasonable.”

“Did you try and recruit him?”

“Yes, but it was a wasted effort. I don’t think he’ll agree to be under anyone’s authority. Which is weird, because he doesn’t strike me as a leader.”

“He’s not?”

“He’s an awkward communicator, doesn’t seem too aware of other people, doesn’t have a high degree of confidence.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Not completely with the time I had to speak with him, but enough to say that we should work under those assumptions for now.”

“I’ll trust your judgement on that. What of his companions? Any of them recruitable?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure it’s worth making an enemy of him though. None of them are nearly as impressive. From what Bill, who I believe is one of his two right-hand men, told me, he’s by far the most important of them. And after reading this,” Troy pulled out the document he’d received, “I’m inclined to agree. Especially since he’s open to sharing the information he has. No need to force his hand.”

He handed it to the old woman. She looked it over carefully. “He made a more thorough version. It’s also been formatted and edited.”

“Yes. It even suggests at the end that we should make copies and distribute them.” Troy responded.

The woman put it down. “It’s a little late for reading, but I’ll go over it tomorrow morning. Does it have anything that might explain the tower?”

Troy nodded. “Yea, it does. He warns against it unless truly desperate, while he suggests going into any low-level dungeon. Says the rewards are great though.”

“You weren’t able to get anything from them about how he knows these things?” She asked.

“No one would say anything, though it was obvious that they all know,” Troy responded.

“Then try and get that information from them, but don’t try and recruit anybody. Since you already know them, you’ll handle them for now. Also, if his abilities are as exaggerated as we’ve heard, maybe we can hire him to deal with that.” She gestured towards the ruins of Bellevue.

“Only me?” Troy asked.

“We’ve got bigger issues right now, and as far as we know he’s friendly. I don’t think we need to pretend that we are going to have authority over everyone in private. We still haven’t heard from the military, and beyond that, everyone still in the suburbs is free of any authority at the moment. Just keep tabs on him, work with him if it makes sense.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Troy said, then turned and left the room.