“Alright, I’ll guard the others while you go check out the rest of the buildings,” Gabe said, turning to speedwalk back to the smithy.

  “Wait, what? We probably should wake them up and let them know what we’re doing, but I’m going to need your help.” Harvey replied.

  “Why don’t you just bring one of them with you?” Gabe complained.

  “Because they’ve earned a chance to rest. I get what you’re feeling. I really do.” Harvey said, sharing the screen of his stain. “But you can’t hide around all day.”

  Gabe grumbled, but nodded his agreement. Without Julian’s aura surrounding them, Harvey could sense the desire to run leaking from Gabe in a way he hadn’t before. Maybe leaving the two with fear-stained auras to protect the outpost wasn’t the greatest idea after all.

  The large wooden door groaned as Harvey pushed it open, and a startled yelp came from within.

  “Don’t worry! We’re veilstriders too!” Harvey called out, flashing his open hands in the doorway just in case they sent a bolt or an arrow his way.

  “Who are you?” A female voice with a slight southern accent called back, her voice breaking.

  “I’m Harvey. I was asleep when you got here last night, but my sleeping bag is in there with you. Gabe is with me, and I’m pretty sure you guys have met already.” He replied.

  They heard whispering inside, before a man’s voice called for them to come in. The three were huddled behind a table, weapons drawn. The two women lowered them when they saw Harvey, but the man kept his sword raised.

  “Easy now, we just wanted to make sure you guys were awake and let you know that we’re going to start clearing out the rest of the buildings,” Harvey said.

  “Who the hell put you in charge?” The man replied with a dismissive grunt, his voice low and full of gravel. He was tall, like Julian, but instead of defined muscle, he looked like a bear walking on two legs. Heavyset, a pronounced gut, and a bushy beard that shared the same mix of brown and black hair on his head. His leather armour didn’t quite fit right, exposing the undershirt stretched tight below.

  “Whoa, let’s back up a bit. WE…” Harvey said, pointing between himself and Gabe, who looked ready to bolt at any moment, “are going to check out the rest of the town. You can do whatever you want.”

  “Got that right. I didn’t crawl through hell to start taking orders from some kid. WE…” He replied, putting his arms around the two women, “were just talking about moving into one of those houses. I’m not sleeping on a dusty floor again tonight.”

  “Sounds great. Do you want any help…” Harvey began before being cut off.

  “Nope. We made it here just fine on our own and can figure things out from here. Unless you know where the closest water source is.” He interjected.

  “Yeah, if you walk to the general store across the street, there’s a mirror that lets you buy things. It sells food and water.” Harvey replied, stunned.

  “Well, I’ll be.” The man laughed, handing his sleeping bag to the older woman before pushing past Harvey. “This place just keeps getting better!”

  Harvey turned to look at Gabe with a questioning look. He just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t mind, Gary.” The older woman said. “He’s a bit rough around the edges, but without him, we’d be dead ten times over. My name is Amy, and this is Elena.”

  They looked like sisters, or maybe mother-daughter, by how Amy stood protectively in front of Elena. Both were tall, around 5’7” with tanned skin and brown hair in stark contrast to the patches of chalky gray and Jet black hair they all shared. They were athletic, built like soccer players who had picked up CrossFit to stay in shape. Amy carried her physique with confidence, while Elena still had the awkwardness of youth.

  “Nice to meet you!” Harvey smiled, shaking both of their hands. Amy gave a confident smile while Elena stared at the floor. “Are you two related?”

  An infectious laugh escaped Amy’s lips as a radiant smile split her dirt-covered face, beauty somehow shining through all the grime. “Gary asked the same thing! Maybe we’re long lost sisters, but nope, no relation as far as we know.”

  “Well, I’m happy you’re here. Julian and Hannah left to look for more survivors and should be back later tonight. Let me know if you need anything. The shop mirror is over at the general store, and as soon as you guys reach level 5, you can use the loom in the church to get your first skill.” Harvey shared.

  “A loom? Like for making fabric?” Elena asked, her voice quiet like a mouse.

  “Yes and no,” Harvey replied. “It’s the same concept but more magic than rugs.”

  “Ladies! You coming or what?” Gary’s voice rang from the road outside.

  “We’ll catch up later,” Amy replied hastily, grabbing her sleeping bag while Elena did the same. “Great meeting you!”

  The two rushed out of the forge to meet Gary, the door closing loudly behind them.

  “That was weird, right?” Harvey asked. “Did I say something wrong?”

  “Definitely weird, and nope. Just seems like an opinionated guy.” Gabe said with a slight smile on his face.

  Harvey and Gabe followed behind before making their way to the nearest building. Faded and half-missing signs adorned most of them. There was a bank, saloon, sheriff’s office, doctor, and a small schoolhouse on the main road, with side streets leading off to small homes.

  They pushed through the town together, weapons ready. Every door they opened creaked like a warning, every step on warped floorboards echoing loudly in the silence.

  The sheriff’s office opened with a grim sight. A body slumped in the single cell, face buried against the wall as if hiding from the world. Harvey poked it with Gabe’s sword, heart pounding until it didn’t move. They found a heavy iron key in the desk, unlocked the cell, and dragged the corpse out with the others.

  The rest blurred together. The bank was stripped bare, strongboxes warped open like broken jaws. The saloon offered only overturned tables and shattered glass. The doctor’s office had shelves of dust. The schoolhouse was a husk with desks rotted to splinters. A handful of lanterns, a box of candles, and a scattering of tools were all that remained worth carrying.

  The houses were worse. Most were half-collapsed, their furniture gnawed by weather, critters, and time. Gary, of course, had already staked out the best one. Harvey spotted Amy and Elena dutifully beating dust out of blankets hanging from a tree while Gary marched into the woods with one of their axes.

  Blankets. He’d found the only home with a roof that hadn’t caved in. Harvey felt a bitter taste in his mouth.

  Back in the general store, they laid out their pitiful haul on the empty shelves not covered in rotten food. “Pretty disappointing,” Gabe muttered, setting down his lantern.

  “Yeah. But at least we know nothing’s hiding. That’s worth something."

  Gabe glanced toward the window, staring where Gary’s shape disappeared among the trees. “Think he needs help?”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “What? Maybe, but we’ve still got the crates behind the smithy to sort.”

  “You don’t need me for that.” Gabe’s voice was quick, defensive. He didn’t meet Harvey’s gaze before looking towards the door.

  “What’s the deal? Why are you so desperate to go with Gary?” Harvey asked.

  “I don’t know. He feels… safer. Stronger. I appreciate what you’re trying to do here, help me out since we’re in the same boat, but I don’t think putting the two loose ends together is the best idea.” Gabe winced as he finished, bolting for the door before Harvey could respond.

  “Ok…?” Harvey said into the empty room, watching Gabe jog Gary’s way through a cracked window. “Hurtful, but I get it.”

  Was his aura really that unbearable? He knew he couldn’t control Gabe, or any other survivors who came here to Veil’s End. It still felt wrong.

  Leaving for the forge, he appreciated how well it had held up. Compared to everything else, the building was still in relatively good working order. The tables were made up of thick wooden boards built for function over form, and held together much better than the decoratively carved furniture they had seen scattered in bits and pieces across the floors of other buildings.

  The heavy metal anvil was grimy, but stood proud on top of a stone pedestal sunk into the floor. The furnace would need a few holes in the grout patched up. Even the broken grindstone looked like something he and his dad could’ve fixed back in the garage.

  His recent life may have been spent working in an office building software, but he’d spent a lot of time as a kid working in the garage with his dad. They had built a lot of the furniture for his childhood home together, and when it came to fixing things around the house, his dad always said, “It's not like we’re not going to break it more, might as well try to fix it ourselves before we pay someone else to do it!”

  His younger self would have rather been playing video games, but he’d come to appreciate all that time in the garage. If nothing else, it gave him the confidence to at least try fixing up the forge.

  Harvey smiled as he ran his hands over the workbench, fiddling with various tongs and hammers. The metal was cold under his fingers, and flakes of rust fell as he polished tools with the hem of his robe.

  He laughed at the thought of how happy his dad would be to have a cold workshop like this. Cooling a garage in the Arizona heat was impossible, no matter how many swamp coolers they’d tried over the years. As he daydreamed, thoughts of his old life crept in like bugs taking advantage of an open door.

  Deadlines, late nights at Empire, a girlfriend he barely saw, and chores piling up on the counter while LA traffic stole all his time. He could feel the weight pressing on his chest again, the endless list of expectations he was constantly failing to meet.

  And then it clicked.

  None of that mattered anymore.

  In a twisted way, his death and new life as a veilstrider took all the noise and replaced it with a simple problem. Fight or die. An undead army marching his way in a forest full of zombies and rotten birds. Surviving wouldn’t be easy, but in a twisted way, it brought him peace.

  It was a problem he could do something about, not an endless struggle to appease everyone around him. He knew how to get stronger, and no matter how terrifying hunting monsters felt, at least it was something he could control.

  For the first time in a long time, Harvey knew exactly what he needed to do and had a decent plan of how to do it. Now, it was time to get to work.

  He threw open the back door and took in the yard. A long table ran along the outer wall, and crates of tools sat next to a set of rails that stretched into the dark tunnel. Looking closer, he could see the outline of a mine cart just inside the mouth of the cave. The pale light of the morning did its best to penetrate the depths, but didn’t make it far.

  He got to work pulling tools out of the nearest crate, lining the ones still in good shape up on the table before throwing the rest in a pile. Luckily, a few towards the middle of each crate had survived the moisture and plant life invading from underneath and the sun beating down from above, and he was building a decent toolbox.

  He couldn’t tell if it was just his stain-addled mind playing tricks on him, but he felt like something was watching him as he worked. He carefully checked the trees and mountainside around him, but couldn’t find anything. None of the Carrionwing or Bloodrunn he’d fought so far had shown any restraint once they found their prey, so he doubted it was one of them.

  “You’re just seeing things.” He muttered. “This is the first time you’ve been alone since you got here, and your mind’s playing tricks on you.”

  His head snapped away from the crate of shovels when he saw a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. He stared intently at the sheet of darkness, breathing heavy as his sweaty palms gripped his wand.

  “Chill out, Harvey. If there were something in there worth being scared of, it would've come out already.” He said

  Unable to shake the feeling, he set the tools aside and grabbed the lantern from inside. Luckily, it still had fuel, and Julian had left the matches on the table beside it.

  Lantern in one hand, wand in the other, he tiptoed towards the cave, feet gently shaking with every step. Something about the darkness made the tunnel feel like it was going to swallow him whole.

  Despite his fear, he moved forward.

  The minecart was empty, and the rail stretched into the distance through the tunnel. Wooden beams wedged into the wall and ceiling reinforced the tunnel, and Harvey was relieved to feel they had somehow been treated to hold up better than the rest of the town. Debris covered the floor, and jagged pockmarks in the walls suggested whoever lived here before had already begun taking from the mine.

  He walked another 30 feet, guided by lamplight as he tried to find any hints of what metals or minerals might be found here. It was impossible to tell. The walls had been thoroughly harvested this close to the entrance.

  Turning back, he was startled to see a humanoid shape outlined by the bright sun outside. He jumped back with a whimpering scream, nearly dropping the lantern.

  “Holy hell, you scared me!” Harvey called out. “Is that you, Gabe?”

  No response.

  “Not cool, Gary! I know you don’t like me for some reason, but this is low.” He said, walking towards the shape.

  When he’d gotten close enough for the lantern to illuminate them, he was stunned to see chunks of stone floating where the face should be. What appeared to be a man was actually a swirling mass of stone molded loosely into the shape of a person. Each rock orbited another in a never-ending dance, never touching and never leaving like opposing magnets.

  It was utterly silent, even as a stone fist reared back and shot into Harvey’s chest, sending him reeling.

  All the air escaped his lungs, and his chest blazed with pain as he tried desperately to breathe. It felt like a professional baseball player took a home run swing right at his lungs, and blood filled his mouth as he staggered backwards. The lantern fell from his hands, and the glass protecting the flickering flame shattered, plunging his surroundings into total darkness.

  All he could see was the silhouette of shifting stone, backlit by the cave mouth behind it. An ominous shadow that he only knew two things about. It packed a heavy punch and was headed his way.

  Harvey turned to stagger deeper into the cave, fighting to fill his lungs as he tripped on a rail tie. A crack rattled through his brain as his head slammed into solid rock below, two blurry orbs of daylight floating in his vision instead of one.

  Through it all, he’d maintained his death grip on his wand. Gasping for breath and blinking away the double vision, he sent a bolt hurtling at the ghastly shape approaching him. A loud crack and spray of stone showering the floor rang through the tunnel, but the figure kept coming.

  A dark thought crept into his mind as despair filled his heart. If he died here, nobody would ever find his body. He’d be left to rot, his new lease on life cut short by a pile of rocks.

  Scrambling to his feet, he sent more bolts, shooting as fast as he could channel essence into the wand. It staggered, and sparks sprayed out where his attacks sent stone grinding together, periodically illuminating the tunnel in orange light.

  When it almost completely blocked his view, Harvey cowered, squatting down with his hands covering his head. He felt the rush of air above him as he inadvertently dodged a second swing, but could do nothing to avoid the third shooting towards his exposed back.

  Harvey remembered his new skill and flooded the sigil on his arm to cover his entire back. Almost half of his remaining essence was gone in a flash, but the barrier sprang to life.

  A loud crack rang out as the punch was rebuffed before blasting the mass of stone backwards. Harvey lunged away and spun to face his attacker. He was surprised to see the silhouette missing an arm, but wasn’t satisfied while it still stood. He didn’t stop shooting until whatever magic held the thing together dispersed, sending stone cascading to the floor.

  He wasted no time in uncorking his only health potion and pouring it into his mouth, gasping for air as the magical healing repaired his destroyed lungs. Aching bruises and cracked ribs healed in an instant, shooting pain replaced with a soothing tingle. He spat the blood out of his mouth before drinking his final essence potion, choosing to fill his reserves in case another of those things showed up.

  He’d been wrung dry, and his body shuddered under the strain of exerting that much power all at once.

  Without looking back, Harvey sprinted out of the cave and into the smithy before slamming the door behind him. He moved to the window facing the mine and watched to make sure nothing followed him out.

  It was minutes before he moved again. Just as he’d started to feel in control, the world decided to knock him on his ass.

  When he finally calmed down, he opened the kill notification in his periphery.

  You have slain Level 6 - Lesser Iron Elemental. Essence Gained. 681 Merit Earned

  A lesser iron elemental. Harvey’s breath hitched. If that was “lesser,” he never wanted to meet greater.