“How about we go to find somewhere between the two cities,” I proposed. “With this new change, I don’t know if going to a secluded area is safer than living nearby.”

“I’ll check the map,” said Lucas, “an actual map of this area I mean, not the system map. The most ideal situation would be if we can get ourselves secured by high walls and fencing. Even if there were lots of mobs around we could be secure.”

After spreading out his map and studying it for a few minutes Lucas pointed to a housing complex just south of the city. On foot it was at least a day’s walk as we would have to skirt around the edge of the city and avoid True Believers. Still, it was extremely promising as a place to start some sort of base camp. With the spawn protection stone we could essentially secure ourselves in the middle of enemy territory.

The housing community was gated, and had two different lakes on one side. Natural human traffic should be low as it didn’t lead to anywhere, it was just its own enclosed living area. It looked pleasant enough too, with single family detached homes that should be spacious enough for everyone.

Some of the doom and gloom I had been feeling vanished as we talked about getting out and finding a more secure place. It felt like a new chapter was going to be starting for us shortly and we could actually start working towards surviving.

As much as I wanted to know for certain what had happened to my parents, I had a group of people depending on me. Truthfully, from the beginning, I never thought we would be strong enough or quick enough to venture as deep into the city as was needed to reach where my parents lived. The only hope that they were still alive was if they had gotten out, and if they did do that—I couldn’t find them right now anyway.

Soon we were gathered outside on the street with our bags. Before setting off, there was a consensus that we should scavenge the local stores first. An extra pair of shoes and some fresh underwear went a long way when showers weren’t common place. We stayed in Mark’s neighborhood as we went in search of useful gear.

The area didn’t see many spawns or patrols, and the three enemies there were we dispatched with ease. They were all lycanthropes, which were no longer any threat. Fortunately, they were the most common mob in this outer ring of the city.

Even while inside the stores, we made it a rule that everyone had to be within earshot of Jessica at all times, for safety reasons. And it was just as well that Jessica had insisted on that rule, because after only a few minutes of scavenging she raced to my side. “Fifty plus people moving two blocks away from us.” She spoke in a hushed whisper.

“Okay, you get everyone from that side and I’ll get this side. Be quick.” I sprinted off to alert those who had gone inside stores on my side of the street. They responded well to my urgent calls, dropping clothes or stuffing them hastily into a bag. It took under two minutes for all of us to meet on the sidewalk about a block away from Mark’s home.

“True Believers are moving nearby en masse,” Jessica explained. “So far over one hundred people have crossed two to three blocks away, heading inward.”

“Is it to battle the Fiend?” Alex asked.

Richard nodded, “Probably.”

Looking around, I saw a mixture of excitement and unease in the expressions of our group, and Anna put into words the question that everyone was thinking, “So, what now?”

I truly hadn’t expected hundreds of True Believers would be sent to fight the Fiend. This was something we could potentially take advantage of. “Well, we have two options…,” I began, “we can use this window to leave without the fear of encountering any True Believers.”

“Or?” Maria asked a bit anxiously.

“We can follow them from a distance and take advantage of the situation, maybe grab some drops.” There was a two-birds-with-one-stone sort of situation developing. “The Fiend and the True Believers are bitter enemies… and if they fought and weakened each other, or even better wiped each other out…”

“The amount of potential loot…” Anna was salivating.

“And experience…” Alex agreed.

“It’s a huge risk,” Lucas pointed out. “We could be wiped out by either side, but especially the Fiend.” I agreed with him. I had made it fervently clear how dangerous the Fiend was, as had Jessica. On the other hand, if the True Believers won at great cost, removing the survivors now could save us from tremendous future problems, especially since we wanted to create a base nearby. Maybe too, the Fiend wouldn’t respawn and this would be an unrepeatable opportunity to rid the world of it?

“Jessica, how far can you track now?” I asked.

“Four blocks maximum.” She had been using her tracking continuously since we had arrived at the city, and even before that. Four blocks was an incredible distance, and that would give us at least thirty seconds head start for anything untoward coming our way.

“We can watch from four blocks then, find a defensible position and wait.”

“What if it isn’t the Fiend they are after?” Mark asked.

“Well, if it wasn’t the Fiend, they would probably spread out looking for us instead of marching by like that.” In fact, it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had detected us. Two blocks wasn’t that far away. It was a range that Jessica could do almost from the get go and we knew they had trackers. It really did seem like we weren’t the priority at the moment.

“What does everyone think?” I asked. This had to be a group decision.

“What about Mark and Glenn?” Richard cut in.

“They can come along if they want, although it should be safe enough here now that the True Believers have congregated and marched past,” I answered.

Richard looked at Mark while both Alex and Thomas looked at Glenn.

“We’ll be fine for a few more days,” said Mark.

Glenn nodded, “Yeah, we’ll stay here. Don’t worry about us.”

I couldn’t tell if they actually were as confident as they sounded, or if they simply didn’t want to be a burden that affected our group decision.

Anna and Alex had no reservations and immediately indicated they were in favor of tracking the cultists, and the others agreed after a few moments of hesitation. Only Maria was unconvinced. Ever since her near-death dungeon experience, she had been very reluctant to do anything too risky. Loot or progression didn’t entice her, and she was completely fine with remaining stagnant but safe.

That was a problem in and of itself, but maybe time would fix it. “We’ll be as careful as possible, I promise,” I said to her. “Four blocks, we don’t move unless the situation is overwhelmingly in our favor. We retreat if things look in any way odd.”

She seemed conflicted, and her eyes wandered to find Jessica. But it only took a nod and a reassuring smile for her to agree, “Okay, but keep your promise,” she said sternly.

I looked at Jessica, “Lead the way.”

Jessica gave a nod and then ran through a backyard before jumping the fence, “Keep up!” she yelled back.

Richard was the last of us to make the jump, staying back to ensure his brother and Glenn had everything they needed for the next few days. “Everything good?” I asked him when he reached the other side.

“All good. Just being careful.” I gave him a nod and then signaled to Jessica to keep moving.

The area was barren of mobs. The swarm of Believers had cleared the area for several blocks. It was a leisurely stroll for us, and then we came to an abrupt stop after just ten minutes. “They’re congregating ahead,” Jessica stopped us, “hundreds of them.”

“Hundreds?” Anna asked.

“So many it’s hard to count,” Jessica said in confirmation.

“Find a roof.” Alex urged everyone. We were surrounded by buildings, but after short consideration, only one would do. It was a block inward and tall enough that we wouldn’t have any line of sight issues with buildings on the way.

The Believers had moved through these streets like a swarm of locusts clearing a farm, and even that block inward was devoid of spawns. It was as if they had cleared this entire area and turned it into one giant arena for the battle with the Fiend.

The building itself was still filled with monsters, but the east stairwell was sealed and clean all the way through to the roof. So after a few straightforward encounters, we found ourselves looking out over the whole city: a beautiful and yet terrifying sight.

Every street the Believers hadn’t cleared was infested with monsters. Months ago, you’d never imagine anything other than humans walking and driving along these streets. Now it was pure hellscape. The rain had cleaned up much of the trash, but the downed power lines and heavy metal from torched and destroyed cars still littered the street in a chaotic landscape.

I couldn’t help but think this was the kind of view every person needed to see at least once. Once you saw this, there you knew that humanity was no longer top dog on the planet anymore, and this would remain the case for the foreseeable future.

“There’s so many of them,” Richard said, “Disgusting.” It took a moment to realize he was talking about the True Believers and not the monsters.

“That’s easily several hundred people,” I confirmed. Even more eerie was what was happening. They were all just standing there motionlessly. It was nothing like a normal gathering of people. They stood… in silence… and waited.

Unfortunately, that’s all we could do as well. Sit and wait for whatever was to come.

“How can we take advantage of that?” Maria asked skeptically.

“I’d also like to know.” Anna chipped in. Those two seemed to always piggyback off each other when it came to being skeptical. Not that there was anything wrong with that.

“As sad as it is to say,” I replied, “we wait for the Fiend to take care of that.” I pointed at the clump of people standing like mindless zombies in the distance. The guilt from it washed over me like water off a duck’s back.

This was happening whether we intervened or left, and as far as I was concerned we were completely neutral… for now. If an opportunity arose that allowed us to grasp some benefits and maybe weaken the True Believer camp, I was all for it.

“You think the Fiend will put up a fight against that many people?” Richard asked earnestly.

“I think it will do more than that.” I responded. I was less confident than my words suggested, though. I didn’t know how it would fare against hundreds of people, but it should do a decent amount of damage… If it didn’t, well we could simply descend and be on our way in a few minutes.

Time crawled. There was no shade upon the roof, and the morning sun started to pound down from above. The recent cloudy and stormy weather was nowhere to be seen, and our only solace was a nice cross breeze that made this bearable.

“Do you think we’re in for another drought?” Thomas asked. There was a bit of weariness in his eyes. He hid it well, but I could feel the anger he held just beneath the surface, waiting to explode over. Holding onto that for so long… it surely wore you out and slowly ate you up? Finding Glenn had definitely helped appease some of that, but his suppressed rage was still there bubbling.

Alex was curled up in a ball in a corner of the roof. Only half of his body was protected by the light overhanging shadow from the roof’s ledge. “I hope not!” he yelled out. His hands constantly fiddled with tiny bits of gravel that he tossed into the air.

“We’ll be okay with just the Rations.” I reminded everyone. Others weren’t so lucky, but for now we had the fighting power to sustain ourselves by grinding Rations if we needed to.

All at once, my hair started to stand on end, as if I was being electrically charged. The vibrations across my skin made me think I’d be struck by lightning at any time, but I knew what it meant. “It’s here,” I said.