Lake Stonecrest Promenade, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. 20:50.

After she made sure the fire wouldn't spread out and burn the whole city, the girl took off her filthy clothes, tied them into a ball, and tossed it on the fire, standing naked in the deserted lakeside town. She had dead people goo on her skin, hair, and in places she was too disgusted to think about. Sara ran and jumped into the cold lake, diving deep into the mana-infused waters.

She was sure a method to use or absorb the mana in the water existed but Abby was anything but forthcoming with information. It angered her to no small amount. Still underwater, Sara rubbed her skin and hair before surfacing several dozen yards from the shore. The fire illuminated the smoke from behind, casting an ominous glare on the lake. It was at the same time breathtaking and terrifying. Between the flames, she could see the remnants of Panthersville residents and visitors both.

This image, of the burning piled corpses, some already down to the bones, would remain forever etched in her mind.

The old world had ended. Earth was going through, more like suffering, the Apocalypse as written in the Revelation. Tomorrow, the Third Seal would break and Famine would be free to roam the world. Then, on the 31st, the Fourth. She shuddered as she thought of what would come with that. An omen of what Halloween had in store for her and everyone else.

She spun around and looked longingly at the seemingly infinite body of water to the east.

Immersed in the lake, at night, with the glare of the pyre behind her, the naked girl couldn't see the other shore. Though her focus wasn't that far but in the center of the lake. A crystal that held a promise of salvation.

Or was it?

Sara felt skeptical. Even with all of the promises Verachiel and Abby made to her, the cracks in their discourse hinted at something bigger. She couldn't help but be suspicious. Yet, what choices did she have? Humanity wouldn't stand a chance against the Four Horsemen without the System's power.

Full of sorrow, the girl swam back to the shore. She climbed back on the boardwalk and sat, still naked, next to her backpack, covered in more stains than before. She fetched a bar of soap and started to scrub the pesky grease that refused to dissolve in the water. Then the strange woman took another dive into the pond to rinse the lather. She swam out, clean and ready to distribute swords like in some old-world myth. After drying herself with a towel, she took her things and moved to a concrete bench.

For now, she'd keep vigil over the pyre, a lone witness to honor the dead.

*

*

Lake Stonecrest promenade, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. 21:20.

It was inevitable. The burning pyre attracted the survivors' attention and they sent someone to investigate. Maybe if Sara had the radio Hainsworth gave her turned on as she should, she could've answered their call and explained but alas, she didn't want to deal with them any more than she had to and kept the damn thing off. She still didn't think herself one of them and believed little could change that, despite the ever-expanding roster of connections she formed.

She wasn't interested in their elections aside from a passing curiosity. By the time the ballots were cast, the System would be in place for at least a couple of weeks; with the System, she intended to enforce sovereignty over Panthersville and the region around Lake Stonecrest. She wouldn't let them encroach on her domain.

Her dream pocket paradise would be a self-governing enclave like the Vatican. Neutral, secluded, and detached from secular politics. Only those she vetted would be allowed to live here as she would use (perhaps abuse) the System to enforce her rule and punish trespassers.

Her naked nightly daydreams were interrupted by one such trespasser.

She heard a car's engine long before the military vehicle entered Stonecrest Avenue. Sara hurried to put on a knee-high cotton dress to cover her modesty. Then she turned on her LED lantern in "police lights" mode to signal where she was.

Minutes later, a military Humvee pulled over along the avenue and none other than Major Hainsworth came out. "Sara! Is that you?" He called, squinting into the glare.

"Yeah, over here!" Still, on the bench, skirt tucked underneath her legs, bare feet barely touching the cobblestones, she waved the lantern.

"Thought it was you," the military officer said as he approached. He glanced over her and then examined the pyre. "What are you up to?"

The girl turned the lantern off and pointed, "thought I should give those people a proper funeral, even if all I can do for that many corpses is a Viking one." She shrugged, "not much land around to bury them, and I don't want to taint the water with decaying flesh."

The man spent some time studying the pyre. "The fire is contained, it seems fine. It's commendable but a warning would be nice. Some people freaked out thinking a major fire had broken out."

"I got some experience burning dead people," She shrugged.

"Yes, I remember that," The Major nodded. "Why do that now?"

"There's a non-zero chance that bodies will reanimate during Halloween. The real question is why we didn't do it sooner and why we dishonor our fallen brethren by letting them become rat food. Three weeks, Major. We should've cleaned the area of corpses by now. At least the ones that aren't trying to kill us."

"A fair point. I won't ask again how you know the dead will rise during Halloween."

"Thanks, I can't say anyway. Hey, here's something to think about if you got some ghouls locked up somewhere. They'll get stronger during Halloween and might break out."

"Why would you think I captured any?" The solder asked, trying to keep a level voice.

"Because that's what I'd do if I were in your situation with limited information. But thanks for confirming my guess."

Hainsworth rubbed his beard and chortled. He hadn't shaved since Armageddon and it showed. He had a guilty grin as if admitting she caught him, "Fair enough. What should I do with my captive undead?"

"Let me put the tortured dead to rest. I'm the only one who can safely dispose of them so far."

"Will there be more people capable of that in the near future?"

"NDA," she punctuated but still smiled and nodded.

"Right," he snapped his fingers, "That pesky NDA. Sara, can we talk?"

"Thought we were, already," she rolled her eyes.

Hainsworth stared down at her, then avoided his gaze. "Can you stand up? So we can speak eye-to-eye?"

"I'd need to stand on the bench for that, sir," Sara mocked.

"You can do that if it makes you comfortable."

She chuckled and stood up, beating the dust off her skirt and straightening it out. She was going commando and wasn't sure the wind wouldn't play a prank. She demurely crossed her hands over her lap.

"Aren't you cold?" He asked.

She tugged the hem of her skirt to make sure it was not rising up, "I'm fire here. What do you want?"

Hainsworth hesitated and measured each word of his reply. "I need your help. I... how do I say that... the survivors trapped in downtown Atlanta, they need help. The supplies we send via drone are being intercepted by a street gang, they shot down two drones today. Things are dire over there. They don't have access to drinking water, they have a meager food supply, and a belligerent gang encroaching on their territory with more ammo than brain cells."

Sara remained silent. She just nodded at him to signal he should continue.

"We need to open a path for them, but too many highways are in the way. We managed to reach South Atlanta but they would still need to cross two zombie-infested freeways."

"Ghouls, not zombies. The Z-word gives people the wrong idea they can shoot their heads and be done with it."

"Right. Ghouls. That's a good notion, God knows how many we lost thinking they could blow their heads off. Anyway, some of the survivors downtown are thinking of using a fire engine to create a zipline but that's too risky."

"I bet, with the gang shooting down drones, they could very well shoot the people on the zipline. How do they do that, shooting the drones? Do they have snipers?"

"Most likely but we don't know for sure. Our deliveries aren't on a schedule and we use a code to talk over the radio."

"Could they've broken this code? How did you agree on the code to begin with?"

"The code is something we came up with more than a decade ago."

"What? Is one of the survivors on the other side someone you knew? Another soldier?"

"Yes and no. But it is a strong code. A disorganized gang of punks like the one plaguing downtown Atlanta wouldn't have anyone with knowledge of ciphers."

"No chance of them breaking it, then."

"It's not in the realm of the impossible, but I doubt they did. They either have a spotter 24/7 or some other way to tell."

"Like a traitor in either group," Sara theorized.

"Exactly. And the zipline only solves one of the two crossings. Sara, I... no, you deserve to know. My daughter is there. She is one of the downtown survivors and the person who knows the code. We used to play spy when she was little."

Sara covered her mouth, then blinked away the surprise and shock. "Bless you! The odds of that happening were less than one in ten million."

She saw some emotion leaking into the otherwise stone-faced soldier. Hainsworth sniffled, "Thank you, Sara. She's my little girl. You remind me a lot of her. She has the same... free spirit as you do."

The girl took that to mean Ms. Hainsworth was considered uncontrollable and wilful by her father. 'Free spirit my ass,' she thought to herself. But that explained why he had such patience with her. Sara reminded him of his daughter, that's the key takeaway.

"And what crazy idea did she get on her mind, this time?" She asked, going with the flow.

"She wants to fly over the highways in a hot air balloon," Hainsworth said, holding his throbbing forehead with a hand. Sara had to stifle a chuckle. "She even ventured north to procure said balloon. They are just waiting for a convenient wind to try their crossing."

"That indeed sounds like crazy, sir. I don't think I'd... No. I understand her. I totally understand what your daughter is trying to do. Sniper or not. I'd do the same."

Half of that was just her going along with the conversation. Maybe if she was as desperate as Hainsworth painted the downtown survivors. Yet, Sara saw no reason to antagonize the soldier. Not when she grasped the need for diplomacy. Damn those Skills, making her understand people.

Her lake Vatican (name pending) would need political support, and she was sure Hainsworth would run for Mayor of Survivorville.

"Then you know we need to stop her."

"Good luck doing tha~at," Sara chirped with a lilting tune.

Hainsworth grimaced again and shook his head, "That's exactly what I feared. She's too willful."

"I guess now is the moment you try to sell me your proposal, right?"

"You guessed it. I can't think of anyone else that can help me, help them. I need you to clear a path for the survivors," He raised a hand in a stop signal. "Hear everything before you give me an answer. You said that when a zom... ghoul is killed, their spirit becomes a... wraith and seeks out the killer, right?"

"Yes. At least in the few cases, I witnessed it happening, that's how it went down."

"And you can kill the wraiths. You saved Trevor from one."

"Also correct."

Abby warned.

"Would you collapse from exhaustion after a single one again?"

"No, I'm much stronger now." She wiggled her eyebrows, "way stronger."

Hainsworth winced, probably remembering the sliced table. "How sure you are that you can intercept a wraith before it can reach its target?"

"I can't answer that out of the blue. Give me a minute, let me run some calculations."

Sara skipped down to the ground, walked away, and reached the edge of the boardwalk. Leaning on the railing, she wiggled an eyebrow out of the Major's line of sight. "Yes, I am. Abby, do your thing, crunch me some numbers," She whispered.

"Near what?" Sara demanded. "We talked about that. Stop withholding information from me, dammit!"

*

*

Lake Stonecrest promenade, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. 21:25.

Sara shuddered, "What the hell is a Dungeon? And why does it sound like 'Dungeon' with a capital D?"

"Yeah, a dungeon is usually a dark damp place crawling with monsters. Now, what a Dungeon really is?" She put emphasis on the second instance of "dungeon", making a popping sound with her tongue against the ceiling of her mouth.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? ELI-five, dammit."

Sara snorted, rolled her eyes, then grunted, "Such a splendid job," she derided with as much sarcasm as she could put into words. "We're fucked."

Sara rubbed her temples, "Can we skip the theory?"

Abby set her metaphorical crystalline foot down.

"What the fuck is a Dungeon, then," she said with that clicking on the "D", just to spite the fairy.

"You're repeating yourself. Festers and grows, so what?"

"The Information dimension."

"I understood nothing."

Sara groaned. "Okay."

"I assume it is."

"How the fuck should I know?"

"Yeah, that's obvious."

"Hooray," Sara mocked. "Now, what's the catch?"

"Under most conditions... What the hell? Are you telling me time travel is possible?"

Abby joked. Sara didn't laugh.

"Hooray, an everyman superpower. Slow-ass crawl one-directional time travel."

"Yeah, what was that about?" Sara snapped her finger.

Abby deadpanned.

"Verachiel's contingency."

"D'aww, c'mon! Give me something!" She pleaded.

Abby continued, ignoring Sara's request.

"Let me guess, Dungeons need to be culled, to dissipate this energy."

"I think there's a whole field of study in there. It's giving me as much of a headache as calculus back in school. Please, explain like I'm a neanderthal."

"Am not? How can you be so sure of that? Have you messed with my DNA?"

Her questions fell on deaf ears.

Abby said condescendingly.

"Dude. Fairy dude. Not cool," Sara almost flatlined.

"Meet hot Dungeons near you," Sara joked, then turned serious. "What bad stuff they can do."

"Do these Cores have a consciousness like in the stories?"

"They won't ever, or they don't yet because they are so young?"

"Are they the trapped souls of people?"

"Are they alive?"

"Can they develop consciousness? Become sentient?"

*

*

Lake Stonecrest promenade, Panthersville, DeKalb County, Georgia. Tuesday, October 29th, 2019. 21:30.

"Okay, then, thanks for the unwanted lecture," Sara derided. "Back to the wraiths. Can I kill them before they slice Hainsworth in halves?"

"Dude, I listened to your lecture on dimensional astrophysics and time-traveling kitchens to the end and I didn't complain."

"I still sat through all of it. Now, entertain me. A hypothetical. Can I kill the wraiths before they make major Major sushi?"

Abby gave up,

"Can't I just punch them?"

"Eww," Sara imagined what would happen if she punched an emaciated walking corpse left to bake and soak under the elements for weeks.

"What if I miss a strike?"

"I mean, can I catch up with the wraith and attack a second time?" She asked, assuming the wraith wouldn't stop fighting back.

"Won't the boost to the attack cost only a single MP if we do it at the right moment?"

"And training costs MP we don't have."

"We should keep Skill Boost exclusively for Mana Infusion then. You trigger it as you see fit."

"No, there's merit to it. If the wraiths around downtown are stronger, it also means they give more Mana, right? If you try to break even by replenishing my MP pool with what I spent, then whatever surplus we get is raw profit. Also," She looked back at Hainsworth, apparently rooted in place. "This guy will owe me the world if I reunite him with his daughter. Even if I wish to, I can't overlook politics."

Her imagined future territory's safety depended on that.

Sara was also skeptical of everything Abby said. The girl was sure the thing living inside her had a hidden agenda. She would need to see the ghouls figure out a plan. Maybe sniping them and escalating the situation from ghoul to wraith was the wrong path. Dealing with a horde of slow-moving dumb ghouls was safer, as far as she knew.

"Right. See, Abby? We can reach a consensus if we put cards on the table and talk. Maybe you should reconsider..."

the fairy smugly replied, mocking her way of speaking.

"Nobody likes a smartass, Abby," Sara remarked, then added before the rebuttal could come around, "I know, kettle and pot."