Day 1 Report:

designation:ZLTDB0K9HUV is advancing at a rate consistent with estimates [PL+2].

STAT gain: N/A

SKL acquisition: N/A

Variable isolation successful: no further incursions from stat.eff (EXCLUDED).

Resuming basic protocol with exclusion status.

- - -

Hemash, Albek, Liyne, and Dune were moving as a group down a poorly maintained street towards the church. It was over a mile away. The puppy was on a leash tied to Hemash’s wheelchair, while Albek and Liyne held hands. Liyne bounced around, taking in all the sights. It wasn’t often that she got to leave the house. Despite her good cheer, the overgrown yards and defunct cars they occasionally found on the side of the road combined with the stifling quiet that suffused the mountain community of North Hill lent a solemn atmosphere to their outing.

Whenever they passed a row of hedges or fences, the two men sharpened their gazes, alert for any signs of motion. Shortly after they left, there came some noise from the woods off the side of the road and Hemash drew his weapon, but nothing came of it. They passed by whatever creature they had disturbed in peace.

Shortly after this incident, Albek asked a question, speaking in Kalkian.

“I don’t see it. Why are all of us going, Maata? If you really think Finlay is that dangerous, why bring Liyne along?”

Albek originally intended to go alone, but deferred to his father when Hemash said he’d come as well. Then, when the man decided that Liyne would accompany them, Albek felt an invisible pressure descend on his shoulders. He could hardly protect himself, and now he had something else to worry about.

“Splitting up would be far more dangerous,” he responded. “More than a few people in North Hill would be happy to see me dead, yes, but the presence of the rest of the group will restrain them. And with Liyne, your karda here, being attacked in the church is practically an impossibility. They will not have fallen so low as to break the covenant and harm a girl.”

‘Awfully sure of himself.’

He always was. That left a bitter taste in Albek’s mouth. Hemash couldn’t have meant it to sound like it did, but it seemed almost like he was bringing Liyne because she would act as a shield for them. Albek’s hand tightened around his sister’s.

Hemash gave him a sideways glance.

“Remember, we were invited by Finlay,” his father said. “That gives us guest privileges—protection under their covenant. This is not something so easily broken. But, like most laws, they only apply when we are in the eyes of the entire group.”

‘And at that, only if they are true Nulites and not just adopting the religion to suit their purposes,’ thought Albek.

“Right…” he replied, not giving voice to his pessimistic thoughts. “And what about right now, on the way there and back? What if we’re ambushed?”

“I already spoke to you of this,” Hemash said. “They won’t risk that.”

“You seem to be concerned, though.”

“I am not vigilant because I think people will attack us. I’m wary of monsters.”

“They don’t even come out during the day.”

Hemash frowned, “Is this the attitude you have been taking when you go on your outings? Foolish. Just because they haven’t done so yet doesn’t mean that they cannot. I expected you to be far more cautious.”

Albek’s face flushed. He didn’t think he was being complacent. It was logical. Sun meant death. His father hadn’t seen zombies combusting into flame like he had. Still, that monster yesterday resisted for far longer than anything he’d seen before.

They walked another block before Albek felt up to resuming the conversation.

“Why aren’t you worried about an ambush by the church?”

His father replied, “They are men. Predictable.”

Hemash patted his sidearm, which was noticeably less concealed than normal, sticking out of a pouch on his armrest. Then, he motioned to Albek’s belt. He’d been given a holster with a toy gun and told to look ready to use it, if need be.

“Flaunting our weapons, standing out in the open, it portrays confidence,” the man said. “Something you still sorely lack. They won’t approach. Out here in the street we have plenty of space to see them coming, and none of them have guns, unless there was more illegal activity here than I knew about.”

Hemash snorted at the last line, showing just how much of a possibility he thought that was. Albek loosened the bat around his waist. He wasn’t as convinced as Hemash seemed to be, but he had to admit that his father had a firmer grasp on the means of the opposition than he did. The confidence struck him the wrong way, but his father was usually right, which annoyed him.

Hemash, who had started on the path of ki, felt it was pretty unlikely that anyone had gotten powerful enough yet to pose an imminent threat, which was why they were going on this trip now. Albek and Liyne had agreed that it was likely the similar case with magic. But too much had happened recently for Albek to be confident in their security. The idea that normal humans would soon begin to wield supernatural powers was an unsettling one.

‘How long before we have to leave the neighborhood because of these assholes? How long before Finlay has an army of mages and ki users? Less than a month?’

It was a morbid thought. He thought about the monster from the Robinsons—if creatures like that were out there at night, they wouldn’t stand much of a chance out in the wild.

This line of questioning wasn’t going anywhere.

‘Don’t plan for the distant future, Albek. Take Dad’s advice.’

Albek resumed the conversation, “But what if they do decide to fight?”

Hemash shook his head, “In the negligible chance that they do decide to kill us, then we die under a pile of their bodies. But then, if they hated me to the point of suicide, then we would have died a long time ago. No, I am strongly disliked, but not to that extent.”

“What’s worth the risk of going, though?”

“You said it yourself earlier: we need to go for information.”

“But we’ve already decided on magic—”

“Yes, I know. Information on magic and ki is a secondary objective. The main goal is to update our knowledge on the status of Finlay and the others. To see how they are doing and whether or not we need to take precautions. Remember: the hungrier they are, the more desperate they will become. When you go, look at the people. How dirty are their clothes? How thin are they? What weapons do they have on hand? How do they interact with their leaders? Then, look to their surroundings. Anything you can glean is useful and will inform our future actions.”

They continued on in silence for a while longer. Albek didn’t think that he’d be able to learn anything that his father couldn’t. And even with all the assurances, he was still nervous about walking into a group of potentially hostile people.

Flexing his fingers, Albek thought about how Shimmer might be used in combat. Performing magic was like using a muscle he didn’t know he had less than a day ago, which made it a bit of a tall order to use freely in what could be a stressful combat situation.

Casting a spell meant he must take in mana, channeling it through his body and manipulating it into the shape he wanted.

‘Shimmer uses such little mana that all I need is a good enough grasp of it mentally and I can cast it endlessly. But it’s the concentration I need that trips me up.’

He had enough trouble sensing the mana, let alone manipulating the substance. He learned earlier that he could cast four Shimmers—five if he forced it—before whatever mental muscle he used to control the mana became completely worn out. Liyne was able to cast the spell three to four times, though her versions were far brighter. Shimmer’s description mentioned that using more mana would increase the brightness of the spell, so she must have been using her absurd thauma value to empower it.

Liyne’s talent was greater and her thauma value was over ten times his own, but in the end, she still had more trouble concentrating and controlling the spell than Albek did.

‘But if I’m better at controlling mana, why did I have so much trouble with the candleflame test? Liyne just breezed right through it. There’s something else at play here.’

Shimmer was almost easier than the candle test once he got a handle on it. Perhaps different people were just better at certain spells.

‘Great, my talent lies in the direction of skills that are almost totally useless. All Shimmer is good for is a slight distraction. And if the church has any mages in their group, they’ll instantly recognize the spell and know I’m a mage, too. That’ll be any element of surprise gone. Besides, they’re not cavemen. They’ve seen fireworks; a little flash isn’t going to scare anyone.’

Albek sighed. Magic wasn’t going to do them any good—not yet. He’d only snuffed the candle out just last night. Embryo had effectively told him not to even consider the next step until he could at least sense the thauma within himself and cast a few of the weaker level 0 spells.

Their only real defense, Albek knew, was the concealed handgun that Hemash was carrying with him. Having options was nice and all, but his gun was really the only reason they felt safe enough to go—

His father poked him in the side, causing him to gasp.

“You are overthinking,” Hemash said, speaking in Ingri at last. “I can tell by the look on your face.”

Albek grimaced. “Just running through the options in my head,” he explained.

“Relax. You will wear down like that. Keep in the now.”

The rest of the journey was uneventful and tiringly uphill. In this region of North Hill, there were many tighter clusters of houses—subcommunities—than there were near the Shokarovs’. Albek spotted some places that looked prime for looting, but this was the territory of the Nulites, so he did his best to forget about them.

At last, they arrived before the ornamental iron gate of the Church of Nula. There were three other families waiting outside, so the Shokarovs joined up, though they kept their distance while they waited. Hemash gave a nod to another man, a massive, bearded woodsman in a plaid shirt who was there with his teenage daughter. The man returned the gesture with a wink and a smile. Albek knew him to be Jameson Bray. He, along with his fifteen-year-old daughter Chelsea were two of the only people on the mountain that would give them the time of day before the Apocalypse. The two fathers had been friends for years, though how exactly that friendship formed, Albek never learned. Jameson had a good reputation, while Hemash, well… didn’t.

As everyone milled around outside the gate, waiting for the rest of the invitees to come, Liyne kept taking furtive glances towards Chelsea. The older girl would look back and cross her eyes, causing Liyne to stifle giggles. Chelsea was a year younger than Albek and as thin as a stick, while her beady eyes and slightly upturned nose reminded him of a rodent. Her most remarkable feature was her poker face: a perpetually bored look that never seemed to vanish, no matter what she was doing—even making faces at his sister. It had a way of getting on Albek’s nerves.

After several minutes, it looked like everyone had arrived who was going to.

‘Only seven other families showed up. Let’s see… thirty people? Two weeks ago, there were over one hundred guests.’

Albek shook his head. It didn’t mean that they had died. They could have left for Sinaq, not received the invitation from the church, or simply ignored it. If they had died, then North Hill was even more dangerous than he’d thought.

They were kept outside waiting for nearly half an hour, and the families were getting restless. Hemash was surveying the crowd almost constantly, his hand never straying far from his weapon, when finally, from behind the gate a young man appeared. He was acne-ridden and had a weak chin. He carried a sledgehammer on his shoulder in an effort to look tough, but at the sight of him, Albek was surprised he could even lift the thing. He recognized the boy, who was around the same age. They’d gone to school together.

‘What was his name? Charlie? Chad? Carl? I’ll go with Carl.’

“Carl” called out to the families as he approached the entrance.

“Everyone needs to introduce themselves ‘fore I open the gate!”

The first family of three did so, then the second, larger family. Then, Jameson stepped up, speaking in a deep voice that sounded like it projected across half the mountain.

“Jameson and Chelsea Bray.”

At the end, it was their turn.

“Hemash, Albek, and Liyne Shokarov.”

The boy who was probably Carl stared for a second at Hemash, snorted, then came forward to unlatch the gate.

As Albek walked through the gates that he had only been through a handful of times before, he examined the grounds closely to see how the people here had adapted to the Apocalypse. The Church of Nula was the only place of worship on Tolstead Mountain, so it used to serve a fair number of people. The building itself was at one of the tallest points on the mountain, occupying the crest of a hill that gradually sloped down and evened out by the time it reached the gate. A zigzagging road worked its way up the incline by working back and forth, making it take another five minutes just to get to the top. There were signs of freshly tilled earth all along the road, and it looked like every bit of available land that wasn’t too steep or paved over was being used to grow food. A dozen women walked around, weeding or watering the young plants with pails.

Albek glanced over at Hemash. His father was eyeing the gardens with a gleam in his eyes. Albek hoped he wouldn’t ask him to steal some seeds.

Starting at the side facing the road, a twelve-foot retaining wall bordered about a third of the perimeter of the church property. The other two thirds didn’t even bother with a fence thanks to the steep slope covered in loose soil and pebbles that was even riskier to climb than the wall. It was a truly defensible location, but the church itself—a squarish building of quarried stone that looked more like a slab of rock than a graceful temple to a god—was likely more than enough to stand up to a horde of monsters by itself, especially once the only entrance—a pair of massive oak double doors—were locked and barred.

Why a church in a region that hadn’t ever known war had to be constructed to withstand a damned siege, Albek couldn’t begin to guess.

‘It worked out well enough for them, I suppose.’

When they arrived at the summit, the doors to the church were already propped open. Just outside, a greasy man stood guard, nonchalantly swinging a club around that looked to be fashioned out of a table leg.

“Meeting starts soon,” the guard said to their group, nodding his head at a box by his feet. “Leave any weapons here.”

‘That’s new.’

Most families deposited their weapons with the guard and went in, but some held back, milling around at the entrance. The Shokarovs were in that number.

“Did you hear me? I said leave them with me.”

The man was looking at Hemash, now, who had his gun proudly displayed. Albek wondered if the guard was ordered to be this obvious about trying to steal their gun, or if he was acting like an ass because he felt like it.

Jameson Bray stepped up to the man, who visibly wilted back in his shadow.

“What are you trying to pull?” he growled.

“I… Jameson, it’s just orders—”

“You think we’re gonna drop all our weapons and stroll in there like a bunch of fruitcakes?”

“Look, Finlay said—”

“Oho, so the man hisself is giving us orders now. Prob’ly feels high ‘n mighty now he outnumbers us. Listen, we ain’t a part of your group, Dwane. You don’t order us around. C’mon, Chel.”

The father and daughter strolled past the man, and in the wake of his momentum, the rest of the crowd glided in, despite Dwane’s protests.

The first thing Albek noticed about the interior was the smell, which was worse than it had been two weeks ago. Liyne scrunched up her face when it hit her, as did a few other guests. His nose told him that the church probably didn’t have easy access to water, because the three-dozen-large group that called this place home must not have bathed since the second day of the Apocalypse. They had rain collectors outside, but they didn’t provide enough water to both wash themselves and water the plants.

The second thing he noticed was the chill. Though they were on a mountain, it was still the height of summer in a historically warmer region. At the Shokarovs’ home, it was uncomfortably warm even at night, though they had mostly gotten used to it by now. The stone walls of the church seemed to regulate the temperature to some degree, which helped explain the need for the mounds of blankets he was seeing all around the room.

Other than those, he saw mattresses, piles of clothes, books, and other miscellaneous belongings that took up most of the space inside the large room. It looked like a refugee camp. Most interesting to him was the pile of electronics heaped on the floor near the center. It looked like someone in the church had been undertaking efforts to repair them, though it didn’t look like it had been touched in days. Batteries, flashlights, and lightbulbs were strewn about as if an engineer had a fit of hysterics.

Most of the pews had been removed to make space, leaving only a three rows near the front, in which sat some figures, mostly women.

‘Where are all the men? Outside it was mostly women too.’

That wasn’t to say that there were no men of the church present. Albek recognized their messenger from yesterday by the back of his balding head. Dale was slumped over in a seat, snoring softly. At the rear wall was an icon framing Nula herself in stained glass, golden hair spreading out like solar rays. In front of the image, on the steps up to the stage, sat Finlay.

The gaunt, scruffy man didn’t look like much of a leader. He looked tired, and half-starved on top of that. He wore the robes of a deacon, an outfit that may have once been white but now sported dozens of patches and stains.

Finlay was talking to someone sitting on the front row, but he fell silent when he saw the group approaching. His attention flicked over Hemash, Albek, and the rest, but if he reacted, he didn’t show any signs of it, maintaining the carefully neutral expression common to politicians and, in this case, religious leaders. When he spoke, it was a hushed, somber voice.

“Thank you for coming, my neighbors. The meeting will start shortly, please take a seat.”

If he had anything to say about the weapons he and the others hadn’t relinquished, he didn’t bring it up. Most of the guests filed into the overcrowded pews, but the Shokarovs remained at the rear. The siblings stood at Hemash’s side, and even Dune stopped trying to introduce herself to everyone she saw and settled down at the man’s feet obediently.

At this moment, Jameson Bray spoke up while tapping his wristwatch.

“I thought the meeting was gonna start at nine. It’s nearly half past, now, after all that time you had us waitin’ outside. Why ain’t the rest of your group here, Finlay?”

Albek glanced over at the wristwatch. Mechanical watches were rare to see, but all the digital devices stopped working a month ago. Having a way to accurately gauge time would be useful. He’d keep an eye out for a similar gadget when he was scavenging from now on.

The deacon replied, “I apologize, Jameson. We had a group go out foraging at sunrise today. They were meant to be back before now. I can only pray that nothing went wrong.”

Something didn’t sound right about that. Albek was found himself speaking before he could catch himself.

“They all went out as one group? Almost two dozen of them?”

‘Damn, I said that a lot louder than I meant to.’

Finlay glanced at him and nodded.

“That’s right.”

Albek was embarrassed at all the attention that he felt on him, so he stared at the ground in front of him as he thought.

‘If they’ve been moving as one big crowd this whole time to gather food, it’s no wonder they’re all hungry.’

Since he’d already broached the topic everyone’s gazes were on him, Albek decided to continue.

“Did they split up into smaller groups? They won’t cover much ground as a single team, right?”

The silence told Albek that Finlay was thinking. When he looked up, the lips of the man had been pressed into a razor thin line. When he spoke, the words sounded like they were plucked unwillingly from his mouth.

“There have been… accidents, with our small teams. Now, we err on the side of caution. As a group, it’s safer. Nula values cooperation and teamwork. She does not favor the individual, but to the collective she will administer her protection.”

Albek couldn’t find anything to say to that. Hemash, however, could.

“But sending everyone out together as one? Foolish, that’s what it is.”

Finlay’s cheek pulsed.

Hemash continued speaking in his clipped accent, “It is no wonder you starve. Going out alone, Albek—” he clapped his son on the back for emphasis, “—provides for our entire family. Yet you have all these men and resources and cannot even feed yourselves.”

The compliment took Albek by surprise. He might have blushed had he not realized that Hemash was just doing this to provoke Finlay. He saw where this was going and wanted to stop it, and if he couldn’t, to crawl into a hole and hide.

“You have a better suggestion then, Hemash?”

The deacon’s voice had grown cold.

His father scoffed, “Perhaps you should try listening to—”

“Because I would love to hear it,” Finlay said, cutting through Hemash’s words. He slowly stood up, “And it would do me much good, I’m sure, as your advice has done in the past.”

He climbed to his feet. Shafts of sunlight through a stained-glass window illuminated the space between Hemash and Finlay, coloring motes of dust in the air red and gold.

“Truthfully it fills me with a sense of nostalgia, Hemash, to once more be obliged to you for counsel. And then, to have you here in my church flaunting your children’s accomplishments as if they were your own, a man who can’t walk and despite the advent of the Apocalypse lives on, latching on like to whatever still bleeds like a leech. Not much has changed, hm?”

Finlay paused, mock surprise etching itself over his features.

“Oh wait—but it has! Here you are, offering advice, free of charge! I must say: it’s a relief to see that a tumor of a man who destroys lives with as much remorse as the Apostate himself has turned over a new leaf.”

A cloud passed over the sun, dimming the warm glow of the room and turning the colorful dust invisible. Finlay smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. His words dripped with sarcasm.

“What will you do with your newfound generosity, hm? Will you offer us a loan of food to help get us back on our feet? Water? You’ll charge interest, of course, but at a reasonable rate. We can give you a plot of farmland or a room, something minor as a good faith payment. A month later, you’ll need more space, of course. And a month later…another room? More land?”

His words got faster and faster, “A daughter’s hand in marriage? I heard such things are a common practice where you’re from. Then, by the time autumn comes and we’re starting to pick ourselves back up, we’ll be renting the church from you, and you’ll have us licking your boots like dogs.”

He spat the last word out like poison. Then he stopped, panting, perhaps noticing the placid look Hemash was giving him, or the uncomfortable shifting of the other families. Or maybe Liyne who, with her head down, was hiding herself behind Albek. Her hand gripped his tightly, and he returned the gesture, feeling in need of some reassurance himself.

He hated that she was here for this mess.

Finlay turned to view at the stained-glass icon of Nula at the back of the church. His expression gradually smoothed over, returning to the calm façade they saw when they first entered the church.

“Yet, Nula is ever a forgiving goddess,” he said, softly.

If not for his tirade just now the audience might have thought him a saint by how he mournfully gazed upon the image of his goddess.

“Just as She forgave Austeth the Betrayer, I, too, am willing to let bygones be bygones. Let the consequences of our past deeds be as so much dust in the wind.”

Hemash didn’t bother to reply. The building probably would have remained silent for a very long time after that but for the footsteps that sounded from the entrance. A large group of people stomped into the church, dressed in an assortment of heavy-duty work clothes. They were mostly men.

“Ah, the foraging party has returned. Excellent,” Finlay said, moving forward to greet them, already acting as though the previous few minutes were a distant memory.

The group numbered nearly twenty. At its fore was a sharp-looking man with a shaved head in military fatigues. He was a dark-skinned Nassorian, a rare sight in the Federation (though not quite as uncommon as a Kalkian). Unlike most of the others in the church, he seemed to be well fed, though he still had a slender frame. The men behind him looked less hungry than those who stayed behind, as well. It seemed there were perks to being a forager.

The Nassorian looked over the gathered families, eyes lingering slightly longer on the Shokarovs, before nodding at Finlay in greeting. Albek thought he saw a smirk playing at the corner of the man’s mouth for a second, but in the blink of an eye, it was gone. The man was picking at his nails, flicking away flecks of red paint as he approached the pulpit.

The rest of his group split apart, taking to the pews or standing to the rear. Several of them jostled Albek as they walked by, but he put Liyne between him and Hemash, standing as firmly as he could without meeting their eyes.

‘Where are their supplies? Did they come back with nothing, or did they drop it all off outside?’

When the Nassorian reached Finlay and took up his position on his right-hand side, the deacon continued, “Now that we are all assembled, shall we begin? Dale, if you would.”

With a nervous cough, the man in question stood up and began reading off a list of names from a clipboard. First on the list were the church group, then the invited families. Every member of the church responded when he called their name, and Albek counted them.

‘Forty-seven Nulites. They’ve been recruiting.’

What Jameson had said earlier was right. The church certainly did outnumber them.

Dale moved on to the independent families. It seemed that only half of those who were invited came today, but when he stopped reading names, the list still felt far too short. There was some uneasy stirring, and a woman from one of the outsider families spoke up.

“Didn’t you invite the White family? Or the Boyers?”

Several others spoke up, asking about people or families they knew. Albek heard someone mention the Robinsons, but Finlay just shook his head in reply.

“The names on that list are all the people that remain in North Hill, save for the scattered homes on the outskirts that we couldn’t reach.”

There were murmurs from the crowd. This was unsettling news for many, including Albek. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so surprised. He’d been working his way through houses for the better part of a month and could number his accidental encounters with other people on two hands. He wondered whether the church had found out about the Robinsons before he did or if a scouting party found the sign Albek had left at their mailbox and struck them from the roster.

Finlay continued, “Those we have confirmed dead are on the list by the main entrance, but most of the others are gone—vanished. Where to, we don’t know. Perhaps to Sinaq. We can only pray for their safety.”

Disquiet spread through the assembly. There were so few left in North Hill now.

Finlay, in a bid to regain everyone’s attention, said a single word, and the whispering stopped.

“Embryo.”

A pause.

“Does everyone know of it?” he asked.

Nodding heads.

“A phenomenon, then, that has happened to all of us. It’s possible that all around the world, Embryo exists. Before opening the floor to discussion, I will share with you all what we have managed to learn of this ‘program.’”

And he did. Albek listened, not because he thought he would learn anything new, but because he wanted to see how much a large group like Finlay’s had managed to figure out. His expectations were shortly blown out of the water when he learned that there were plenty of things he was still unaware of.

The first was something called “partying.” Anyone could attempt to form a party with anyone else they could see. All they had to do was look at them and, as the deacon put it, “wish to become a teammate with them.” The person would receive a notification which they could either decline or accept. According to Finlay, the maximum party size was eight.

Albek blinked at the pop-up he just received.

PARTY INVITATION

Liyne_Shokarov has invited you to a party. Do you accept?

Accept / Decline

If you do not wish to receive these messages, you can disable them in your notification settings.

‘Well, this is weird. But convenient. There are even notification settings? I’ll have to look into that later.’

He accepted the invite, and now when he brought up his status, he saw a little box with Liyne’s name in the upper left as well. He couldn’t see her status, but after selecting her name, he had the option to send her a message or start a vote to kick her.

He immediately voted to kick her.

She kicked him in the leg.

While Albek was rubbing at his ankle, Finlay brought another thing to everyone’s attention, similar to the partying system: the “friends list” function. Albek was chagrined that he hadn’t discovered it first. The ability to friend someone was practically the most basic functionality of any game. He might have thought Embryo was like a game, but he clearly hadn’t considered what that really meant until now.

The friends list, much like with parties, had a limit on the number of entries that could be added. There was space enough for ten people. He added people in the same manner as with the party system, only wishing to “add a friend” instead of “form a party,” but then he could remove anyone from his friends list without a vote. After adding Liyne, he learned that the benefits of this function was that he could message her, as well as see a sort of status.

Liyne_Shokarov

Status: Alive, healthy

Location: North Hill, Sinaq

Send Message / Unfriend / Block

North Hill was a large place, and he could always just send her a message asking where she was, making the location function seem rather useless—but she would remain as a friend even if the party disbanded. Apparently, he couldn’t send messages to anyone who wasn’t in his party or on his friends list.

CHAT LOG

Hemash_Shokarov2 is now your friend.

Hemash_Shokarov2 has joined the party.

Hemash [party]: Test.

Albek [party]: hi

Liyne [party]: you tried to kick me!

Albek [party]: sure did, kid

Liyne [party]: im the captin today! you can’t do that!!

[party] Albek_Shokarov started a vote to kick Liyne_Shokarov. Y: 1 N: 0

Liyne [party]: you.!

Albek [party]: look at me. I am the captin now.

Hemash [party]: Stop messing around and look. They are talking about magic.

When the brother and sister finally started paying attention, Finlay had moved to the side and another man was talking about magic. It seemed like he was the resident mage, the person who possessed the highest talent for magic (at 70%), and he was speaking to everyone about what he and the others from the church had been able to learn about magic.

This was very little, it turned out. It was disappointing, to say the least. Learning about Embryo’s systems was nice, but next to no progress had been made into magic. None of the church crowd had even managed to snuff out a candle. They were still doing better than the families who hadn’t known that they could select their Magic or Ki talent sections from their status screen, finding that special connection that let them pursue one of the paths.

Many chose to do so immediately after learning of it. Albek, thinking about his dream, observed these people and noticed that many remained standing, only some showing a more extreme response. No one in this group seemed to go unconscious, though a few did enter strange, trance-like states, look to the sky and babble nonsense, or sway silently while remaining standing.

It made those who hadn’t yet chosen a path look on suspiciously and inch away from those who did. Albek couldn’t blame them—it sort of reminded him of a demonic possession.

‘Now that’s just weird. I should have asked Liyne what happened to her. I was asleep through it.’

He’d ask her later. He reminded himself that he was here to gather information.

CHAT LOG

Albek [party]: 70% is their highest talent? Do you think he’s lying?

Hemash [party]: Possible, but I do not think so. We also do not know what those numbers mean.

Liyne [party]: Theyr so bad!! The candle is the easiest part!

When the mage invited others to speak, two people from the gathered families went up to discuss how best to sense mana. It was a topic Albek was interested in, but it shortly became clear that they didn’t have any idea what they were talking about.

Even for him, mana was still an enigmatic substance. After he’d awoken from his dream yesterday, he supposedly gained the ability to sense it, but his only successes had been with the candle and with Shimmer. His newly awakened sixth sense was like a strange sort of empathy: he could, if he concentrated really hard on something, form a connection with it, but it was like trying to hear an insect whispering—oftentimes the harder he tried to listen, the more unsteady the connection got. His active interference would end up scaring off the bug and cancelling whatever progress he made.

Shimmer was the easiest spell for a reason. After being told what to look for by Embryo, all he had to do was find a tiny speck of appropriately aligned mana (this apparently meant light-aligned) and “push” it a little bit. The light mana would then destabilize and burst, causing the flash. No intricate back-and-forth there like with the candle: it was almost entirely unilateral, save for the process of locating the mana he needed. Fortunately, light mana was one of the easiest types to find. It was practically everywhere. After closing his eyes and spending a second concentrating, he could feel the presence of hundreds of the little specks all around him, fleeting sparks of energy.

After a few minutes of discussion between the church and the families, they had still gotten no closer to unlocking the arcane mysteries of magic. Albek wanted to go up to say a few words several times, but Hemash held him back with a hand and a firm shake of his head.

CHAT LOG

Hemash [party]: It is advantage for us to know more than them. Stay.

‘That’s my dad for you.’

After a while of suffering through their fruitless magic conference, Albek heard a disgusted sigh, and somebody walked up to the front. It was Chelsea Bray, daughter of the large man who probably ate lumberjacks for breakfast.

She went up to the table that was set up with multiple halfway-melted wax candles. She shut her eyes, and shortly afterwards one of the candles winked out, accompanied by gasps from the crowd. This visible demonstration was apparently necessary to serve as a confirmation of the existence of magic, judging by the number of whispered conversations that sprang up all around him.

‘Were zombies and floating screens not enough?’

Chelsea talked to the group of wannabe mages for a minute, handing out pieces of advice. Some of it sounded similar to what Liyne had told Albek the night before. For a while longer, the rest of them tried to mimic what Chelsea had done, but no one managed to even dim their candles.

‘Looks like a lot of them are having trouble. Maybe they’re as caught up as I was with the normal way of thinking. That, or I’m just a talented genius.’

He nodded his head, purposely ignoring his sister off to the side so that her greater genius didn’t dim the brilliant glow of his superiority.

When the people who weren’t interested in learning magic decided to get on with the meeting, they split and began with ki. The man who led the discussion this time was the man decked out in military attire: the head of the scouting party who came in late. When Finlay announced him as someone with 81% talent in ki, there were a few scattered “oohs” from the crowd.

Apparently, having talent with ki was far more common than with magic, as over two-thirds of the crowd showed a marked interest, asking questions or demonstrating what they had learned or felt. Or perhaps their talent wasn’t as great with ki as it was with magic, but these people had the same concerns as Albek, wanting to get stronger faster for survival’s sake. Hemash and Embryo both confirmed that early progression in the path of ki was indeed easier than magic. Hemash didn’t say what he’d accomplished yet, however.

This man’s talent in ki was quite something, though. He wished he’d been paying attention to his name.

‘It seems that having over 70% talent in magic or ki is rare. 81% is the highest I’ve seen so far, other than Liyne or me.’

It felt promising, knowing that his talent far surpassed the average, but he stifled the feeling before it got out of hand. Whatever potential his talent indicated, all he could do with it right now was make harmless flashes of light. He agreed with his father on this point: drawing attention right now was risky.

Albek eyed Chelsea. He had his suspicions that she had a fairly high talent as well, but she hadn’t said what it was. The church’s mage had asked, but she quickly changed the topic.

As Albek was deliberating, she happened to look up and meet his gaze, causing him to jump. She stared at him, deadpan, before sticking out her tongue and pulling down an eyelid with a finger. She turned away before Albek could even process what had happened.

“…Weirdo,” he mumbled under his breath.

The rest of the meeting passed by, Albek experimented with different settings in Embryo or observed the church crowd. Hemash listened in on the discussion about ki, or at least, he appeared to. Albek caught him looking around the church a few times, possibly counting weapons or the state of their food situation. Liyne played with Dune, having lost interest in the proceedings long ago.

When things were wrapping up and the members of the church started moving around to the independent families, trying to recruit them, Hemash gave the signal and the Shokarovs began to gather up.

Seeing them about to go, Finlay approached. They eyed him suspiciously, but he simply smiled and escorted them to the door. Albek kept his hand near his bat while the deacon accompanied them. Once they left through the front door, Finlay opened his mouth to speak.

“I am a firm believer that people’s actions have two effects: the preliminary and the secondary, or the planned and the unforeseen. The first is that which was chosen by man, but the second is always given over to the jurisdiction of divinity. The workings of heaven see to it that the just are rewarded, and the wicked punished.”

Hemash looked impassively at him. Albek just tried his best to look like he didn’t want to run away.

Finlay smiled, turning away. “Keep this in mind wherever you might go. Safe journeys.”

He went back into the church, and the Shokarovs started down the hill, left to chew over the threatening words. Just before they rounded the first bend, putting the doors out of sight, Albek glanced over his shoulder and saw a man standing in the archway, watching them. It was the Nassorian. Despite being draped in the shadow of the church, his eyes gleamed.

- - -

Needless to say, the Shokarovs didn’t trust that they would get to leave so easily. Albek shared his concerns with Hemash, certain that Finlay or the ki-user was up to something. His father kept a hand near his gun as they descended from the church, but nothing came of it, as they left through the main gate (still guarded by Carl) unmolested. The rest of Finlay’s group was still in the church, meaning they were safe.

They were just turning down the road to head home when a voice called out.

“Hemash, you old dog!”

Albek was greeted by the sight of the hulking figure of Mr. Bray taking big strides through the gate. Albek was forced a step back, a natural reaction for anyone who happened to see an entire brick wall moving enthusiastically towards them.

The man caught up to them and pounded Hemash on the shoulder, chuckling.

“I’ll tell ya, I thought Finlay would just pop after you riled him up back there! That boy was burnin’ cracklewood, but you brought the gasoline!”

Hemash smiled back. “It is a talent of mine, as you know.”

Jameson roared, “Some talent! Others’d call it a death wish!”

“Your daughter, she is very skilled at magic, yes?” Hemash said, “I saw her giving advice. Congratulations, it will be a useful skill in days to come.”

The sarcastic voice of Chelsea came from behind Jameson, “If you call snuffing out a candle being skilled, then yeah, I’m alright, but I’ve since discovered that it’s easier to just blow the stupid thing out. Imagine my disappointment after that bombshell.”

Liyne tentatively walked up to Chelsea, who bent down as if trying to get a good look at the girl. Then, she reached out and squeezed Liyne’s cheeks, who protested by trying to pull away. Unfortunately for her, Chelsea had the girl in her grip now.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to be this cute,” she grumbled, pinching her like an aunt who’d just seen her favorite niece.

Albek could never tell when Chelsea was being serious thanks to the apathetic expression that constantly dominated her face, but he took a guess that this wasn’t one of those times.

Ignoring the struggles of the girls, Jameson strolled over to Albek, gripping his upper arm with one massive hand, squeezing a few times. Though it was a gentle exertion on his part, Albek felt trapped in a vice.

‘Why is this whole family so touchy-feely?’

“Still soft. You should hit the gym more often,” the man rumbled.

“Uh, sorry, I let my membership expire after a dragon started roosting there.”

Albek still didn’t know if dragons were real or not, but it seemed like a fitting excuse.

“A dragon ain’t diddly, kiddo,” Jameson jokingly said. “You just walk in and throw that weight around. Big lizard won’t bother you none.”

Albek took note of the weight quip. A bit defensively, he replied, “I’m a mage now, so maybe I can afford to be a bit soft.”

“A big Neanderthal like you is a mage?” asked Chelsea, at last releasing Liyne from her clutches.

‘Okay, that was definitely a weight thing.’

“I should be asking the same about you, but I’ve always thought you fit the image of a witch, what with the face and all,” he said, pointing at her nose.

“By the way, Natarlak.”

A flash of light hit her square on, and she squeaked, rubbing at her eyes. Then, she looked down, up, and behind her, before going back at Albek. Then, she made the connection.

“Freakin’ heck. You can cast Shimmer. How’d you learn it so fast?”

“Can’t do it yet?” Albek scoffed, “It’s even easier than the candle—”

Someone gripped his hand and pulled him downwards roughly.

His father hissed into his ear, swearing in Kalkian, “Uguntalca! Are your eyes made of glass? We are still outside the church!”

Albek started, realizing what his father meant. Others could have seen him cast the spell.

“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking,” he whispered, subdued.

Luckily, nobody seemed to have noticed, as the only person nearby was Carl, who stood behind the gate, idly picking at his nose and watching the birds perched on a nearby tree.

Still, the reminder that they were in unfriendly territory served to get them in gear.

Hemash reverted back to Ingri, straightening his back as he addressed Jameson.

“Sorry, I would continue this in a better place. Would you like to come to our home, Jameson?”

“Ahh, no can do, I’m afraid. We need to get back and see to the dogs. I’d invite you to my place, but I reckon it’s a similar story for you.”

The Brays’ house was in the opposite direction of theirs. Going there and then back would require a lot of cutting through church territory, a prospect the Shokarovs didn’t take to with relish. In the end, they decided to go their separate ways after adding each other to their friends list. They even formed a party so they could chat as a group.

After saying their farewells, the two families took off home. The three kids messaged each other for a while in the party chat, talking about magic or the weirdness surrounding Embryo. Albek and Chelsea had already forgotten their short argument.

After heading down the road for a while, the Brays were abruptly kicked out of the party. This surprised the Shokarovs, but after messaging them through their friends list, they learned that Jameson and Chelsea were fine and that the party function had an upper limit of about one mile. This made them apprehensive that the friend list would give out as well, but that didn’t happen.

It was with light steps that Albek turned into the gravel driveway to their house. They’d been to the church and back with no scars to show for it, save a short tirade from Finlay. Now, they had plenty of free time before them to work on their skills and train up until they were ready to defend themselves against monsters. No longer would they be reliant on the return of the government or some other power for their protection. The world was opening up before them. They had a path: a goal for survival.

‘Whatever Embryo is planning, I guess I gotta give it to them. They’re probably going to save our asses.’

At a throaty growl from Dune, Albek’s daydreams abruptly ended. He looked up to find his father and sister stopped dead in their tracks, taking in the sight before them with dismay.

He followed their gazes.

Their home had been ransacked.