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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xAyC_wb1afJyrYl8bbPZj8zbbDJ2UwBdZ6vRAz1ZCOg/edit?usp=sharing
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Alex came down the stairs, and the group immediately began rolling out through the large double doors, not needing any prompting.
Initiates quickly broke sideways, moving along the walls of the building, verifying that there weren’t any enemies waiting in ambush even though Alex and others had already verified that such was not the case.
Still, better safe than sorry. I suppose I don’t know if anything can hide from my spell, nor that of the others. They’d decided to treat such detection spells as good information sources rather than gospel truth.
Soon enough they were all back outside and moving toward the central building which was a central meeting hall overtop of the maintenance hub, the base of which Alex had seen the Plague Lord within.
Natasha fell in beside Alex as they moved. “The other group was barely affected by the last sonic attack, and what did reach them was entirely negated by earplugs. It was seemingly mostly focused on us.”
Alex grunted, nodding in understanding. “Did some still not have earplugs?”
“A few had taken them out for one reason or another.”
He sighed. People were wont to be fools, him as much as any.
“They still took some casualties even among those who kept the earplugs in, but Brianne was able to keep most from turning or dying until Stephen killed the infected areas. They’ve lost some, but not many overall.”
He sighed, his tone not matching the positive nature of his words. “Brianne is a very efficient healer.”
“That she is.” Natasha gave him a side eyed look, clearly looking for a way to shift his evidently negative mood. “She’s also single.”
Alex huffed a laugh, the comment earning a bit of a smile. “Not really relevant.”
The woman shrugged. “So you say.”
“She’s not really my type.” He gave a sad smile, the little mirth draining away.
“Oh? And what is your type?”
Alex opened his mouth, ready to give the cutting response that he had used pre-system when friends or co-workers had tried to set him up. This time, however, he grimaced. “Well, I was going to say that ‘my type is dead’, but I’m a bit concerned how you’d take that with the current circumstances.”
Natasha snorted a laugh before the mirth bled away from her face as well. “I think I understand.” She patted his shoulder. “That might not always be the case you know. The world has changed. We can change to.”
He looked her way, raising an eyebrow. “And if your husband died?”
Her face hardened. “I’d kill everyone and everything even remotely responsible or die trying. Then, if I survived?” She shrugged. “If my son was alive, I’d join him. If not?”
Alex waited patiently through the pause, feeling the woman’s palpable concern..
“I’d join them.” She gave a small smile, then nodded solemnly. “I see what you mean.”
He nodded. “Seems that you do…”
“So… why haven’t you joined her, then?” She only seemed slightly hesitant to inquire, her curiosity clearly overcoming any sort of polite unwillingness to ask.
Alex gave a mirthless chuckle. “Her last words.”
It was Natasha’s turn to cock an eyebrow.
He swallowed, throat constricting and eyes watering just slightly as he remembered the rocky trail, the fading light, her weight strapped to his back, her pale face resting beside his own, her words… “ ‘If I don’t make it… Please live, Alex. Care. I want you to have a lot of stories to tell me when we meet again.”
Natasha frowned. “That… I mean no disrespect, but that is more coherent than I would have expected for last words.”
Alex smiled without joy. “Bloodloss can be like that. I was carrying her at the time, and I suspect she didn’t want to distract me. It was a steep trail after all. She fell unconscious some time after that and…” He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed and gave a sad smile. “She never woke up.”
Natasha patted his shoulder in what they both knew was a vain attempt to give comfort for a hurt long past. “Death is rarely pleasant. Let’s see if we can keep any of ours from dying.”
Alex glanced at the confetti that was starting to blow away even as they moved across it toward the center of campus. “Some of us have already died.”
She shrugged. “You know what I mean.”
To his shame, he did. He had been taught to value all life, to protect the weak where he could, to put others before himself… that all were equal.
He still believed that, but he wasn’t living it right now.
It was his plan that brought so many non-Initiates to this fight. Their presence had likely saved some Initiates, but more of their lives had been lost than Initiates saved.
In a pure number sense, his plan was a failure, but no one saw it that way. He didn’t see it that way.
Could it be that—under this System—all were not equal?
He shuddered at the thought, at the realization of how many evils could be justified if that were the case.
No. I will not change who I am, what I believe. I may be a fool, but I will be an honest fool. Yet, he did not call a halt, send the non-Initiates away, or attempt to shift the plan.
In this case at least, the non-Initiates were less valuable than the Initiates. He felt growing in the back of his mind a sense that they weren’t ‘real’ people anyway.
Mr. Weston had been real to him… but wasn’t the old saying ‘The exception proves the rule’?
He was saved from more uncomfortable self-justification by another attack of undead.
This one contained far more ravagers, frothing and recklessly throwing themselves into the human group’s defenses.
“BITE!”
“SCRATCH!”
“CUT!”
More and more calls for help rang out as the near-to fifty undead seemed to do everything in their power to infect as many as possible, even giving up their existence to give even a minor scratch.
It had all the hallmarks of a commander-orchestrated assault.
Alex was looking for the right person to tell that to even as he sprinted back and forth through their ranks, when it became obvious that he wasn’t the only person to come to the realization.
John didn’t launch into the air this time, but he did start taking strategic shots, causing cascades of glass as he took out even vaguely human-shaped things through various windows that overlooked the path they were taking.
Pilar also sent gouts of fire toward other potential overlooks, setting more than a few buildings ablaze, even if only in small ways. Internal sprinklers began triggering in those rooms, dousing the flames before they could spread over-far.
Flickers of lightning lanced out from another Initiate—the videogame hating woman if Alex remembered correclty—the thunder somehow suppressed.
As those powerhouses were occupied trying to find the source of the issue, others stepped up to fill the gap, to hold back the slavering horde.
Some non-Initates—wielding everything from table legs to fire-axes—yelled to gather their own courage as they charged forth. Others used doors as massive, makeshift shields to try to funnel or keep back the press of bodies.
Jacob sent scything blades of air through the ravagers, and the other spear wielders stalwartly wielded staff, blade, and spell to hold the center of their formation.
Alex sprinted, ravagers were pushed back, and—despite their best efforts—non-Initiates died.
Each death was like a knick on Alex’s heart, and despite his best efforts, he knew he was pulling back, trying to care less, justifying their losses even if just to himself.
Then, a stream of lightning threaded through a gap between a garbage can screen and the wall of a building, down an alley, and a surprisingly gleeful, feminine yell of triumph resounded from the caster. “Got him!”
The ravagers locked up momentarily, allowing for a wholesale slaughter. An instant later, they utterly changed tactics, each going their own way, still trying to kill and feast, but no longer coordinated, and now less intelligent in how they threw away their lives.
The fight was over less than a minute later, and Alex purged the last bit of turning plague from his companions barely fifteen seconds after that.
He collapsed to the ground in relief.
His muscles were trembling, but that was more because of the heightened state of readiness and activity at which he’d kept them in recently than out of true fatigue. Physical stats were amazing.
Still, maybe I should try to find some sort of Sprint skill… Or a short range teleport? That would be really amazing. But that was for when he had access to a System Store again, hopefully a less limited one. Surely, they’ve earned a bunch more Merit by this point?
A healing class could be nice too when he got a second one, so he could actually get paid for this… at least in some manner.
He allowed himself a moment’s rest and a few conjured mouthfuls of cool, clean water. It was amazing how much better cool—not cold—water tasted when exercising.
Though, if I do much more, tepid water will likely be better for me to be drinking… He’d cross that bridge if he came to it.
With an almost theatrical groan, Alex pushed himself up, back to his feet.
The others had taken his momentary rest to eat and drink from their own supplies, passing around where one or other of those with them were lacking.
“Alright, let’s get to it.”
The group—Initiates and non—stood once more. They’d taken less than two minutes to regather their strength, but it had helped.
Kaylee pulled her phone from her ear. “Stephen’s group has reached the central building, and they are surrounding it, clearing out the outer hall.”
Alex nodded. “The offshoot groups we discussed?”
She smiled. “Groups of ten are already clearing the surrounding buildings and sealing the basement access in each. We’ll be ready to breach when we get there.”
He grinned. “Here’s where something goes disastrously wrong.”
Natasha walked up, chuckling. “That does seem to be about the size of it. Come on. Let’s go. We have a Plague Lord to kill.”
“We?” Alex gave her a self-satisfied, teasing smile.
She arched an eyebrow. “We can wait outside if Alex the Great wants to go into the final battle alone.”
He grimaced. “Fine, that’s fair. It was a poor attempt at humor. We have a Plague Lord to kill.”
Lenka huffed a laugh. “Well, not all of us. I have traps to place and a building to defend.”
John clapped Alex on the shoulder. “Yours isn’t the only part, my good man.”
Alex sighed but smiled despite himself. “Yeah, yeah. Come on. Let’s get to it.”
The Watcher hid a grin at the groups’ success. Sure, they were reducing some of their potential rewards with each non-Initiate death, but part of the point of these tutorials was to teach truths about the System, and in the System, some lives were worth more than others.
And World Spirits are worth the most. Those entities gathered and purified lifeforce at a far greater rate than any minor sapient could ever hope to. The fact that the sapient population acted as a means of boosting the world spirit was likely the only reason the System cared about those like the Watcher in the least.
She might be worth a few hundred new Initiates in the System’s balance sheet, but a fully actualized World Spirit was worth millions.
Only those like Lord Ares came close.
But she was getting distracted.
She composed update packets for the other Watchers who’d asked to be kept up to date on her unusual scenario, and that was a growing number.
She had her own stack from other Watchers, but she’d have time to go through those in the coming decades, between Initializations.
She did hope that the Initiates had been paying close attention to the first wave’s assault on their base, and their own ‘easier’ assault on the undead. That experience could serve them well in the next scenario.
Things were coming to a head for Alex and his allies. All the tweaking that the Supervisor had done meant that the System had directly intervened to provide a modicum of balance.
Undead were almost never a keystone army unless they were in the thrall of a necromancer, but the System had found a way to do so regardless.
The coming fight wouldn’t be easy, but the scenario was ready to offer them victory if they found success.
“Good luck with the Banshees, Alex. They’re far, far worse in person.” She was quite interested in how that would go. She also hoped he didn’t assume that such was all he would need to overcome.
While it was true that only time would tell, that time was rapidly approaching, and the Watcher couldn’t remember the last time she was so invested in an Apology Tutorial.