After writhing around on the ground for what had to be a full half hour, the itch finally subsided. A relieved sigh escaped me as I slumped to the ground, true exhaustion threatening to claim me right into sleep. Unfortunately, I had a very concerned friend that immediately rushed to my side and blasted Amplified healing right into my brain cavity. It was like crunching through seven of those chocolate coffee beans from the Bunker all at once and my eyes snapped open.

"I'm awake!" I snapped, blinking rapidly to clear the last hints of sleep from my eyes.

Samuel, hair matted and plastered to his head from sweat, let out a nervous chuckle as he slumped back to catch himself on his elbows. "Thank god you two are alright."

"I was fine before you rebooted my brain, Sam," I said, rubbing my eyes. However, somewhere deep inside I wasn't entirely sure about that.

"He needed it," Daniela groaned from somewhere behind the blonde.

"Oy! I don't want to hear anything from you. Why did you have to be so confrontational with the giant crystal that could vaporize our minds?" I snapped, exhaustion ignored for the sake of taking a shot at Daniela.

"Well, if you weren't going to do it," the Latina drawled.

"I wasn't going to let it--"

"Enough! Before you two are back at each other's throats, can I get a proper answer for what the hell just happened for the last two days?" Samuel said, sitting up and putting a hand in front of both of our faces to cut us off.

I did a double take as I processed what he said. "I'm sorry, did you say two days?"

"Yeah, there was even enough time for Lake Weir to send one of their scouts to relay a message to me. The Allied Town Council is doing fine, by the way, no major waves upon that shore. So to speak. The problem with the gators is getting worse quick, but that's neither here nor there. Details. Please."

Daniela and I shared a surprised look, but we both recounted the series of events that had happened after the big meeting. Daniela added the bit where Bec plucked her back into the Entity after printing out a somewhat cryptic message for the others telling them about the trial. Samuel also took the opportunity to tell us about the group leaving, and him refusing to leave until we'd returned from the trial. Ava had eventually convinced the other town leaders that getting the changes started would be the most beneficial course of action; the Bunker Busters had proven themselves capable more than once and the trip back wouldn't be too dangerous.

We explained the general gist of what we encountered in the Trial and how tenuous the situation after Quotient 6 became. That part was news to Daniela, who'd opted to completely concentrate on her Trial instead of asking wider questions. She'd gotten the tail end of the discussion after we both passed the tests, but not the details on the bit about exploding, turning into an elemental or getting corrupted by the Dreg.

"I don't know if I should rush to Q6 or stay at level 5 as long as I can," Samuel mumbled. "You all know the Death Crow took me right to the cusp of Q6."

"I think you should advance to Q6. I don't know exactly how creatures progress, but their physicality has always been greater than ours and any advantage will matter," I said, pausing to stroke my beard. "Gec mentioned areas with higher energy concentrations, which means stronger creatures. I know it seems hard for us, but I can't imagine there aren't more things past the Corporeal Limit that have lived on the surface longer than us. Progress at this Quotient, for me, is the equivalent of four levels if my math is right."

"That's going to take forever," Sam frowned.

"Your Traits are supposed to evolve in the process though," Daniela said. "Should help bridge that gap. Not to mention getting better with using our Skills."

"Wait, what about that extra Skill Point you guys have? Isn't Bec able to upgrade one of your Skills right now?" Samuel asked.

"I ain't touching that with a ten foot pole," Daniela said.

"Agreed. After that Trial, there is so much more to do with what we have available that it would be pointless to complicate it. I don't think this is a 'more is better' type situation," I clarified.

"I finally get why Bec didn't want to cram those things into our heads as fast as we were leveling early on," Daniela mumbled, shaking her head slowly.

"Okay, so what now?" Sam asked. "Did you guys figure out how to use this thing?"

"Kind of?" I said, recalling my experience in my personal whitespace.

Daniela echoed the experience, if a bit different in the way that she chose to move and contain the energy. I tried not to look too jealous when she said she used her Skills to rocket boost freely in her whitespace, because that sounded pretty awesome. I did finally get an answer as to why Samuel was sweating as if he was in a sauna; because he kind of had been in one.

Similar to my response after feeding Limestone Skin, Daniela had reacted in the physical world. Unlike my bout of twitching and itching, she'd done her combustion routine again. Samuel had been able to put her out at the cost of his canteen, but that had released the steam cloud that gently cooked my blonde friend. Of course, injuries of that level were only a mild inconvenience for the most powerful healer in the Allied Towns, but the manifestations were something to keep in mind when using .

Curious to see if anything had changed, I opened my Status completely.

Subject: Ronan Terrigan

Health: 100% (Unafflicted)

Mana: 100%

Metier Quotient: 6 (18.75%)

Dreg Accumulation: 0%

LPS: Wildwood Bunker, FL

Communications

Party

Skills - (1) Selections Available

Traits - (0% Banked)

Attributes - Growth Quantified

Skills:

Offensive

- / /

-

Defensive

- / /

-

Misc

-

-

-

-

Traits:

Limestone Skin (12%) > (12 [+2]%)

Quake Osseum (24%)

Slurry Ichor (8%)

Harmonic Sinew (31%)

Attributes:

Strength: 1.93 > 1.94

Mobility: 1.68

Perception: 2.20

Refinement: 1.54

Containment: 2.41

There were a handful of expected changes, like the addition of to my Miscellaneous Skills and under the Offensive Skills category. Especially after the Hemisphere Trial and I was much more aware of what the Miscellaneous Skills were and how exactly operated. It was something that would require a fair bit of training to internalize, but I wasn't daunted; it meant the ceiling for power even from where I stood was much higher.

The more surprising changes were for Limestone Skin and my Strength Attribute. It wasn't entirely out of the scope of reality that I had improved my Strength during my routine training back in Wildwood, but I doubted it. I was fairly sure it had to do with the strange line of information attached to my Trait.

Traits:

Limestone Skin (12%) > (12 [+2]%)

How am I even supposed to interpret that? "Danny, do you have something weird attached to our Trait progression?"

"Huh?" she said, her eyes glazing over as she looked at her Status. "Yeah, it says my Gills have a segregated percent, but it also progressed at the same time?"

"I have no idea what you two are on about," Sam said, looking between me and Danny.

"We've got to make a note for Bec to add Status sharing to the Implants," I said, shaking my head. "The worked, but it's almost like the progress hasn't been applied? I'm not sure how to describe it other than how Daniela did. It says 12% plus 2% without actually summing it."

"Odd..." Sam said, scratching at the scraggly goatee he'd been growing. "I could try to check you guys."

The external nerve webs flowed out of his hands like hundreds of tiny snakes. I had a flashback to when Alexia, Ava and Sam had examined me before leaving the Bunker and I couldn't help but shiver. Samuel frowned at my response but didn't lower his hands. Reluctantly, I agreed and stepped forward. The most horrifying thing about the check through was that I couldn't feel it. The nerve probes struggled to pierce my skin, but when they eventually did there was no sensory response from me. Nevertheless, the sight of a millipede's worth of hair-thin white filaments crawling up and down my arm as Sam moved had caused more than one nightmare. Not that I told the healer that, but for such a beneficial Trait why did it have to look so horrible?

"This is... weird. It's like some of your cells have extra layers. This by itself isn't surprising, since that's how your Limestone Skin manifested, but now some of them have a caked-on layer instead of it being dispersed evenly," Sam said, eyes closed as he continued to run his hands over me.

"You can go ahead and check Daniela," I said in a hurry as Sam started to reach towards my neck-face area with his free hand.

"What a baby," Sam said, shaking his head before turning to Daniela. I didn't comment on the fact that the brunette had taken several steps back the moment Samuel started to turn; her Mobility could hardly hide from my Perception. However, I wasn't going to begrudge her a slight delay from the horror of the scanning Trait.

"Curious..." Sam muttered.

His eyes were closed as he held Daniela's neck between his hands. The woman couldn't see it, but I watched as the spindles probed the space between her gills, essentially tickling the inside of her trachea. I couldn't recall having goosebumps since gaining my skin Trait, but they were full blown as I watched my friend check Daniela. She let out a deep sigh in relief when he eventually retracted his hands.

"What's up, Doc?" I said, trying to lighten the tension in the air as Sam scratched his goatee again, except he used the Trait's nerves like tiny combs. It was a sight I never wanted to see again, but he continued to do it as he contemplated whatever he'd sensed from both of us.

"Daniela had something similar to you, but hers was like microfilaments trying to reach out from the cell walls. Her Trait gives her that already, but these were curled up tight, unlike the others. That Trait Paradigm page, what did it say again?"

"We only saw it when triggered," Daniela said.

"Hmmmm. I have a few hypotheses, but I'll need to see you two in action before we confirm it. Other than that, how are you two feeling?" Sam asked.

"Better than ever, honestly," Daniela said, uncurling her legs and rising to her feet in one smooth motion. Compared to her, my stooped way of standing made me look like a Neanderthal but I didn't think my Mobility was built for that fluidity of motion. Instead of grumbling, I agreed with the brunette. The cloudiness of exhaustion had actually been banished the longer we spoke. I wasn't sure if it was a result of Sam's Amplified heal or the effects of settling in.

"Then I suggest we try to hunt something on the way back to Lake Weir. Quotient 6 is calling for me and I need to check something with you two. We can talk about what we should do while we travel," Sam said.

"Just like back at the start, huh? I'm more than fine with that," Daniela said, an easy grin appearing on her face.

"Could be tough. Maybe we should save our energy for those gators before we do anything rash," I argued. Weakly.

“No. We need to do this and there is no better time for me than now. When we get back into the towns, one thing or another is going to show up to take up my time. The hunt needs to be now,” Samuel said, nodding seriously.

The moment Sam, our introverted healer, had displayed a smidge of bloodlust Daniela and I were already itching. It could have been a result of an infinite number of things, not least amongst them the fact that I knew Sam blamed himself for not being able to save more people during the assault on Summerfield. The glint in his eye as he considered taking the final step to Q6 and joining us as we pushed for power was enough to send adrenaline coursing through me. It was the same glint that had appeared in his eyes when Daniela told us about the MetierTech Implant prototypes years before.

While I was the shield and Daniela the sword, Samuel had always been the spine of our little group. He was the glue and insulator that kept me and the brunette from blowing up on each other when cooperation would give the best result. The blonde had been an unerring moral compass despite the maelstrom of new things the surface threw our way.

At that moment I realized that while I'd been lost in my head, he'd kept at it. Knowing him, he'd turned his pain into strength to support others. I hadn't even spoken to him about what he'd been working on, how he'd dealt with the aftermath of Summerfield or what his goals for the future were after the Dreg were handled. Despite all of that, Sam had welcomed me back with open arms. The healer had even run interference between Daniela and I as our tempers continued to flare, regardless of how dangerous being the intermediary became as our individual power grew with the addition of magic.

Channeling my uncle, I pulled both of my friends close. Daniela grumbled as I held them in the crux of my elbows and Samuel gave me a confused smile.

"I think it's time we remind the surface that we didn't leave the Bunker to settle."