Back at the castle, Frank continued working. With Rina now equipped with a working typewriter, her ability to make copies was tripled. She could produce several an hour now, and she did just that. Frank immediately arranged a trip back out to the same lot he’d previously looted, trailer carried by him. He took Bill, as well as Michelle and Jerry, so they could pick up what they needed, both personally and for their roles.

The home improvement store had everything Jerry was looking for, but the department store had been combed through by others more than once since last time he had been there. Michelle was left without everything she had wanted to pick up, which meant they’d have to find another store somewhere. Given that he also needed to find some bikes for the two newcomers, he couldn’t put it off too long. The cheap department store bikes they’d just grabbed were not reliable enough in the long term.

After returning, it was early evening, and Frank spent the rest of usable daylight showing Jerry and Michelle how to handle weapons. He’d need to find them weapons eventually. For the moment, they practiced with sticks, now that the sword had been traded away. The night began to fall and Frank held a meeting with everyone, to talk about plans for the next few days.

“Tomorrow, I want to take Michelle and Jerry into the dungeon for some training. Felix and Rina can go downtown to continue trying to recruit people, hand out information, look for supplies we haven’t found. That’ll leave Bill and Maria at the castle. Now that we have more people, I don’t want to leave this place empty lest someone comes in and ransacks it. Wasn’t much of an option before, but we should keep at least two people back at all times.”

“Training?” Jerry asked.

“Your call on if you want to do it or not. But if you are sticking around, then you’ll need to learn how to fight.” Frank didn’t ask Michelle; she’d already made it clear that was exactly what she wanted.

“Uh, let me think about it,” Jerry said. He took a long drink from the can of beer in his hand. There hadn’t been much selection left, but Bud Light was good enough, according to him.

“After the training, regardless, we need to find boats we can use to escape. That’ll be my goal for the afternoon. Anyone not occupied should help Jerry with the carpentry. We grabbed enough stuff that he can get started on the watch post up on the roof tomorrow.”

Rina looked at Frank, and he knew what she was going to ask about. “As far as that goes Rina, I’m going to wait on it. There hasn’t been anything else appearing since then. I suspect anything that will happen will happen in waves, meaning I’m not going in until after there’s another outflow of hostile things. It’ll probably be somewhat less dangerous by then.”

Rina half frowned, then looked down.

“What are you talking about?” Michelle asked. “Those things that attacked a few days ago?”

“Yea. It could eventually get out of hand.”

“You’d just go off alone to deal with it?”

“Bringing anyone else would just get them killed, probably,” Frank opined.

“But you wouldn’t? Everyone here seems to believe you can handle things, but I don’t understand why you think you can just solve something like that, or why Rina is hoping you will.”

“You’ll see tomorrow, in the dungeon,” Frank said simply.

Michelle raised an eyebrow. “I hope so because it sounds like you are trying to commit suicide if you think it’s a good idea to run in there alone.”

“It’s not a good idea to run in there alone. Not really. Going with other people would be a worse one though,” Frank told her.

Michelle looked unconvinced, but that line of discussion didn’t continue. Instead, after a few brief questions, Frank wrapped it up, assigned the watch for the night, and went to rest. He was going to take the middle watch since he was heading to the dungeon. There was always time to rest more in the dungeon.

Morning came, and Frank brought the two newcomers with him to the dungeon. He had them each pack a week’s worth of supplies, unsure of how long they would be staying. They all stood in the starting room, and Frank got to work. It was simple, straightforward going. Frank had taken Bill’s sword so that the two newbies had a real weapon to use, and under his supervision, they got to it. The strategy was simple. Frank would find an enemy, assess whether it was worth letting Michelle or Jerry fight, and if it was, let them try.

Michelle took to it like she was made for it. There was no hesitation, she just used the one sword swing Frank had so far shown her and cut down the twisted creatures she faced with precision. She actually smiled as she did so. Frank decided he’d have to keep an eye on her.

Jerry, on the other hand, was scared. He wasn’t terrified and incapable of acting. He’d have died during the tutorial if he was. It was very obvious that he’d rather turn and run, though. He held out, following Frank’s instructions. After the first run, when Frank had safely led them to the safe room at the midpoint, he drank himself to sleep.

Frank considered his two newcomers. Michelle was a find unless she turned out to be unreliably deranged, instead of just slightly unhinged, which is what Frank suspected she might be. Jerry was coping with alcohol. That would be a problem. Frank would have to see how he did without it. Jerry had only brought enough for two days, so it wouldn’t be long before Frank found out.

Frank brought them through the dungeon, clearing it out, trekking back to the entrance, and repeating. There was loot, here and there. Only when his two companions fought, though. It seemed the dungeon wasn’t going to give him anything now that he was so much higher level. They’d received a mundane quarterstaff, which Frank handed to Jerry, a health potion, and a pair of leather shoes that fit Michelle perfectly.

The additional range it provided seemed to give Jerry a bit more confidence, and he hesitated less when fighting. Once Jerry was out of alcohol though, things took a rough turn. He didn’t sleep that night, and so Frank had to leave him behind in the safe room. When Frank returned, he sat him down for a chat.

“Jerry,” Frank greeted him.

“Frank,” he said, looking down.

Frank considered his words carefully. He knew he looked very young, and he knew that what Jerry was going through was reasonable. At the same time, Jerry had to get it together. Frank had to make that clear. It would be simple to just give him a straight talk, but that risked getting his hackles up. He was more than double Frank’s apparent age.

“What can I do to help you?” Frank asked, after pondering long enough that there was an awkward pause in between his greeting and his next sentence.

Jerry sighed. “Feels fucking shitty hearing that from a kid, you know? I always had a boy on my crew your age that I’d show the ropes.”

Frank waited for him to continue.

“How do you handle this? How did you get to the point where you can handle this? You special forces? CIA? Some secret agent shit?” Jerry asked. “Cause I ain’t seen anyone handling this like you. Some people are coping, but no one is starting a band of heroes and setting out to save everyone. Only people I see doing well besides you are damn psychos taking advantage of the situation. I thought you were too, but the way you handled that guy made me think otherwise.”

Frank looked at him. “Experience. That’s how I handle it.”

“Experience?” Jerry laughed hollowly. “So I was right then.”

Frank looked at him. “If you can keep going, I’ll help you get to the point you can handle this. That’s up to you though. If you are ready for the next time I head out, that’ll be great. If not, we’ll get you set up with supplies and send you on your way after the work we need is done.”

Jerry shook his head in frustration. “Alright.”

Frank let him think on it. He spoke with Michelle instead.

“Do you get it now?” Frank asked.

“Yea. I do. You fight like a master. Like a champion boxer against lesser opponents, only you use ancient weapons,” Michelle replied. She admitted it easily as if being wrong didn’t bother her at all. “I don’t know why you would run into danger though, even if you can handle it.”

“Isn’t that what you are doing right now?” Frank questioned.

Michelle smirked. “I don’t feel like I’m in danger. I saw you fiddling with that coin. You’ve got something else up your sleeve if you need it.”

Frank shrugged. “I do. That doesn’t mean that you aren’t at risk, though.”

Michelle refined her statement. “I am in less danger here than outside alone.”

Frank had to agree with that. It was true, long term, even if there was slightly more short term risk. “Fair enough. I feel similarly about going to Bellevue.”

When Frank was ready to move out again, Jerry, walked up with his quarterstaff, ready to follow.

“Get some sleep first,” Frank told him.

Jerry exhaled deeply, and he visibly untensed. Frank left him behind, taking Michelle out for another round of combat training. When Frank and Michelle returned, Jerry was slumbering, so Frank just relaxed, and pulled out his writing, while Michelle rested. She’d levelled up already while in the dungeon, but she didn’t have the Strength or Constitution to go all day and not run out of energy.

When Jerry woke up, it was time to go out once more. Frank led both his charges through the dungeon, pushing Jerry especially. Jerry responded by struggling through, and when they were finally done, he sat down in the safe room and did nothing for two hours. Then Frank got ready to leave again, and he dragged himself up, repeating the cycle. That continued until it was time to leave the dungeon and return to the castle. Before that, he slept, so he’d leave fully rested.

The castle was uneventful. Frank arrived back to find Maria doing spear drills in the yard, while Bill was doing bookkeeping on what supplies they had on hand. Frank immediately grabbed Bill and went out looking for boats while it was still early. Finding small craft to paddle was not particularly easy. While there were boats sitting in many driveways, they were generally large powerboats and yachts. Frank and Bill had to search through backyards, breaking sheds open, for quite a while before a pair of kayaks were found. They went on the trailer, as did a canoe that turned up twenty minutes after, and a small sailboat. Frank didn’t know how to sail, but he suspected he could find the information if need be, and it was better than not having a craft on hand. That still wasn’t enough for everyone, though. He’d have to find an outdoor store and raid it for canoes and kayaks.

Hauling them around wasn’t too bad. With nothing else on it, the trailer was an easy pull. It was just past noon when Frank returned for a second time, after depositing all the boats along the waterfront, hidden but easily accessible. He took a meal, then waited for Rina and Felix to return. The afternoon turned to early evening, and there was no sign of them. Frank frowned. That was a problem.

He didn’t hesitate, once it was clear they were late. Frank told Maria he was leaving to search for them, then immediately got on his bike and left. He biked as quickly as he could without losing the ability to observe his surroundings clearly and then headed towards downtown. There was no sign of anyone or anything, until after fifteen minutes, he saw a flaming husk.

Frank destroyed it with a swing of his mace as he rolled past it, but it wasn’t the only one. It didn’t take long before the husks became so great in number that he needed to turn back or risk being overwhelmed. He returned to the castle, checking that the van was securely blocking the gate, and immediately gathered everyone.

“The flaming husks are back. There’s a pile of them between us and downtown,” Frank informed the group. “They were also a level higher than last time.”

“Shit, so Rina and Felix are stuck on the other side?” Bill asked.

“Probably. I think they are likely safe, though. Unless the Provisos simply didn’t prepare at all, the one level difference isn’t going to make up for the fact that the people dealing with them will be somewhat ready,” Frank opined in response.

“So what do we do then?” Maria asked.

“Wait overnight, keep people on watch, and make sure we are safe here.”

“What about Rina and Felix?” Bill questioned.

“Tomorrow, we can try and find our way back, once the husks have spread out,” Frank answered.

Bill nodded. “I hope they are okay.”

Frank addressed everyone. “Bill, Jerry, and Maria will take first watch. I’ll take second watch with Michelle. If you see anything, wake me up. That’ll be a couple of hours, though. Right now we are still all awake.”

He considered his plans quickly. “If we get overwhelmed, then flee West to the shore.” Frank then explained the location of the boats he’d stowed. “Once you get out onto the water, you should be able to escape the husks. I doubt that will happen, but remember where they are just in case.”

“In the event there’s fighting, I take point, Maria supports me, Bill handles anything I don’t. Michelle and Jerry, focus on keeping yourself safe. For now, get something to eat, and rest if you can.”

Michelle’s expression hardened at the explanation, while Jerry looked uneasy. Bill, possessing the absolute confidence of a belief in destiny, seemed troubled, but Frank thought it was primarily about the status of Rina and Felix. Maria barely reacted at all. Frank sat in the parlour, thinking, as the others slowly dispersed. Jerry was the first to leave, stepping out to smoke a cigarette. Then Maria got up and left, heading to the second floor. Finally, Michelle went over to where the medical supplies were and started putting together an emergency kit.

Only Bill was left, sitting with Frank.

“So what happens tomorrow?” he asked.

“We punch a hole through, retrieve Rina and Felix, then I head for Bellevue,” Frank said.

“You’re going right then?”

“As soon as they stop coming in. I didn’t say I would to placate Rina. If another wave occurs and they’ve gotten stronger once more, then it’ll reach a point where they can’t be handled if I don’t do something about it.”

“How are you going to get there?”

“Canoe across the lake,” Frank replied.

“Guess that makes sense. Is it still the same plan if you don’t return?” Bill queried.

“Yes. Don’t overthink it, just do what you can. If things get desperate, you can try and do what I did, travel out into the diversions, see if you can get some magic that’ll help.”

There wasn’t much else to say, so Frank simply went to bed early after making sure there were three people keeping watch. He was woken up after only a few hours, however, by Maria.

“We can see a few in the distance,” she told him.

Frank got out of bed immediately and followed her over to a north-facing window. Sure enough, the glowing embers of the husks gave their presence away in the night. He could spot at least a dozen, though a precise count was difficult.

“We’ll see if they get inside the grounds this time. Keep an eye on them,” Frank told her. He then got everyone else together and started assigning people to watch out the north window carefully in short spurts. He knew from experience that people’s attention would flag, so he swapped someone in every fifteen minutes while having others keep an eye on the other directions. The number of husks kept building until there were too many to make more than a very rough estimation of their numbers. They slowly filtered around the walls of the grounds. After two hours, the property was surrounded by a loose scattering of husks, which slowly spread out from a dense clump to the North.

The fact they were congregating like that when they could just be fanning out randomly was a point of worry. They might still be drawn to him. It could also just be a bottleneck in their spread out movement, but it seemed less likely, and Frank decided to plan around the worst. As hours passed by and the night waned, the number of husks did not significantly change, and none made it over the walls. The first crack of dawn saw Frank ready himself to go clear them out. He got Michelle to wait at the ready to treat any injures. Then he woke Bill and Maria, who he’d told to try and get some sleep once it became clear that they probably wouldn’t get breached, and after they’d sorted themselves out, marched over to the van. Frank didn’t move it out of the way, since they were moving on foot. Instead, he just hopped on top of it and searched around. Just in front of the gate, there were about half a dozen of the burnt husks ambling around. At his presence, they immediately rushed towards the van.

Bill and Maria climbed up after him, pausing momentarily at the sight of the husks running towards Frank. One of them let out a scream as they approached, which no doubt would drag all the others over, but as long as they kept them from climbing the van, it would be completely manageable. It was fish in a barrel for Maria, who was able to just stab the husks whenever they got close. Bill stood waiting, in case he needed to step in, while Frank focused on knocking away any that started climbing.

The initial half dozen soon ballooned to forty, even as Frank and Maria cut them down. They rushed singlemindedly towards the source of the fighting, jostling with each other. As each one died, it went up in flame, and that soon proved to be problematic, as the van and the immediate surroundings soon heated to the point where touching it with bare skin would cause a burn for a normal person. For now, Frank was fine, with his improved Constitution offering him superhuman toughness, but depending on how many husks reacted to the noise, they might have to retreat eventually. Frank could see Maria and Bill labouring in the current conditions already. It was unfortunate that the husks didn’t ignite each other.

The press of enemies below stabilized at seventy creatures. At that point, the rush of new ones had slowed down enough that they died as fast as they arrived. Their complete stupidity was fortunate, for none tried to get over the walls, instead just crowding in a half-circle around the van, trying to squeeze closer to get at Frank. Maria jumped down back into the yard. Frank sent Bill down with her so that they didn’t get seriously injured. He maintained himself up there for another ten minutes, but with his killing speed reduced, didn’t make much progress either. Retreating back wasn't an option, as the risk of them flooding over and being able to swarm him was too high. He couldn’t retreat into the castle and wait, as the place could potentially burn down.

Frank formulated a plan as the time to act dwindled.

“I’m going to draw the rest of this group away,” Frank shouted to Bill and Maria. “I have a plan to deal with them.”

Frank expended a bit of his mana to launch himself over and past the horde of husks. Then, after confirming they’d turned to follow him, he dashed down the road at a pace they could pursue him, slowly causing them to draw into a long line. After several minutes, Frank found what he needed. A large, stately sedan, parked on the side of the road. Frank interposed it between him and the husks pursuing him. Then he got ready as they closed in. When the lead husk was only twenty feet away, Frank acted.

He shoved almost two-thirds of his mana reserves into a single application of his kinetics, propelling the sedan several feet into the air, and right into the husks. Multiple tons of metal and glass crashed into the husks like a battering ram, mowing down more than half of them in a single go, and knocking the rest of the group over. Frank then sprinted away as fast as he could, using a portion of his remaining mana to lose the remainder, and get back over the wall.

“What’d you do?” Bill asked immediately. “I heard that crashing noise. You use your magic or something?” His voice had a tinge of excitement when talking about magic, even in the current situation.

“Yup threw a car at them. Took out at least fifty percent of the group,” Frank informed him.

“Fucking rad,” Bill said.

“What do we do now?” Maria asked.

“We see if they congregate again. I want to clear out the surrounding area so it’s possible to move about and the odds of something getting into the grounds gets lower. If they don’t clump up, and if there aren’t more filtering in from North, we will eventually set out and try and link up with the people downtown, since that’s where Felix and Rina will be. Then I make my way to Bellevue to see if this threat can be dealt with.”

“What about Michelle and Jerry?” Maria continued.

Frank frowned. “I don’t want to just abandon them here, but at the same time, Jerry definitely isn’t ready, and Michelle doesn’t know what she’s doing even if she can handle it mentally. It’ll definitely slow us down to take them along.”

Frank took a peek over the wall, and seeing no mob of husks moving towards him, turned back to his two companions.

“How did they do anyway?” Bill asked.

“Michelle is fine, as far as willingness goes. Also calm. Jerry might not be cut for it. He’s going to be around for a while since we’ve got stuff for him to do, so I lose nothing by giving him a chance to get it together, but he’s not coping well so far.” Frank informed Bill. He saw no reason to hide his evaluation of either from his other teammates.

“Not coping well by what standards?” Maria questioned curiously.

“By the standard needed to handle what he might be put through if he goes with me,” Frank replied.

They waited carefully over the next half hour. Bill retreated inside to watch for more of them moving in the castle’s direction from further out, while Frank and Maria guarded the gate. The opposite would have been nicer, but a spear was much better for the work they might need to do than a sword. Bill came back after half an hour to inform Frank that it didn’t appear more were coming in any real numbers. He’d only seen a few filter over. That told Frank it was time to start clearing the area completely, and so he got ready to hop over the wall and start smashing some husks apart.