The Connected System

“Great minds think alike,” Loch said, chuckling.

He leaned back in his chair in the school’s office, hands behind his head, feet up on the corner, earning a disapproving glare from Kristin in the desk across from his. Ed leaned against the doorway into his office, Darren Holmberg against his door.

Loch felt good. He’d just had a shower, his hair still a little wet. It had even been a warm shower. Not much water, so it had been short, but it’d been enough to get the grime, blood and guts from a couple days on the road off. He felt refreshed, if not fully clean and he wasn’t sure about the smell. But they were all smelling and had grown used to it. Or at least no one mentioned it.

The shower had been a project weeks in the making. Something on the wishlist but not a high priority. Patrick Verner, the former engineer turned Artificer, had managed to rig up a gravity fed water system with a boiler. They’d built a series of six of them in small wooden stalls with curtains. The showers were outside, against the wall of the school, and there was always a line. There was some grumbling but most had willingly stepped aside to let Loch and his daughters use them.

Loch had wanted to protest but one glance at the look of desire in Harper and Piper’s eyes and Loch let his rank take advantage. He felt a little bad about it.

Water dripped down his neck, feeling cool against his skin. His hair was a lot longer than he was used to. He’d never let it grow so much. His beard too. Thick and bushy. He wondered what Kelly would think of the new look.

He quickly pushed that thought down into the dark recesses of his mind, not wanting to ruin his good mood. It had been a long time since he felt this relaxed and knew it wouldn’t last.

“Yeah,” Ed said, not chuckling. Loch thought he looked a little resentful about the chickens. The turkeys had been his idea, which had worked, but now Loch had brought back news about the chickens and even some eggs they’d managed to find. It didn’t make Ed’s turkeys as special. “Between the two flocks we should be able to start growing and harvesting enough to produce enough to feed the Clan.”

“It’ll be a while before we get to that stage,” Kristin said. Loch could tell she didn’t want to be a downer but was just being a realist. “We’ll need to build ranches, farms? What is the correct word for a poultry raising place?” She looked up at the other person in the office.

Thomas Mooney, the now Level Nine Farmer, chuckled.

“It’s called a poultry farm,” he said.

Kristin made a mark in one of the many open notebooks in front of her.

“Farm. We’ll need farmers, which means people and barracks, along with a way of getting the meat, eggs and feathers back here. That also means guards at the farm and escorts,” she finished, glancing at Darren.

“There’s some good news there,” he said. “We have enough guards. Barely.”

He stood up, walking over to the wall behind Loch where a map of Northwood and the surrounding area had been hung. It was covered in dozens of markings, all in different colors which corresponded to different meanings. Loch didn’t know what all the markings were, probably only Kristin knowing. It was also badly out of scale, some of the marks were quickly noted distances and travel times, but for their purposes the map worked.

The Dungeons, both Resource and Combat, were marked along with any Spawn Fields they knew about. Other important locations, like the wall the gaunts had built to the west and now manned by Clan Brady Guards, were indicated. New notes about the Fire Charged Grand Oak had been made. There was so much writing that it was hard to make out most of the area around the school. They needed to find one that was larger and just Northwood.

“Currently we have five locations we need to provide guards,” Darren said, pointing at the map as he listed them off. “The school, which needs the most. The West Wall. The Resource Dungeon. And now the Turkey Farm and Chicken Farm.” He turned back to face the others. “We have barely enough guards that are high enough Leveled to cover all those locations. There won’t be as many as we should have but there’ll be enough for three shifts. The escorts from the farms and mine will need to be hunters or scavengers. We already have Scouts serving as runners from the West Wall.”

“Won’t happen right away obviously,” Thomas said. “But I think it’d be best in the long run to have both the poultry in one larger farm somewhere here. If we can get some fertilized eggs, we can hatch them and start raising both birds here.”

“How much space would you need for that,” Loch asked, liking the idea.

It made sense. The Turkey Spawn Field was a day's travel, the Chickens about three-quarters of a day. He still found it hard to believe that the distances had grown that much, but he knew it was true. He’d traveled both. Taking two locations and turning it into one larger and closer would make guarding it easier. Not to mention the farming itself.

“I’ll work something out,” Thomas said. “Luckily we don’t need too many farmers at each place. Maybe two, three at the most, and they’d only need to work the day shift.”

“We can work out a farmer and guard rotation so they’d only have to spend three or four days at each site. Everyone gets out to the sites to make it fairer,” Kristin said, making more notes in the books.

“What about housing?,” Ed asked. “Will that trailer at the Transfer Station work?”

“Short term,” Loch answered. “Maybe free up a construction crew to get a barracks made at the Chicken Farm. The Turkey Farm can use one of the houses nearby, they’re all still there.”

He thought about volunteering his house, but that was on the other side of the spawn field, and he wasn’t sure how the girls would feel about that. Considering how much time they’d spent sleeping, and robbing, other people’s homes it felt hypocritical to not want others doing the same to his. But it made more sense to use one of the neighbors as they were on the road side of the Spawn Field.

“I’ll talk to Tim DeWolfe,” Kristin said. “See if he can free up a construction team, and probably a couple Lumberjacks, to make a small barracks at the Chicken Farm.” She tapped her pencil on the table, thinking. “This might be a good opportunity for one of the newer Clan members. Steve Haley came in a week ago with construction experience. He was also in the Army.”

“I know him,” Darren said. “Good man. He’s been working the guards and got a strange Class.”

“SiegeGuard,” Kristin answered, flipping through a notebook. “It’s an Uncommon Class. He gets bonuses to building engines of war but also has some fighting and crafting Abilities and Skills.”

“He’d be a good one to supervise the construction at the Chicken Farm,” Darren said.

“Agreed,” Loch said, glancing at Ed.

“Yeah,” Ed said, looking to Kristin. “Talk to Tim and this Steve. Get them going on it.”

“We had the mine buildings as highest priority,” Kristin said, looking through another notebook. Loch was amazed she was able to keep it all straight. Had to be part of her Class Abilities.

“I think getting food for the winter takes priority over iron,” Ed said.

“Agreed.” Loch stood up, pushing the chair under the desk. The others still had some work to go through but there was no reason he had to be there for that. “We still don’t have anyone capable of actually mining the Resources there let alone using it. And when one of the Clan does break through to a Blacksmith Class of some kind, there’s enough random material for them to work with for now.”

He walked around to the counter. Thomas looked at the others, making sure he wasn’t needed, before heading out of the office before Loch, who kept waiting for someone to call for his attention. He really wasn’t needed. The three people that really ran the Clanhold were in the office. All his presence would do was make them look to him for the final word. They needed to do it on their own.

Loch just wanted to relax. It had been non-stop for a while and there was nothing pressing at the moment.

***

Loch should have known it wasn’t going to last.

He hadn’t gotten much relaxing done before being interrupted. He’d even started reading a novel. Books had slowly been filtering in and a collection had been made in the lobby. Someone had grabbed a bookcase from one of the nearby houses and it had quickly been filled with a variety of paperback books. No one bothered carrying hardcovers. They were heavy and took up too much space.

Loch missed his Kindle. He’d had dozens of books on it, just waiting to be read, and easy access to millions more. Now there were just a couple dozen. He was just happy it wasn’t all romance.

Someone had been smart and set up a sign out sheet. It was by the honor system but it seemed to be working. It was a good way to know what books would, hopefully, be coming back to the stacks. Loch had noticed Piper had signed out a book.

He’d been in his room, only got in a couple of chapters, before a guard was knocking on his door. Lightly knocking. Opening the door, Loch didn’t know the guard. Had to be a newcomer. The guard had looked scared.

“It’s a Wendigo,” Cerie said, her eyes glowing green.

Loch wanted her there for her knowledge but wished she wasn’t because that meant Piper was there and looking down at the same two corpses that Loch was. Something that no thirteen year old should have seen. Loch knew he’d thought that a lot in the last weeks, but this was the worst.

Both corpses were dessicated, stripped of everything but skin and bones. Loch had seen pictures of mummies after being removed from their wrappings and the bodies looked like those.

One was barely recognizable as human. Most of the hair had fallen out, just wisps remaining on skin that had turned to a sickly gray. Skin had been pulled tight against bone, highlighting every shape and joint, clothes now oversized and hanging loosely. Eyes had sunken in, looking dried out.

The other resembled a coyote but further mutated. Not just enlarged like the packs that roamed the woods. Even dried out, Loch could tell that the front legs had been longer. The claws on all four paws had grown, twisting at different angles. It had to have been painful for the creature to run. The head had misshapen, jaws not the same length, skull elongating. Something had mutated the coyote even further, turning it into a nightmare.

It had also been attacked. Blood had dried along the edges of multiple wounds across its body. Slender cuts, not long or jagged. The Connected System had given Loch some innate knowledge of weaponry and he knew the marks had been made with swords wielded by experts. Long and slender blades that had stabbed and not slashed.

“Did you say Wendigo,” someone said. “Isn’t that like some native american monster?”

Loch turned to Cerie, whose eyes were glowing. A good sized crowd had gathered, guards, the hunters and random people that had been walking by. All had turned to look at the fairy.

“A Wendigo is an entity created by the Concept of Hunger,” Cerie started to explain. She stopped, seeing some confused faces in the crowd. She looked at Loch who motioned for her to continue. “It feeds off living creatures, leaving husks like that,” she continued, pointing at the two bodies. “It has no goal except to feed. It is constantly hungry. The myths of your world are based on the same creature.”

“What about this thing,” Loch asked, pointing at the coyote.

“Some Wendigo have been known to create..,” she paused, searching for the right word. “Packs. It creates followers that are not as strong but still driven by endless hunger.”

She focused on Loch, then let her gaze drift over the crowd. Loch understood that she had more to say but in front of the crowd was not the right place.

Loch looked at the crowd, some of them starting to walk away at his gaze.

“Show’s over,” he said. “Someone take the bodies and burn them.”

That earned him some surprised glances.

“Better to be safe,” he said. “Kyle and,” Loch paused, looking at one of the hunters that had brought the bodies to the school. Kyle, in charge of all the hunters, had come running along with Loch when the bodies had arrived.

“Jerry,” the man answered.

“Head up to the school and into the office. Someone find Darren Holmberg and tell him to get to the office. He should be training some of the guards.”

“Yes sir,” one of the guards that had gathered said, giving an attempt at a salute before he ran off to find Darren.

Loch gave the bodies one last look before turning up the hill for a meeting that he knew wasn’t going to be fun. It had to be bad if Cerie didn’t want to say anything in front of the crowd.

It never ends, Loch thought.