“What’s going on?” Nick asked.

Lily didn’t answer and instead brought up a screen for everyone to read.

Shaman -

Skill 1 - The Ritual - Active

Perform a ritual. The outcome will depend on materials and intentions.

Skill 2 - The Totem - Active

Convert a ritual into a physical medium.

Skill 3 - The Call - Passive

It will be answered.

Skill 4 - Vision Specialist - Passive

Any scrying, vision, or information gathering rituals have greater effect and reduced material cost.

What an incredibly vague set of skills. That was the first thing that jumped out at Nick. Then he focused on the third skill.

“Sorry? What the hell is that third skill? Why’s it so damn ominous?” Nick asked.

Abigail just continued to laugh for a bit, not providing any answers. Then she straightened up and looked at Lily with a grin, Lily maintained a deadpan expression and met her gaze.

“I am a little concerned, Abby. You didn’t mention anything about this.”

“Some secrets stay between Shamans. You’ve just shown everyone here something we try to avoid letting out.” Abigail then turned to the rest of the group. “Some Shamans can be very protective of their skill set, especially that third skill.”

“Why?” Lily asked.

“It’s become something of a religious fanaticism amongst some in the community. A reason for all of this.” Abigail gestured at their surroundings. “That’s why it’s for the best if everything you all saw remains here today.”

Abigail then pulled out her tablet and began staring intently into it. The rest of the group was just left staring awkwardly at each other for a bit. Nobody seemed to know how to respond to what had just happened. Lily looked to be in her contemplative state, mulling over the life changing decision she’d just made. The only straightforward part about her class was the fourth skill, information gathering had always been part of Lily’s life. She had always aimed to become an investigative journalist and Nick knew that it was the perfect pathway for her. Now that they were here, this seemed like a pretty good alternative.

That’s when Lily’s eyes snapped to focus and questions began to flood out of her mouth in a torrent.

“What is the call? Who’s calling? Should I be worried? Why are all of these skills so vague? What constitutes a ritual? What can be material? Scrying? Vision? Information gathering? What the hell is going on with this ‘wider community’ you’ve been mentioning? When can I get my own tablet?” Lily sucked in a deep breath. “What are the limits of these rituals? How big of an effect can they have? What’s a totem? What can be made into a totem? Who can use them? Anyone?”

The sudden outburst stunned Maddy and Abigail. Henry and Nick weren’t as surprised, they’d seen Lily react like this before on a number of occasions.

“I can answer some of those questions now, but most of them will have to be a private conversation.” She looked at the rest of the group and shrugged. “Shaman secrets.”

“You don’t have to be worried about The Call. None of you should be.” Abigail then held up a hand, stopping Lily from asking a question. “You’ll have to trust me on that one for now. The tablet though, that will be the first ritual I teach you. How to set up your own connection to our wider forum. That ties into the community. Most of us Shamans stay in pretty close contact with each other, either in communities or using our forum.”

Lily nodded along. Nick simply had to take a mental step back. There was a lot going on with this situation that really didn’t make much sense to him. He’d leave it in Lily’s capable hands and he was sure she’d give him a pretty solid explanation once she’d worked it all out.

“Well, let's head back?” Nick proposed.

Everyone nodded and made their way back to the rooms. Lily was pulled into Maddy’s room by Abigail and warned the group not to bother them for the rest of the night. Henry decided to head to the kitchen and try and land himself a temporary job, Nick could tell that he was just excited to try and test out his new skills. Nick and Maddy decided to go for a walk and have a chat, they kept their route within a few rooms of the dining room though. They didn’t want to head too far out and have to deal with any bandits.

While they were walking about, Nick posed a question for Maddy.

“Now that we’ve made it down to the 71st, what do you plan on doing?” He asked.

Maddy sat on the question for a bit before answering. “I’m not too sure honestly. Abby wants to go to the Parklands, meet up with some other Shamans to be a bit safer. I’ll take her there but I’m not sure if I’ll stay long.”

“Why wouldn’t you stay with her?” Nick was confused.

Maddy laughed. “I love my sister, I don’t want to leave her at all. I’m just not sure I could last in a community of Shamans though. Just spending the last year with Abby has been trying at times, I love her but that class changes the way people think to too extreme a degree. I’m not sure I could deal with a whole bunch of that, constantly.”

Nick found the position pretty understandable, though he wasn’t sure he could just leave his family behind. Maddy then turned the question back on him.

“I want to get stronger. When we get Benny back with us, I want to make myself and my family as strong as possible. I don’t want to be constantly subject to the whims of people, levels above us, not when I have the ability to get just as powerful.” Nick answered.

“Cool answer Nick, it’s kinda vague though.” Maddy said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s pretty easy to just say you want to get strong.”

Nick gave her a light punch in the shoulder. “Hey. I was just making it sound cool alright? I have it broken down in my head. Class gems, training, knowledge. There’s many facets to power and I know it won’t be easy.”

Maddy laughed. “Okay okay, it sounds like you’ve at least fleshed it out a bit. I’ll look forward to it Nick, I’ll move into whatever floor you decide to lay claim to in the future.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Nick said with a grin.

The duo then spent some more time just walking about and talking about the future, eventually they decided to head to the kitchen and check in on how Henry was doing. They found the man sweating over a stove, a massive pot before him. The man was in such an intently focused state that he didn’t even notice Nick or Maddy as they got right up next to him. Nick smiled as he watched his dad at work. Then another man in the kitchen walked over.

“Don’t bother, that mad man is completely in a world of his own right now. He stormed into the kitchen and demanded a pot, a stove and some ingredients. We were going to throw him out but Doyle vouched that he was a level two Chef.” The man said with a shrug.

Nick decided to finally get his vest checked by someone while his dad was busy. He dragged Maddy to the back area and asked one of Doyle’s guys to find the appraiser for him. When the man eventually came over to them he took the payment and looked over the vest for a moment.

“Pretty good. It’s got the same defensive stats as a strong leather full chestplate, though it’s thin enough to wear under other gear. Effectively letting you double defensive stats…” The man trailed off. “...Sell it to me. I’ll give you 200 pills for it.”

Nick took the vest out of the man’s hands. “No thanks. I’ll be using it myself.”

“You’re an Explorer, you’ll find plenty of gear like this. Surely you could sell this one to me.” The man said with a frown.

Nick had to shoo the man off, he had no plans on selling the vest. Especially when his own gear was so sorely lacking at the moment. He had some other leather gear in his bag right now, but he wasn’t entirely comfortable wearing it. It was the loot he’d taken from the bandits he’d beaten, and while it was rightly his, he didn’t want to wear it. Nick then remembered his deal with Doyle, he could totally sell off most of the gear he was carrying. Nick then set about hunting the man down.

When he found him, Doyle appointed one of his men as in charge of handling any transactions that would be taking place in the future. The man would work with an appraiser to give Nick a fair price for any items he wanted to sell, Nick was also free to bring in any third party if he wanted to double check prices. Nick then went off to the side and sold off most of the pieces he had been carrying around in his bag.

He sold off the leather gear set, two swords and an axe, netting a total of 400 hundred pills in profit. Apparently the leather gear and the sword he’d gotten from the poor swordsman were pretty terrible quality. It was only the sword and axe he’d picked up from challenge rooms that managed to fetch a good price. Now Nick was only carrying the metal gear and sword that the larger bandit swordsman had been using. Nick didn’t plan on getting rid of those, they held a sentimental value to him. A moment in his life he didn’t want to forget. He also kept his old wraps, they were a bit trashed and Nick doubted whether there would be a market for them or not.

Nick then went back to Maddy and they decided it was time to grab some dinner. That’s when Henry came into the back area, carrying two bowls. He spotted Nick and Maddy and came running over to them.

“One of the lads mentioned two people were looking for me, I assumed it was you two.” He put the bowls in front of the pair. “Here, try this.”

Nick looked at the soup in front of him and smiled. He’d missed his dad's cooking, the food here was fabulous but home cooked family food would always have a special place in his heart. Nick picked up the spoon and brought it up to his mouth, the smell alone making his mouth water. As he put the spoon in his mouth his eyes widened. Hot damn.

“This is amazing dad.” Nick exclaimed.

Maddy then exclaimed herself. “Holy moly.”

A large smile spread across the older man's face. “I make good soup, good enough that the head Chef here has decided to sell it. I’ll get a cut of the profit at the end of the day, after deducting ingredient costs. Hopefully the dinner rush goes well.”

The man was beaming with pride and Nick was genuinely happy for him. The man’s life had always revolved around cooking and now he had been given a chance to reclaim that domain of his life, maybe even take it further than he previously could have. Nick felt that things were finally heading in the right direction. Lily had a class and would hopefully be able to properly explore her passions through it. His dad now could reengage with his own passion and maybe take it to new heights. All they needed was Benny back and things would be looking amazing for the family.

Nick tried to stay positive though, Benny should be back in no time. He was sure that the Scout would be coming back with Benny within the next few hours, then everything would be fine. Even if the Scout somehow didn’t manage to rescue Benny, there was a contingency plan in place. The Exes were apparently the strongest faction in the Complex and he’d have one of their top teams clearing out the floor to find his brother. Nick was sure that they’d be able to deal with whatever situation Tony or Jacob could possibly present them with. Nick had every reason to remain hopeful, so that’s exactly what he did.

He focused on the soup before him, the friend next to him and the happiness of his father. The positives that he demonstrably had surrounding him.

Henry wanted to take some soup to Lily and Abigail so the trio set out back towards the rooms, soup in hand. They found the pair hunched over some crystal slates, engaged in an argument.

“Bigger isn’t better. You have to think about portability Abby.” Lily contended.

“You can’t argue with how it feels to hold though. Who would want to hold something small in one hand, when you could feel powerful holding something in two.” Abigail rebutted.

“What if I want to carry it around though? The ability to slide it into my pocket when I’m not using it absolutely justifies the smaller size.”

“Just get a bag. It’s not that big a deal.”

The trio interrupted the argument and dragged the pair into the next room over. Abigail’s renovations to her room didn’t make it the most inviting of environments to dine in. Abigail wasn’t happy about being interrupted but her tune changed drastically as she started eating. Nobody in the group could deny the taste of Henry’s creation. The man knew how to make a good soup.

Once they were done eating Lily revealed that her first ritual had been a success, and she pulled out a crystal to demonstrate. Nick couldn’t help but notice that the crystal was a similar size and shape to a smartphone. Apparently this was her totem that would allow her to connect to the wider Shaman community. Nick asked how it worked but Abigail stopped the conversation there, not allowing Lily to share any details. Nevertheless, everyone in the group congratulated Lily on her success. It seemed to have been a very successful night for everyone.

The atmosphere eventually died down and it was getting late. Abigail made the first push and eventually everyone decided it was time to retire for the night. There was no Scout, no visit from one of Doyle’s men to announce someone looking for Nick.

The family eventually had to retire to their rooms to answer the call of sleep. Though, none of the Jones’ slept easy that night.