Chapter 9: Reunion (pt 2)

  It was a couple a hours later that Alex finally finished explaining everything to his team. They hadn't learned any more than Lance and Holly had, so Alex had to use his go-to method of drawing things in the dirt with a stick. He was getting better at dirt-art at least.

  Is dirt artisan a system skill? Maybe I should practice this more, Alex mused to himself. He decided to mentally log that question as something to explore later.

  The first topic of course was the quest they all had received. Everyone had roughly the same guesses about its meaning that Alex did. This system wanted them to become stronger and to do it quickly. If they all failed to impress in whatever way before the timer ran out, then they would be dead.

  The reality of the situation hung over them all. Each person first in denial of these facts. Something that Alex had went through himself when he first read the quest, so he didn’t blame them. Alex simply talked them through all of the thinking he done about it. VR, radiation poisoning, a bad dream… etc.

  The captain took the most convincing, as he still hung on to the idea that they would get rescued, somehow. But once the whole team started yelling at him, he finally accepted the truth. Alex had never seen the man so beaten down, so unsure of himself. It was a stark contrast to the Eric Thompson he knew.

  It took a few more minutes for everyone to recollect themselves after that. It was a rough pill to swallow. Each person wanted to get back to their world of course, but no one knew how they even had gotten here in the first place. Hell, no one even knew where “here” was.

  “I think magic would actually be the way to do it,” Alex told everyone once they recollected themselves. “The screen says spells are a thing right? So maybe there is one to get us back?”

  “You really think magic would be a thing?” Devon asked.

  “Well, we got here somehow right? And this place already has video game elements with the stats and all, so why not?” Alex shrugged. “It’s something to think about at least.”

  “So we might run into wizards and stuff? With magic wands?” Allie looked at Alex skeptically. “What else, dragons and trolls?”

  “Uh… maybe?” Alex said, unsure of the validity of the idea. He had met an elf, but adding dragons to the mix might be a stretch. He had no doubt any of them could handle a fucking dragon right now, so maybe them not existing was for the best. Alex’s hesitation didn’t extend to Garret though.

  “Dibs on the first dragon egg we find!” He said. “If anyone is going to be a dragon rider, it’s me.”

  “Dude, you can barely even ride a bicycle, how the hell would you ride a dragon?” Devon laughed.

  “Hey,” Garret looked at Devon, offense all over his face. His expression slowly turned to disappointment as he realized the truth of Devon’s verbal jab. Garret had embarrassed himself in front the whole team last week by crashing on a bike they had found in the city on a scouting mission. “Maybe they have draconic training wheels or something.” He muttered.

  “Very much doubt that,” Allie said. “And I will not be treating any dragon fire wounds. I doubt that’s even possible either.” Garret slumped back even further at her words.

  “Look,” Alex jumped back in before they could go even further off track, “The point is, magic will probably be our long-term goal to getting the hell out of here and back home. Not to mention our way of not getting killed by this damn system quest. If it really exists anyway”

  “Most probably not a feasible goal right now, but let’s get back to the idea later,” Eric added, putting an end to the discussion.

  Alex could only agree and let the topic die. He didn’t want to get into some kind of argument about the existence of magic when they knew so little right now anyway.

  The next topic Alex needed to tackle with everyone was the concept of experience points and the stats that the system seemed to use in their status screen. Luckily, video game knowledge translated well, and everyone had at least some experience playing games back on earth.

  Once Alex told everyone how to use their experience, there came the many rounds of everyone deciding how to spend it. Almost everyone seemed to agree the best plan at the moment would be to focus their points on their physical stats, even though nobody was close enough to reach a new base score yet, let alone had points to spend.

  Though Alex was pleasantly surprised to learn that Henry was the only one to already have his base vitality stat at three. Although surprised wasn't the right word. Henry was a rather physically fit guy, and Alex would have guessed the guy had a rather high amount of endurance. Still, the silent-giant-monster vibe that Henry gave him was more solidified at this point.

  "I just don't know what they do yet, so it might be a good long game choice or it might not. I have no idea." Alex shrugged as he replied to Allie. She seemed to have planned to put all her points into intelligence instead of her physical stats despite everyone else steeling on the physical build..

  "That's okay, I'll take the risk and we will have to see.” She said. “Now, show me your leg, and let me look you over. " She grabbed on to Alex's arm, pulling him over to the log by the fire before he had a chance to disagree.

  "I'm fine, seriously. " Alex whined even as Allie began patting him down, raising his arms and looking under his shirt. He was disoriented and confused within seconds as Allie got him out of his trashed uniform and sitting in his underwear on the campsite log in front of everyone. He had to sit grumpily as he began managing his new wounds.

  "Your leg wound looks good, really good actually. Its healed far faster than I anticipated, and I half expected you would have let it get infected while you were out there in the forest pretending to be a mountain man." She spoke as she tied off the new bandage around his thigh and the wound Alex had gotten back from his first forest badger fight.

  "Well, I'm not an actual idiot Allie, I'm not like Garret."

  "Hey!"

  "Oh, sorry man, didn't see you there. I meant... I'm not like Devon." Alex gave Allie a wink, then shot a thumbs up over his shoulder at Garret.

  "Oh, okay. Yeah, that dude probably failed high school right?" Garret returned Alex's thumbs up.

  "Totally." Allie gave a quick smile before rolling her eyes once Garret turned away from them. "Where’s this one come from?" She pointed to the laceration that was now healing on his side from the fight he had night the night before. Alex had used the quick-clot powder and bandaged it himself. By now it needed to be redressed.

  "I forgot to mention that, I got attacked by some badgers last night then got a quest to take out their pack or den or whatever. That's why I wanted to get better gear at the village, to attack the den."

  "Whoa, you got another quest?" Devon shouted, once again stepping out of the tent to rejoin the conversation.

  It had only been a few minutes since Allie began looking him over. Alex didn’t even notice the guy slip away. Does he just live in there?

  "Badger den? How many?" Allie frowned and waved Devon away even as he tried stepping forward. Alex guessed she didn’t want him to interrupt her attempts to dress the wound on Alex's side.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Hold on, did you say village?" Eric finally spoke up from outskirts of the small camp area where he was standing alone and scanning the trees for danger, the knife now strapped to his own waist instead.

  "Shit, I'm sorry, there is a lot more I need to catch you up on huh?" Alex waited for Allie to finish with his wound and sighed before going into the long explanation of the last three days, once again.

  Of course everyone kept interrupting him to ask questions, especially about Sylvaris, the ring he had been given and the possibility of getting gear at a village nearby. Alex simply kept waving them down so he could finish, knowing almost all of their questions would be answered once he was done.

  Sure enough, once he got through the entire recap of his solo time in the forest, everyone sat deep in thought for a minute before a brainstorming session began in earnest. For once, Alex wasn't the only one coming up with ideas, and that helped a lot.

  First, Alex had to convince everyone it was better they didn’t all go to the village together. That was the suggestion the captain went with right out of the gate. A sound one, if they actually knew anything about this potential civilization, or if the numbers could help in their goal.

  “No,” Alex shook his head. “We are going to stand out no matter what. The more people there are, the worst that will be. We don’t know how friendly these people will be to outsiders. Hell, we will be as strange to them as it gets, potentially.”

  “All the more reason to be together and have each other’s backs.” Eric said.

  “So we all get arrested or killed by the police, or guards, or whatever they have?” Alex responded with a pointed eyebrow raise at the captain. “It won’t be helpful to have everyone there. Not even to mention,” Alex raised his hand, flashing the ring on his finger. “Most likely, I’ll be the only one who can even talk to them. Everyone else would be a potential give away that we don’t belong. And If I do get arrested or whatever, you guys will still have a chance to survive out here without me, at least”

  “He’s right captain,” Allie chimed in to back Alex up. “We would want people to remain here in case of problems. On top of it all, the Uni squad is still out there as well, we would want to keep an eye on them too and that requires people to stay here.”

  “I don’t like this plan,” Eric shook his head.

  “But it’s the best we have.” Alex said as he shrugged his shoulders.

  “Alright, fine,” Eric gave in with a frown, throwing his hands in the air as a show of defeat. “But you take Singer or Imose with you. You’re gonna need at least some kind of back-up.”

  “Deal,” Alex said with a smile. He chuckled at the exasperated look the captain gave him and turned back to everyone else. “Now about the supplies and what we can sell...”

  "I think you're underestimating how useful these medications are, especially if these people don't have modern health science. I think you should at least take these." Allie began putting various pills in some plastic baggies before she handed them over to Alex.

  He looked at the baggies in his hand and read over the names written on each in black sharpie. Anti-Inflammatory, Anti-bacterial, Anti-viral, Pain-Killer, Anti-histamine etc... It was a lot, some of which Alex didn't even know the use of even if she wrote it simply on the baggies.

  "Lot's of Anti-whatevers here. Does modern medicine ever have Addies?" Alex laughed, putting the various meds into his backpack.

  "Adderall? Don't have any of that. Don't think these people would be ready for mental health, let's stick with germ theory for now." She sat down and began packing her med-kit back up. That was pretty much Allie's signal for "I'm done with you now", so Alex dropped the topic of the medications.

  "And the gear?" He turned to Devon and Eric. The idea of selling off the gear was opposed by both men, for different reasons.

  Devon wanted to keep the gear so he could keep studying it. The guy was obsessively certain that the gear didn't just malfunction, and something was going on. He wanted to basically break the things open and dive into whatever data might still be salvageable in it. Alex thought something was suspicious about the gear too, but at this point knowing the truth wouldn't help them survive.

  Eric, on the other hand, seemed to still be clinging to some kind of idea that the government was going to want them back. So if they managed to find a way back home through a magic spell or something, they would have to keep all military property. That went double for the Ion-gear so that it could handed over to the proper people at the end.

  "We already heard the arguments, and put it to a vote." Garret stepped up this time, standing next to Alex.

  Devon looked at the gear remorsefully, like someone about to part with a dear friend. Alex nudged his shoulder, making him look over. "Don't worry, I'll make sure it goes to a nice home."

  "Shut up." Devon laughed.

  The joke seemed to be the right move, because everyone laughed. Everyone but Henry, although Alex was almost certain he saw the guy chuckle, just a smidgen.

  "Alright. We'll get them packed up, weapons and supplies are going to be the difference between life and death here, I get it." Eric moved this time, picking up the metal plates and began stacking them up.

  "I'll carry the gear then. The rifles will go in the other pack." Alex said. They all had decided to sell the rifles as well. Given that the weapons also didn't seem to work, and the metal they were made from could be worth some sort of a haul.

  "Did you guys decide who's coming with me?" Alex looked at Henry and Garret, the two scouts in the middle of a rock, paper, scissors game that very moment. Henry flashed out his hand in the sign for scissors, just as Garret brought down his closed hand.

  "Yes!" Garret cheered, pumping a fist.

  Alex just shook his head at the display and sighed. He looked at Henry, the man gave him an apologetic look, but it was clear Alex was doomed. Possibly three days alone with Garret, it was going to be rough. Alex loved the guy like a brother, maybe more than that, more than Adam. Garret was just so much more outgoing than Alex was. He was one of those high-energy people, it was a lot. That didn't matter though, Alex trusted him with his life, so he'd be happy to have him along. Even enduring his horrible puns.

  He very much doubted if the utter silence and stoicism of Henry would be much better. How the two of them managed to be the team scouts and work together, Alex had no idea.

  "Garret, you'll hold the pack with the rifles then. Make sure you're all set. We will leave early in the morning."

  "Hey Pierce, show us how you tied off that spear. Mine has been going loose every hour or so the last couple days." Eric asked.

  "Sure, its just how you do the knot at the base there." He stepped forward and picked up the weapon Eric held out to him. "Show Devon and Allie after okay?"