We trust in God to grant us what we need most.

Wisdom of the Ancients, Book 1

“So, you got into a big Manastorm.”

“Not quite. It was very localized, just in that room, springing from that Ancient skeleton,” Johanna insisted.

“And now you can shoot fire from your hand,” her mother repeated, still not quite believing her own eyes.

Bram Milton looked at Tom, who looked embarrassed at explaining himself.

“Am not flashy. My fist just does a lot more damage than it ought to. And I can run to any beast faster than anyone should be able to. I can barely control myself when I do that,” he added, surprising Johanna.

“And Peter’s girlfriend is a holy saint,” Bram said.

“She fixed me almost instantly after the Lepus almost ripped my ribcage. It’s as if everything went back to its proper position on its own. And even without that…”

She raised her hand, where they’d experimented. Her father looked at it, before frowning, realizing what was missing.

“Yea, that nasty fall’s scar from when I was seven and climbing the apple tree is gone. She just ran her fingers over it, and it was gone like it never happened. Old wounds, new wounds, it’s all the same.”

Her mother stayed silent for a few seconds before asking further.

“What does the young Donnall do?”

“It’s hard to express. It’s like he turns somehow invisible.”

“WHAT?”

“Unless you are specifically aware he’s there, you don’t notice him. At least if he doesn’t want you to.”

“And beasts always miss him, I’d say. I’ve noticed he’s very good at not being bitten or hit,” Tom added.

Johanna’s father stayed pensive for a while until she started fretting and he gathered his thoughts.

“I’ve always thought people should stop worrying about mana. The old stories of the Fall were that, old stories. That’s why I thought your idea good, Jo. Unless you go seeking trouble, like going north or southeast, the modern world is safe.”

He sighed and held his hand before she could answer.

“But that’s not true, isn’t it?”

Johanna grimaced.

“It’s not that bad.”

“No. You got changed… Changed, but not into some kind of monsters like some. At least there’s that.”

“I’ve seen one Changed person,” she said. “A… Dwarf?... at Valetta.”

“There’s worse things than Dwarves, you know?” Bram replied.

“Maybe we’re safe and sheltered here, but the world is full of awful things,” her mother added.

“Which. I. Am. Not.”

“I’m not saying you are. This changes everything, still.”

“It doesn’t have to. I mean… we’re still the same. Right, Tom?”

“Unless I’m trying to hit something, definitively.”

Her father contemplated Johanna for a long time, and she decided right there to skip demonstrating the fire immunity. Taking some burning log from the fireplace and holding it in her hand to show further change was definitively not going to help in this discussion with her parents.

“Well, we’ll probably talk more about this tomorrow. I need to think about it,” her father finally said.

“Sure.”

“And the first thing we’ll do is talk with Ellis Anasta.”

“Uh, why does the mayor need to know about this?”

“Those Lepus you talked about, not your… change. That encounter’s something that the village needs to know about. If that colony needed to move, there’s trouble brewing somewhere.”

Knowing she was dismissed somehow, Johanna stood up, grasped Tom’s hand and they both headed upstairs.

Sleep was elusive that night, despite spooning with Tom. And when it came, it was filled with skeletons grabbing her, holding her, and opening her torso to shove flames in it. Flames which burned a cold, blue, flame laced with strange light streams of no color.

As the activity wound down, and everyone went to sleep, Douglas Moore made a mental checklist of what the evening had brought him. He definitively approved of Donnall, who had used the first opportunity to sneak out, using his Reconnaissance skill to prowl around the village. Not only did it increase Donnall’s personal XP, but that also gave Moore a better view of the local area.

The oppressive, packed locale was a bit weird. He was still slowly building a picture of the post-apocalypse world, but it was obvious that man wasn’t the top dog – or Canid – anymore. The defended wooden enclosures hinted at more environmental threats rather than ongoing bandits or warlords, but serious ones. Ones that couldn’t be easily eliminated, as man was wont to do once it settled anywhere.

The local hamlet, who didn’t seem to have a name written anywhere as far as he could see, was an obvious demonstration of the fact. The twenty-some homes that comprised it were all jammed together within the palisade, and nobody was living outside. The only building he’d seen out of any form of protective enclosure was that burned-out farm, and obviously, it had suffered some kind of disaster. And, once again, like in that small town, nobody was sporting a gun.

Oh, as a city dweller in the 21st century, he understood why not having a gun around could be normal. He never had felt the pressing need of owning that kind of stuff, unlike a handful of gun nuts he’d known during college and university, trying to drag him to a firing range “for fun”. Rifles for hunting, yes. For fun? Not his definition of fun. Fun was running a whirlwind barbarian across hordes of skeletons and minotaurs.

But after an apocalypse, and facing what looked like serious threats, like mutant wolves and lagomorphic monsters, this was definitively not right. Even if you lacked the industry to make some serious guns, you’d expect salvaged guns to be handed to guards. Guns were too powerful not to be used, and in the worst case, salvagers like his team should be bringing in all the ammo you needed for defense.

Unless the ruins were so old, the ammo wasn’t useable anymore?

That was a mystery for him that needed further digging, and he desperately hoped someone would open a book explaining it. Back in the town, when Welter had perused the books, he’d hoped to see interesting stuff, but that inn’s shelf was all about novels. The one he’d settled on was some kind of fantasy – or maybe history? – about a poor man trying to hoard a cache left by his ancestors of awesome unbreakable tools from the “Fall”. Which he assumed was a direct allusion to whatever the apocalypse had been. Given the right context, it might even have been interesting to read. At least Welter hadn’t picked a romance novel.

In terms of System stuff, he’d mainly confirmed the Fibonacci progression. Milton’s obvious parents had been level 6, and required the expected 13 thousand XP for their next level – XP which both of them had, and more, to Moore’s dismay – and one positively ancient withered figure in the Donnall’s household had been at 9th level, with 55k XP needed for a potential level 10. But nobody had a specialization, and nobody the four hugged or greeted had a skill he could spot, even if most had somehow allocated a stat point or more.

Still, he wouldn’t begrudge them the stay at home. The world was obviously a dangerous place to be, and one needed the safety and comfort of home and family.

The sights had brought him some nostalgia and regrets about his own family. His only sister had settled on the east coast, and the only time they saw each other was at Thanksgiving with the parents in Seattle. Which was pretty much the only time he saw them as well.

And all of them had probably died decades ago, even if they’d survived the apocalypse. If there were more people stuck in some kind of afterlife like he was, they were entirely separate from himself. His abstracted space held nothing, not even himself in any way he could perceive. Just infinitely distant lines that became close when he looked at one of the windows they bordered.

The mayor was cranky, as he swallowed dark tea.

“What’s this shit you’re bringing me, Bram?”

“Jo’s spotted a colony of Lepus. Coming from up north.”

The top man of the village who bore his family’s name looked at Johanna as if she’d decided to offend him personally.

“Those won’t be a problem, but…”

“But the problem may still be there, that’s what you’re saying,” he interrupted.

Johanna grimaced, not adding anything.

“Just what I need. Five years of peace, and it looked like the north had stopped spewing its shite on us for a while. You know, I’d talked to Virtu and Mirosc, and it looked like Valetta was on board.”

“About what?” she asked.

“Valetta’s growing, and one day, they’re going to need more food than we can sell them. I’m all for expanding, but there’s only so much folk like us can grow within walking distance of our walls, and the sorry excuses of fields they have around their own wall aren’t going to feed them. People are starting to think of grabbing the area where old fool Poole made his grave. But properly, not like a farm in the woods to be targeted by some wandering pack of horrors. A good palisade, some good houses, and a place for a couple dozen second or third children families to settle and build the land properly.”

She looked at her father, surprised at hearing this.

“Yea. It’s been talked around since Valetta started saying they’d pay for some of the starting capital. Builder gangs to help, good tools, that kind of thing. The main condition is that they’d get some citizens settled there, not just farmers’ sons and daughters,” Bram acknowledged.

“They don’t want the land to remain in our hands forever, that’s what they mean,” she opined.

“I’d sooner trust a Changed than a city slicker to do the land justice, but they’ll learn,” the mayor replied.

“It’s a cheap price. If they fail, someone else better can move in to pick the deeds. And if they succeed, two generations from this, they’ll be decent folk, notably if they’re surrounded by some good ones. But if we have things from the north stirring up again, those city mongers will not want to risk their citizens in the wilds,” Bram Milton said.

“There are always people willing to strike out,” she said.

“Yea, but can they pay for the tool, seeds, and everything?”

The mayor spat to the side, which barely shocked Johanna. The man had always been a crude one, like his forefathers, apparently. Yet Ellis Anasta had undeniable authority. His family had always been pragmatic and practical, ever since the founding of Anasta’s Farms just after the Fall if you believed the stories.

“So what?” Bram asked.

“So what? It’s not as if we can do things. A handful of Canids ranging around, I’d call upon Valetta’s finest exterminators and dangle some silver. But nobody’s going to hunt for colonies of Lepus in the woods.”

The Miltons’ patriarch shrugged at that. Then they took their leave from the mayor, heading out.

“Now what?” Johanna asked.

“You tell me. You want to head back to your ruins? After what happened?”

She grimaced. She knew they needed the money, but the change in their lives was – even if she hadn’t admitted it to her friends – unsettling.

“Thought so. I’ll talk with your brother to see if he agrees, but we may advance harvest. The weather hasn’t been cooperative recently, and that’s the first two weeks of decent sun we’ve had, but… if we get Lepus around, it might be time to fill the silos, no matter what. The only one who harvested early is Donnall, and that’s mostly because he wants to have more time later and he doesn’t do much grain or corn anyway, it’s just enough for his own use.”

He looked at her, inquiring.

“Think you want to stay and help?”