Char dusted herself off and moved over to sit next to Declan. She reached out and stroked Lulu’s soft ears, but the dog was laser-focused on what was left of Declan’s sandwich. “I, um…” Her words trailed off as she looked down at her feet, gathering up what she wanted to say. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up again, her gaze going to the distant fliers, using them as an excuse to avoid Declan’s gaze as she spoke. Declan was silent, giving her time. “I led us into a bad situation because I wouldn’t accept reality.”
She pulled her knees up and hugged them, feeling vulnerable. “My dad’s the strongest person I know. After my mom died, he raised me on his own. He was active duty Army, gone for months at a time. He could have just dropped me off with his parents and left me, but he always came back. When he retired, he had awful PTSD, but he didn’t just try to tough it out. He fought for his sanity, for a normal life, to be the best dad that he could be.”
Her voice tightened, and she swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in her throat. “I just can’t accept that a man who could survive so much, and fight so hard, isn’t still there tending our horses and taking care of our ranch.” She shifted her gaze to the cliff that marked the biome border. “Once I saw the border of the tundra, just before I met all of you, I knew. I knew he probably wasn’t there anymore. That there might not even be a there anymore. But I couldn’t stop. I kept chasing that hope. And, because of that, I pulled you through a melting, boggy hellhole into a dry, fiery hellhole. So, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I nearly got you and Lulu killed for my… my delusion.”
She exhaled, the words leaving her hollow. It was the most she’d said in a long time. The most she’d opened up to anyone since just after Ty’s death, when her father had dragged her to see a grief counselor. She felt raw, exposed. But it needed to be said.
Declan was quiet for a beat, staring at his sandwich. Then, he simply said, “I forgive you.”
Char blinked. “What? That’s it? That easy?”
Declan shrugged. “If I had family worth getting back to, I would probably have felt the same, taken similar risks.” He gave her a sideways look. “I wouldn’t have hugged fire-guy. That was a little insane. But, the rest of it? Yeah. I get it.” He snorted self-deprecatingly. “Hell, I keep wondering if I’m going to get home before classes start in the fall before I remember that there won’t be any classes, and there’s no home to get back to.”
Char didn’t know what to say to that. So she didn’t. She just sat there, shoulder to shoulder with Declan. When the right words wouldn’t come, she leaned to the side and bumped her shoulder against his in silent support.
“Besides, it’s hard to complain when I got two levels and a title from that fight,” he said, as he took pity on Lulu and gave her another chunk of his sandwich before shoving the rest of it into his own mouth.
Char snorted and bumped his shoulder again, “Brat.”
Declan gave her a closed-mouth smile, his cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk. They both laughed, and it felt good.
When the laughter passed, Char got to her feet and held out a hand to pull Declan to his. She started to dust her pants, but stopped, feeling a little silly when she felt the burnt fabric flaking away under her hands.
She looked down at herself. Her armor was fine; a little blackened, but undamaged. The jeans and t-shirt were lost causes. She let out a long-suffering sigh and counted herself lucky that there was enough fabric left to cover the important bits, at least. “Dark soon, and you wanted to check for survivors. What do you say we head for one of those buildings, check it out, and camp for the night?”
“Yeah, that works.” He looked at the flying creatures in the distance, “Do you think those are the things that… you know. Those stains?”
Char shook her head, “I don’t know. Maybe? We’ll keep an eye on them. From fifty feet up a cliff, this looked like soft sand.” She stomped twice on the hard-packed earth. There was a thin layer of sand, but beneath it, the desert floor was hard-baked, like clay. “Turns out, I’m not always right about things.” The corner of her mouth twitched up in a self-deprecating smile.
A breeze was picking up as the sun got closer to the horizon. It lifted the sand in eddies and swirls. The building they were heading for was only a mile away, but Char set a brisk walking pace. She had a feeling it would be a bad idea to be in the open after dark, and she was learning to trust those feelings.
The building was the size of a small apartment block, but it looked ready to topple over from the weight of the upper floors. It was a three-story concrete edifice, and each floor extended out farther to the front than the floor below, giving the front of the building the appearance of an inverted staircase. The windows were asymmetrical and seemed to be scattered randomly.
“Brutalist,” Declan said as they got closer.
“Huh?” Char cocked an eyebrow at him.
“The architecture. That probably got zapped here from a former Soviet country. That sort of blocky, off-center style was popular in Eastern Europe back when the USSR was a thing.” Declan shrugged off Char’s sideways glance. “I had a buddy who was into architecture. He could go on about this sort of thing for hours.”
Char grunted. “Yeah. Brutal is a good term for it. It looks like something from a dystopian cyberpunk movie by David Lynch.”
“Ugh, great. Things weren’t surreal enough, so you had to bring Lynch up.” Declan shuddered theatrically. “As if I wasn’t already traumatized.”
“Hey, Lynch was a great director.” Char’s voice was full of mock offense.
“Yeah, if you’re into the uncanny valley vibe. Too creepy for my tastes.”
Char raised an eyebrow, “Says the guy who followed me into a deadly bog?”
Declan shook his head. “That wasn’t creepy, it was just life-threatening. Totally different.”
“Oh? And just what are your tas… Shit, birds!” Char’s tone changed like a switch had been flipped. She started to run.
“Hitchcock, now? What… Oh! Those birds.” Declan took off on Char’s heels, and they dashed for the building.
Three of the fliers circled overhead. One of them swooped lower as if practicing for an attack run. They looked like sand-colored buzzards, but their tails were long and scorpion-like with a wicked-looking stinger at the tip. Their heads, bald of feathers, gleamed with scales the color of blood.
Char Assessed one, and read off the description to Declan, “Deathbarb Vultures, level 19. Let’s get inside before they decide we look like dinner.”
Running all-out, they reached the shade of the building’s overhanging upper floors. The ground floor was divided into two shops, gold script names printed on the windows in Cyrillic. Char tried the first door and found it locked, but Declan was able to pull open the other. They piled in and closed the door. One of the vultures landed just outside and strutted back and forth, trying to find the juicy snack that it had been sizing up. They watched it through the window until it gave up and flew away.
The store was an upscale boutique, full of purses, belts, gloves, and other fashion accessories. Several of the racks near the back of the store had been knocked over. Near the upset racks, a dry smear of rust-red stained the floor, making the hairs on Char’s neck stand on end. “We need to check the building,” she said.
Lulu was already roaming through the racks, sniffing and poking her nose into everything. Char examined the area around the smear, which she was almost positive was blood. The amount of blood suggested a significant wound, but nowhere near enough to have been fatal. She saw no fur or feathers or claw marks to suggest a monster attack.
She pulled two of the tall glass candles out of her inventory and lit them, handing one to Declan. “Better than nothing,” she said when he gave the tiny flame a skeptical look.
The door at the back of the shop opened into a combination stock room and office. Another door stood open, leading to a hallway. From the hallway, there was another door leading into the back room of the adjoining shop, a stairway to the upper floors, and an exterior door leading to the back of the building. Next to the back door, a block of six mailboxes was set into the wall.
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There was a bloody handprint on the first doorframe, and the door to the other shop had been broken open. “Looks like someone took an axe to it,” Char said, running her fingers over the deep gouges. She pushed the door open to reveal a room that had been ransacked. The jumble of delicate equipment confused her at first, until she saw the velvet pads and the pile of discarded jewelry boxes.
While she was puzzling over the destruction, Declan opened the door to the shop and whistled. “Talk about a smash and grab.”
Char followed him to peer into the display floor. It had been a jewelry store, but now it was a mess of broken glass and smashed counters. Whoever had done this hadn’t just taken the jewelry, they’d vented their rage; almost nothing was left intact. Char held Lulu back from entering the room, worried about the glass shards. “Let’s check the rest of the building.”
Small drops of blood on the floor in the hallway led her up the stairs, where she found signs of a fight. Axe gouges and blood spatters on the walls, scuffs and smears across the floor, a bent and battered floor lamp that looked like it had been used as a weapon, and another door that had been hacked open told the story of a violent home invasion.
The kitchen of that apartment had been ransacked as well, though not with the obvious resentment of the jewelry store. All of the food had been taken. The rest of the apartment had been roughly searched.
The apartment across the hall was empty and unfurnished, and Char only gave it a cursory check, trusting Lulu to alert her to any lurking bandits or monsters. Scuffs and bloody bootprints down the hall to the next staircase spoke of multiple people moving through, taking little care for the damage they did. Shallow gouges on the wall, some tinted with dark stains, showed where weapons had been carelessly brandished about.
On the top floor were two more apartments. There were no signs of fighting, but the food had been taken, and belongings carelessly rifled through. Whatever had happened to the people who’d been in this building, it was obvious it had been done by human hands, not monsters.
Peering over Char’s shoulder into the last apartment, Declan asked, “Do you think one of the residents snapped?”
“I’m no detective, but I don’t think so.” She gestured to the disarray, “All of them were like this. Why toss your own apartment?” She shook her head and turned for the stairs. “Let’s use the empty apartment. It still has a working lock.”
“Do you think it would be OK to bring over a couple of mattresses from the other apartment? I mean, it seems unlikely that these people will be back.” Declan fidgeted uncomfortably as he asked, and Char understood why. It was part of the reason she didn’t want to stay in the used apartments. These were people’s lives. She and Declan may not be here with malicious intent, but they were still invaders.
Her first instinct was to say no. A lifetime of respecting privacy and police procedurals that emphasized not disturbing crime scenes warred with the new reality of the world, but after her earlier resolution to live in the world as it was, she couldn’t object. She nodded. “Yeah, it will be nice to sleep on something other than the floor for a change. I’m going to check the back door.”
The back door revealed another bloody handprint, but this one was smudged like it belonged to someone holding onto the door for dear life and being pulled away. That thought made Char shudder. Beyond the door was a patch of concrete that might once have been a stoop. Now, it ended abruptly, giving way to the sand-dusted hardpan of the desert. Another smear of blood, dusted with wind-blown sand, trailed to the edge of the concrete.
The constant mild breeze made the sand shift. Tracks didn’t last long, but she could see a trail of thin spots where the tiny dunes and ripples had been disturbed by passing feet. There was no way to tell how many there had been, but the trail pointed in the direction of another building in the distance. The little scroll at the bottom right of her vision blinked, letting her know another notification had been added to her pile. She made note of which building it was and went back inside. Closing the door, she turned the deadbolt against the lengthening shadows and circling predators overhead.
Declan met her at the top of the stairs, his eyes alight with excitement. “Hey, I just got a quest! Did you get one?”
“Probably. I haven’t checked.”
“Haven’t checked?” His eyebrows huddled together in confusion.
“Turned off my notifications. They got annoying.”
“You can do that? Wait, why would you do that?” He followed her into the apartment, where Lulu was sniffing at the mattresses he’d pulled over. The larger mattress apparently met her approval; she turned in a couple of circles and plopped down on it with the air of someone who didn’t intend to move.
“They were getting on my nerves. Check your settings tab, it’s in there.” She latched the door behind her, knowing it wasn’t a deterrent, but hoping it might at least delay anyone trying to get in. “Give me a minute to read things over, then I want to split up some of this gear I’m carrying.” She pulled out a blanket and spread it next to Lulu on the large mattress. She started to drop onto it, but aborted mid-motion when her clothes crunched and rained down burnt flakes. With a disgusted sigh, she straightened. “New clothes, first.”
Declan chuckled and waved her off, claiming the smaller mattress for himself with a blanket, then wandered over to stare out the window. The light was turning red as the sun kissed the tops of the distant mountains.
When Char returned from the bathroom, freshly scrubbed and in clean clothes, Declan took a turn. Plopping down next to Lulu, she ran her hand over the dog’s flank where she’d been burned earlier. It was healed, even the fur had grown back. Char choked down a spike of worry for her canine friend and pulled up the notifications she’d been ignoring.
She flicked past the kill notifications for the tundra foxes and the elemental. The next one, she paused on:
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 22.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
You have gained +1 Strength, +2 Speed,
+1 Dexterity, +3 Endurance, +1 Intelligence
+2 Spirit
Awakening two affinities meant she was getting three times the stats with each level, now. She didn’t get to pick where to put them, but that was fine; she liked the spread she was getting. She couldn’t decide where to stick the 5 free points, so she left them alone for now. She still had the five points from her last level to spend. It was time to go over her sheet, but other things needed doing first.
The next notification was for the loot she’d gotten from the Lesser Fire Elemental. The handful of gold credits didn’t interest her, but the other item did:
[Heart of the Inferno]
Epic Elemental Core
Crafting Item
The heart of a young fire elemental
with the potential to become an
Elite creature, cut down before that potential
could be realized.
The Heart looked like a flame frozen in crystal, translucent and emitting a shifting, warm glow. But, though it looked like hard crystal, it gave to the touch, soft like living tissue. She set it to the side to show Declan and pulled up her last two notifications. Her Tracking skill improved to Novice, and right after that was the quest that had Declan excited:
New Quest:
Sinister Signs
You have discovered the scene of a horrible crime.
Follow the clues to unravel the story.
Reward: Experience, Gold credits, a Potion
It was nice to be offered a reward for something she was going to do anyway.
Declan was taking his time, so she started pulling things from her inventory. She had two health tonics, two mana tonics, and a stamina tonic. The events earlier had opened her eyes to a few things, and one of those was that if Declan hadn’t had a health tonic, she’d have died. These potions did her no good if she was too wounded to use them, and Declan couldn’t take things from her inventory if she was unconscious. It would be a good idea to split them equally.
She also had a ton of food and other useful gear. She wanted to make sure the kid had everything she could spare to make sure he could take care of himself if they got split up. Or if the worst happened to her.
She scooted to the edge of the mattress and pulled her food tub out of her inventory, then started pulling out other stuff to pile next to it. She would split the candles with him, too. If he didn’t have a cook pot, they could grab one for him from one of the apartments. Her mind on logistics, she didn’t notice what was going on behind her.
“What’s Lulu chewing on? Is she supposed to have that?” Declan asked as he came back into the room.
Adrenaline dumped through Char, and suddenly the world was moving like molasses as she spun, her heart freezing in her chest. It was like trying to run in a nightmare. She moved as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Lulu had the [Heart of the Inferno] in her mouth, one paw holding it in place as she bit down on it. The faux crystal ruptured, and fire poured into Char’s best friend.
Char’s mouth formed the word. Her lungs pushed air out. But she couldn’t hear herself scream, “NO!” over the roaring blood in her ears. She slammed her hands onto Lulu’s head as the dog ignited. She poured vitality into her, determined to keep her alive. The Heart sublimated into flickering light, and Char felt the heat and swirl of an immense amount of mana as it rushed into Lulu.
Lulu’s health bar dropped. Her body was stiff and spasming. Flames licked across her fur. Char clenched her jaw against a scream as she poured her life into Lulu, taking the burning pain for herself.
It wasn’t going to be enough. She started to cast. She fumbled the spell on the first try, and nearly lost it again on the second, but forced it into the right shape in sheer desperation. She poured mana into it, healing herself, then pushed the new health into Lulu. When her mana bottomed out, she felt it like a bowling ball to the skull. Nearly blind with a mana deprivation headache, she fumbled for the potion bottles.
Declan was there, pressing a bottle into her hand. She didn’t care what it was; she poured it down her throat. Her health shot up by 100 points, and she immediately gave them to Lulu. Fire was raging through the dog, sheets of flame and sparking embers rippled down her flanks, changing her.
Another bottle was pressed into Char’s hand, and she tossed its contents back. Mana this time. She cast Flesh Mend again. Another mana potion, she kept going. Her veins felt like they were on fire, her mind felt like it was going to split apart. She held Lulu’s life in her hands, and she refused to let the fire have it. A third mana potion. She didn’t even question where it came from. Her stomach roiled and rebelled, but she pushed it down. The last health potion. The cherry medicine flavor made her want to retch. The health it gave went to Lulu.
Not enough. It wasn’t going to be enough. She tried to force herself into meditation, to regain health and mana faster, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t hold the spell, transfer vitality, and meditate all at once. She was going to lose her best friend.
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Thief of Echoes - the story of a thief who gets in over her head when she's hired to steal the Samsara Stone and discovers that magic is real, and she has the chance to become more than she ever thought she could be.