The man stood and began to walk around the table. He was almost as tall as I was, but easily twice as heavy. He had a prodigious belly, but an even larger chest and shoulders. He had that combination of strength and fat often found in elite powerlifters … or bears.

“Sorry about the runaround,” he said, offering his hand to Catayla. “Normally, I would have met you at the gate, but I was a bit tied up when you arrived.”

“No offense taken,” Catayla said. “Your people provided an adequate escort, and I require no ceremony.”

“Well,” the large man said, pulling out a chair. “Gus, Pathfinder Orvilio, please take a seat. We’ve got some business to discuss.”

“Catayla is fine,” She bowed her head slightly.

“Of course,” Captain Smith said. “Then please, call me Arthur.”

“Before we start,” I said. “I’m hoping you can help me find some people.”

“Of course,” he said. “Give their names to Pat here once we’re done. She’ll be happy to check them against our records and put out the word. Won’t you Pat?”

“Of course, Sir. Not an issue.”

“First thing most folks want to know,” the captain continued. “We even started up a bit of a census, tried to get a count and the names of everyone in the camp and … last known locations of the lost. Tiller here is working on a program, trying to catalog skill and feats. It’s very promising.”

Sergeant Tiller nodded his head but didn’t say anymore.

“Now, back to why you’re here,” the captain said.

The captain’s chair groaned as he sat back into it. He looked over at Catayla and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “We were ‘advised’ to cooperate with your people. I’ll be honest and tell you I was hoping it never came to that. So, can you tell me why you’re here?”

Catayla stepped forward, clasping her hands in front of her before giving a small bow.

“My mission was to escort Finn,” she gestured towards me. “I have also been tasked with establishing friendly relations with the loc … residents of Charleston, as well as to assess your situation.”

“Assess?” Pat raised an eyebrow. She pulled back her shoulders and placed a hand on one of her knives.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, now Pat,” said Captain Smith. “To what ends were you tasked with making contact?”

“I am part of a force of Peacekeepers assigned the duty of containing and destroying eldritch lifeforms and to enforce the quarantine. The Peacekeepers wish to discuss the requirements of that quarantine, and to offer some assistance in return.”

"Quarantine?" The captain asked. "Are we prisoners here?”

“No,” Catayla shook her head. “Our mission is not to keep the natives in. You are free to come and go as you please, though the Containment Facility, or dungeon, is still off limits. Our objective is simply to maintain the proper ecosystem and contain the strongest of the eldritch creatures."

“If that is so,” said the captain, “then what do you want from us?”

“There are certain concessions my leaders wish to receive, including pledges of assistance, supply chains, and the rights to recruit from the local populations.”

“Recruit? I’m not going to freely give our people over to you, but I won’t stop them from making their own choices. As for aid and concessions, we would have to discuss that in more length. What are you offering in return?”

“Sir—” Pat objective.

“That’s enough, Pat,” the captain said, “let’s at least hear them out.”

“Please continue,” Pat said, “I apologize.”

“I’m not qualified to negotiate or to make any promises,” Catayla said. “I suspect my superiors will offer material aid, mostly. Equipment, weapons, maybe even some training. The only thing I have been authorized to negotiate is the meeting location and timing.”

“All right,” the captain said. “We’ll discuss the timing and size of such a meeting. Not right now though. I need to discuss this with my advisors. Pat?”

“If you’ll come with me,” Pat said. “Rooms and food have already been prepared for you.”

After we left the dining room Pat gave me a pen and a sheet of paper and asked me to write down the names of the people I was looking for. I quickly jotted down a note and passed it back. She took the paper and glanced at it before handing it off to one of her men.

Without another word, the blonde woman looked over at Catayla and extended her arm, pointing forward.

“If you’ll come with me.”

Catayla and I followed, but we were split at a set of narrow stairs. I considered insisting that I stay with Catayla, but after hesitating for a moment I realized that I didn’t have a good reason to object. Did I expect we would share a room? Since the scout went along with it, I decided not to protest.

Pat escorted Catayla to a higher floor, while a guard in a tattered police uniform led me down an access hatch and through a dark, cramped hallway. After less than a minute of walking, we reached a door and the guard grunted as he pushed it open.

The room was small, just barely large enough for me to lie down in. It had a low, slanted ceiling that angled downward toward the back of the room. The walls were smoke gray, and a small cot was unfolded against the far wall. That simple bed took up almost half the floor space.

A sliding door led to a bathroom with almost enough room for me to sit down without my knees touching the sink. Not the Ritz, but it’ll do.

My mind was restless, so I decided to amuse myself by levitating objects with Mage Hand. I feared what sleep might bring, so I resisted it. I wondered if my increased Might and stamina would make it easier to pull and all-nighter.

At high levels, I might not even need sleep. I couldn’t help my mind from wandering. My father had once warned that the only thing worse than idle hands was an unfocused mind. I needed something to work on.

I found a towel and began practicing by folding and unfolding it using only Mage Hand. At first, I was barely able to flop the towel open, but after an hour of practice, I was able to fold the towel into a perfect square almost as quickly as I could have with my own hands. I had also managed to level Mage Hand to the third level.

Not a bad use of an hour. Being able to see my progress gave me a feeling of warm pride. It was a bit addicting actually.

I scanned through the rest of my skills looking for ones that I could easily level. I’d noticed a bit of a cutoff at the third level, after which skill leveling slowed down immensely. Those early levels gave just as much FP as the higher levels that were more difficult to obtain. The only skill I had below three, however, was venom spray – which was hard to practice indoors.

What I needed were more skills.

If I could get others to show me their skills I might be able to copy them – even better if I could convince them to use those skills against me. Should I goad someone into a fight, or maybe just ask for a spar? The apocalypse may have been turning me into a masochist.

I continued to practice Mage Hand, the rhythmic sound of cotton folding, and unfolding was calming. The repetitive actions had a meditative quality to them. I let my mind drift off and the process became automatic. I soon lost track of how many times I folded the towel but sometime during the night I was rewarded with a status message.

Congratulations! The skill Mage Hand © has increased in level (4/10).

I smiled, allowing the feeling of contentment to embrace me as I drifted into sleep.

***

A light rap on the door woke me. I was still fully dressed, with my back leaning against the wall. At some point during the night, I had kicked off a single boot. I felt tired and stiff.

So much for higher stats lessening my need for sleep.

“Who is it?” I protested.

“It’s Tiller,” A voice said from outside my door. “We met last night, may I come in?”

I made him wait for me as I splashed some water on my face and pulled on my other boot. I looked into the mirror, which was just a polished piece of metal, and saw bloodshot eyes and days’ worth of stubble.

I’d looked worse during finals week.

I opened the door, walking out of the cramped room. At some point, a new guard had been assigned to my room. This one was dressed in camo pants and reeked of body odor.

“Maybe we could do this out somewhere else?” I said. “Not a lot of room in there, or out here,” I looked toward the guard with a slight frown. He didn’t seem to notice.

“Besides, my legs could use a stretch.”

“Actually, that’s perfect,” Tiller said. “Would you mind going to my office? I was hoping we could speak about something.”

“Sure, I don’t mind. Think you could answer a few of my questions?”

“Of course,” he said. “What did you want to know?”

“Last night, Smith said you’d been recording skills? Could I take a look?”

“It could be arranged,” his smile was a shade of white generally only seen in Hollywood or toothpaste commercials. “It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. Anything special you’re looking for?”

“Lucid dreaming,” I said. “Hypnotism, meditation or anything to do with attacking or defending the mind.”

“I’ll tell you what, if you’re willing to give me a breakdown of your skills and feats, how you got them, what they do, general thoughts based on your experience with them… I could let you take a look at what I’ve collected already.”

“Deal,” I said. “Have you collected any info on classes?”

“Not a bit,” Tiller’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any ideas?”

“I’ve learned a few things, but nothing useful.”

Before we left I asked the guard to let Pat know that I would be with Tiller, in case she had any success tracking down any of the people on my list. He didn’t seem pleased to be treated as a messenger, but he accepted with a curt nod.

Tiller led me through the passageways of the ship. I found him to be quite friendly if a bit chatty. Mostly, he talked about skills and various theories on how they functioned. He was already nerding out over the end of the world.

His casual enthusiasm about everything seemed in stark contrast to reality, but I found it a welcome reprieve from all the doom and gloom. The constant seriousness of everyone around me had started to wear at me.

We quickly left the ship, and I found myself walking through the camp once more. It was a completely different place during the day. Families and small groups would huddle together around small fires. I noticed suspicious looks turned my way, but no one dared to approach me.

It reminded me more of a camp of starving and desperate refugees than the band of valiant survivors that I had expected.

“How rough have things been?”

“Everyone has lost someone, many of these people are the lone survivors of their entire family. Others have been forced … to do desperate things to survive. We have plenty of food, water, and even ammunition but we don’t have what these people need.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. My uncle would tell you they need faith. Hope maybe. I think most of them have given up on life altogether. They need something to live for. We have to show them that the world can be rebuilt.”

“I thought there’d be more,” I sighed.

Hundreds of vacant faces turned towards me as I walked. There should have been thousands. Hundreds of thousands. I felt helpless before their gaze, unable to even understand what it is they wanted.

“This is it,” Tiller said, “we can talk more inside.”

Tiller’s office was inside the Port Authority building. A few guards were stationed at the door, but none of them gave us trouble. They each gave Tiller a respectful nod as we entered.

The office itself had a single table stacked with books and various materials. Tiller had collected a wide range of weapons and armor, all stacked in neat piles. Bookshelves were built into the walls, but they mostly held vials of brightly colored liquids.

One disturbing shelf seemed to hold pieces of monsters, or at least I hoped that they were monsters. Eyes floated in a jar. Teeth, and scales were laid out neatly in a row next to a massive horn that was heavy enough to snap a bull’s neck.

“This is it,” Tiller said, pulling a large leather-bound book from one of the shelves. “The result of my research since the system took over. It has every skill we’ve learned about, and notes about how they work and interact with other skills. I’ve also included observations about the new flora and fauna and some of the gear we’ve collected.”

“You some kind of military scientist, Tiller?” I asked.

“What? No, yeah, I was military,” Tiller said. “I’m an Air Force imaging tech. I take x-rays. Or at least I did, most of that equipment doesn’t work anymore.”

“This,” Tiller waved his hand around indicating his collection. “This is more like a hobby, just one the boss has taken an interest in.”

“Mind if I take a look?” I asked while picking up the book.

“No, go ahead.”

As I flipped through the pages, I told tiller what I knew about skills and classes. He was fascinated by Talith’s theories on specialization and how they related to skills and classes. I also told him what little I had been able to pry from Catayla about classes and Soul Forging.

“Interesting,” Tiller said. “I’ve seen mentions of it in the manual, but …”

“Manual?”

“The guide provided through your status menu? You’ve read it, right?”

“Oh, yeah… umm briefly. I might have skimmed a few parts.”

“That’s something you need to fix, but we don’t have time now. I need to record your skills and feats, if you don’t mind.”

I briefly went over my own skills with him, mostly just reading out the system generating descriptions mixed in with my own observations. I held back on some of the details, my paranoia creeping up on me again.

Tiller spent the whole time rotating between asking me questions and furiously writing in a spiral notebook. I continued my search through the leather book he had given me.

“This,” I suddenly said, interrupting Tiller in the middle of a question. “Who has this?”

Tiller took the book from me and looked at the description before frowning.

“That might be a little tricky,” he said. “She values her privacy, and I doubt she’d want visitors demanding she show off her skills.”

“This is important, Tiller. Life or death, literally.”

“Look,” he said. “I can talk to her, but you’re going to have to give me a day or two.”

I reluctantly agreed, before starting to look through the book again. Tiller asked me a few more questions, but his inquiries seemed to be slowing down.

“How about this one?”

Tiller leaned in and read the description, smiling. “That one I can do. Come on, I’ll take you over to meet my uncle. We’ve been at this for a while and he’ll be looking for me around lunchtime, anyway.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said with a grin.