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CH 25: Three weeks
🕑 Added 2024-11-21 17:41:00 +0000 UTC+ Reid +
It had been three weeks since Marlene made her promise. The private conversation between the two of them had been followed by a very public, very loud reunion with Sara. His daughter had, unsurprisingly, refused to leave his side for the next few days. He even missed participating in a wave because she was insistent that she would go wherever he went. When Sara finally relented and let Reid have some time to himself, Susan took over monopolizing him. They talked, the worried together about the future, and Susan took a keen interest in Reid's transformed physique. Reid was... very happy that he and Susan had a nearly-soundproof space to themselves.
It was soon after that Reid re-joined the wall defenders - even though he dealt with more than a few objections from Sara. She'd actually gotten a bit mean at that point, but Reid let it slide. He wasn't going to tell her about Marlene's promise. If she knew he was helping now so that she would have support when he was gone, she might've flown into another fit. Reid tried to keep in mind that his daughter was still young, and she needed time to adjust to things. Marlene had limited him to only killing half of each wave, at maximum. Her intention was to prevent any more difficulty increases - and to ensure other people were able to level up. So far, it was working.
James was no longer on Reid's shit list. According to Susan, the man had literally prostrated himself in apology to her, and he had been on his best behavior around both Susan and Sara since then. James started training Reid, and he'd asked the man to train Sara as well. James was a good instructor. He knew how to make someone improve their movements - and he damn well knew how to teach them to fight. Reid, on the other hand, was a poor student and hadn't improved much.
Just like that, days ticked past. He spent time with his family, training, or defending the campground. Reid earned something of a reputation for his strength and performance in the defender circles, and it spread to just about everywhere else. Susan had fewer injuries to heal, so she'd been testing and exploring different parts of her skill. Her most exciting moment so far was healing a pet bird that had long since had its wings clipped. Her radiant smile as the bird flew away was burned into his memory.
Sara was still doing what seemed like a million odd tasks for everyone in the campground. She'd found Reid boxes of old clothes that fit him, found fruit trees and some wild plants in the forest that were edible and helped push their food stocks longer, and she'd even gotten him a new pair of boots. The boots were - not the greatest. Something about the left sole felt wrong in a way he couldn't verbalize, and nothing he did seemed to fix it. But they were a gift from his daughter, so Reid had smiled and thanked her anyway.
His family's notoriety and usefulness created quite a bit of demand for his sparse remaining free time. Many people just wanted to know who he was. Many saw knowing him as a way to 'gain power' in the Sanctuary hierarchy. Some came claiming they had miracle cures for his cancer. To avoid all of those opportunists, Reid found himself gravitating towards the few people he actually enjoyed spending time with.
He and Louis had grown closer. He'd checked up on the boy's mental health multiple times, and felt Louis was making a really good recovery. Especially once Reid got him removed from the wall defender team. Reid kept telling the boy embarrassing stories about his own youth, and Louis was finally responding with honest laughter. He asked Reid questions that Reid was entirely unqualified to answer, and Reid gave him the best advice he could think of. Louis deserved to be happy, and Reid was committed to seeing him stay that way.
Somehow they had plenty of beer and liquor left in the campground, so Warren's was still open. Reid, James, Mark, and Lowell often celebrated there after finishing off a wave. Mark had gone overboard 'improving' Reid's mug - which now sported intricate wood filigree, a relief of Reid's face, and an ever-growing collection of kill marks. Mark still talked too much, but he had been listening more - and the man ensured that Reid never paid for a single drink. Lowell was... quiet. He had both his hands back and seemed content, but he rarely spoke about himself or anyone else.
Marlene made sure he ran tests, so she could gather more information. There was a healing test, where Reid willingly had various body parts damaged. Susan then used her power to inspect Reid while he knitted himself back together with the painful, burning method. According to Susan, there were major differences between her healing and what he had done - but she couldn't quite figure out how it worked. Others tried to repeat Reid's healing or mimic the ability - but none succeeded. The testing had, at least, confirmed the downside of Reid's healing. It knocked Reid out for a deceptively long 'recovery nap' - which explained how he'd lost track of time in the forest. On the upside, Susan could use her healing to effectively eliminate his post-heal rest period.
The other test - the one that was actually painful - was for the Shackle. Reid had unmuted the thing, and tried his best to tune it out. It was almost manic in its demands to get him to go back to the beacon - and descended toward actual mania when he summarily ignored it. None of the twenty watchers noticed any changes or fluctuations in his magic, or soul, or whatever else they claimed to be looking at. Marlene had asked for multiple tests, and Reid very unhappily obliged. The end result was the same as his healing. No one quite knew what was going on, and no one could replicate it.
So, he was spending time with his family - in all the best ways. He considered some of the people in Sanctuary his friends. He was fighting - which he found he actually enjoyed a little now that he wasn't in the woods. He raised his level, and his stats - and thanks to Susan, had greatly reduced his recovery period for power growth. He'd defended against waves 19 through 28. Even with Marlene's kill limit, his status screen was starting to look impressive.
-
STATUS
Name: Reid Oliver Calderwall
Affiliation: "Earth"
Race: Human
Grade: G
Level: 7 -> 9
Health: 150 -> 200
Experience: 2,389 -> 8,059 / 12,800
STATS:
Constitution: 15 -> 20
Dexterity: 2
Intelligence: 1
Perception: 1
Power: 19 -> 24
Control: 38 -> 48
Stat Upgrade Points: ERROR
SKILLS:
Strengthening [Basic]
Hardening [Common]
Calcification [Uncommon]
Petrification [Rare] (CORRUPTED)
Skill Upgrade Points: ERROR
RESTRICTED:
???: UNAVAILABLE
???: UNAVAILABLE
???: UNAVAILABLE
???: UNAVAILABLE
-
The only issue for Reid and anyone else at Sanctuary was food. Toby and Walt's parents had been amateur 'preppers', which meant they'd stocked food and supplies to keep their family alive in a post-civilization-collapse event. But Sanctuary was an entire community, so the stores of supplies dwindled fast. They hadn't found a way to render salamander meat non-toxic, which meant the camp needed new sources of food to keep them alive. Fishing and gathering didn't do nearly enough to sustain them, and hunting proved useless - there was no wild game they could find or catch. Farming would take too long - though they'd started making gardens. Food might grow eventually - especially since the weather was unseasonably warm. But they needed a solution for the near-term.
That left the tried-and-true option of scavenging. There was little in the immediate area, so they'd started to make longer journeys. Sara had insisted on using her skill to help, and it had been nothing short of miraculous. She'd found a canning factory in the middle of the woods that had beans and a few other lines of food products. It had been enough to fill two RVs with food stock. The factory in the woods was, unfortunately, part of the new normal. Earth was definitely changed. Roads didn't connect. Bridges were broken over most rivers. But Sara always managed to find a path the scavengers could drive through. She'd even navigated a scavenger group to the remains of what was once a small town's main road. The team hadn't fully gone through it yet, but they'd emptied out the diner and the gas station so far.
Reid had gone out on the first few runs, but as they moved farther from Sanctuary it became impossible to both do the runs and defend the walls. Reid agreed to let Sara continue on as long as Marlene or James were on the scavenging trips, too. Somehow, they still hadn't run into any salamanders outside the walls, or any other form of trouble.
So it had been a good three weeks. Things were going well.
--
+> Sara <+
Sara paced around the field. She was exasperated, with herself and with her skill. She had so much to be happy for, but her mood was sour.
Dad was back - and he seemed stronger and healthier than ever. But right after he got back, he'd almost gotten killed and was unconscious for two weeks. And in between those two things happening, both her parents had informed her that, yeah, they were hiding stuff from her, and oh yeah, it was that dad was going to die. She'd known something was wrong. But she hadn't wanted to guess - because what if she had guessed wrong? So instead, she just went along with it, and tried to be mature.
Hearing about the cancer, out in the open - was awful. And shitty. But she hadn't started crying - not right away. Her skill had led her to the bathroom, and she broke down in there. She hated herself for being so - selfish. But she still couldn't stop from latching onto her dad again when he woke up from the beacon incident. She wanted to be mature, but she failed so completely.
She clenched and unclenched her fists just thinking about it. Partway through a heated conversation with her parents, they'd said something about her age, and she'd snapped back that she was older than the two of them had been when she was born. Then she made some comment about never being a normal family, and another shitty response to something they said about responsibility by reminding dad that he was a felon. It was all childish, and hurtful, and she didn't really mean it but she couldn't take it back now that it was said.
Because she couldn't take it back, she decided to make it right with her skill. People loved it when she used her skill - almost all the time. She'd found an earring that an old lady was missing, and a metal tin some guy wanted, and even found fruit and food for the whole camp. Everyone was always happy when they got what she found for them.
But she'd messed up with her dad.
She found clothes in his new size- up in Walt's attic. Walt's grandfather was... well he was fat, and his clothes fit her dad. But they were all super old, and some were damaged. So the only good box was a bunch of Champion branded stuff. And a 4xl plastic rain poncho. Dad said it was all great and useful, but she wasn't sure he meant it. She was pretty sure it was one of the nice lies he used to make her feel better. What definitely actually happened, though, was that all the stupid boys on the wall had started calling him "Champion Man", and even when she told them to cut it out, they still called him "Champion", and now everyone in Sanctuary called dad Champion and it was her fault.
Then she'd made it even worse. Her dad talked about boots a lot since he got to Sanctuary, so she made it her mission to find him the perfect pair - and of course she used her skill. The ones she found were in great shape, and they had to be right because her skill led her to them. Except they were terrible. She saw it on her dad's face when he put them on. Even though he said they were good - she knew what he looked like when he was disappointed in something. And he was disappointed in the boots. And he was too stubborn to say he didn't like them, so now he wore them all the time.
It was like her skill was malfunctioning, but only for dad. It didn't come with an instruction manual, and sometimes it was hard to understand what it really meant. One time, it led her to a REALLY bad-smelling fish thing, but the person she brought it to was happy that she'd handed them a half-rotted fish thing, so that was okay. But she couldn't understand what was happening now.
She was pacing a circle in the 'final-stand-field', as everyone had taken to calling it. It was a giant ring of cars and campers and other stuff, all in a huge flat area inside the walls. The spot she was in was a few hundred feet in front of the 'command center'. For all she could tell, she was standing in a totally normal patch of grass and dirt. Except it should be more. She'd prompted her skill for a way to make her dad survive longer. She wanted to know how to ensure he stayed around for years and years to come. It was an abstract thing, but abstract things had worked for the skill before. Every time, every prompt about keeping dad around longer or having him live longer just led to this patch of grass. She walked on it so much in the last few weeks, the grass had all died off. She kicked at the bare dirt with her shoe.
It wasn't fair. Her skill was so much more useful for everyone else, and all she wanted to do was help her dad. Even though she'd stuck him with a terrible nickname and crappy boots and she was awful to him, he kept doing things for her. He had James teach her how to fight, and he had Marlene give her all those experience points, but she hadn't done anything for him.
Her kicks to the dirt got more violent.
The skill was supposed to be GOOD. Like really good. She brought it up and read it to herself again.
-
Pathfinder [Rare]
Scales with Level. Know the way to reach your goal. Advanced practitioners can prompt the skill and apply it to others. Highly advanced practitioners can link multiple goals and paths.
-
The skill felt like her gut feeling was sentient, and guiding her, but it couldn't tell her exactly where she was going, or why. And that was why this was all so frustrating.
It could even do things nobody else knew about - not even her parents. She'd wanted to tell them, but her skill seemed opposed to that, so she didn't. And now she didn't want to share that secret because it had become a bigger secret.
Dad wasn't the only one that had something weird happen at the beacon. As soon as she'd touched the crystal, her skill instructed her to do weird stuff. She had changed around a contract, and denied that contract, and then she had a new contract pop up, and her skill guided her to change that one, and then had her sign that one. She had no idea what that had really meant until Marlene distributed her dad's points.
People were supposed to get 3 stat points per level, and levels had set experience you needed, and everyone got the same xp. But she was different. It had taken an entire night reading through her contract, but she figured out what the differences were. Whenever she earned experience, some company thing matched whatever she earned. She earned 5 stat upgrade points each level, and she got bonuses in stat points and experience for hitting certain goals. The downside, if she read it right, was that she needed to become royalty in a hundred years or she'd owe the company a bunch of interest.
It was a great deal. The 5,000 xp she got from Marlene - her dad's xp - had turned into 10,000 because of the contract, and then she'd gotten another 2500 xp as a bonus for reaching level 5, which turned into 5,000 because of the contract, and then another 5,000 xp bonus because she'd hit level 10, which turned into 10,000 because of the contract. She was sitting at level ten, and close to gaining another level. With 11 points in each of the five stats, she was probably stronger, and tougher, and had more health that most people in the camp. But she couldn't say anything, because then people would know she'd done something to the beacon, and that maybe that's why her dad got hurt. And she also didn't want to tell anyone because her skill made her feel like that was a bad idea.
Her thoughts were interrupted when her foot connected with part of a rock and threw her off balance. She tried to pick up the rock and throw it. When it didn't budge, she dug around it with her hands. She wanted to yank it out of the ground and hurl it away to the trees. She was strong now - she could do that even if the rock was huge. But she was inches down into the soil, and dirt was under her fingernails, and the rock was still too heavy and too stuck to move. Just like so many other things - she failed to do what she wanted. She glared at the rock, and walked away.
#
In the middle of a field, a few hundred feet from some RVs, an unremarkable rock was rooted in the ground. A few inches of its surface were exposed where soil had been scraped away. It was barely enough for someone to trip on - and really, what were the chances of that?
