"Ronan... Explain please!" Lilly called as she caught up to me. The others were lagging behind, but I made sure to keep my pace to something manageable.

"Those dots up there, it's gotta be those crows again!" I called as soon as we made it to the road. The others glanced up at the sky, seeing the swirling mass already far ahead of them and growing in size by the second. I could see the confusion and concern on the merwoman's face. While she hadn't been present in the town when we'd first been attacked, I was sure she'd heard about it.

The trip back to the forward base was short by comparison to our trip out, yet it was still painfully slow. When we were rushing past the base, Clara poked her head out over the barrier. "Me and one other are left! The rest rushed back to the town!" she called from the embanked wall.

The duffels got unceremoniously dumped as we upped our jog into a run. The cleared stretch of road let us pick up speed, passing the first external field minutes later and then sighting the walls a few more after that. Unfortunately, we were already too late. Droves of crows plunged from the sky like rain. At least a hundred of the creatures swept towards the ground at a time, but their coordinated chaos made it impossible to get a good count.

Of course, the gates were unmanned. With a roar of frustration I picked up speed, leaving the others behind as they struggled to catch their breath. The brown glow of my mana flared along my arms as I put my memory to the test. Two cross bars. One two feet up, another four feet up. I fed even more mana to my left arm as the spell chain accepted the empowered cost of my Skill. Less than twenty feet from the gate, I released.

double charged bloomed, impacting roughly where the first crossbar was. My second triggered a half second after the first, sprouting from the initial spike to fork-strike into the second crossbar. The gate shook, metal groaning, as the supports on the other side ripped out of the wood. The doors fell inward, one half cocked as my attack ripped part of it clear off the hinge. Blobby slipped through the gap without hesitation, and I was forced to stop and lean against my created spikes.

When the others arrived, they stared wide eyed at what I'd done. Ophelia moved closer, as if to heal me, but I waved her off. "Go! I'll be fine in a minute!"

The whole group hesitated, but set their shoulders. Nick shoved the unhinged door aside and the four others slipped inside. On my part, I did my best not to curl up into a sorry ball of pain. While Samuel was the one that had learned knots, my intestines were showing they'd taken a crash course. The twisting pain had me doubled over, but I managed to shuffle through the broken gate.

Nauseating gusts of bile did not help the abdominal distress. The same disgusting regurgitations of the crows from the first encounter riddled the town again. Once habitable buildings were decaying visibly as the carrion corroded the shingles, metal or wood without care. Somehow, the fact that if those buildings had been constructed with mana manipulated materials they wouldn't have been as affected flowed through my mind.

Shaking my head to concentrate, I tried to watch the cloud of crows for where they were concentrating their plummeting attacks. The LPS map sprouted in the corner of my vision, and I could almost picture the swarm on the map, tracking it in a general south east direction. My feet were already taking me, cutting through pre-fall backyards that had been turned into personal subsistence farms and relaxation spots for the people of Wildwood. When I skirted the wetlands, the main cluster of the birds showed their clear target. The training building.

Suddenly the puzzle pieces slotted together. Regardless, I rushed through tall grass, around several crayfish traps and back on the road. The team I'd led earlier had joined up to push back the birds from the center of town. I could see Nick hauling people to an igloo summoned by Lilly. The other civilians had picked up rocks and sticks to fend for themselves, clustering around the other Wild Guard members battling the crows. Zaps of electricity flew from a nearby rooftop, arcing between several of the diving birds, preventing them from flaring their wings to bank. The civilians then proceeded to end their lives.

With the majority of the town in good hands, I pushed towards the training grounds. A few carrion regurgitations flopped to the ground around me, one close enough that I had to use my shield to prevent the wet splash from reaching me. Nonetheless I charged. When the balsamic stone spike I'd made a while back came into view my steps slowed. A giant hand of flame was keeping most of the crows away from the trainees, while they contributed spurts of their own Gifts into the defense. Two of the dwarves were spreading a stone roof off my spike to cover them from the rain of bile.

As I watched, a clump dropped like a tactical missile towards the group, angling perfectly to hit Sarah's exposed form. A vine sprouted from the barren earth of the training yard, catching the clump even as the verdant tentacle disintegrated. Samuel! The vine curled in on itself before sprouting back to slap another offending blob from the air. My feet turned in that direction until my eyes spotted something that chilled my blood.

The cloud above us swirled. Crows circled, making a gap like a school of fish around a predator. The thing in the sky was definitely a predator. A school bus sized crow pulsed down from the sky like a comet. Wisps of purple mist trailed it's path, and I watched as several of the crows that got within range of the smoke simply slumped out of the sky.

The creature landed on the training building, shaking the ground through the foundations with it's landing. Its arrival put it just in range of my Implant and Perception, eliciting yet another chill.

"What is that!?" Sarah yelled as she saw me approach.

"Something big and mean!" My brain managed. The beast touched down almost gently on the roof of the building, shredding the top like one of our insta-meals. A purple pulsing orb flickered within its grasp. A metal encased, purple pulsing orb of black crystal.

"It came to get the Dreg Entity," I whispered. Sarah didn't hear me, focused on drawing back her fire hand to conserve mana. The diving attacks had halted with the arrival of the Dreg Appendage. As the last Skills of the trainees fizzled in the air, an eerie silence permeated the town. Even the crows crispy fried by swats from Sarah died without uttering a peep.

>The Aberrant do not forget, fleshbags<

>Opposing the Dreg was the last mistake of your insignificant existences<

The swell of crows escorted the behemoth out of the town, several more dying just in the smoky trails of death around it. Wet splats were the only sound for several minutes as the trainees and everyone else tried to process what had happened.

---+---

"Anybody have any idea what in the fresh Metier hell just happened?" Dylan asked, not at all calmly.

The Councilman was more than a bit agitated, which wasn't a surprise. Thankfully, while a large swath of the town had been injured in the strange raid most had actually managed to gain a Quotient from the whole ordeal. The reduced need to heal people thanks to the boost of breaking into a new Level had helped settle some of the panic.

Several hours later, however, the leadership of the town was trying to figure out what happened and what it meant for the future of Wildwood. Dylan, Sarah, Irwin, Sam, Clara and a lizardman named Trey, who was in charge of the fishermen, a rotund dwarf named Arnold, who was in charge of the crafters, and an older regular human named William, who was in charge of the farms, sat around a bonfire just outside of where the Blessing of Magic began. It was really quite the audience and they all turned towards me, my childhood friend included.

"Okay, well, before we really get going. Do we know where Daniela is?" I asked, locking eyes with Samuel.

"She sent me a message saying she was fine before dropping out of contact. I haven't been able to get a hold of Devon either, so I'm hoping they are together," Clara answered. That both comforted me and brought a whole new set of concerns I didn't feel quite equipped to handle right then so I pushed through to the meeting.

"Right. Well, let's keep tabs on that. As for what happened, well, we got raided and robbed is the short of it. My best guess is that the Dreg Entity was somehow able to call for help even through Tec's distortion field," I said, putting my hypothesis out there.

"But why now? What changed?" Irwin asked.

"It's possible that it was because I wasn't around," I said. When the group gave me quizzical looks I explained that since we'd captured and restrained the crystal, either Samuel or myself had been nearby. It was just a sheer coincidence of trying to move into the now derelict training building and deal with researching the massive amount of stuff Kirby had accumulated.

"But you went out with the trainees today, and I was working with Danny before meeting up with Sarah," Samuel added.

"Okay, assuming that the crystal had some proper alone time, how was it able to call a giant flock of creatures and what the hell was that thing at the end?" Dylan asked, throwing up his hands. The normally composed politician was definitely not in the house today.

"I was able to get a look at it before it got out of range. Apparently it was something called a Dreg Appendage, Quotient Level 6, so it's one of the strongest creatures we've encountered since coming to the surface," I said.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Terrigan, but we aren't quite familiar with your 'level' system. What exactly does that mean?" Old man Williams asked.

"Hopefully the Implant program will be able to change that, but we'll talk about that next. Each level is roughly three times as strong as the previous one, qualitatively speaking. Physically speaking, it's growth is a tenth of the average strength of the creature. For something like that giant crow I have no idea what that would be, but it is at least 1.6 times stronger than the average... Whatever it is.

"Most of the town is actually Level 2, which I suspect has something to do with surviving and being in the area of influence of Tec, while the Wild Guard and trainees are in the 3 and 4 range. It's somewhat speculative numbers, but it would take three level 5 people to contend with that thing."

"This is an evaluation in a vacuum. You can't quantify experience and tactics," Arnold the dwarf complained.

"Precisely, which means we are probably at even more of a disadvantage. As far as I know, only Devon can fly and that's more of a ‘sort-of’ than a ‘for sure’," I said, laying out the situation. It wasn't pretty. The implication that the dreg had a concerted force and a communication network of some kind bumped the threat even higher.

"What can we do? That attack was already enough to destroy a huge swath of what we've worked on, " said William. The lines on the man's face were accented by his growing frown.

"We rebuild, like we've always done, " Dylan said. He stabbed the air with his finger, pointing at each of the people present. "This isn't the first time nature has slapped us in the face."

"It is the first time it's done it on purpose," Trey added. It was somewhat hard to read expressions on reptilian features but he looked defeated.

"There isn't much we can do right now other than hunker down. I hoped to make the announcement under a more hopeful atmosphere, but this might be just what we all need.

"I've spoken with Tec and it should be able to start providing the Guard with Implants. Based on the power that it is using to keep the stronger creatures away from the town proper it might only be able to give everyone access to one Skill at this time. "

"Skill? " Arnold asked.

"Gifts. That's what you call them. I'm also going to be working with Rommel to churn out gear, real gear, for the Guard. Hopefully by the time that has happened, we can give the trainees more practical exams, leave them in charge of defense and use the squads to grind the spider dungeon or any other we can find. I think that each creature territory probably has a dungeon, otherwise how would they be able to push so many creatures out?" I explained, putting out my plan on the table. Even with the faster rate of reproduction of certain species pre-fall, it didn't make sense otherwise.

Everyone around the fire looked hesitant to comment. I had already discussed the implant portion of the plan with Dylan and Irwin, but it was the first time that the other heads of the town had heard of it. It wasn't a secret anymore that we were interacting with the Crystal directly, as much displeasure as that caused, but the results spoke for themselves. Without the communication abilities the implant had allowed us we would have lost all of the trainees during the fight with Kirby.

"Take the night to sort through your thoughts and give me any comments in the morning. I have suggestions for each of your areas to benefit from, but I can't be everywhere," I said, putting an impromptu close to our meeting. The group didn't scatter but instead fell into contemplative silence. Sarah and Clara looked at me with questions in their eyes so I walked away from the bonfire. The two women and Samuel followed me towards the crystal and through the blessing of magic.

The wisps of colored mana floating around us cast an ethereal glow over the wooden planks. Propping my back against the railing and crossing my arms I turned to face the others.

"Who died and put you in charge?" Sarah asked, mimicking me and crossing her own sizable arms.

"Sarah, we both know he's too far in the clouds to even notice us small folk," Clara said, half turned so as to not even look at me.

"Well, that's why it's our job to keep him grounded," Samuel added with a huff. The two women groaned at the terrible word play.

"Not entirely sure what's going on right now, but I just want it to be clear I don't want to lead anything. I'm all for someone else implementing ideas, or doing something, but there doesn't seem to be anyone interested," I said, shrugging.

"We aren't here to berate you for taking the lead, Ronan. We just want to make sure you don't try to hold up the town alone." Sarah said, tilting her head to the side. "To be honest, we were kind of surprised we had that meeting at all."

"I was going to have the meeting to let everyone know about the Implants anyhow," I said, somewhat defensively.

"Good. Everyone is on the same page now. I'll be busy helping the farmers and the healers," Samuel said.

"While I will be getting the trainees turned into proper defending Wild Guards," Sarah added.

"While she's doing that I will be keeping the patrols in order, and expanding on our forward base," Clara continued.

"Wait a minute..." I squinted my eyes as I watched their serious expressions twitch. "That sure sounds like you are leaving a whole lot of somethings for me to handle!"

--Dreg Warriors present outstanding delegating abilities--

"Oy! I don't wanna hear from you," I said, turning to point an accusing finger at the Metier Crystal. The others couldn't hold back anymore, laughing at the situation. I found myself chuckling along, having been led by the nose and read like a book by even a giant sapient rock. The invisible self-imposed weight of responsibility that I chained myself to lightened ever so slightly. They really got me this time... My worries faded for just a little while as we discussed the future without letting the looming threat dictate our actions.