14 – The City Awaits
“…and it’ll keep growing, keep, um, bolstering my power as long as we hold the grove. I have to do rituals now and then, especially as I level, but it’s all for a benefit. I can feel the grove around us now. I can sort of sense where people are, and I’m sure I’d know it if sothing with evil intentions ca onto the sa.”
Andy looked at the slender tree as Madi spoke, his mind drifting down darker paths than he imagined she expected. “And if sothing happens to the tree?”
She frowned, her green- and gold-flecked brown eyes turning to her Heart Tree. He didn’t rember them having so much color in them before. Was her new class changing how she looked? “I’d suffer if my tree were killed.”
“So, you probably don’t want to leave, right?”
Madi opened her mouth, but then closed it, shaking her head. “I do. I an, I want to be able to help you and others when you go out. I’m only level one, but I know my Druid magic will be a lot stronger than what I was doing with just my herbalism. Still, if I leave, I’ll want to know there’s soone here I can trust to look after my tree.”
“Soone strong enough,” Lydia said, adding the part Madi was too polite to say.
Andy smiled, reaching toward the tree, but pausing an inch away. “Is it okay?”
Madi nodded. “Please.”
He touched the smooth green bark, and it tingled against his fingers, the coursing mana inside tugging slightly against the mana at the core of his being. It felt warm and good, and while his fingers rested on the little tree, it felt like he could hear the wind in the branches of the squites more clearly. It was like they were whispering to him. “Wow,” he said, and Madi bead proudly.
“Is it a squite?” Lydia asked.
Madi shook her head. “I don’t know. Do squites look straight like this when they’re saplings?”
Andy pointed to the feathery little leaves on its delicate canopy. “They look similar to squite leaves, but not exactly.”
Lydia put her arm over Madi’s shoulders, squeezing her gently. “It’ll be fun to see how it grows up, Madi. Congratulations.”
“Thank you!” She looked at Andy. “So, I was thinking I should stay here until we get so of the other higher-level folks back. I’d feel safe leaving her with Bella or Bea to look over her, but for now, if you and Omar are leaving…” She trailed off, looking at Lydia almost guiltily.
“Oh hush. I get it. I might have almost twenty crafting levels under my belt, but I’m no fighter.”
“Yeah.” Andy turned, looking around at the garden and the trees lining the clearing. Lots of people were milling about, so moving with purpose, but others just chatting, taking a break from whatever task they’d been working on. He didn’t see Omar. “Do you know where Omar is?”
Lydia shook her head. “Let’s go see if he’s ho. Pretty sure one of Tucker’s crews finished the framing for his cottage yesterday—sa as yours.”
“I’ll stay here for now. I want to ditate.” Madi plopped down in the grass before her tree, folding her legs beneath her.
Lydia tousled her soft brown hair, and then she and Andy made their way down the shady lanes of the sa toward Omar’s plot of land. It wasn’t hard to find him. The grizzled, dark-haired man was cooking so battered fish in a cast-iron skillet over a campfire in front of his half-built ho. When he saw them coming, he looked up and smiled. “Hey! You two hungry? I have more fish in the cooler.”
“Not ,” Lydia replied, and Andy shook his head. In truth, he was hungry, but he’d had too much fish in recent days. He had so protein bars and junk food in his storage ring calling his na.
“You gonna head back out soon, Andy? I’m pretty much ready.”
“Yep. That’s why I ca by. I was wondering what you decided about your, uh, class offer.”
“Oh? A new class, Omar?” Lydia pulled up a cut log and sat down, watching the wolf-eyed man as he carefully turned his fish over in the oil.
“I took it. Warden of Cinerath.” He looked up at Andy and grinned. “I know you and Madi didn’t exactly tell what to do, but your words got thinking. Even if this Cinerath entity, wherever she is, gives powers for doing the things she thinks I ought to do, that doesn’t an I’m worshiping her. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I’m doing good things—things that don’t make feel ashad—then I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Guilty?” Lydia was clearly confused.
“Omar’s trying to reconcile his religious beliefs with this new world we live in.”
Lydia snorted. “Good luck with that. I couldn’t figure it out in the old world.”
Omar smiled and shrugged. “I was never super religious, but I paid attention to my catechism and, well, I always believed in good and evil. I saw so stuff…” He shook his head, changing the subject. “Anyway, I don’t see why I can’t still be good. I’ll let God sort the rest out.”
“Sounds like a plan, Omar. I think I’ll do the sa.” Andy pressed his hands into his lower back, but then a thought occurred to him. “Oh! What about the class, though? What changed?”
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Omar clicked his tongue, making a soft hissing sound through his teeth. “You’re looking at a fresh level one again, and it wasn’t an extra class—I lost the old one. Well, sort of. I kept all my mana, I kept most of my spells and skills, but I’m a level one Warden of Cinerath. I hope that ans I can pick up more Improvent Points as I level up again.”
“Almost definitely,” Lydia said. “I had similar things happen with my crafting classes.”
“Speaking of,” Andy said, “I should switch back to my newbie class before we head out. I think it’s just gonna be you and , Omar.”
“I could—” Lydia started to say, but Andy shook his head.
“We’re gonna be in the city, Lydia. I don’t want to bring people who aren’t used to, like, rough fights.”
“The city? Why?”
“I think there’s another settlent there, one that’s at risk from the sa monsters that were targeting us.”
“We’re gonna see if they know anything,” Omar added.
Andy sat down on the ground, stretching his feet out toward Omar’s cook fire. “And, at the very least, warn them.” He closed his eyes and focused on his status sheet, selecting his new Lancer class. “Give just a few minutes,” he murmured as he confird he wanted to set the class as active.
This ti, he had the wherewithal to lay himself back, so he didn’t bang his head when he blacked out. He tried to listen to Omar and Lydia chatting while they waited for him, but their voices were weirdly indistinct, and though he could make out their separate tones, not a single word registered. After what felt like a short while, the buzzing, tingling sensation in his skull faded, his hearing clarified, and when he blinked his eyes, he saw the blue sky through the tree canopy above.
“…and then we’ll work on trying to dig deeper—see if we can’t find a vein of sothing other than coal or copper.” Lydia yawned as she finished speaking, and Andy figured they were talking about the mine. They really hadn’t done much down there, but things were picking up now that they had the folks from Grace Refuge moving to the sa.
Andy sat up and Omar said, “That wasn’t long—less than ten minutes, I’d bet.”
“Yep,” Lydia agreed.
“Well, should we head out, Omar? I figure we’ve got most of the afternoon before it gets dark. If we move quickly, I think it’s about a two or three-hour hike.”
Omar shifted his belt, looking to the left where his shield and mace leaned against a tree. “You studied the map? Any idea what’s around that other settlent?”
Lydia arched an eyebrow. “There’s a map?”
Andy nodded, summoning the parchnt from his storage ring. He handed it to her, and she frowned, studying it for a minute. “This mark is us? The sa?”
“Yeah,” Omar said, hurrying to finish eating his fish.
“This is around the area where Tanque Verde High School is.” She drew her finger in a line from the sa toward the other point. “I’d follow Reddington to where it turns into Tanque Verde, then I’d cut north, around here, on a street called Conestoga. Should take you right up toward that other little X.”
Andy took the map, nodding. “Thanks, Lydia. I knew the general direction, but I don’t know all the street nas.”
“I know this area pretty well, too,” Omar said, stuffing his last bite of fish into his mouth. He put his paper plate onto the coals, and they all watched as it turned black and then curled up as flas consud it.
Andy stood and held out a hand, helping Lydia to her feet. Then he said, “Oh, hey! I just rembered sothing.” With that, he reached into his magical storage space and pulled out the goblin war drum. “Maybe there’s sothing about this drum worth studying; it was better made than the others.”
“How do you an—better made?” Lydia took the huge drum in her hands, grunting as she set one edge of the base on the log so she could tilt it and inspect the craftsmanship.
“Like, look at the skin—nicely tanned. And check out the wood, how polished it is. My theory is that one of the goblin drumrs got it as a quest reward or sothing.”
Lydia made a soft humming sound as she inspected the drum. “Sounds plausible. You really think the System gives quests to monsters?”
Andy shook his head. “Monsters? I an, I think it depends on intelligence, not necessarily what species you are and whether humans view you as a monster.”
“Yeah,” Omar agreed, nodding. “Goblins and humans don’t get along, but that doesn’t an they can’t work toward the System’s stated goal.”
“Excuse ? Stated goal?”
Suddenly, Andy realized Lydia hadn’t been around back when he’d first spoken to the guide—when he’d reported what he’d learned to the rest of the trailer park. He took a minute to summarize, ending with, “So, yeah, if the System can get goblins to ascend, whatever that ans, then I think it would be willing to offer them quests and stuff, just like us.”
“But you said the System gave you a quest that was pretty much ‘kill the goblins.’ How does that gel?”
Andy shrugged. “Competition.”
“Survival of the fittest,” Omar added.
Lydia shook her head. “I think it’s more than that. I think it has favorites. It can’t look at squite sa and see the goblins in their camps as having the sa potential for advancent. Sure, it might work on them on the side, but when it cos to head-to-head rivalry, I won’t believe it wouldn’t nudge the dice in our favor.”
“Maybe.” Andy gestured to the sun, nearly past its zenith. “We gotta get going, though. Let the others know for us?”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll walk you to the gate.”
The three of them andered through the squite grove toward the gate, pausing a couple of tis so Andy could say hello to people he hadn’t spoken with recently. When they reached the gate, Tucker was shouting instructions as several people struggled to haul in a massive load of two by fours on the big pulley-driven hoist arm.
Andy watched, wincing, fearful of disaster, but they managed to swing the arm at the right ti, and the pallet touched down on the loading platform—a big cent slab they’d mixed by hand. As scattered applause broke out among the observers, Tucker sketched a mock bow and then walked over to Andy. “Heading out again, boss?”
Andy nodded. “Gotta work on this quest. Figure out who was trying to sick the goblins on us.”
“Lydia going with?”
She shook her head. “Better try to get so experience around the sa first. These two are heading into the city.”
“Seriously?” Tucker’s eyebrows shot up. “Like downtown?”
Andy shook his head. “No, up Tanque Verde. Foothills area.”
“Ah, okay. Hey! You’ve got that fancy ring, so keep on the lookout for so supplies, man.”
“Anything in particular?”
“I an, not really. We’re still flush from all the stuff we hauled out of Construction City, but…” He shrugged. “Anything that jumps out at you as valuable or hard to find. Shit, maybe raid a pharmacy if you see one that hasn’t already been looted.”
Lydia nudged Omar’s shoulder, reaching up to sar a spot of dried blood on the side of his jaw with her thumb. “You boys have any kind of healing?”
Omar smiled at her effort to groom him, arching an eyebrow as he replied, “Andy’s got so of Bea’s potions in his ring.”
Andy thumped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get hiking. The city awaits.”
“Stay safe,” Tucker said, moving out of the way.
Omar waved at them both, but Andy saw how his gaze lingered on Lydia for a mont as a half smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “See you soon. Hopefully, the others will be back when we return.”
“Hopefully, Lucy will be,” Lydia added, winking at Andy. He doubted she had any idea how the remark only added to the stress he was feeling about Lucy’s absence, so he forced a smile and nodded back to her.
“Yeah. Let’s hope so.” With that, he and Omar, the Warden of Cinerath, stepped through the gate and started down the stony trail to the desert below.
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