Getting Rachael the Implant took less than half an hour. The process was a bit more involved than when Tec went all gung-ho on the Big Guns, since Wec couldn't really swallow her whole. Instead, to Angel's horror, it merely swallowed her head partway down to her chest. I had to bodily restrain the man as Rachael slid into the usually hard surface like a hot knife in butter. Less than twenty seconds later, she was back and blinking. Her eyes remained unfocused for several minutes after, but it was a familiar look; she was looking over her Status and possibly the Status of everyone around her.

From there, Clara and Angel took her to get acclimated and speak with the other influential figures of Stonecrest. The demoness insisted that they were more for management, than for actual leadership. When things needed a decision the town came to Rachael, so our 'deal' was as good as secured.

I watched partial Blobby join up with his other half which had been watching over the expedition group. It was a notion I could definitely get behind, even if I rarely understood the slime -- or even knew where it was, for that matter. Daniela and Samuel finished off their conversations with the squads and moved to join me.

"Well? I can appreciate the whole light show, but where does that leave us?" Daniela said, cutting right to the point.

"Clara says we are good. Have one of the squads unload the town's rations and hunker down. I'm gonna need to borrow your healers, Sam," I said.

"Are there injured?" My friend's relaxed pose tensed, but I waved him down.

"No, everyone is fine. Well, Blobby took a hit, but I don't really know how he heals other than with food." I shook my head to get back on the right train of thought. "They are hurting in the food department. If we can build up and leave them with some of that infrastructure behind--"

"Then they might be able to build themselves back up," the blonde finished for me. While I'd hoped to get him to relax, he seemed even more tense and eager to go after the clarification. "Point and shoot, Ron."

"Great. Get all but one healer to go with you and meet Clara by the gate, say, in ten minutes? I'll reach out to her since she is probably the one most likely to know who to talk to." Samuel hit me with a thumbs up and rushed off to talk to the squads. I didn't point out that he could have done it all in one single call from the comm-plant, but who was I to decide how he managed his people? And they were very much his people. The fae and satyr practically snapped to attention when he approached them, eager to please the strongest healer in the area just for one more minute of instruction or tips. It was an awkward situation, since Samuel was usually extremely flattered but also extremely nervous when he noticed the attention.

"You got a job for me too, rock brain?" Daniela asked, smirking in my direction while I let Clara know Sam was on his way to help with farming.

"Actually, I do. Only if you feel up to it," I replied looking away like I didn't think she would be.

"Oy! Spill!" she said, breaking her smirk to turn me by the shoulder. When she saw the grin I was trying to hide, she smacked me in the shoulder. The blow nearly took me off my unprepared feet, but I managed to stay standing. "Jerk. Do you even have anything for me?"

"I do, actually. I need you to start talking to the people of Stonecrest about clearing a road between Wildwood and them. You have some experience with that, and I am sure the town wouldn't mind a pathfinder like you helping out."

"Oh yeah? And what is our mighty leader going to be doing while Sam and I are out there doing the hard work?" she asked, her eyebrows rising in question.

"I'm going to find the town crafters. I don't have enough time to cook up another Crafter's Hall, but I think they could use a few people with Infusion training. Don't you think?" I said, doing my best to hide my grimace.

"Wait, Ron," her voice softened. "That means--"

"Yep. is liable to take me on a fun nightmare trip later today. It doesn't matter, though. The town needs it, Wildwood needs the assistance, and we need the assistance. The more I keep learning about the surface the more I realize how much out of our depth we are with this whole thing."

"You said Bec didn't give you a solution, though," Daniela prodded. Her face was no longer set in jest, but in concern.

"Yes and no. If I can get better with the Skill, then I should be able to control it better. Like what I did with... with Charles," I added. "I also can't ignore that this isn't likely to be the only time I need to extract information from someone. I can live with the nightmares, but not if it’s because people lost their life due to my hesitation."

Daniela seemed taken aback by the edge in my voice. Honestly, I was a bit surprised too, but I didn't shy away from it. It was a realization I would have to come to terms with over and over, just to cope with it at the very least. After that engagement, she asked a few more questions about plans for the road before splitting off to do her own thing. There was no doubt in my mind that the first steps to a road between Stonecrest and Wildwood would be taken before we started on the last stretch of our journey. The latina hesitated at my side for a second, but quickly left.

"You have any idea where they build stuff around here?" I said, looking down at Blobby. To my utter surprise, the slime actually nodded with his appendages and started to roll back towards the car wall. My feet didn't move until the slime stopped to wave me back in the direction of the town. I sent Rommel a quick message through the comm-plant that he was in charge of the watch before following my unexpected tour guide into Stonecrest. It was almost to the point where keeping track of the questions I had about the slime was taxing, so I opted to just roll with it. The total lack of hesitation on the creature's part certainly helped as he guided me around the inside wall.

---+---

"Well, not what I was expecting but still impressive," I said, watching a trio of dwarves shaping stone with their hands like it was clay. A few seconds after their hands lifted, the rock hardened. For several minutes I watched the three work to shape several pieces of furniture. One of them seemed to specialize in stone-made household utensils, even. Eventually, they noticed my presence and practically jumped out of their rough spun aprons.

I waved, giving a small smile in greeting as one of them finally got the courage to approach me and my gelatinous companion. "Sir? Do you happen to come with the group from Wildwood?"

"That's right. We've just recently come into an agreement with Rachael to help your town," I said. "My name is Ronan."

"Pleasure. I'm Patrick Patrick," he said, shaking my hand in an equally rough one. Don't comment on his name. Don't comment on his name. "Yes, I am aware it is an odd name, sir."

I scratched the back of my head awkwardly. "I guess it showed on my face, huh?"

"Clear as day, sir. What can we do for you?" the man said, pushing past the faux pas seamlessly.

"Actually, I was hoping to help you." I rifled around in my cargo pockets until I plucked one of the Death Infusions we'd gotten from the rats and mice. "Are you familiar with these?"

"That's one of the beads the hunters collect, are they not?" the dwarf said, squinting at the Q2 Infusion in my hand.

"Correct, but do you know what they do?" I asked, placing the Infusion in his own palm while fishing out another.

"Not rightly. The hunters use them as trophies and sometimes to barter, but never seen anything done with them, sir." The other two dwarves had long halted their own work and were now glancing from me to the Infusion like I was ready to unlock some sort of secret for them. Which, if I was honest, was sort of exactly what I planned to do.

Without further explanation, I triggered and let the thread of Pith unspool. Unlike the Fire, Air and Water Infusions I was more familiar with, the Death thread was more like a pulsing cord of purple-shifting black like a monochrome oil slick. At the sight, the three dwarves simultaneously took a step back and craned their necks to try to get a closer look. It was an expression of wonder I was fairly familiar with, and was excited to share. As much as transferring miscellaneous Skills and triggering sucked the big one, teaching and feeding off of other's curiosity was a big plus for me.

"Can I take this?" I asked, pointing to a rough stone cup inside a bin of scraps. I wasn't sure if their Gifts could even produce a failure, but judging from the amount I was more inclined to think the town was recycling their stoneware. The three gave an eager nod.

The chipped mug was light in my hands. Making sure to set it on the ground since I didn't want to test what the Death thread would to do my hands directly, I fed it the Infusion. Veins of dark sludge flowed through the cup and it crumbled right before our eyes. When the last of the thread had entered the cup, there was nothing but the very base of it left.

I spent several minutes calming down the dwarves after seeing the display of magic. When I eventually managed to explain what had happened, their eagerness was back in full. Questions bombarded me, particularly about what would have happened if it had been different Infusions or different materials. Unfortunately, as far as the Death Attunement was concerned, I wasn't an expert; I wasn't really an expert on any of them, but I shared what I knew about Fire, Air and Water and the few Earth and Life Infusions I'd completed.

After the general explanation, I showcased my H-shield, the Naginata and my Amplification Helm. With each, I gave a bit of a primer on what an Infused Item was, how it differed from an Infused Material and how the materials dropped alongside the Infusions themselves were the best components to be able to create one of these items in the first place. Following that, I broke down the Implant and how it provided the information to accurately work with different Materials and Infusions. Through this, I made sure to emphasize that there could be catastrophic failures from Infusing, showing a few of the burns I had on me as well as the pinprick scars from when that plastic Insta-meal tray had exploded in my face what felt like a lifetime ago.

All this information had the three in a frenzy and I could feel their energy lifting my mood just by proximity. At one point, they almost ignored me entirely to ramble to each other about this theory or another they'd held but never confirmed. They were more than a bit dejected when I told them it would be a while before Implants were commonplace, but that I did have something that could assist them in the meantime.

"I am able to pass on the Gift, or in this case Skill, that lets me Infuse. It's imperative that the rest of humanity get a hold of this if we are to keep surviving when a nearby cricket could try to kill us all," I said, finally broaching the subject that prompted our meeting. The two men and woman turned serious as I explained the process and that even without the Implant, they would be able to work on their manipulation of the threads of Pith. If I had more time in the future, I would try to give them more detailed instruction and demonstrations. Turned out they didn't need nearly that much convincing to let a stranger give them access to more magic.

The female dwarf put it the simplest way when I expressed my surprise. "You'd be dead if Rachael hadn't trusted you. Either by her hand, Angel’s or any of the other hunters. What you've shown us so far, it's no fiction. It's a key and we just need to put it to use."

After that, the engagement went much like the previous times I'd passed on a Skill. Palm to the forehead, stay just shy of triggering the Skill and let it work its way forward. For the woman and the other dwarf I got lucky; remained as dormant as ever and I was starting to feel optimistic about the fact that tuning every fiber of my mind towards not triggering it would work right off the bat. Unfortunately, there was no such luck when it came to Patrick Patrick.

The world swirled as I caught the expression of a young lizardwoman. She'd not had her face elongated, or frills formed, but the extensive mesh of emerald scales was a dead giveaway. She was mine and I was hers. Her voice was a bit harsh, like all the lizard changed. Nonetheless, as she said my name in sing song I couldn't help but smile. "Patrick Patrick, you are all kinds of sappy!"

"You say my name like that so much I might have to change it," I joked, squeezing her hand. The mirth in my voice fell as my mind brought up the part of the conversation we'd been dancing around all afternoon. "Do you have to?"

"Father says Lake Weir will be better for us," she whispered, not singing this time.

"They could go! You could stay here. Mr. Barron put me in charge of the Stoneshapers and I could build us somewhere more comfortable. Somewhere away from your mother!"

"Patty, you know I can't do that. He needs me and I..." she looked down at her clawed feet. "If you can, try to come find me, alright?"

"I--"

"Don't promise. I know you keep them, and I don't want to hold you to that. Please?"

"Y-yeah..." I said, face dropping. "Sure thing, Lydia."

"Good. That beard of yours isn't quite as dashing when you are pouting," she said, running her fingers through it. I let it happen and the two of us fell into silence as we watched the way pass, savoring the time we had together before everything got tossed on its head.

I blinked to feel Patrick poking me in the ribs. "I think I got it, sir."

"Right, sorry. Sometimes the energy transfer distracts me," I said, blundering through an apology as I retracted my sweaty palm from his forehead. Yet another story of heartbreak. Yet another separated from the one they love. Perhaps if the glimpses of the people deemed to show me didn't echo my own loss so much they would be easier to digest. What does that say about me?

Considering I had a small audience, I pushed those thoughts to the side and gave the three dwarves another run through of their new Skill. They picked it up marvelously, running me out of Infusions testing on their broken bits of tableware. One of them even managed not to turn the whole thing into a pile of dust, but when I checked the plate said there was insufficient Pith. Explaining this, and watching the purple veined piece of stone somewhat warily, I left the group to their own devices. Time had passed unbidden and when I finally looked up at the sky it was nearing sunset. While my impact was limited, I hoped that the group, who thanks to my unwilling invasion of Patrick's memories I knew was the aptly named Stoneshapers, would be able to give the whole of Stonecrest a leg up.

The rest of the evening went by in a flash. I returned to the rough camp set up outside of Stonecrest. The carts were arranged in a semicircle with the car wall at the back of it. The guards of the town still patrolled up on the crushed vehicles and when I inquired as to any attacks Rommel told me only a few spiders and two more Q3 lizards. The combined force of the squads stomped it down before the guards could even shoot an arrow. By his assessment, it went a long way to gaining their trust.

The lizards were eaten, instead of dissociated, in the hopes of preserving resources while the healers still worked the inner fields. Just as we were settling in for a lizard stew, courtesy of Daniela's fine culinary skills, said healers wobbled back to camp. The last remaining healer, a satyr woman named Diana, rushed over thinking they were injured in some way. When the slurred calls for food and sleep came, I knew that Samuel had just worked the group to the bone instead.

There was a little merry making around the bonfire. Nothing crazy, but the spirits of the trainees were definitely lifted. Many had never even left Wildwood, and seeing another human town seemed to fulfill some social part of their nature their situation back home had locked away. With my back to Wec's cart and facing out towards the woods, I kept watch along with Devon. One of the squads was always ready to respond while the others were in various states of rest.

And so the night went, with us rotating with Clara and Daniela before rising for the day. It was time to do the final trek to Lake Weir.