Many of us survived by ourselves but we weren’t truly living. No, we began to live and thrive when the various settlements allied together to create unstoppable factions. With the safety and security came prosperity.

Wilfrid Pember - Historian- The Start of the Apocalypse

____

Josh swung his sword low, its blade thudding dully against the shield. Dom shoved the shield forward and followed with an overhead mace smash. The Antimage Brawler sidestepped in the nick of time, but he didn’t account for the kick from below. Thrown off-balance, he dived face-first into the ground and earned himself a mouthful of dirt. Looming over him, Dom clicked his tongue and made for the water station.

Josh got up and followed, jerking his helmet off to reveal a clammy mess of blond curls. His sweaty skin was smeared with dirt and he could feel it clods of it wriggling inside his clothes as well, no doubt from having slipped through the cracks in his armour.

Filling a cup from the cooler, Dom passed it over. “You’re getting better.”

“I would have died if you had gone for blood,” Josh replied dryly, taking the drink and gulping it in one.

Grunting, Dom got himself a cup. “You dodged my hit, at least. Imagine how bad that would have been.”

Josh didn’t need to imagine: his body was already bruised tender in several areas, splotches of black and purple puckered flesh. It could be worse, though, as at least his Magic-Resistant Skin had blocked the arcane effects. “If I had been against Sabine, she would have fucked me over all the same,”

Dom simply sighed while shaking his head. “You’ve got to stop putting yourself up to impossible standards, mate. She was more monstrous than actual monsters, and everyone here knew it. There’s a reason they all acted meek before we decided to do something about it.”

“I bet you could take her on now,” Josh fired back, filling his cup up again.

As if imagining the fight in his mind, Dom closed his eyes for a long moment before shrugging. “Maybe, but that’s just the thing with rare classes, isn’t it? Silas, Alice, Natalie, Sabine, they all dominated every battlefield they entered and why do you think that was? Sure, the additional attributes are nice, but even with my Black Knight, the biggest improvement is in how much more deadly my abilities have become.”

Dom’s observation reminded Josh of how the village had changed since Sabine’s fall. Apart from the obvious switch in leadership, the general populace now looked at Natalie and Dom as the dominant powerhouses, in particular the Cryomancer. Word of her performance at the ambush had spread like wildfire through the village and now everyone was wary of her.

1. Silas Wycliffe - level 38 - Duellist

2. Natalie Svoboda - level 35 - Cryomancer

3. Dominic Wood - level 33 - Black Knight

4. Iris Azer - level 32 - Healer

5. Josh Thompson - level 30 - Antimage Brawler

6. Yuri Dmitriev - level 29 - Cleric

7. Elise LeBeau - level 28 - Minister

8. Renard Lavigne - level 28 - Arcane Fletcher

9. Lina Radhakrishnan - level 27 - Blazeblade

…

282. Tessa Flowers - level 19 - Alchemist

…

602. Rolf Ruttering - level 14 - Tactician

…

1103. Fredo Passero - level 2

Several of Riverside’s established citizens had moved in to fill the power vacuum left by Sabine’s faction, but none of them moved against the current governors anymore, not after what had happened to the last opposition. While some of them were interesting figures in their own rights, their recent proceedings had been totally overshadowed by a completely unexpected event.

Yesterday, when Josh had still been recovering and disabled, an intimidating party of twenty with red armbands had shown up in Riverside. From what he had heard, and later seen, these men and women were all dressed in bulky dark armour and wielded intimidating weapons, including a number of guns.

Prime amongst them was Harlan, a rugged man with a menacing runic warhammer, who also claimed to be an official envoy from New Derby. He brought with him a treaty that Silas had supposedly agreed to, which had further shocked Josh as he had imagined his friend to be wandering the wilds in search of his siblings, not sipping tea in halls with vaulted ceilings and discussing alliances.

Fierce discussion had broken out in the council over the terms of the proposed alliance, but in the end, most of the points had passed in one form or another in addition to a select few brought up by the council. One of the primary issues Silas had argued for was the immediate construction of a road between the two settlements and it turned out New Derby had already started on it, so Riverside began on it too from their end.

Besides this, the Order had also shown particular interest in the new human settlement. The construction of their sector in Riverside continued, but it now appeared they also wanted an outpost in New Derby. Josh didn’t know the details of what came of this, but he had spotted Ish brooding more intensely than usual, so there was that.

Downing his third cup of water, Josh clapped Dom on the shoulder. “Right, I better get going now.”

“Oh, are you heading for this tea party of yours?” Dom asked, his lips curling at their ends. “You should invite me and Ellie sometime. Have you neighbours around, you know?”

Josh flashed him a toothy grin. “Sorry, man, but it’s a youth club. No space for geezers like you.”

****

Having washed and donned casual clothes, Josh arrived at Iris’s house and knocked. He didn’t have to wait long before she showed up and saw him into the living room. There sat Natalie and Rolf, the former sipping on tea, the latter munching on his umpteenth biscuit, crumbs dotted around his mouth.

On seeing him, Natalie dipped her head and faintly smiled. “Hello.”

“Hey, Nat,” he said, activating Magic-Resistant Skin and sitting beside her. “What have you been up to then?”

“I’m still helping in the lab,” she replied coolly. “Apparently they manufacture healing salves in New Derby, so Tessa’s team has switched focus to that in the hope that a salve may come easier than a potion.”

He arched an eyebrow and gave her a quizzical look. “Is there actually a difference between the two? I would have thought that most of the ingredients would be the same.”

“Well, so far we‘ve been trying to recreate the potions the System provided during the tutorial. Their application was far greater than what these salves provide. In truth, they probably do share a lot of the same ingredients, but we believe the potions had something more to them.”

“Any idea on what that could be?” he asked.

She hummed thoughtfully. “Remember those herbs we found near the quarry. It turns out New Derby has a similar field near them with magical plants growing, and its those plants they use to make the salves. Harlan said they believe there’s something below the field that’s causing these changes, but so far they haven’t dug deep enough to find anything.” Natalie set her jaw and her face took on a more serious expression. “If we succeed in tomorrow’s raid on the quarry, we could overtake them. Those blue stones are almost certainly what we’re looking for.”

Rolf wiped the crumbs from his face and opened his mouth as if to say something before reconsidering. Josh caught this gesture from the corner of his eyes and prompted his friend. “What’s up, Rolf? You look like you’ve got something to say.”

The Tactician chuckled nervously while levelling his glasses. “I already told these two, but it seems the Order is well versed on the blue rocks you saw outside the quarry. They call it manastone and have a range of uses for it. Since the quarry is far closer to us, they’re letting us have it, but they offered to help us with the raid and buy ores from us in exchange for information on the manastone. New Derby’s party has also offered similar terms in exchange for a few blue rocks as samples for them to test.”

“I mean, given how many of those animals we spotted there, that sounds like a pretty sweet deal for us,” Josh said.

Rolf took a deep breath and scratched his chin. “And, um, I’m coming with you guys as well.”

“Good stuff. We’ll definitely need your strategies and, honestly, it’s about time you came out of the village,” Josh said without skipping a beat.

“Yeah,” Rolf replied, tension bleeding out of his chest with a hearty chuckle. It appeared he had worried himself sick over the decision, and Josh was pleased to see he was finally leaving his comfort zone.

Finally, Iris came in with a steaming mug and handed it to Josh. He took a sip and shuddered slightly: he had acknowledged it some time ago but the Healer truly made a mean cuppa. “By the way, Iris, I heard you got a few words in with Harlan,” he said with a cheeky smile, “Did he have any information on Silas?”

Iris rolled her eyes and picked up her notepad. Leafing back a few pages, she showed him a pre-written answer. Silas distinguished himself in their horde attack and established good relations with their mayor. Apparently he got a meeting with their Seer after this and then swiftly left.

“You think he finally got the lead he was looking for?”

She nodded, a faint smile on her face.

____

Well, we finally got news about Silas today. His trip to New Derby was super successful, and honestly, I didn’t think he would set up an alliance in the time. Although, then again, he did a similar thing with Lyfort so who knows, maybe he’s just suited to be a travelling envoy. Perhaps he’ll have made several more alliances by the time he comes back!

Anyway, I think Riverside has moved on from Sabine at last. Several other people have risen to take over her faction’s area and influence including Renard. I haven’t written much about him, but he’s been here from the start, although back then he was far more low-key, living as our resident bowyer and fletcher. But recently he upgraded his class to Arcane Fletcher, and now all the archers suck up to him. Still, he’s a good fellow and a religious one who spends a lot of time with Yuri. I thought Yuri was stuck-up and scary but he saved me last time, so I guess he’s not bad either.

Tomorrow, we’re finally raiding the quarry. It’s the perfect time because it leaves us a day till the horde but more importantly because the ratkin have massively decreased their activity recently. It might be because of how many they lost last time or maybe something entirely else, but either way, our scouts haven’t caught sight of them for a while now. If our raid is successful and the manastones are as effective as they’re rumoured to be, it could massively decrease the workload on us Healers. Krisa was also hinting and giggling that a lot more could be done with them, but Ish shut her up before she spilled anything else.

Iris Azer - Diary - Day 37 on Idroa