Sid POV

  Blood drained from Sid’s face as he saw George, the policeman in the khaki shirt, turn his head to look at him.

  Why was he here? Sid screamed internally. George was supposed to set up camp on the other side of the pond. It felt far-fetched to think the butterfly effect from Sid’s actions could have reached that far.

  The Kurishingal family had come to their camp instead of setting up their own nearby, sure. But changing something on the other side of the pond when it had not even been two days since he got his future memories was unbelievable.

  Sid noticed he had paused, and his team had stopped with him. He forced himself to smile and resumed his walk toward Naga.

  “What happened to him?” Naga gestured towards Varun, who was being helped by Rohan.

  “We were testing Pallavi’s skill, and Varun volunteered as a target,” said Sid, the smile on his face not quite reaching his eyes. “We were hoping Aditi could look at it.”

  He noticed George’s ears perked up when he heard skills being mentioned. If it had been possible, Sid would not have mentioned Pallavi or Aditi’s skill in front of the skill stealer. The man was notorious for killing people for their skills.

  Sid turned toward Aditi, met her gaze, and tilted his head toward Varun.

  Aditi sighed before moving toward Varun.

  George followed Sid’s gaze to Aditi, his eyebrows shooting up as he leaned forward with interest. He had the unblinking stare of a man in charge, with salt-and-pepper hair groomed back, a thick moustache, a square face, and a calm that made people lower their voices.

  Aditi stood in front of Varun, checking him from head to toe. “Where did he get hit?”

  Rohan hovered a palm above Varun’s chest and made a clockwise motion before taking it away.

  Aditi nodded, then placed her hand on his chest, closing her eyes to activate her skill. Green light burst out of her hand for a couple of seconds before fading.

  Varun started breathing easier when she pulled back her palm. He looked up at Aditi, smiled, and gave a nod.

  George was staring at Aditi throughout the entire process with an unsettling focus. “What is that skill called?”

  Aditi turned toward him and bowed her head a little, the way people behaved when questioned by a police officer. “Minor Heal.”

  “Is it common or uncommon?” he asked again, eyes fixed on her face.

  Aditi swallowed. “Uncommon.” The tension in her voice was clear to all.

  Sid turned to observe the people who had come with George. He recognized a couple of familiar faces, policemen who had served as his underlings, the same ones who had turned on him once the army here.

  There were more than a dozen tense and afraid people scattered behind the line of policemen, some clutching bags to their chests and keeping their eyes down. They all seemed more uneasy than the people of Naga’s camp, who stood opposite them. The signs of tyranny were already showing, Sid thought.

  Rohan turned to the policeman standing closest to them, the one with three stripes on his upper arm, suggesting he was a head constable, a higher rank than George, Sid thought. “Sir, did you guys find a way out of this place?”

  The man flinched, surprised at being addressed. Instead of turning toward Rohan, he looked at George.

  George’s attention shifted to Rohan. He kept his left hand behind his back and raised his right hand to chest level, palm pointing out, with a gentle smile on his face. “Hello…”

  Sid placed a hand on Varun’s shoulder, clamping down to get his attention. He did not want Varun mouthing off to an unhinged lunatic, one who beat people for the wrong gaze.

  George continued after Rohan turned toward him. “We are discussing something here, right? If everyone talks over each other, nothing gets done.”

  George then looked at Naga, shoulders loose and chin lifted. “Why don’t we discuss things in a small group? The rest can mingle in the meantime.”

  “Sure, let’s go to the campfire,” said Naga, looking around the group. “Sunny, Deva, Aditi, and Sid, join us. The rest of you can return to your jobs.”

  He then turned to Rohan, gesturing at the new group that had come with George. “Could you show them around and answer questions they might have?”

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  The head constable moved toward Rohan after getting a nod from George. Four men, three in police uniform and one in plain clothes, joined George as he waited for Naga to lead them.

  Naga looked at Lauren and Bunty, gesturing for them to tag along, before making his way toward the campfire site.

  “Do not cause any trouble. Stay invisible,” Sid whispered to Varun before following Naga.

  Sid had been beyond traumatized after escaping from the Bloody Butcher by playing dead. He ran as far as his legs could take him. Some scouts from George’s camp found him and brought him back to their camp. Whether it was out of pity or to hand George a spare target for his cruelty was something he never figured out. But the one thing he remembered was that staying invisible had helped him get through that ordeal.

  “Wait,” said George when he saw Naga walk toward the log bench at the campfire site. “How can we speak to each other sitting side by side?”

  He walked to the logs that were being used as benches, bent low, hugged one of them, and lifted. His shirt tightened at the seams as he dragged the log to the other side of the fire ring.

  It had taken half a day for three people to move the two logs to this position. Several mouths fell open as they watched him do it alone.

  George dropped the log and clapped the dust from his hands with a smug smile. “Shall we start?” He took a seat in the middle of the log he had just moved.

  The four people who had come with him shifted next to him, but none sat. They stood behind him, a couple on each side.

  Naga and Aditi sat at the center of the remaining log, with Deva and Sunny taking the edges. There was no room for Lauren and Bunty, who stood at either end.

  Sid thought some subtle power play was going on in the way Naga had asked Lauren and Bunty to join them. George, because of his law enforcement background, had a built-in advantage.

  Ideally, Sid would have wanted to be left alone. But many in camp knew about his uncommon skill, and he was sure George had noticed him freezing up earlier; it was hard to fool the instincts of an experienced policeman. So he stood on the neutral side, not next to either log. He wanted to show them both that he was in neither camp.

  George glanced at him, the corner of his mouth curling up. “So tell me, how did this camp come to be?” He planted both hands on the log next to his hips and stretched his legs in a relaxed pose.

  Sid hoped Naga caught what he was trying to do and kept his explanation as brief as possible, particularly regarding Sid and his party. He wanted to show Naga he was a neutral third party who could be brought to either side. As a third party, it would not be proper for Naga to share information about Sid and his team.

  Naga caught Sid’s eye before he started and gave a brief nod.

  “After we got dropped in the middle of the forest, we grouped up. There were about twenty of us. Then a boar attacked, and we scattered. Lauren, Bunty and me,” Naga said, pointing to them as he named them, “along with two others, found Sid and his team. They had already figured out how crystals worked by then.”

  George raised his palm and turned his gaze to Sid, a cue for him to answer the unspoken question.

  “A boar attacked us but got wedged between a rock and a tree. We got a skill crystal when we killed it.” Sid kept his posture neutral.

  “Go on.” George turned back to face Naga.

  Naga explained his version of the past two days, from how they killed two boars, two more groups joining, to today when the scouting team finally returned.

  “What took you so long to get back?” George asked, his brows lifting.

  “We found a cave around evening, and I got an uncommon skill from a monster there. The pain was too much, and I passed out, so we had to camp there for the night,” Sid said a little sheepishly. He wanted to sell the story that he had passed out from pain and did not want his response to a higher-rank skill to be any different from others.

  George nodded, ready to continue.

  “Goblins attacked us the next day. We killed a few, and Aditi got her healing skill from their leader,” Sid added, looking at Aditi.

  “How did you guys get here? What happened to you in the last three days?” Naga asked, breaking the tempo George had been setting.

  George got up from his seat and began walking slowly around the dead embers of last night’s campfire. “Like everyone else, we got dropped in the middle of this forest. We had an easier time on the first day than you did. The police, as you know, carry firearms.” He lifted his shirt to show a gun tucked behind his belt.

  “However, on the second day, a group of two-legged creatures attacked us. They were about this tall,” he said, holding his palms about three feet from the ground. “Their leader was almost as tall as me and red, unlike the others, who were green.”

  Sid’s breath hitched. That was a hobgoblin, a monster common on the second level of the dungeon. It could not come to the first level unless there was a dungeon break. Dungeon breaks were impossible until the entry portals were stabilized. What the hell was happening?

  “Bullets bounced off its skin. No matter what we did, we could not hurt it. Our boss traded his life for a shot in its eye. Still, the creature did not die. It ran away.”

  “I got the team together after that and moved in the opposite direction of that creature,” said George, his voice calm.

  Sid doubted the story. George was, in his memories, the first superpowered criminal caught by the army, who then handed him over for biological and psychological evaluation. This was why he avoided the death penalty for his crimes.

  Sid, being a survivor of his camp, had been very interested in George and had read through his file. Even though George met no hobgoblins last time, his boss still died. George had killed him when no one else was nearby, out of professional jealousy. He had realized the advantage of having a firearm in this environment and wanted that for himself. According to the file, the skill crystal was a welcome bonus.

  The question was: had he already figured out how skill drops worked when people with skills died?

  George paused his stroll in front of Sid and turned to face him. He was about the same height as Sid but bulkier, with a thick neck and solid chest. He had his hands in his pockets and leaned back slightly, looking down at Sid from the tip of his nose. “What skill did you get?”

  “Sixth Sense. It alerts me in case of danger,” Sid said, giving the same description he had given the others earlier that day. He did not flinch and met George’s gaze head-on.

  George placed his left hand on Sid’s shoulder and leaned in toward him. “Earlier, you froze when you saw me. Why?” His tone carried a dangerous edge.