The afternoon went by uneventfully, each of the veilstriders who had reached level 5 crafting their first skill before returning to their post. They’d cut and collected over 150 trees, and as the afternoon waned, they moved further into town to focus on cleaning them. Branches needed to be cut, and bark needed to be removed, so the poles could sit flush when they were buried in the trench.

  As the pale sun began to set, casting bright orange and pink hues into the sky, Julian entered the gate with a troupe of 22 veilstriders behind him. Harvey couldn’t believe they’d found so many, surprised anyone had made it two whole days without access to the shop and its supplies. Julian bought the basics he’d given everyone else and helped them find a spot. The church was starting to overflow, so he recruited a few of the stronger veilstriders to start clearing broken tables and chairs from the saloon so they could set up a second dormitory there.

  As night fell, everyone gathered around a massive bonfire, logs set up in rows like benches in an amphitheater. When most people were done eating, Julian stood up in front.

  “I’m happy to see so many faces looking back at me as we share a meal tonight. Every day, Veil’s End has become home to more and more survivors. First, it was four, then it was 15, and now we are 37 strong. We all showed up alone and afraid in a world none of us understood, with a body half living and half dead, but we struggled, we survived, and we found each other.” Julian exclaimed.

  Silence washed over the crowd, and Harvey felt the words etching into his heart as he spoke. He didn’t know if this was some magical effect of his aura or the simple passion of a good man, but he could feel the joy radiating from Julian.

  “No matter what obstacles stand in our way, I know we can overcome them because we’re not alone. More than any stats, skills, weapons, or potions, we are the greatest asset we have.”

  “Before all this, I used to be a firefighter. On our first day at the academy, my instructor told me the only way any of us would ever make it through was if we learned to rely on the brothers and sisters standing beside us. He told me firefighting was going to break me, and unless I had someone to hold me up when that happened, I wouldn’t make it out alive. He was right. But every time I thought I had nothing left to give, someone came to lift me up until the job was done. I want to think I did the same for them.”

  Julian paused, his hands clasped together while he stared off into the distance, lost in memories.

  “There will be days that this place, this trial, breaks you. But, I promise that when that time comes, I will be there to lift you up. On days this trial breaks me, I hope you’ll be standing beside me, ready to catch me when I fall. Because all of us will fall at some point, but we can’t fail if we stand together.”

  Excitement welled in Harvey’s chest with every word, and whoops of support rang out from the crowd. He turned to look at Gary and saw even him giving a reverent nod.

  “We don’t know much about the tapestry, the system… whatever you want to call it. I don’t know if some god in heaven is toying with us or we’re dealing with some alien Geneva Convention about invading planets, but I’ll tell you what I do know. Hannah and I reached the edge of the forest today and found an impassable wall of darkness. If we still think the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, it was about five miles north of here. Based on the vision we all saw, I’m going to guess there’s a similar wall south of us. That puts us dead center in a band between life and death, standing between an undead army and a portal that will let them invade our home. Our children surround that portal. Our grandparents. All the people who aren’t ready to defend themselves against an army intent on ending their lives for good. For them, we are the last line of defense, but if we hold together, no army will break us. They’re going to come, but we’ll be ready when they do.”

  The crowd went silent, the gravity setting in as he spoke. Part of Harvey hoped they’d found a small haven in the middle of some massive forest. A place to hide where the army would pass right by. Now, he had to face the truth. There would be no hiding, and Julian was right that if he didn’t fight, that responsibility would be left to the children. They didn’t deserve that fate. Neither did he, but there’s a reason Earth outlawed using child soldiers.

  “Today, five more Veilstriders got their first skill after defending our home from Stonetusk Chargers. Tonight, I’ve asked them to show them off. Let’s celebrate their strength because when one of us grows stronger, so does Veil’s End.”

  The crowd erupted as Julian ended his speech, and Harvey noticed all five sitting together at the front.

  The first to rise was a young man, probably close to Harvey’s age, well built with a mix of blonde and bone white hair like Hannah’s. He’d been the man holding off a boar with his axe handle wedged in its mouth earlier.

  “Hey y’all, grateful to be here. My name’s Hyrum and I’m originally from Dallas, Texas. Before I died, I worked in construction, and I combined some of those memories with my experiences fighting here in the trial to create a skill that lets me use essence to increase my strength.” Hyrum said.

  “Care to demonstrate for us?” Julian asked.

  Hyrum nodded before heading to a crate they had emptied of tools and filled with rocks. He squatted down and tried to lift it, the awkward size making his arms strain as he struggled to barely get it off the ground. He showed the strain for a moment before his muscles suddenly bulged, and he stood straight up like he was holding a pillow.

  “Takes a lot out of me, but I can get a lot stronger for short bursts,” Hyrum said.

  The crowd hooted and hollered, Amy giving a catcall whistle and laughing when horror washed over Elena’s face.

  When Hyrum took his seat, a young woman with long brown hair got up.

  “Hi, I’m Emily, and I’m from Nebraska. I grew up on a farm and competed on my school’s archery team, which allowed me to combine those memories with my time here to create a skill called Bramble Shot. I conjure an arrow that wraps anyone it hits in thorny vines.” She said.

  “Wait, we don’t need a demonstration if you have to shoot somebody.” Julian interrupted.

  “No, it’ll still work on the ground,” Emily replied as a crude arrow of twisted vines appeared in her hand, looking more like a stick of intertwined roots than anything that should be shot from a bow. Fletching made of leaves sprouted from the back as she drew the bowstring, and she launched the arrow into the ground beside the campfire.

  As soon as it hit the dirt, the arrow exploded into a 3-foot patch of vines that spread out in all directions like they were searching for a target. Vicious thorns covered each root, writhing until they eventually withered into dust.

  One by one, the veilstriders stood and shared their new skills, each being met with amazement from the crowd.

  Next, the Taekwondo instructor Harvey met while buying breakfast stood up and introduced himself as Master Lee Seung-ho, a South Korean man in his mid-40s. He’d infused his skill with his 25 years of teaching taekwondo and propensity to keep kicking during fights, even when his sword would be more effective. He’d been given a skill that improved his kicks to the point he could shatter a small boulder with a spinning back kick.

  Harvey was stunned and wondered if he’d be even more effective against the elementals than he was.

  A doctor from Mozambique introduced herself as Dr. Amara Silva. She had combined years of practicing medicine with her experiences helping Julian keep the dying veilstrider alive until they made it to camp. The result was a skill called Healer's Hands that allowed her to heal a person by touch. It was apparently pretty cheap compared to what Harvey had expected, but it had the limitation that the healing was too slow to be helpful during a fight.

  Still, it was terrific to have another healing option other than expensive potions.

  The last Veilstrider to stand was the oldest in the outpost, a British man in his early 50s with salt and pepper hair, sitting opposite patches of jet black.

  “Well, at least I only have to dye half my hair before a show now!” He joked, rubbing his hands together. “My stage name is Sir Alistair Harrington, but you can all call me Nigel. Before I died, I had a mediocre career as a magician. Lots of card tricks, misdirection, and standard stuff, really. When I learned about real magic, I combined my talent for misdirection with the existence of essence and created a skill that lets me create smokebombs to disorient and hide me from my enemies.”

  As he finished speaking, a pink and purple marble appeared in his hands that erupted in a smoky haze when he threw it at his feet. Also in the front row, on the log opposite the demonstrating veilstriders, Harvey’s mind was washed in strange feelings that made his head spin. He rubbed his eyes and was surprised when he couldn’t see the man anywhere. He spun around in his seat, trying to find him when he suddenly appeared right where he’d been standing.

  Nigel hadn’t moved at all, but Harvey couldn’t see him for almost 7 seconds. Looking around, he saw others still searching for him until one by one they each realized the truth.

  “Remind me not to stand anywhere near you when you use one of those,” a man called out. “I hated that.”

  “Well, at least I know they work!” Nigel replied. “My shows are going to be marvelous once we get back to earth.”

  The crowd laughed, and Nigel bowed to each side with a smile before returning to his seat.

  Julian waved his hand to disperse the mist as he returned to the front. “I hope this inspires everyone who hasn’t reached level 5 yet. A lot of you have already seen my own skill that heals everyone around me while I’m fighting and Hannah’s ability to strengthen her arrows with each consecutive shot she hits, but I hope you see now that our power is nothing special. All of us can turn our life story, both before and during the trial, into the tools that will see us through to the end. Our stories are our weapons. Together, they’ll write a legacy that no army of undead can erase.”

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  An inspired murmur rushed through the crowd, people behind him talking about leaving to hunt before bed.

  “That brings us to the next thing I hoped to talk about tonight, plans for the future. There’s a lot that needs to be done around here, and we have no idea how much time we have before those bats and bone spiders start showing up. Our main priority today was starting work on a wooden wall around the outpost. How did that go?”

  “Other than the stonetusk attack, it went well. We’re running into a problem, though. Our swords have the self-sharpening feature, so we can fix those up with essence, but the axes don’t have anything like that. They’ll hold up for a while, but those trunks are harder than usual and are biting up the blade.” A warrior replied.

  “Got it, so we may need to buy some more axes.” Julian began.

  “There’s a grindstone in the forge.” Harvey volunteered. “I could fix it up and work on a way to sharpen the axes we have.”

  “Great idea, Harvey. That’s one problem solved.” Julian replied.

  “The beasts have gotten stronger every day. We need a few people whose main focus is protecting the crews while we’re working,” a woman chimed in.

  “I agree. Once we have a sturdy wall around us, we can be more deliberate about sending out hunting parties and getting everyone leveled up. Until then, it’s probably a good idea to have a few people staying fresh and focused so not everyone is fighting tired.”

  The group deliberated, and it was decided that the five demonstrators would become the first roving guard. They were still too low-level to deal with threats like the massive stonetusk alone, but they would stand in front while the rest of the camp supported as best they could.

  Another woman proposed establishing a small contingent dedicated to repairing homes and buildings around town.

  “What kind of tools will you need to get started with that?” Julian asked.

  “Not too much. Hammers, nails, hinges, that sort of thing.” She replied.

  “I haven’t checked if any of that is available in the shop, but we need to make sure we’re spending our merit wisely. Harvey, you said there was some iron ore in the mine, right?” Julian asked.

  “Umm, yeah?” Harvey answered, a knot forming in his chest as Julian flipped their script on him.

  “I know chipping away at the wall of a dark tunnel all day isn’t exactly glamorous, but someone’s gotta do it. You’ve already been poking around in the forge. I think we’re going to assign that job to you. If you can make some nails and hinges for us, we can save a lot of merit.” Julian said.

  “What? You want me stuck in a hot forge all day smashing rocks!” Harvey complained, picking up hints of Julian’s intentions.

  “I’m asking because I know I can count on you to get the job done, even if you hate doing it. The outpost needs tools and merit. You can help solve both problems at once.” Julian urged.

  “Fine,” Harvey grumbled. “If you think that's the best use of my time, I'll do it.”

  “Ha! Have fun in there, Scoutmaster.” Gary muttered.

  Over the next few minutes, each person was assigned their task for the next few days. Most were attached to the wall-building crew, with the rest either fixing up buildings or on guard duty. Julian assigned Gary as the foreman of the wall operation and promised to give him the slipsack filled with more axes before he left in the morning. Harvey tossed it to Julian with no complaint.

  “Alright, it sounds like we have a plan, at least for the short term. Food, water, and clothing can be taken care of by the shop, but eventually we’ll need to think about making our own stuff. Maybe we can start harvesting leather from the Stonetusks or any other animals we find closer to the living half of the forest.” Julian announced, clapping his hands. “Speaking of which, Hannah and I are leaving again in the morning and probably won’t be back until the next day. We are going to push deeper into the living side to find as many other survivors as possible. More hands mean more swords and shields building up and defending our new home.”

  With the meeting adjourned, most stood up to mingle, introducing themselves to the new group of veilstriders and talking about the plan. Harvey walked up to Julian and Hannah by the fire, whispering as they entered the forge.

  “Nice acting there, Harvey,” Hannah whispered, giving his arm a light punch.

  “You could’ve told me the plan beforehand.” Harvey shot back.

  “To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about the mine until I got up there. Sorry to put you on the spot like that, but I think we should have most people off your back for at least a little bit.” Julian said.

  “Ah, don’t worry about it, I’m quick on the uptake. That was an amazing speech!” Harvey replied.

  “It didn’t start that way, you should’ve heard him! Mumbling inspirational quotes all day while we walked. At one point, the ending was going to be “let’s ignite the undead with the fires of our souls.” Hannah mocked, doing a terrible impression of Julian’s voice.

  “Jerk, I thought that was pretty good,” Julian replied.

  “No, she’s right. That’s hot garbage.” Harvey laughed. “But the final draft was awesome! And the skill demonstrations were perfect.”

  “We rehearsed them beforehand to make sure we had a good way of showing them off. I thought it was important to show people how they could use more than just their time here to make something that fits. Most of the people we’ve found have spent the last few days running for their lives or hiding from monsters while they nurse their wounds, and they’d almost lost all hope before we found them. What kind of skills would fear and desperation make?” Julian said.

  “This one?” Harvey mused, conjuring a fangbreaker shield over his forearm.

  “Damn, Julian, that’s cold.” Hannah laughed.

  Julian gave him an apologetic smile, but Harvey wasn’t offended. He understood what he meant, and getting to level 5 if you hadn’t done so already was going to get harder if the beasts kept getting stronger. An extra dose of motivation couldn’t hurt.

  “By the way, I wanted to pay you back,” Julian said, a screen appearing between them showing his attempt to send 2500 merit Harvey’s way.

  “You don’t have to do that. You’ve already been spending all your merit on other people anyway.” Harvey rejected.

  “No, I want to. Paying back my debts is important to me. Besides, I’m earning plenty of merit out in the forest. Walking miles through the woods with dozens of warm bodies attracts a lot of hungry beasts.”

  Harvey reluctantly gave his mental assent to the screen in front of him, causing it to disappear as his total merit increased to just under 7000.

  “Did you guys level up again today?” Harvey asked.

  “Twice!” Hannah replied.

  “One more for me, but I’m so close to 10 I can taste it,” Julian added

  “Are you serious? How are any of us supposed to keep up with you at this pace?” Harvey asked, incredulously

  That brought both of them to level 9 in just over 48 hours. Each level had required killing more and more enemies, and even with Harvey mostly fighting monsters higher level than himself, he’d barely reached level 7 today.

  “You’d be doing the same if you were out there with us. It’s a lot of fighting, but so far we’ve managed to cope. The hardest part is covering all sides once the group starts getting larger.” Hannah replied.

  “Why don’t I come with you guys tomorrow? I can help with that.” Harvey suggested.

  “Veil’s End needs you here. Besides, aren’t you excited to get busy in the forge?” Julian asked.

  “Yeah, but I’m still 3000 merit short of buying the guidebook,” Harvey complained.

  “We could spot you if you need it?” Julian offered.

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll just fight some more elementals before bed tonight.” Harvey replied.

  “We should come with you then.” Hannah offered.

  “Won’t it look weird if all of us leave for the mine right after we said there’s nothing in there but ore in the walls? There are too many eyes around camp now, someone will see us and start asking questions. I’ll be safe.” Harvey replied, resolute.

  “I guess you’re right. It’s not that we don’t want you out there with us, there’s just a lot of things to juggle right now, and we can’t leave Gary alone to run the place.” Julian said

  “Bloodlicker? That guy's gross.” Hannah added.

  They chatted for a while longer, catching up on the day's adventures before splitting for the night to rest. They’d been moving nonstop since they left that morning, only taking short breaks to eat and rest while their group of survivors trudged on. Usually, they would’ve been exhausted after apparently traveling 30 miles, but the effects of Vitality and Endurance were miraculous. Not only did wounds heal at miraculous speeds, but they also recovered faster. He didn’t know if it was something in the air or an inherent trait of an essence-infused body, but even his aching back from being tossed like a teddy bear by the stonetusk charger already felt good as new.

  Waving goodbye as they left the forge, he turned to the back door and entered the tunnel. It was strangely comforting to be entering the mine at dusk, forcing him to move by lamplight either way. He pushed a minecart loaded with a pickaxe, water jug, and just enough ore to hold the lamp post steady and headed in.

  Three hours later, he struggled to push the overloaded minecart back down the tracks, heaving with every push until a cool breeze on his skin announced his return to the yard. He was exhausted, with bruises on his arms and an aching bump on the back of his head from a second elemental that had caught him by surprise. But it was enough.

  You have slain Level 6 - Lesser Iron Elemental. Essence Gained. 681 Merit Earned X 3

  You have slain Level 7 - Lesser Iron Elemental. Essence Gained. 812 Merit Earned X 2

  Leaving the densely packed minecart just inside the tunnel, he blew out the lantern and ran around the side of the forge to make a beeline for the general store. It was already late into the night, but he couldn’t wait any longer. The night was dead silent, and he could almost hear his heartbeat as he ran inside. Standing in front of the mirror, he moved to the knowledge tab and found his prize.

  John’s Guide to Blacksmithing For Idiots, Morons, and You - Consumable

  Selecting it, the book appeared in his reflection’s hand. It was smaller than he’d expected. The picture on the cover showed whoever John was wearing a leather apron and holding a hammer and tongs, with a cheeky grin emblazoned in full color.

  Who the hell was John, and why was he such a troll? And why would a book be single-use? Unless he actually had to eat the book, it didn’t make much sense. The prompt to purchase for 10,000 merit appeared to his side and he assented before any doubt about the authors eccentricities could take root, the book appearing in his hands.

  It was a huge investment. Enough to feed the entire camp for days or buy 20 lifesaving health potions. A twinge of guilt poked at his mind, but he knew he had to do this. If it really did give him a profession, he would get a massive power-up while gaining skills vital to the camp's future. He’d promised to make the most of his second life, and he needed to invest in himself if he wanted to take back control of his legacy. His stain did all it could to hold him back, but he would forge ahead anyway.

  Just as he turned to leave, he decided to spend 500 of his 623 remaining merit on an endurance potion. Now was as good a time as ever to see if refueling his body forestalled the need to sleep.

  The thought of learning blacksmithing made him feel like he was back in his early days of learning to code again, and he salivated at the thought of building something from nothing. He tipped the potion down his throat and turned to the first page, waddling out the door on his way back to the forge.

  He had a book to read.