They crossed the school playground/jungle until they reached the tar road's remains between the schools. The fence around the property was now gone, and they slowly moved through the forest surrounding the school. Everybody was trying to be as silent as possible while sneaking through the woods towards the nearest building. Louie noticed that they passed a tree with strange light green vines covered with a white flower hanging from a branch every now and then. He didn't pay much attention till he saw one of the flowers turn in his direction when he got too close. "Careful guys, watch those flowers." He pointed to a vine and the flower that was slowly tracking his movement. Louie saw that Jackson and Debbie have taken on unofficially bodyguarding Sally and the other medic. Even though they had their spear and shields, it was good to know that the recruits took the lesson of always protect the healers seriously. Louie heard animals around them in the thick jungle, looking around he spotted the occasional creatures. He even saw a couple of squirrels with green and black fur in the trees, Louie had a distinct feeling that the squirrels were watching them, they were ready to attack if they approached too closely. There were also various species of birds visible. Louie indicated that they should slow down and listen. "Always listen to the forest or jungle around you. If the animal sound vanishes, then know something is prowling around, usually a predator." They left the strip of forest and crossed an open stretch of broken concrete to a dilapidated building. The group flattened themselves against the crumbling wall of what looked to have once been a storage shed for tractors and lawnmowers. Louie saw through a crack in the wall, what looked like a huge old tracked CAT drainage plough. He reached through the crack to touch the Cat and inventoried it. It took up twice the space of the massive rock he had in there. 'I bet the blacksmiths will be able to use all that steel.' They moved silently around the ruined storage garage and for the first time they could see the side of the main school building. Louie was delighted as he saw that it looked as if the building's bottom windows were closed off with steel shutters. There was a 20 meter wide stretch of broken concrete between them and the shuttered building, and in the middle of that sat a giant rabbit with a huge rack of antlers, a horned rabbit. It was about one and a half meters tall, not including its antlers, and it was looking straight at them. Louie indicated that they should stop. "Nobody attacks it. Move slowly to the left and keep on moving." Horned Rabbit Horned Rabbits are a giant breed of hare with a set of horns. They are neutral creatures that will retaliate if attacked. The males might have long, curved horns like an antelope or antlers like a deer. High Perception, (passive) Darkvision up to 20meters. Charge. If the Horned Rabbit moves at least 3 meters straight toward a target, it can use a ram attack on the same target that does bludgeoning damage. Somebody asked quietly. "Why? it's just a rabbit, a big rabbit, but it's still just a rabbit." Strangely it's one of the girls who responded. "First thing you learn as a noob in the games, don't mess with the horned rabbits." A couple of them nodded as they slinked away from the creature. Suddenly there was a massive arrow protruding from its back, and it gave an ungodly scream. Louie saw a cable attached to the arrow, and it started dragging the screaming rabbit towards an open window on the second floor. "Over there." Everybody turned to where a recruit was pointing, and Louie saw a whole colony of horned rabbits raising their head out of the waist-high grass and started coming towards them. They formed two rows of six again, bracing for the charge, and Louie envisioned BOB to rush around the shed and hit the rabbits in the side. He quickly cast and gathered stone to form a thick wall behind, and at their sides, nobody could sneak attack them while they face off against the rabbits. He had his naginata in hand as he stood to one side and send the first air blade just as the horned rabbits hit the shield wall, driving them back against the second row of shields. The rabbits screamed as BOB plowed through them like a tighthead driving through a loose scrum. Listening for a moment, Louie rushed into the middle and dropped all the rabbits into liquid stone, and he hurriedly called BOB over to the small barricade he had made for the recruits. He gathered more stone and closed the position up and let the stone flow over their head, making a roof for their stone box as the ground started to shake. Just before the roof closed up, he saw many people with shocked expressions staring out of the second-floor windows at them. "Silence!" Louie took one of the lanterns they got from the nest out of his inventory. There was a score of relieved sighs as the light flared in the dark box. "Everybody ok?" A chorus of yeses answered him. The ground was still vibrating as something stormed past their hiding spot. "What is that?" Louie used "Horned Rabbits, a lot of Horned Rabbits if I must guess I would say over a hundred." "Shit." "Yip, you don't mess around with the bloody rabbits." Came from the recruits. After ten minutes, there were no more vibrations, and Louie couldn't sense any more movement with his He moved some of the stone away, creating an opening through which he could see. Making sure there were no rabbits around. Louie dissolved the stone box and looked up at the second floor and the people hanging out of the windows. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something grey moving. Louie turned and looked to the west, where a dark cloudbank was brewing. One big older guy leaned out the window and half shout half-whispered. "Who are you guys, and what do you want?" "I'm Louie Poren. I made a safe place at the Shell Garage just outside town. I got more people searching for survivors and people that need help. You might have seen the lights last night." Louie replied, waving at the clouds. "Can we talk inside, away from the rabbits and possible rain?" Louie frowned up at the sky and then down at the recruits around him. "I would like to get under cover before the rain gets here or the rabbits return." The guy gave BOB a dubious look while some of the other people had their bows pointed at him. "He is my pet. He won't harm you if you don't attack him." After giving it some thought, the guy nodded. "You got to wait for a while. The rabbits are around the front. That's where the only door is." "Thanks … but uh, I can make us a stair up to the window," Louie said, eyeing the rain that was slowly coming towards them. "You got some ability to shape the stone? I saw that stone cube you all hid in." Louie nodded. "Yes, may we come in?" "Ok, come in but don't try anything. We got armed people watching you." Louie agreed before turning to the skirmish site, bringing the 11 suffocated rabbits to the surface, and inventoried them. He gathered all the stone around him and molded a staircase up to the window. BOB had to use to get through the window and the classroom door. In the hallway, they were met by the big guy and about twenty people with a couple of drawn bows, homemade spears, and a mix of farm implements. Louie raised his hand and told the recruits to stand down. "There is no need for the weapons. We mean you no harm. But let me show you something." Louie slowly reached out and rapped his knuckles on BOB's shoulder. The sound of striking metal reverberated through the hallway. "He is made of metal. Your arrows and weapons are useless against him. If I wanted to harm you, then I would just have opened a hole in the wall and send him in alone. We are here to see if you need any help. If not, then we will just leave." They visibly relaxed but still kept a watchful eye on BOB. One of the younger guys spoke up. "You really are from the place with the lights we saw last night?" The big guy, who looked like he could carry a Bonsmara bull on his shoulders, held up his hand. "I'm Dirk Duvehage. People call me DD. Can you remove your mask?" 'Shit.' "Damn, Sorry, l got so used to it that I forgot I had it on." Louie placed his mask, helm, and naginata in his inventory. He held out his hand for DD to shook. "As I said, I'm Lewis Poren. People call me Louie. This is BOB. He is my bonded pet, and this is my squad that we are training." Loo indicated the people around him. DD looked at the man with the big monster pet before him. "How can we help you, Louie?" Louie shrugged. "I'm actually here to see if you need any help. I have created a Fort out there at the Shell Garage. It's a safe place, and there are already about 500 people there. I will be going back with the troops to town tomorrow, but I think most of the Fort's people will stay. How many people do you have here, and would you come with us, or do you want to stay here?" DD indicated that they should walk and talk. As they walked through the crowded hallways, Louie told him about Starter Town the Fort and the plans of regular patrols between the two, as well as his plan to go to Paarl. DD just shook his head. "A Dungeon, you say?" He stopped one of the small kids that were walking down the hallway. "Gaan find Kallie, se hy moet na die saal toe kom." (Go find Kallie, tell him to come to the Hall.) "Kallie should hear this. He is the one of us that knows most of what's going on out there. He said it's time for gamers to shine." They entered what used to be the school hall. Many people were milling around a couple of tables, but most were just sitting against the walls or laying on the floor. "We got about 6 thousand people here, it's more people than we got room for, most of the classrooms are full, and everybody is crammed in where they can fit." Louie looked at all the people laying on the floor. "I saw through the windows that there are some open-ended courtyards. I can close that off, and you would have a safe place to spend during the day, it's too big an opening for me to make a roof, but at least it will lessen the crush in here. I can also make you some tables that you can stack that can be used as bunk beds, it would be heavy, but 8 people would be able to stack them and, you would be able to flip them on the sides and use them as a barrier in emergencies." DD gave him a searching look. "What do you want in exchange for that?" Loo just shook his head. "Nothing, or wait. . ." DD thought. 'Here it comes, the hidden agenda.' "I want good relations between us, between your community and the Fort and Starter Town." DD thought for a moment and held out his hand. "Agreed." DD asked all the people to move to the front of the Hall as Louie took out one of his big blocks of stone and liquified it, he started to shape single maiden style tables that can seat ten people, but there was a hole in each corner where the next table legs can fit in to be stacked. Instead of benches, he shaped three-legged barstools, ten for each table. "Impressive." A group of young people stood at the door and watched Louie. DD called the leader over. "Kallie, come meet our new neighbor. Louie, this is Kallie, our resident system expert," DD explained to Kallie everything Louie told him while Louie finished the tables and stools. Kallie held out his hand to Louie. "Dag Oom." Louie shook his hand. "Hi, please to meet you, forget about the uncle bit. I don't feel that old. Call me Louie." Kallie agreed. "Is that your work? Can you tell me more?" Louie nodded in the direction of a metal barrier covering the window. Kallie looked slightly embarrassed. "Aaah, Ja, we . . .a couple of us were having a party in the gym celebrating the fact that we were not coming back to school this year. When the Gaea message came, we were all a bit . . mellow, so we thought it was a joke. The next morning when I want to go take a leak outside, I spotted what looked like a giant rabbit with horns. I thought I was still drunk and threw a beer bottle at it." "Big mistake. It charged me. I only closed the door in a nick of time. I held that door for 5 minutes, screaming my lungs out while the rabbit tried to break through the door before my still slightly drunk friends showed up to help. The whole time I was with my shoulder against that door, I wished for a portcullis to drop outside the door and skewer that bloody rabbit. When my friends eventually arrived, I grabbed some tables and improvised a barrier, and that's when I unlocked the class." "Construction Specialist, huh?" "Yes. I think the fact that I was studying engineering also contributed, that's why my Class is Construction Specialist and my Skill: I don't know what that means. But, I also got a spell that allows me to make a barrier that I have been using to close the windows. It's called ." Louie studied one of the steel barriers across the window. "We went to the landscaping classroom and got some garden tools. The school was mostly clear, and we only found a couple of rats in the back of the kitchen. After killing them, we sat down and started going through all our status and what we know of games. We went around and barricaded all the lower floor windows and doors." Kallie indicated a beautiful young girl. "Sandra, there was one of the school chant leaders on sports day, so we got her on the roof, and she started shouting at the people that were running and hiding in the streets to come to the school. The news spread, and survivors came, now we got over 6 thousand people here, and Sandra unlocked a class." They started laughing as Sandra slapped Kallie's arm. Louie couldn't help but smile. "What class did you unlock, Sandra?" She mumbled something that Louie couldn't quite make out. "Sorry I didn't catch that?" She sighed. ", and my ability are " She gave Louie a 'are you crazy' look when he told her it's an amazing class and ability. "No, listen, it's amazing because you use your voice to guide people. All you got to do is visualise where you want them to go. Indeed, the legends say that sirens lured sailors to their death, but your voice is like a knife. You can decide to use it to cut meat or to murder people. The siren can be a kind of bard with your voice as your instrument. It's all about intent. Put that in your voice as you sing." There was a couple of coughs. Louie looked around. "What?" Somebody spoke up. "She can't sing. She is a rapper." Everybody started laughing. Louie held up his hands. "No, that's even better. Just make rhymes or whatever rappers do and put your intent in that while you rap." She nodded her thanks. Louie looked at Kallie as he returned to his story. "Uncle DD was one of the first here. He and his wife were in town for a movie night when the Gaea message happened. So he is running things, he is good with organising big events like the farmers fair." "We were checking all the windows, and that's when we found the basement. We thought we had struck gold, a Dungeon, but it's creepy, evil, and I'm not going down there again." "You found a Dungeon? Here at school?" They nodded. "We think so, but I'm not going down there. I seeled it off real good." Louie shook his head. "It's not possible." He took his tablet out, and it still showed that there is a vendor in the twenty kilometers range, but it's to the southwest and it's 18kilometers away." They all gawked at the tablet in his hands. "What's that? Where did you get a tablet that works?" DD was the first to ask. When Louie saw the astonished stares, he held up his hand, went to his journal, and opened it on the section he wrote after the Dungeon about all the tricks they discovered about the status screen. After some thought, he tried to send it to everybody around the table. He noticed his mana dropped when he sent the notes to Kallie and DD and all those around him. He also sends everything that he had noted down on the Dungeon. "Look in your inventory for a scrap of paper and just read it. Most of this you should already know, but there is some stuff that we figured out." He watches their astonishment as the paper crumbled in their hands. Louie nodded. "Yes, I know, and no, I can't make skill books, it's just a trick I discovered that works with my class." Most had disappointed looks on their faces. "Ok, what you guys found can't be a Dungeon because vendors only appear in dungeons, and the closest is 18 kilometers away. You said you sealed it off?" Kallie nodded. "Good, I think we can go have a look later." They were all sitting around one of the stone tables when a small boy walked up to Louie. "Mr, can I pet your dog?" Loo looked over to where BOB was sniffing at a metal table. "Yeah, you can." Louie turned to the rest of the kids. "I suppose the rest of you wanted to meet him as well?" Louie asked, directing his gaze over to the group of kids who looked at BOB. They all nodded eagerly, and Louie smiled at their eagerness. "Alright, then. Be quiet and gentle. Don't touch him without my permission or when I'm not near." They nodded as Louie called BOB over. Louie urged BOB to lay down on the floor and then showed them where they could scratch and pet BOB to get the most satisfaction from him. Louie shook his head as he heard, "Aww, he is so cute! He reminds me of my puppy!" a little girl squealed, staring at the big monster dog on the floor. BOB showed his appreciation by giving her a big wet lick and sniffing the unknown people. Louie gently stroked BOB's head to calm him down. "Be gentle, BOB. They are only children." Louie got a feeling of small puppies crawling all over him. 'Puppies?' Louie nodded. "Yes, BOB, they are only puppies." DD shook his head as BOB turned on his back to let the kids crawl all over him. "Golem dog as a pet, who would have thought that would be possible. You think there would be more like him in that Dungeon of yours?" Louie thought about that, and after a moment, he shook his head. "I don't think so. After I bonded with him, the total Dungeon spawn was lowered from 103 to 102." Hmm, might build some better relations here. "However, I do have a pet egg for somebody that might be a bit adventurous." All the teens and some of the older men and women perked up a bit. "Really? You got an egg that you are willing to part with?" Kallie asked, seeing himself riding on a Dragon or Griffon. Louie thought of Sher. "Yea, but I think it might be more suited for a woman's touch." Kallie deflated a bit. Louie thought of keeping quiet about what might emerge from the egg, but it might damage their blossoming relations. He sighed and removed one of the eggs from his inventory. Everybody leaned closer to the table to see the egg. "I must warn you." Louie placed his hand on the rugby ball-shaped egg. "It's a mechanical golem, the same as BOB." They looked really interested. "But it's a spider." There were gasps, and everybody recoiled from the egg, everybody except a petite girl with dark skin and pixy-like facial features. "A metal spider? One like your dog? Something I can bond to?" Loo raises an eyebrow. Kallie leaned over and threw his arm over her shoulder, and sighed. "Yes, of course, you would love that." Louie pushed the egg at the pixy while looking at Kallie. "My girlfriend, Msizi, best healer there is and in love with spiders. Uffh!" He exhaled while clutching his side where she had elbowed him. "I have a pet tarantula at home named, Is'nana." Louie thought of a giant mutated tarantula stalking the streets. "Where is home?" "Transkei." She replied without taking her eyes off the egg. Louie sighed with relief. "Wait, take this one." Louie swapped the egg for one of the 5 Queen eggs he had left. He sends her the analysis of the egg. Immature Queen spider egg (unclassed) To hatch feed it regularly with mana. Will make a good pet. Class depending on external factors. Kallie looks at Louie. "You got more than one egg?" "Jip found a nest in the Dungeon." Kallie shook his head. "Why did it have to be spiders? Why not Dragons." Louie laughed at his tone. "I don't think we could have survived a Dragon, much less one with a nest full of eggs." Louie opened his journal, and thinking for a moment, hoping it would work, he concentrated on a picture of Sher and Ansi and how he remembered them as she cast the Tree of life. To his amazement, he got a photo quality picture of her facing the Doctors in her armour with Ansi on her shoulder. He smiled as he sends the pic together with another one of Ansi to Msizi. "Look in your inventory. I send you some pics of Sher. She is Gaea's Druid, and her Companion is Ansi. I think that your spider might be what you imagine it to be. If you want a tarantula, it might be born a tarantula, but again this is all speculation." She looked at the pic, and after it turned to dust, she nodded while clutching the egg to her breast. "Thank you." "You got all your armour and weapons in the Dungeon and from the vendor?" Kallie wanted to know. "Yes. As far as we could figure out from asking the vendor, there should be a vendor in every Dungeon. The Dungeon at Starter Town is a challenge Dungeon. That means that once you go in, then you must clear the Dungeon and kill the boss before it lets you leave the Dungeon." "If you can't kill the boss, then you are screwed. But the fact that it said it's a challenge Dungeon means that there should be other different Dungeons out there, like puzzle or crafter Dungeons. I haven't got the time, or I would have gone to investigate this other Dungeon that the tablet say is to the southwest." "We got a satellite map of the area in the library." "Nice, maybe we can figure where that Dungeon is." Said Loo, Kallie quickly sends one of his crew to go get the satellite photo. Kallie asked if he could look at the tablet, and Loo handed it to him, explaining its features and the scanning option. "I would suggest that you guys set up an exchange system with the coins you get when you loot creatures. This will make it easier when you find a Dungeon and use the vendor." After thinking for a bit, Louie made a decision. "Keep the tablet. Use it as a guide on what the vendor pays for stuff and then buy for 10% less so you can get something in exchange at the vendors, start an economy going here." Kallie couldn't believe his ears. "Why are you giving this to us?" "I'm going into the Dungeon again on Saturday. I will get a new one. As payment, I want you to make a price catalog of all the materials and everything you can get around here that's on there and start spreading it around, and when somebody goes out to the Fort, give them a copy. Do we have a deal?" Kallie shook his hand. Shortly after that, the guy that went to get the map returned. Louie saw it was a big two-meter by two-meter photo quality satellite map that shows everything, including the tunnel. Louie marked Starter Town and the Fort on the map for them. They took the direction and measurements that the tablet indicated to the next vendor and marked the spot on the map where the Dungeon should be. "Hey, I know that place." Louie looked at the guy that spoke up. He was build like a brick outhouse and looked just as bright. Kallie looked doubtful. "You know where that is, Dorf?" He was vigorously shaking his head. "Yip, I know, was there before the bright light. That's where I get all the beer from." Kallie smiled at the big guy. "Thanks, Dorf. That's great. You helped us a lot." A smile practically split Dorfs face in two. Kallie nodded. "Mountain Brewing company. They always have a beer garden here on fair day. And they are one of the sponsors for our Rugby teams. Don't laugh. We got ribbed about that a lot." Louie made a mark on his map and bookmarked it as a Dungeon. Louie handed Kallie and DD each an OCD (Obsidian Communication Device) and explained how it works. He also sent them a pic of Joe and Sher and then Johan and Bianca but explained that he hasn't given them an OCD yet. Louie left them browsing the tablet as he talked to DD. "How can I help you here? I see that you need more space, you got a big facility here, but it's a lot of separate buildings. I can create a couple of bridges between the buildings that would keep you out of the reach of the rabbits." "Kallie and his people can go in and clear the building's room for room. I would have liked to make a wall around the school, but your monsters are already on the premises. And I don't think you want all the monsters dead since you are farming them for meat." DD said that Louie must walk with him. Louie indicated for the recruits to stay and for BOB to follow. He did not want to leave BOB alone with the kids after telling them that they should not touch BOB if he were not present. "We got two pressing problems here. Water, and the ability to keep meat fresh if we kill a rabbit then we must use the meat, or it goes bad, at the moment it's not a big problem, but it would be if we start getting more meat or if there is a rise in the temperature." Louie nodded. "Water? I can sink you a couple of wells that should solve your problem. I can't help you with your freezer problem. This is a farming community, so I think you should try and run as many people who can cook through your kitchen or even start outdoor kitchens in your courtyards. Try and unlock cooks, chefs, and classes, anything that has to do with food preparation. I think you will see that they usually have some food preservative ability. Like I tell my people, think outside the box." They went up the stairs to the second floor, and as Louie looked out the window, he saw a courtyard below. "Let me show you what I can do here." Louie stepped up and opened the window. After making sure that there were no monsters around, he reached down with and formed a pilar and started bringing stone up to start molding a covered walkway along the outside of the building till it reached the open end of the courtyard. Louie looked up at the clouds and the rain that was falling. He caught glimpses of movement in the clouds, but nothing that he could identify. Keeping an eye on the weather, he molded water cisterns under the gutter downspouts to help with the water shortage. As he reached the end of the building, he started forming the wall and closed the courtyard. He then made the stairs down into the yard. He also created two big stone lattice windows with small 5-centimeter size holes through the meter-thick wall. Louie walked up to the school wall, and judging where the floor was, he created an opening that leads into the building. There were a couple of screams as people saw what they thought was a wall suddenly melt. DD stepped forward and reassured people that it is safe to come out, and people slowly stuck their heads out into the rain. Some of the younger teens practically stripped down and run around in just their underwear. They were glad to get the chance to enjoy the rain and being out of doors after a week inside.