Chapter 24: Aftermath

  Alex felt a sense of deja vu as he once again found himself sitting on a log and staring into the fire in the middle of their campsite at night while Allie patched up his wound. Unlike that very first night that the badger had attacked him though, there were some stark differences.

  The tied-up forms of Kate and her squad were one. A constant throb in his right arm was another.

  Allie had patched up the wound rather well. He could at least move the arm around without having to worry too much about it. Full use of his limb wouldn't happen for some unseen number of days to come. Even with his increased vitality and what Alex was still calling "system shenanigans", healing his wounds looked to still be a difficult task.

  I guess that's where healing potions and magic come in. He thought. They hadn't purchased any healing potions from Celeste, they were far too expensive. The stamina potions they got were cheaper, but they didn't heal wounds. They were essentially just liquid energy in a bottle, nothing more.

  Possible infection wasn't so much of an issue, Allie was carrying a lot of antibiotics in her bag. Besides that though, she couldn't do much more than stitch and then dress the injury and then pray. Better than nothing. I'd have probably died of blood loss if I was still on my own.

  Alex wasn't awake for what happened after their fight with Kate's squad. Apparently, Garret got everyone on their team freed and then tied up everybody else. Excluding Lance and Holly. It looked like some kind of agreement was made while Alex was out because the two of them were now standing in the circle around Alex and Allie with everyone else on his team.

  Once he came to, Alex got the basic rundown of the events Garret and he had missed during their journey into the village.

  Apparently, Kate and her team decided that they were too much of a threat and needed to secure them. Lance and Holly said they tried to argue against the plan but Kate's mind couldn't be changed. Based on how Kate acted so far, Alex believed them.

  Eric, Allie, Devon, and Henry were all ambushed on the second night of Alex and Garret's departure. Based on what they told Alex, Kate’s questions seemed to imply she thought the System Trial quest meant only one of the two teams would survive. That whichever team did worse at the end of the time limit, would be killed.

  The Uni team managed to get information on the village, the System, experience points, and everything else from his teammates. It was that, or basically torture. Alex was happy his team didn't get beaten up for information that they would have gotten either way.

  The rest happened as Alex remembered.

  "I'm sorry, Alex," Lance said over and over again as he was being patched up.

  "It's okay man. I get it." Alex said. He patted the guy on the shoulder. "If you had tried fighting them, I'm sure you would have been tied up sitting next to Henry when I got here. Same with Holly." Alex looked over at the woman, she still couldn't quite look him in the eye. He gave her a reassuring nod anyway.

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  "We should decide what to do with them sooner rather than later." Eric chimed in. He pointed to the four figures tied and gagged by a tree a few feet away.

  Kate, Cole, Zach, and Peter glared at them. Each was still bruised and bloodied.

  "Well, that's complicated," Alex said. They couldn't really just let them go. Not because Alex wanted to use them as slaves or labor as he was certain Kate had intended, but because a group of Worldstriders roaming around could end up bringing trouble back to Alex and his friends.

  We can't just keep them tied up forever either. That would make us just as bad as them. Alex sighed to himself and shook his head to clear his thoughts.

  "We leave them for now. Give them food and water for the day. We can figure out what to do in the morning." He stood up when Allie finished her work and went to his backpack. It was a couple minutes before he managed to unpack everything and set it on the ground. Spears, swords, armor, potions, clothing, food, everything that they managed to get in the village he laid out on the grass.

  "New clean clothes for everyone. Choose a weapon, there are plenty of those. The armor is going to be in short supply though. " Alex said. They only purchased four other sets of armor. It would have been enough for their team with none to spare. With the addition of Lance and Holly though, they were now two short instead.

  Everyone got to grabbing supplies and getting changed. Garret helped teach everyone how to tie the armor straps and wear everything properly. Meanwhile, Alex worked on unfurling the scroll they had and looked over the contents.

  It was the elemental testing sigil they got from Celeste. They got plenty of supplies to draw the lines as well. Celeste was nice enough to prepare the mixture for them and pack it away in a small sealed wooden box. It would have been a nightmare for Alex to learn how to do that as well.

  "I'm going to start working on learning this sigil," Alex said. "Garret, you teach everyone what we learned from Celeste. Guide them through the stat system, mage cores, and whatnot. Then we can figure out what everyone's element is and teach them the gathering technique."

  "Magic system?" Devon called out. His face alight with curiosity.

  "There's magic? Spells?" Lance chimed in.

  "Seemed as much, I just couldn't figure out how to access it earlier." Holly caught everyone's attention with that remark. She shrugged in response to the sudden limelight.

  "Let them teach us," Henry spoke up. A rare occurrence for the rather silent man. "All these questions will just slow things down." There was a moment of silence, then everyone nodded and looked to Garret.

  "Okay then, we will start with stats," Garret began. "First thing first, I gotta break it to you, we all have gnarly demon juice inside us."

  Alex regretted having Garret teach them almost immediately.

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