We sat and talked for about two hours before Lucas awoke. His eyes opened and he groaned as he sat up. His hand immediately reached for the now closed wound on his chest. I passed him a Ration which he took with a confused and almost lifeless look.

Jessica and I watched him eat in silence before she asked the question that was at the front of my mind too, “Where is Rebekah?”

Lucas held the ration in his hand as he stared off into space for a few moments. Tears began to fall and pitter onto his chest, “She… she didn’t make it.” His light crying turned into a full-on sob, “She is dead. Rebekah is dead!”

“What happened? Was it the blast of light?” I asked.

“The light…” He said. It almost seemed he was a bit confused still, “It was the light… monsters spawned around us. There were so many and we tried to run. Rebekah… she, she was hit by a bolt of frost,” he looked at the ground as he recounted what occurred.

“I turned to help her and started to fight off the enemies closing in. There were so many ogres though.” One of them dug its hook directly into my chest. His fingers traced the now scarred flesh. His voice cracked as he started sobbing harder.

“It was possible, maybe it was possible to save her! There was an abomination coming, it was going to aggro us! I fought as hard as I could. I had to leave her when it aggroed.” He sobbed with deep gulps. “I can still hear her screams.” His story wasn’t that detailed, but the basic idea came through.

They had been caught in the open when everything spawned. I could picture it: Rebekah frozen in place by a banshee and Lucas fighting to keep the brutes from reaching her, taking heavy damage in the process. Once an abomination aggroed them, however, he could no longer stay. He was forced to run as it approached and leave her behind.

I looked at him, “It’s okay, you did your best.” I said to him, “it was braver of you to live on then stay and die. I’m sure she would have wanted you to live on.” My words only caused his tears to flow without pause, and maybe it was wrong to say these things, but I had wanted to give him some hope to grasp onto.

“I want to be alone, please,” he said, looking up, pale faced, “just for a while.”

Jessica and I returned to the living room, where I expressed a thought that I had been mulling over. “I want to find some place away from the city we can stay. We can’t live here surrounded by monsters.”

“What would you suggest?” she asked.

“We shouldn’t have to go far into the countryside to find someplace suitable; there are factories, farms, compounds even, with nothing but green grass around for miles, giving us a decent line of sight to any approaching danger. It should be close enough to the city that we can drive in daily, but far enough to be safe from attacks at night.”

“And if we can’t find somewhere like that?” she asked.

“Then we build a base. Look at the materials around us. We have an entire city of supplies and tools at our fingertips.” I didn’t fully believe what I was saying, but given time it should be possible. Presumably there were people from all walks of life still alive: engineers, doctors, mechanics, farmers—they just needed to be found and brought together.

Jessica and I didn’t go back out that night, and Lucas didn’t leave the room. The three newest additions to our squad returned just as the sun was going down. In the end, they had reached level 7 and picked up a new sword for their tank Alan and a rod that gave Int and boost to healing effect for Thomas.

I felt a tinge of jealousy for Thomas’s new magic item, as we had found so many weapons, and yet none of them were caster weapons that suited me. But I reminded myself that persistence was key; eventually Jessica and I would be fully geared, and we’d be even more efficient.

Lucas didn’t leave the room until early the following morning. While I slept lightly that night and nearby Jessica seemed to be awake for some of the night too. Although I felt no animosity from our new members, it wasn’t guaranteed they couldn’t have a change of heart and their presence at the other side of the room made me uneasy.

“How are you feeling?” Jessica asked Lucas when he finally appeared with the light of dawn. She kept her voice low, because the other three were still sleeping.

He sat down at the table and I got up and carefully did the same. Putting her blanket aside, Jessica sat up.

“Lost. Destroyed.” This was understandable. He’d lost someone he loved in the most horrific way. I couldn’t fault him for it.

“What level did you reach?” I asked. “Alan, Robert and Thomas are all level seven. It’s possible you can join them.” I had high hopes for him, and didn’t want to see him give up now. If he gave up, we would have no choice but to abandon him. Every mouth that needed to be fed had to contribute.

I didn’t say that to him, of course, but it would happen naturally enough if things went in that direction. We’d be moving forward while Lucas holed up somewhere. But to speak about this was likely to be counter-productive. His mood was no doubt volatile, and any attempt to point out that it was in his interests to keep fighting could trigger the opposite effect.

“You should go out on the streets with them. It will take your mind off your loss,” Jessica came over and took the seat on my left. “It’s no good staying inside with nothing but your thoughts, especially right now.”

“Right.” I was glad to hear Lucas agree, and I passed him another Ration. The supply of around fifteen days Jessica and I had was cut in half supporting these four. But I had promised, so there was no complaint on my end; it just meant we needed to be smarter, more efficient about acquiring them.

“What do you think of finding a safe place to stay? A base outside the city we could call home?” I asked

Lucas looked at me while stuffing the Ration in his mouth, “I say it’s a good idea, except we would lose access to the city. And we need the option of levelling and gaining drops. What did you have in mind?”

“A farm? A ranch? There are factories out there too,” I replied.

“It could work, but we would need solid transportation. I know of a farm about ten miles south of here: that’s more than an hour walk on foot, but merely ten minutes in a vehicle.”

“So we need vehicles then,” Jessica said, “What else?”

Jessica and I had spent some time during the previous evening talking about this, but I was curious to hear Lucas’ take.

“Well, the farmland won’t be secure. Not without some tidying up. There’s a natural mountain on the east side, but the west will be completely exposed. Barbed wire might deter the goblins and zombies, but anything else will wander right in through it.”

“True, so what do you suggest?” I asked.

“We’d want to build up some real defense. Walls made of metal at the very least. The tools we’d need are all here in the city; there’s also a steel mill just twenty miles in the opposite direction, but…”

“But?”

“This would require some serious man power,” he said. “I don’t suppose you have the expertise to use heavy machinery like cranes and a digger?”

I shook my head; Jessica shrugged.

“Then we need a lot of man power to make something like this happen,” Lucas continued, “if it’s to be at the scale I think you want to achieve.”

“Right,” I said. “So what we need now most is time. Time to find more allies; time to find vehicles and supplies and a location we could hole up in. Gas won’t be a problem. I have access to the main tank at a station just west. Unless its been ransacked that should last us months.”

“So transportation is our immediate concern then?” Lucas confirmed.

“Yeah, I think so. Right now, we’re basically holed up here and any chance of moving on is very risky. Once we leave we don’t know what we’ll run into. I don’t want to find myself trapped by a horde of zombies on foot.,

“Agreed.” Jessica chimed in.

Lucas went silent in contemplation, “Alright, I know I need to pull myself together and move on. You gave us a chance. I appreciate that. So I’ll help you find and build a base. The opportunity to level here is important, but there’s no sense of peace. I always feel on edge and danger feels like it’s around every corner. People can’t live like this and stay sane.”

I was relieved to hear he hadn’t given up. His effort to bounce back was commendable, and I praised him internally. He had a level head on his shoulders, and I felt that he was worthy of my trust. “Do you want to join the team of three?” I asked. “And get another level or two while Jessica and I search for a decent vehicle?

“I’ll join them if they’ll have me.”

His response was like music to my ears and I decided right then that Lucas would have my full support from here on out. Anyone that could go through a life-threatening situation, lose the closest person to them still alive, and still make the effort to keep going… I didn’t know if I could do the same.

“You have my full support.” I patted him on the shoulder, then whispered, “and you can also keep an eye on them, just in case.”

Robert woke up around an hour later and his greetings to us woke up Alan and Thomas. To my surprise and joy, they had their own Ration for breakfast. Jessica presented the idea of Lucas joining them and after Lucas gave a demonstration of his abilities, was gladly accepted.

Alan was really happy to have another melee person to fight by his side, as facing enemies from the front alone felt isolating and a bit claustrophobic. As soon as it was confirmed Lucas was on board, I pulled a Class Changing Stone from my inventory and handed it to him.

The other three looked at it with awe, “This is a class changing stone,” I said. “Using it allows you to pick a class. There will be generic options, and with some luck, special class choices. From what we understand, it’s based upon your skill choice, stat allocation, and quite possibly weapon of choice.”

Lucas took it with care and then stored it away. “I’m not quite ready to change yet,” he said.

I had another stone in my inventory that had been meant for Rebekah, but I didn’t reveal that information.

I could see the looks of envy on the faces of the other three, “Jessica and I will find three more of these for you all as well, but it will take some time. When the mobs all got mixed up, it became harder to find the elite enemies that drop Class Changing Stones. You’ll know it when you see them though, and I recommend you don’t fight them yet. They are well over five times more difficult than their non-elite counterpart, and that’s a low estimate. If you do find them, you can report their location to us.”

After I said that, Jessica stepped in to explain our interest in finding a permanent location to live in, and our need for transportation and supplies. I could see by their expressions that the other group were keen on the idea and insisted they would help in any way possible.

They departed and agreed to keep track of any vehicles and supplies we might be able to use for the planned base.

“Shall we go level as well?” Jessica asked.

“We should, but I also want to find a few useful things as well. I’d like to get some maps, up until now we’ve just been wandering around aimlessly. We need a direction.”

I wanted to get away from town and out to a ¾ relatively ¾ safe place as soon as possible. There was something that neither Jessica or I had told the others, and that was to admit we’d seen an enemy we stood no chance against. And that this dark creature might be randomly roaming the city. Maybe the chance of encountering the monster again was extremely low, but it was a ticking time bomb. Eventually it would claim all our lives if we remained here as we were now.

Name: Mike Reynolds (27) Class: Necromancer Level: 13 EXP: 17%

HP: 525/525 MP: 240/240

STR: 5 Fear Resistance: 5

AGI: 2

DEX: 1

VIT: 15 +2

WIS: 15 +5

Available: 6

Skills: [A]Summon Skeleton LV. 6 |[A] Decay LV. 1| [A] Reanimate Dead LV. 1 | [A] Bone Armor LV. 1 | [P]Sixth Sense | [P] Bravery LV. 2 | [P] Mutated | [P] Pain Resistance LV. 2 | [P] Skeletal Mastery LV. 2 | [P]Intimidate Living

I took a quick look at my status before Jessica and I set out. We had reached level 13 on our way back yesterday, and gotten about a fifth of the way towards 14 before we ran into the other group and brought them with us. The 6 available stat points would sit in reserve for an emergency situation if need be.

By now, Jessica and I had a pretty good idea of how to approach each encounter. Even the demi-human enemies were easily defeated; it was just hard to finish them without one or two skeletons dying.

With Summon Skeleton reaching level 6, it was quite costly to have to re-summon them after each demi-human encounter. It made me look forward to levelling even more, as the increase to my mana pool would help sustain our grind, even if we did take on several of the snake-headed monsters.

“Are you familiar with this part of town?” I asked. I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the region we were in, which was mostly working class homes. For a map we’d want to go to the most popular tourist areas, and those weren’t on the outskirts.

“Not too much,” Jessica replied.

“There’s a district tourists usually frequent, and we should hopefully be able to get a map from one of the gift shops there.”

She thought about it for a moment, looking towards the taller buildings of the inner city “Right, but wouldn’t we have to get a lot closer to the center?”

“Yeah, I think it’s about six blocks, but I won’t know for sure until I see a familiar landmark. It’s kind of hard with the way things are now.” There was a lot of destruction and debris that made everything look out of place.

“We can, but I can say for sure that it’s still much more dangerous going in that direction.”

“Oh? Did your Tracking level up?” I asked.

“Yeah, it reached level three last night.”

“So fast? My passive is only level two.” I could hear the note of complaint in my own voice and quickly gave her a smile.

“I don’t think my passive is as drastic a power increase as yours…” She shook her head.

Once my minions were set up, we started moving towards 6th and Wallace: the most active street for tourists.

“How bad is the danger then?” I asked Jessica.

“Well, two blocks in that direction and basically every brute and banshee is gone again. It’s purely abominations and demi-humans. There’s also something else there, too,” she added. I gave her a look. “No, it’s not that deadly creature we saw. I said I wouldn’t forget to always be on the alert for it and I won’t. No, there’s a new enemy type we haven’t encountered yet.”

“I want to push on if you think we can,” I said. “Once we have a good map of the area we can make better decisions. We want a map that shows all the small towns, farms, and any construction within a hundred miles.”

“So specific?”

“Nothing says we need to make this city our hunting ground. There’s always the option of finding a new one. All I care about is that we find a strong base. We build it up. We make a name for ourselves, and people will come to shelter under us.”

She nodded in understanding and gave me the signal that it was time to stop chattering. Just beyond this street the easy enemies dwindled to nothing and only abominations and demi-humans awaited us.