Rory didn’t get to exult in his newfound success as much as he wished he could have. As he was admiring the Electrium that had grown up on the roof, there was a shout from downstairs. He, April, and Alyssa headed to the edge of the roof, where they saw that Viv and the others had arrived with more new people.

But Rory frowned. They were all heavily injured, including Viv and her group. There was something wrong.

Ignoring his growing fatigue and aches, Rory headed downstairs as fast as his old legs allowed him. Several of the newcomers had crowded the entrance to the main hall to watch the proceedings outside, though they made way when Rory got down. He ignored them, heading straight for the courtyard, trying not to give in to his worries.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he reached the garden.

Rory saw Evelyn outside, tending to several unconscious people. She was calling out to the other former hospital staff to come and help her. Jesse, Vern, and Lyle came and started assisting her, all their Sigils glowing as they began healing.

“Things are a lot worse than we had thought,” Miles said as he came over, inhaling deeply as he took a moment to catch his breath. Jerky yipped and ran to him, nuzzling his ankle. Miles picked up the little shih tzu. “Real bad.”

“What happened?” Rory asked.

He went on to explain how there had been a tremendous accident to the west. One of the buildings—Rory recognized the West Temperance School, one of the largest structures in all of Hillhard—had come crashing down. Lots of people had been holed up in the school, and now most of them were either dead or too trapped to get out.

Viv joined them soon, her arm bandaged by one of Evelyn’s golden wraps. She grimly added how they’d been attacked by strange, dinosaur-like monsters. They’d been very human according to Viv, which none of them were able to adequately explain what that meant. It was just a feeling that came off the monsters themselves.

“That’s insane,” Rory said. “How haven’t we heard or seen anything? It’s not that far away. A collapse of that kind would have made the whole town shake.”

Viv’s brows clouded over with even more worry. “Everything’s insane there.” She closed her eyes for a second, and Rory wanted to pull her close into a hug. He gave her space for now, though. “We need to go back and get the others out as fast as we can.”

The intense conviction behind her words sent alarm bells pealing in Rory’s old, worried head, but he silenced them. “How badly are they trapped?”

Viv didn’t answer immediately. The problem was that, even if there were people alive underneath the ruins of the school buildings, it was still a precarious position. Even the tiniest wrong motion could cause a terrible shift in the debris that would crush anyone under it. They would have to act with great care.

“We don’t know,” Viv said, trying her best not to sound too devastated and not really succeeding. “We did our best to find out, but there were already people we had to bring in, so we moved off for the time being.”

“We should prepare a proper force to go out and get them,” Dez said. He grimaced when he saw the injuries the survivors sported. “And we need to be quick about it. No telling how long they’re going to survive at this rate.”

Rory agreed. As much as it concerned him to consider what kind of situation they’d mire themselves in at the school, it had to be better than doing nothing.

“Let’s get started then,” he said. “Survey everyone and see if anyone’s got a Sigil that can be used to deal with debris one way or another. If not, we’re just going to team up and do the best we can. There’s no time to lose. Let’s go.”

The others nodded and they decided to discuss what sort of party setup they were going to carry out things with. Rory was going. There was no arguing they needed as much help as they could get, and he knew his Weaving would be an asset where moving debris was their greatest concern.

No one argued. No one had the time to argue. After a little chat, they decided to take Trish and Evelyn along with the original group making sure to suit up the van to take along with the pickup.

Rory approached the new survivors while the others got ready to head out.

“How are they doing?” he asked Jesse, who was helping an older woman drink some water.

“Not terrible,” she said. “We can treat most of their injuries, so far as I’ve seen. They should make full recoveries in time.”

“That’s good.”

Jesse didn’t seem to share his relief. “They’re traumatized, though.” She was quiet for a second. “I look at them, and I see the same thing I saw in them that I’d seen back at the hospital. The shock. The horror. They’ve… seen things.”

Rory swallowed. He could imagine what sort of things Jesse was referring to herself specifically, though he wondered about the true specifics.

Thankfully, he could now ask.

“Enough,” the woman in Jesse’s care said weakly, pushing away the canteen of water.

Rory got down on his haunches next to the person. “Hello, there. I’m Rory. Can you tell me your name, please?”

The woman stared at him for a moment. Jesse was right. There was a shellshocked sense about her that he couldn’t simply discount. Her eyes were sunken into pits, her face pale as chalk. She didn’t manage to hold his gaze for long.

“I’m Agatha,” she finally said.

“Well, Agatha, I’m glad you made it here alive. Can you tell us what happened at the school?”

Another heavy pause before she spoke again.

“Everything collapsed when the monster attacked us. We took shelter in the school because the people leaving wouldn’t take all the kids we had with us. We tried to convince them but… it didn’t matter. We were stuck in the school.” She sighed. “We thought we’d be safe, so long as we kept out profile. It was barricaded really well, see. None of the monsters could get in.”

“So the monsters decided to take the building apart if they couldn’t get in,” Jesse said.

“Not monsters. Monster. Singular. It attacked us with fire. So much fire. Everything started breaking apart. It was so scary. So impossible. There was no way we could survive the whole place coming down on our heads, not with all the dust and fire around us. I-I don’t know how I managed to come out of there alive.”

Agatha started hyperventilating. Jesse quickly hushed her and provided some water, helping her calm down.

Rory swallowed. It was obviously not a great idea to push her anymore, so he gave up on his interrogation. The others were soon ready to go, however, so Rory joined them on the pickup, ready to head out and discover what exactly the problem was. He wished he could have set a quest for it with the Sigil of Quests, but that wasn’t to be. Then again, it wasn’t like they’d have received any great rewards just because they were doing something potentially more dangerous.

They didn’t talk much over the drive. Rory would have liked to plan, but after some cursory discussion of maintaining a tank-healer-DPS formation, there was no further talk. Everyone was too anxious.

It didn’t get any better at all when they finally made it to their destination. Rory’s eyes widened as he stood witness to the destruction before him. The school was set at the edge of a residential area, surrounded by large fields that led off into the distance on three sides. All those fields were now covered with scorch marks and a heavy curtain of smoky dust.

They had to slow down as they made their way through the gloom, until they finally reached the ruins of the school.

“Unbelievable,” Rory said.

“Everyone, keep a mask handy,” Evelyn said. “There’s far too much dust.”

They had brought some from their medical supplies. Rory was regretting they hadn’t managed to find any goggles yet. The masks might protect them from breathing in the smoke and the dust, and from the smell, but it would do nothing to stop their eyes from smarting. If they were too busy trying not to rub the dust out of their eyes, they’d be easy pickings for the monsters lurking in the area.

The ruins itself was a colossal heap of debris. There were certain areas still standing—parts of the school he recognized, like the gym, some of the bleachers around the baseball field, what looked like a shed—but most areas had been reduced to rubble.

“Start pulling off the debris,” Rory said. “Samson!”

The younger man promptly appeared at his side. “Sir.”

“Cut that out. Name’s Rory. Anyway, use your Sigil to locate anybody trapped nearby. We need exact locations.”

“Got it, sir.”

He veered away, one hand shading his eyes against the press of the dust. Miles followed to keep him safe. Rory was glad he’d thought to bring Samson along. His Sigil of Gathering’s powers should help them locate where the survivors were buried. Hopefully.

“We’ll start scouring for monsters,” Viv said. “There are a few that harried us before, but I’m not sure why none of them have appeared yet.”

Rory nodded. “Good luck. Don’t get too lost.”

Viv nodded. She gathered up Ned and they began scouring the area to see if they could take out the monsters before they were surprised. Rory was curious to see what kind of creatures they’d met.

“You two sure you can protect the car while we’re gone?” Trish asked Sue and Allen. Well, she made it seem like she was asking them both, but her eyes were mostly on Allen.

“We’ll be fine,” Sue said. “Have some faith, will you.”

“I have faith! I’m just making sure you guys are prepared.”

“No, you’re just worried your boyfriend will piss his pants while you’re gone.”

“Not true!”

Allen and Trish had both said the same thing at the same time, and they glanced at each other as they flushed. If Rory hadn’t been distracted by death and destruction around them, he’d have called the moment somewhat cute. He could recall the first time he and Viv had been bumbling about before they’d given in to their feelings.

Ah, the joys of falling in love.

“Found one!” Samson shouted from somewhere to their left.

“We’ll be there in a sec,” Rory yelled back.

The hanging dust made it difficult to see where their quarry was, but Rory, Trish, and Evelyn soon found themselves at a spot that looked like the remains of the school’s gatehouse. Distantly, Rory recalled that the school was rather well to-do, though it wasn’t only for the rich. Alex had attended here, and their family had never been more than solidly middle-class.

“Where?” Rory asked, trying to see if there was any indication of life in all the debris before them.

“There.” Samson pointed to a collection of rocks that looked no different from the rest near the right-hand corner. “Someone’s underneath.”

“Alive?”

“For now.”

There was a quiver of fear in his voice. Rory didn’t like the sounds of it. Telling Trish to keep an eye out for any signs of danger, he and Evelyn climbed across the pile of rubble until they had reached the spot Samson had indicated.

Rory immediately began Weaving away the rocks. He got the option for more Sigils of Support, Steel, and Concrete, barely paying attention as he picked the middle option.

There really was someone under the debris.

“Pull them out,” Rory said, even as he leaned forward to grab the visible arm.

Evelyn didn’t move though, and as soon as Rory leaned in a little closer, he saw why. It made him freeze in his motion too.

The creature trapped there wasn’t human.

Except, it turned its head upwards as Rory scrambled backwards in growing alarm, he noticed the face was human. But not. But at the same time—

He shook his head. The creature before him was mostly humanoid in shape, but with key differences that made the possibility that this could be a person slim. Now that Rory could focus his thoughts more, he determined that it looked like a person turning into a monster.

The long, spindly limbs covered in greyish-blue scales still had something human about them, especially considering the “hand” at the end had five claw-tipped fingers. Same went for the legs. The remnants of some kind of obvious human clothes, trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, still covered parts of the creature’s body.

But even as Rory watched, the thing’s head elongated so that it grew less and less human and looked more… draconic.

“Be careful,” Mile said, keeping his distance with his hands raised and flaming.

“What is that thing?” Trish asked.

“I don’t know.” Rory gathered his resolve and took a step forward. “Hello? Do you understand me? Can you talk?”

The creature contorted again, its form turning more monstrous by the second. This was insane. Here was Rory, trying to converse with a monster that could jump on him at any second. Logic screamed that he ought to be getting away as fast as he could.

“I am…” the creature said haltingly, voice all too monstrous. “I am the servant of… the attendant of…”

There was a sudden, sharp change in the creature’s demeanour. Its twisting and contorting motion stopped, and it looked straight ahead, eyes finally meeting Rory’s.

Eyes that were all too human.

“You need to find the others,” she said in a too normal voice, though it was scared, panicked, and hurried, the words almost blurring together in Rory’s ears. “You need to help them. Before they become… this.”

Rory swallowed down a whole host of things that wouldn’t help them at the moment. “What—how are you—whatever this is?” His questioning left a lot to be desired.

“I am… no, I was human. Then he came. The Stormscale. He… converted us. Turned us into—”

The woman jerked to a stop. There was a horrific contortion and twisting all over her. Rory and the others all stepped back in growing fear and apprehension.

“Miss?” Rory asked. “Can you hear me?”

With acute slowness, the monster looked up. Then it screeched horrifically and attacked.