The next two weeks felt like an exercise in futility. While my body had been utterly throttled by helping Billy, I refused to let it keep me down. So, as soon as I was mobile and with a full mana pool I would hobble over to another of the Afflicted Trainees to repeat the process of freeing them from their own minds.

To say the effort didn't take everything I had would have been a lie. Even if most of the trainees seemed to have larger white spaces than the one Billy had for whatever reason, each time I Wrestled them back to reality my body clobbered itself like freshly worked dough.

Each cycle of injury took me longer and longer to recover from to the point where Samuel and Sarah agreed to leave someone on guard so I wouldn't try to escape to the Crafting Hall where I knew the orc and mer trainees were being kept due to their more volatile Afflictions. While the trainees that received my help weren't totally back to themselves --they seemed like babies trying to relearn how their bodies worked-- their progress was the only thing keeping me going.

All the extra time to think while convalescing was driving me mad and forcing me to really analyze things, my focus sharpened as a distraction from the pain. I wanted to be out there, fighting the Dreg and making them pay for all they'd taken.

That driving thought stemmed from the fact I was slowly putting together: the Entity Clusters were meant to help us acclimate to an Attuned Earth, and the Dreg were their intended targets all along. Bec had all but confirmed this, but the more I examined our interactions with the Dreg and the way the Entities assisted us, it became painfully obvious. I knew in part the Entities were responsible for the mutations of Earth wildlife, but if that was the worst that happened then humans would have already affirmed their grip on at least some areas of the world. It was possible they had in some places, but that was reliant on their resources before the Fall and the chance that a Metier Crystal had landed near enough to purge them from Dreg.

And there it was, the insidious part of the problem. The Dreg were everywhere, not just where the crystal's influence protected. If all it took was enough of the tainted Pith to corrupt a mind like what had almost happened to the trainees, then how many had been lost to the Dreg over the last three decades? What further plans and power were they growing just out of sight of our three little towns?

And yet, my body refused to recover all the way.

Ava, Sam nor any of the other doctors scrounged up from survivors were able to figure out why I wasn't healing all the way. Obviously, if I had suffered the injuries I had at the hands of my mana backlash before gaining my Quotients and Traits I would have been dead ten times over, much less be able to walk aided by crutches. That was even after I'd stopped healing the trainees.

Samuel was optimistic that I just needed to give my body a chance to recover. That my Traits already made me extremely sturdy and the passive regenerative nature of our Attuned bodies would get me there. However, just laying in the sidelines wasn't what I wanted as the cogs of war really started to turn. I couldn't help but think of Igor who, even as the healers scratched their heads at how to treat him for his missing arm, still fought at the frontline.

As a courtesy for my contributions to the town, Sarah made sure to keep me abreast of the developments with our efforts. She even asked for my input, as bedridden as I was, on formations we could use for defense.

In my absence the town had continued to prepare. Rommel had finalized the original design of the Pendulum Force Cannon, our name for the part-Item weapon we'd created. Two of the things had been shipped, at the cost of one of the Wild Guards to another giant cottonmouth, to Lake Weir.

It had been a necessary risk in the hopes of dealing with the latest rounds of attack by the Dreg. Apparently, when their ground and air assaults had been rebuffed, they had opted to double down on the air ones. The shift went from quality to quantity.

What could only be described as toxic air raids were pummeling the Weirdians. Even with the help of ranged Gift attacks and the new stock of bow Items and arrows Wildwood started to produce, it was just too difficult to land a blow on the creatures. At least two more Weirdians had succumbed to the bile and the defenses we'd worked hard to reinforce during our time there were once again suffering. It was a war of attrition the Weirdians were barely surviving. I was fairly sure all it took the crows to bomb the town with their corrosive entrails was some time regenerating their mana.

With my knowledge of the Stoneshapers abilities and Arnold's super dense , I drew up a rough design for defensive walkways. A thin layer of the dense stone, Shaped into a slanted trapezoid, mounted above columns of earth. Condensed earth ditches would line the covered walkway so that water attuned could wash off the bile off the surfaces and move it away into decomposition pools. The pools had been there since the Weirdians started being attacked, but due to the frequency of the raids they had grown from near fetid puddles into cesspools of disease. Unfortunately, that was a problem for the future since the people preferred the disgusting pits to having the chemical burns the crows attacks left behind.

Even with the co-opting of Arnold and one of the Stoneshapers from Stonecrest, the situation at the front only got marginally better. The only benefit to the whole situation was that pretty much everyone playing an active role in the fighting had reached Quotient Level 4 and gained one to two Traits beyond their existing attunement-race ones.

And so, that left me propped on an just outside of the medical building as I watched the final group of ex-trainees get inducted into the Wild Guard and sent to Lake Weir to relieve the defenders for a time. There was one more group of trainees, many being groomed even before they'd unlocked or achieved proficiency with their Gift thanks to the expectation that they would be able to make use of an Entity-given Skill.

Everyone in the gathered group wore variations on my armor Blueprints with painted emblems of the Guard. Where the paint had come from, I could only guess was Stonecrest's superstore or some other unraided location. The squad leaders each had one of the rough metal broaches I'd seen Sarah wear.

Councilman Dylan spoke some encouraging words to the youths before they marched over to a cart with their supplies and yet another pair of Pendulum Force Cannons. Sarah had been standing off to the side and escorted the expedition up the bridge to the North.

"You might burn a hole in them if you stare so hard," Dylan said, snapping me out of my reverie.

"I should be out there..." I replied weakly.

"Couldn't agree more," the fire headed man said, groaning and taking a seat next to me. "Tell me, Ronan, why are you throwing yourself so hard at the meat grinder of reality?"

I quirked an eyebrow at the man. We'd come to have a level of respect for each other since I'd arrived at Wildwood. I recognized him for what he was, a skilled politician who'd been blinded by one of his closest friends and was working to make amends. And he recognized me as a pain in the ass that did whatever was necessary to accomplish his goals without compromising his morality. Why he was asking about my motivation was beyond me. "It's the right thing to do."

"Understandable. But is it the right thing for you to do?"

I turned to look at him, wincing as my muscles complained against the quick motion. "What does that even mean?"

"You know, Sarah is worried about you. So are your friends and even the people of Wildwood are concerned. Especially the parents of the Afflicted, once they realized the torture they asked you to endure on behalf of their children. There is a distinct reason you haven't seen any more parents snooping around the medical building, prodding you or even helping you escape so you can heal their kids."

"I put them in that position," I replied quietly. His smooth non sequitur threw me.

"No, you didn't. You made a decision. A very hard one. If my word means anything, I believe it was the right one. Working with my daughter closer to the front than I ever have has highlighted the... Brutality that I'd distanced myself from. Even under the threat of the Dreg, Ronan, we are doing much better than those early days after the Fall..." I saw Dylan's eyes look off into the distance and his flame hair seemed to flicker almost into inexistence. It was similar to when someone was looking at their Status, but I recognized it as the faraway look of reminiscence well enough.

Instead of broaching the man's reverie, I examined what he'd said. He wasn't the first to talk about those 'early days'. As a matter of fact, I had a very unfortunate memory in the noggin from Dai that told me all about that despair from the point of view of those growing up on the surface. It wasn't the same as actually enduring it, but it put things into perspective. I was definitely not the only one to suffer, nor the only one with a motivation to change the state of things.

"You need to give yourself a chance to come to terms with yourself," Dylan said out of the blue.

"Huh?" Man, is all this pain scrambling my brain too? It isn't like he stuttered.

"Ronan, you aren't the same person that first walked into this town."

"Yes I am?" I responded, even if it sounded more like a question even to my own ears.

"No." Dylan turned to meet my eyes and the flame of his hair darkened. "You are the same at your core. Your values, the things you hold dear, are the same. Your knack for problem solving and --if we are being fair-- stubbornness, are one and the same. However, the burden of losing people? The burden of responsibility? That's a crucible you don't come out unscathed from. I wasn't much older than you when the Fall happened, you know. Seeing the world come crumbling down around us left many as empty husks. Shells of their former selves. We did what we could, but only those who wanted to live made it and even then many didn't. That was one of those hard decisions. If we'd tried to save everyone, then no one would have been here within these walls to greet you three when you left the Bunker."

Dylan jumped to his feet, coughing to clear his throat as it had become husky the more he talked about the past. The councilman took a deep breath before turning back to me again. "Take stock. Once you accept what you are now and who you are now, I think things will fall into place. You are needed, and your work is not forgotten. Know that."

Without further ado, the man strode away as if he hadn't been talking to me. I followed him with my eyes as he met up with a group of fishermen returning from Lake Sumter, smiling and patting them on the back as he went. I didn't know what had spurred the councilman to engage me in conversation, but I could almost hear his words resonating in my head still. Accept what you are.

The thought tumbled through my head for several more days. Other than for the updates from Sarah, I hardly left my bed as I tried to process that thought. Turns out I haven't really been much of an introspective person, huh... The slightly self deprecating thought actually put what I believed to be one of my core personality aspects into perspective. I was sarcastic by nature, and sometimes that sarcasm let me think outside the box.

Like a rug unfurling before me, the comments Dylan made crystalized in my mind. They were all true. I was a brusque person by necessity, but also by choice. My friends associated with me partly because of our bond from the Bunker, but just like the others in the Bunker we formed our own clique of shared interests. All that meant, however, that I had been a true turdwad about the whole Devon situation. Not only that, it had propagated to several of my interactions with the people of Wildwood, Stonecrest and Lake Weir. I'd turned one of my ways of bonding into a tool. That was definitely not who I wanted to be now.

By the end of my days of self reflection, the alliance was still plodding forward. I came to accept that there wasn't anything I could do on the frontlines, but maybe that was okay. Even a stretched spring had some bounce to it. If I had to remain injured, then I would just find a way. I would find a way to contribute, like I did when I almost drove Elias mad about getting us access to the Implants. Like I did by doubling down on helping the Metier Crystals. And, like a knot coming undone, I relaxed for what felt like the first time since leaving the Bunker.

A perfect note strum through my body. A notification flashed on the edge of my vision. I unlocked a Trait? That was all the time I had before my body twanged like one of the practice bows Marie produced. The vibrations I'd been subtly feeling more and more suddenly tickled my whole body at once. Even with my eyes shut against the strange twitching of my limbs, and the accompanying pain from my injuries, I could see. Not necessarily see, per se, but I was distinctly aware of where things in my immediate vicinity were. The wooden logs holding the springy vines of Samuel's custom beds, the thin metal tin full of water for me to drink, the pair of mud-and-gore caked boots resting on the ground ready for me to head outside. Beyond what I would guess was ten feet around me, everything was hazy blurs that suggested shapes to my new sensory input.

I don't know how long I spent there, panting, before the swell of a whole new sense evened out. I wasn't entirely in control, because as soon as I opened my eyes the bubble of vibratory feedback around me overlapped with my sight. It was like hearing each step creaking underfoot on a wooden floor, except I was standing on concrete. And the end table was also creaking. As was the water in the cup. Thankfully, the air was blissfully 'silent', but even just the empty room left me catatonic. If this is anywhere close to how the Afflicted feel, then I can relate with being spaced out.

For the sake of keeping my sanity, I opened my Status so I could focus on something else. Let my subconscious work on figuring out all this sensory input. Hopefully. With the world still shivering in my periphery, I clung to the unwavering script of the Implant display.

Subject: Ronan Terrigan

Health: 100% (Unafflicted)

Mana: 100%

Metier Quotient: 5 (22%)

Dreg Accumulation: 0%

LPS: Wildwood Bunker, FL

Communications

Party

Skills - (1) Selections Available

Traits - (0% Banked)

Attributes - Growth Quantified

Skills:

Offensive

- / Imbue /

Defensive

- / /

-

Misc

-

-

-

Traits:

Limestone Skin

Quake Osseum

Slurry Ichor

Harmonic Sinew

Attributes:

Strength: 1.76 > 1.79

Mobility: 1.53 > 1.63

Perception: 1.89 > 2.09

Refinement: 1.42

Containment: 2.28

There were a whole lot of things to unpack. First on the last was the fact that all the Banked Dreg I had for my Traits had vanished. The source of that, if I had to take a guess, was the new line in my Traits.

Traits:

Harmonic Sinew

Your tendons have taken on new seismologically sensitive properties while being nourished by your Ichor and bonded to your Osseum.

While it wasn't Overbanked like my other Traits, the fact that it seemed to provide a literal sixth sense seemed trade enough for me. There was something about the description that tickled the back of my mind, but my occipital lobe was already busy enough making room for this new vibrosense so I put it to the side. The other thing that blew my mind was the ginormous growth to my Perception Attribute, and the notable increases to Strength and Mobility. My other Attributes had been crawling forward thanks to the abuse, training and struggle of just living on the surface. The jump from Harmonic Sinews, however, threw me two whole Quotients' worth of growth in Perception. No wonder it feels like I can hear the fibers on this blanket...

I spent several minutes just reading and rereading the information on my Status. It had been a few weeks since I'd bothered to even look, and while my Health, Mana and Attributes were the only things that really changed it really put things in perspective for me. I wasn't even close to the Ronan that had first stepped gingerly on the surface, nor blasted plastic shrapnel all over his chest from improper precautions, or even killed a monster to save his friends. I was a Dreg Warrior, for better or for worse.

Snapping the Status close with a thought, I took a deep, steadying breath, swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. I spent several seconds trying not to puke as vertigo overwhelmed me. That got pushed back down, and I steeled myself for a step.

Two very surprising things happened. First, there was actually not a hint of the pain I'd been suffering from for close to three weeks. Second, my face struck the ground so hard that if my head wasn't almost as hard as the concrete it was made of I wouldn't have had to worry about much more after that.