Broken Anomaly

When Eric returned with his group of people, so did Anna and Alex, only they had a much larger group. However, unlike his group, theirs included people of all ages, from young children that appeared to be in elementary school, to seniors that looked to be at an age in which they should only be enjoying life.

Eric handed the group off to a man who he had seen Stella and Alex interact with before and headed to the workshop, which had been relocated. Anna and Alex helped the people they brought and organized them in such a way that it was easier to feed and help them. After a while, they followed Eric.

Eric was ready to ask a question as soon as Anna and Alex were both inside, but Marcus beat him to the punch.

“We’ve got water,” he said without explanation, which caused the three recent arrivals to look at him with a puzzled expression.

“What he means is that we will have water,” Stella added, emphasizing the word “will,” before continuing. “A couple of people went to the incursion and said that there were a lot of big puddles all around. Do you guys remember seeing any water when we were there? Specifically, big puddles,” she asked.

The three of them shook their heads.

“We already have water. Why is this important?” Eric asked.

“We’ve done more testing on the dungeon. We’ve figured out that the more you take, the less it can regenerate. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense, especially considering the upgrade options.”

Eric thought for a moment and remembered two of the upgrade options.

Slight dungeon enhancement (mana recovery): Increases the speed at which the dungeon regenerates its own mana. Cost: 5 DP.

Slight dungeon enhancement (mana storage): Increases dungeon’s mana storage. Cost: 7 DP.

Eric nodded. “That makes sense.”

“We need to reduce the need for dungeon supplies. That way, the dungeon can be run more times, and we get more dungeon points. Though, I still don’t completely understand how dungeon experience works.”

“We’re also going to need a lot more supplies with the new people,” Alex said. “And from my rough count, we’re still missing about two hundred.”

A silence filled the room as all of them took in the gravity of their situation.

“Doesn’t your hub show you where the other people are?” Alex asked, breaking the silence.

“No, only the citizens,” Eric answered.

“Then make them all citizens,” Alex said, giving what he considered to be the obvious solution.

“It’s not that simple,” Stella said. “Making everyone a citizen would create problems down the line.”

“Then we’ll deal with them down the line. This really isn’t the time to be pragmatic.,” Alex said, raising his voice a bit, his expression showing obvious frustration.

“What if we can’t fix those problems down the line?!” Stella retorted, a frown forming.

“Those people might not be here by that point!” Alex exclaimed, his frustration mixing with urgency. “This is your place. What do you think?” he asked in a calmer voice, having realized his outburst.

Eric looked at both of them, evaluating their expressions so that he didn’t give an overly insensitive answer. “Coin toss?” he said with a light chuckle, seemingly having failed to read the room. He gestured for them to stop as they began turning their anger toward him. “Realistically speaking, whatever problem occurs down the line would, in part, be dealt with by Alex. We also can’t evaluate every potential citizen, nor do we have access to police databases or the like, at least not yet,” he said, glancing at Marcus. “So, for the time being, we are going to have to take a bunch of risks and deal with them as they come.”

“I still don’t agree, but fine,” Stella said reluctantly. “You start from the bottom, and I’ll start from the top.”

They then began to send a citizen invitation to each and every name that appeared on the citizens list that had the role of “visitor,” as there were no other people with a different role other than themselves.

After they were finished, they both brought up the hub map and began taking note of each and every citizen that appeared in an area that wasn’t near the cafeteria. Even though they could see each citizen marked, it didn’t give them details as to who they were, so they ignored the people they knew were out exploring known areas.

This left them with people near the indoor pools, the locker building—both being behind the auditorium—a few near a building that was used to connect buildings D and B, and all the rest were near the labs, behind building D, where all the specialized equipment for majors like chemistry, cooking, engineering, and programming were located.

“Eric will go to the pool and lockers. We’ll send a group to the lone building, and Alex, Anna, and me, will go to the labs. Does that sound good to everyone?” Stella asked, receiving an affirmative nod from everyone except Anna.

“I’m taking one more person,” Anna said, receiving no objections.

“Is it me, or are there way too few?” Marcus asked as he rested his chin on his chair’s backrest. “Dead, I mean.”

“Not really,” Eric said, trying to remember and mentally count each individual corpse he saw. “There were at least fifty dead people in building D… maybe a hundred.”

“Same. Every room we entered had at least three or four dead,” Anna added with a solemn voice. “Some had entire classes, like they didn’t get the chance to run.”

“And that quickly became more than a hundred by the time we went through the entire building,” Alex said in a sorrowful voice. He shook his head and began to do some math in his head. “That’s about five percent of our school right there. We also haven’t kept track of all the bodies we’ve found lying around. If we—”

“Stop counting the dead,” Stella said with an uncomfortable expression.

“Yeah, instead tell us where you got the kids and the elderly,” Eric asked.

Anna let out a small sigh, trying to regain her composure. “There was a community art event that was mostly for children and the elderly,” Anna explained, her face recovering a bit. “I was supposed to help them after I finished with the tour.”

“Thatssss, not as interesting as I thought,” Eric said, disappointed. “Let’s go before you all start crying and make it uncomfortable.”

Eric left without another word. Stella let out a small chuckle at his attempt at levity. Anna rolled her eyes while Alex and Marcus shook their heads.

“Better get back to it,” Marcus said, turning to face his worktable, to continue leveling his skill.

Once outside the workshop, Anna glanced around, quickly finding her target. “Ed! Let’s go!” she said, not asking for his opinion.

Stella and Alex went to talk to David, leaving him in charge once more. They also went to organize the group that would go to the lone building.

Just like that, they all headed to their respective search areas.

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Lydia and the other rescuers were struggling to keep the troll distracted. Every time they dodged; another swing was already headed in their direction. They were beyond exhausted. The only thing keeping them going was their personal desire to protect the escaping survivors.

Even though there were four of them, the troll more than made up the difference in numbers with its own level and stats. While everyone in the city struggled to level up due to the sheer amount of monsters roaming the streets, the trolls hunted in a leisurely manner, becoming even stronger than they already were.

When the three trolls came together, they quickly cleaned the streets of both monsters and people. Their growth was enough that it allowed them to recognize simple patterns, specifically, when more monsters spawned and exited their dungeons. It was thanks to those patterns that Lydia and her team were able to rescue so many people.

“They’re gone,” Connor exclaimed, having glanced in the direction of the survivors, not seeing them anymore.

Lydia felt a sense of relief start to grab a hold of her body, but she stopped it and focused on her opponent. “Just a bit more,” she said, swiping the sweat from her forehead. “Then we can be on our way.”

With renewed spirits, they forced their already drained bodies to work overtime. They had no expectations of defeating the troll; no, their hope was in delaying it enough that the survivors would be able to ask for help from those at the settlement. Even now, they were moving in the same direction as the survivors, guided by the light in the sky; only they were going much slower.

However, they were already exhausted, and even if they were all full strength, they would still struggle to slow the troll down. Which is why soon after Lydia spoke, giving them some hope, she spoke again with a different message.

“Lets go!” she yelled, turning away from the troll. She noticed the troll had begun to predict their movements. “Come on!”

Without questioning her orders, they all began to run away from the troll. They still had to pay attention as the troll was fast enough to keep up with them, but they were advancing considerably faster than before.

Come on, you guys can do it, Lydia thought, though everyone heard her because of Connor’s skill.

They were so focused on running away from the troll that they didn’t notice the two silhouettes walking leisurely through the forest, following them from a distance.

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The survivors kept running, only a few stopping and waiting for those who had fallen or taken a moment to catch their breath. Every single one of them struggled to keep up.

Those in the middle of the pack felt a sudden sense of relief, as not only did those in front stop running, but a cool and refreshing breeze hit them head on.

Before the older man was a lake, no, an ocean. It was a body of water so incredibly big, that he didn’t know what to make of it. He could clearly see that the light in the sky fell somewhere beyond his line of sight. He turned to find a way through and quickly found an extremely broken road on the left side of the body of water.

Without turning to see who was still following him, he started to move hastily toward the broken road; upon reaching it, he began to run once more. At this point, he was no longer guiding the survivors, at least not intentionally. He was exhausted, not only physically but mentally, too.

The older man kept running, not stopping for a second. If he tripped, he would get up without a word, as he was forcing all the air to go through his nose and kept his mouth shut. As he got into a rhythm that allowed him to ignore some of his physical strain, he failed to notice when, suddenly, a goat-man appeared beside him. No, a ram? the older man asked himself, noticing that the horns were different.

“Apologies,” the humanoid ram said in a courteous tone. “It seems we are going the same way.”

The older man wanted to speak, but his body wouldn’t let him, which was probably for the best as he himself didn’t know what to do. His body was currently working on automatic. It’s what allowed him to continue running, even though a part of his mind really wanted to stop and run away from the creature beside him. It wasn’t only him, of the people that were following him and had also noticed the creature, all of them failed to react to it.

“It appears you can’t speak. I really do apologize,” the ram said, bowing its head slightly. “Seeing how the others are reacting, I’ll take my leave first,” the ram added in an understanding tone. “I do have to make a one stop though.”

The creature then began to run at a speed that defied their understanding. Every step was a leap and every leap a blur, until suddenly it jumped, disappearing into the water.

They were finally able to stop running, and they immediately did, collapsing to the ground, shocked and struggling to process what they had just witnessed.

Those in the middle and back, who had not seen what had occurred, took it as a small cause for celebration and sat down to rest. Then, out of nowhere, as if to deny them any sort of respite, the water disappeared. There was no spectacle, no explosion, it just happened. All the water in the lake was gone and not a single drop remained.

As shock and horror started to invade the older man’s body, preventing him from running, he focused on a single sentence the creature had spoken. “It seems we are going to the same place,” he muttered under his breath. “That means there is somewhere to go.” Forcing himself to his feet, he desperately rationalized that what they had just witnessed hadn’t happened at the settlement they were heading toward. Dispelling the fear and with a newfound source of strength, he shouted, “Let’s go!”