The darkness of near midnight surrounded us, outside HQ. We hadn’t spoken at all for the last hour. My feet healed up in the previous month, but the arm wasn’t finished yet. I bit down and tore off the edge of my pinky nail and then spat it out. My arm-stump still ached, although an accelerated healing schedule facilitated by Walt and copious vial emptying meant I’d be good as new in less than a week.

  “Disgusting,” Elias said.

  “Really? That’s what bothers you, of all the sick shit you’ve seen, half of which you’ve done?”

  “I used to bite my nails as well, but have since ceased.”

  “Huh. Think they’ll be done soon?”

  “Any moment now. You know this.”

  “It’s called passing the time, making conversation. What’s the deal between you and Jill, anyway?”

  “A relationship, you are familiar with the concept, yes? Or have I misunderstood you and Jen?”

  “I don’t get it, what does she get out of it?”

  “Disappointment.”

  “What? Why would Jill want to be disappointed?”

  “Oh, you meant her.”

  “Fuck you dude, seriously though.”

  “You will figure it out someday, maybe. Probably not.”

  “C’mon, don’t-”

  As always, the System lacked a flair for the theatrical. From one moment to the next and without fanfare or special effects, the empty field filled with people, crashing bags of loot, cries of agony, sighs of relief and so much more. We stood close and their sudden appearance startled me enough to rock backwards, caught on instinct by a floating trio of swords. My eyes scanned the crowd, heart beating faster, thumping in my ears. There, and not missing any parts.

  I winked at Jen and proceeded to spam mending on the wounded. Others organized rapidly. They ferried endurance potions from the crate stacked nearby and calls for Walt went out, unanswered. Shit. The worst cases were laid out on wooden cots, primitive first aid kits neatly arranged next to them, primarily meant for setting bones and the like. Mending worked best for external injuries, broken skin and such, but barely helped with internal stuff, great for burns though. More than an hour passed before things settled down.

  Muddy drag marks were littered with blood while a massive pile of pilfered belongings cluttered against the compound wall. A good chunk of the emergency cots had been filled and most of the potions drained, but at least the pain induced shouts calmed down at some point. Jen had her head buried in paperwork. She took to it immediately after the initial hubbub, meticulously recording the general outcome. Once she put down her pen at the impromptu desk, I made my way over to her.

  “Congratulations, Ascendant.”

  “Thanks, not in the mood for jokes right now though.” She popped a burger and soda into existence.

  “Yeah, sorry. What’s the final tally? No rush, take your time.” I’d lost track, too absorbed trying to be useful.

  This time, the experience didn’t come with a sense of all my progress failing to outdo the mending cantrip I’d gotten right at the beginning. Surprisingly, Jeb had been the one to point it out to me, drunkenly explaining why the prevailing sense of powerlessness after the eclipse bugged me so much. He came out of the games completely unharmed at least, passing me by amidst the chaos, equally focused on doing his part.

  Jen finished scarfing down her comfort food, and then grabbed me in a hug while pickpocketing the flask at my belt, downing it one go afterwards. “It’s not your fault, just… Caro’s gone.”

  One of her friends, they were close. We’d spoken a few times, although our personalities failed to mesh, weird considering she got along great with Jen. I renewed the hug. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. We’ll give her a proper send off, yeah? Flowers, a speech, the whole thing.”

  “I already have, killed the fucker who took her. You did your part. I brained it with the gem. At least Cleo survived, but that was always in the cards.” Oh.

  We stood there for a few pregnant minutes, hugging ever tighter, until she asked for some time to collect herself.

  I didn’t want to loom over her, so my mind wandered instead. The ‘crystal’ from the challenge room turned out to be quite the toy. It stored up to 200 energy worth of a skill and activated with a thought. For most skills this wasn’t particularly useful since they lost the IFF recognition, unloading haphazardly. So we stuffed it with forty launches as the effect remained predictable. And deadly, apparently.

  “Damn it.” Jen said, “I get it now though. Don’t feel bad at all despite the killing. We always knew this might happen. Just didn’t expect to see it, you know? You were right, fuck the outsiders,”

  “It’s the way of it now, yeah. Still, don’t push yourself too hard. The worst of it is over. We can afford a breakdown or two.”

  “It’s alright, we’ll talk more about it later.”

  “Whenever you want.”

  During the lead up, we’d already been told to temper our expectations and consider 50% an optimistic outcome, but realistically the rate would be lower. The younger among us somehow still felt the invincibility of youth. They remained nervous, but also figured they’d escape becoming a statistic. The middle-aged and older mostly displayed grim determination with a tinge of resignation. Yet none escaped the drive to overcome the level cap.

  A hundred sounded like a big number but it didn’t take a lot to get there, all things considered. The nerds thought it only the beginning and general consensus agreed with them. Resolve won out against caution and everyone had gone in, to the last man and woman. My thoughts went out for those who never came back. There was no point in adding prayers. The God or Gods were hostile after all, and the System clearly didn’t care.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  Ultimately the results were surprisingly good. Oddly enough, most of ours survived, with only nine people fallen, including Walt but none of my other buddies. The next morning we held a solemn vigil at a pre-built mausoleum, now stuffed with wrappers. Mine only included two names.

  In honor of those known to me, I promise thy memory lives on.

  May ye all rest in peace.

  Carolyn – Beloved by Many, Survivor, Honorary Ascendant.

  Valtteri, aka Walt – Man of God, Gentle Savior of my Soul, Survivor, Honorary Ascendant.

  The very same night, we celebrated by getting communally shitfaced. Idea was to shake off the lingering hurt and look forward to new beginnings. Everyone felt conflicted about it, simultaneously glad to have made it out alive, while sad about the ones lost to us. Our collective relief and grief manifested in the same way though.

  Most of us passed out right where we’d been drinking, with only a few exceptions from those who volunteered to take care of the heavily wounded. Even the injured got drunk. No one slept in, with Mel poking folks awake in the early morning, somehow up already. It might have been a little crass, but we had to shit to get done, even while the masons re-remodeled HQ back to order. No rest for the wicked and that means us, killers all.

  Out of helpful shit to do, I found myself assisting Breathless with his studies. The disappearance of the information ban sparked joy in the nerds, although they lamented the loss of their stupid ‘Cant’. Regardless, this was some riveting stuff. I flicked a sling bullet at Jill and hit her on the shin. She glowed a little.

  “It feels more… zoomed out? I think it’s only boosting bigger nerves or something,” she said.

  Breathless scribbled on his wrapper and then told her the following steps, “That’s likely, yes. Let’s go 25 next and after that we’ll just skip to five and one.”

  Jill turned to me before I could pelt her again, “Gabriel, if you hit the exact same fucking spot again I’m going to put you through a wall. Turn off your pink-eye.”

  “Fine.” Flick. I barely slipped her retaliatory backhand as it flashed, accompanied by a slight internal glow under her skin, akin to the roots of a plant, or a nervous system on fire.

  Jill rubbed the middle of her forehead out of reflex, “Now it’s completely different. It feels like I’m twitching but also not, like I’m moving in frames and a lot slower.”

  The next one had no perceptible effect for her, same story for the one after that.

  Breathless stashed his notes, “Well, I think your feelings on the matter are mostly correct. The full activation could very well happen on a cellular level, or perhaps even finer. We don’t have the equipment to measure something like that, especially because the intensity would confuse any observations.

  It’s congruent with what we’ve found in similar trigger-type powers. There’s always a heavy drop-off from straying too far from ones maximum capacity although the exact percentage varies. The diminishing returns are then far less prominent until a certain threshold is met, at which point either instability or outright failure sets in.”

  “We’re done then?” she said, glaring at me.

  “We are, yes, thanks for this. Honestly, we aren’t really discovering much but it’s still helpful to know.”

  “You’re welcome, Ryan.” She stressed the last word, still glaring. I smiled.

  After she left, Breathless went out for lunch, leaving me to contemplate her mad ploy. The insane redhead was a force of nature these days. Not only had she been saving her free point but she demonstrated even bigger stones by experimenting with it. Actually gave the System a run for its money, prompting it to have a text chat with her, along the lines of ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Stop messing with my shit.’

  She’d explained her intent, gotten a gold star for being a good student and now she was unbeatable in single combat. It had been a long shot, but she’d dropped her extra point in magical endurance mid-ascension – I hadn’t even thought to open my interface – and then convinced the System it was totally reasonable to give her low-magic now. She was met with agreement and had gone on to grab [Counter] from the rather popular school of war magic. It was what we were gearing up for anyway, but I still felt a little annoyed by how many folks picked it.

  The choice had not been designed to work with her class of power fighter but blatant favoritism paid dividends. I’d also misread the effect and blamed the System for its brevity. Maybe I can find someone in the city below with their free point left and have them do something similar to relay my complaints? It didn’t counter something after getting hit, but rather right before - which made a lot more sense in retrospect. It also consumed whatever she had in the tank at the time.

  The System turned the gears of nepotism and now it was legitimately better to just not hit her. She had to sacrifice two of her skills however. Annoying the System was not without its repercussions. Jill had been unhappy with her choices anyway and didn’t consider it a great loss. Now she had [Boost], the universal one-second stat increasing ability shared by all power fighters, [Counter] from war magic and only a single skill, [Transfer].

  The last allowed her to activate boost on something, but not someone else. It had been vocalized by the words ‘other skills’ and cut off after the first – a result of her attempt to change her choices. Despite the lessened variety, she became a powerhouse. Impressive, considering she already was one to begin with.

  Almost landing an attack made her go into bullet time as her boost ability activated in ways she wasn’t capable of pulling off by herself. This was incredibly bad news for anyone doing the attacking because they were about to get bent. As if that wasn’t enough, she’d gotten her hands on some magical speed in preparation and made a process to automatically refill her once it triggered.

  The extra MS served to prevent catastrophic failure from overdrawing and enabled safe reactivations. We even risked a dangerous test, where she dodged a full bar launch and then mocked me by yawning, although it required a maxed double activation.

  In the end, I didn’t mind too much though since she was on my side. In fact, we were liable to team up soon. The thought caused me to check my interface and a ticked up mana signaled I was late for the meeting, prompting a leisurely walk.

  The masons had really gone above and beyond, adding some style here and there. It was still a work in progress, but every so often the otherwise undecorated wall had two spiraling swirls on top of a column shaped bit of relief sticking slightly out to break the monotony. Supposedly one of the builders, hailing from Turkey, used to live near some famous landmark or other which showcased the classic design.

  Fortunately others were still filtering in, overseen by an irritated Mel with her arms crossed. As most of our architecture, the room remained simple. A raised area at one end reminded me of a classroom, further augmented by a giant wooden board on the wall. It was intended as a notice board although currently didn’t serve any function. The same was true for the chamber in general, as this was actually supposed to be the mess hall but the kitchen area was still under construction.

  For now, it housed rows and rows of wooden stools instead. In time, we’d have post-apocalyptic restaurant quality food here, further improved by whatever we could scrounge together from the city below and perhaps even surrounding flora.

  There was a lot of land to explore after all. For one, the entire northwestern side of our lake-bowl remained unknown, courtesy of a fuckton of Errant wandering around in giant clusters over there. The areas outside of Freeport were less of a mystery, being mostly grassy plains and woods even further out.

  Beyond them things got a little more exotic but the locals avoided even the forests like the plague. No scouting missions had been sent that way yet. Elias’ eavesdropping revealed the nasties there grew up to seventy, which was a bit much even after everyone in the company reached level 100. Especially the potential danger a variant of those posed.

  The boys waved me over to a spot in the second row and we shot the shit while waiting for the rest to arrive. We stopped poking fun at each other when Mel officially began the meeting. I’d been looking forward to this since it also marked us getting serious, about everything. Today’s order of business was to assemble a team of elites.

  The future mission was colloquially labeled as ‘Mel’s Campaign’ since she organized the whole thing, having been lectured by Kris in some of the basics of military planning.

  I already made the cut.