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Bk 3 Ch. 14 Setting the Board
🕑 Added 2024-10-07 03:10:06 +0000 UTC14.
“I’m Zeke!” A voice boomed out from the crowd of shuffling around bodies and Santi watched as the crowd broke apart to let a slightly older boy walk out. He was younger than Santi’s current body, but it wasn’t by much. Tall and lean, borderline emaciated with sharp cheeks and a long nose. Black dreads fell past his shoulders, gold glittered in both of his ears, diamonds sparkling in the light.
He flashed a sparkling smile, his charisma undeniable. Santi stared at him, focusing on the edges of the young man and felt the illusion crack under his scrutiny. Zeke was still there, everything he had observed was the same, but the glamor of it fell away. Some type of leadership class. Frustrating.
“I’m Santiago Silva. I’m a leader from down the way. It was my friends that cleared out the battlefield earlier.”
“They’re with you?” Some of the man’s swagger slipped away. Santi could emphasize with that. The two of them had likely left a permanent impression on them. Something like their display earlier today would have left him shocked when he was a young Initiate.
“Yes, they’re with me. As is Frank and Maya. I want to extend that offer to you too.”
“Maya? Yeah, we don’t fuck with Maya. She fucked up some of our people and we can’t just let that go.”
“Listen. I don’t give a fuck. I’m not saying you have to be friends with her. I can set you up with a small town or area far away from her and Frank and their group. Get you supplies and the knowledge to break through the level cap you’re at. All I ask is to keep the violence relegated to monsters and in self-defense.”
“You’d give us all that and just to stay out of the way? Get us out of this shithole and show us how to push past twenty-five?”
“Yeah. Pretty simple rules. We work with you if you follow the rules. And the rules are don’t start shit and to contribute to the community. Well, there’s actually more rules but that’s what they boil down to.”
“What’s the catch? I know there’s a catch.” The crowd behind Zeke shifted and looked about, eyes watching Santi warily. There was the teenage distrust there, the hard eyed cynicism, the disbelief and natural arrogance of children becoming adults. It helped that Santi looked close enough to their own age.
“The catch is I’m in charge. Period. We have rules, we follow the rules, we all benefit. But I’m not putting up with bullshit. You want to dick around?You can find your own way.”
Everyone shifted around, glances shot at each other as they reacted to that. Most didn’t like it, but they were waiting for Zeke to react. Santi could read the boy’s face like a book, whatever background skill he was using was broken by his higher stats. There was exhaustion etched into the bags beneath his eyes. Anxiety and a grayness, a pallor that refused to leave even with his higher stats. Heavy was the crown indeed.
“What about the others? Faulkner and his fucking psychos? Are they welcome too?”
“No. They’re not. Chloe, the axe girl, is going to take care of them with Frank and Maya right now.”
“And when you say take care of them?”
“Chloe is killing them.” Santi said without hesitation
“Just like that? No trial or process or anything?”
“They’re walking around carrying human skulls and talking about how life is pointless and people should die. They’re killers and we don’t put up with shit like that.”
“They’re strong. Is your girl enough?”
“Chloe is more than strong enough to deal with them.”
“We need to talk about this. But, if you can make sure we’re away from Maya and Frank, I don’t see why not.”
“Talk it over. Frank and the others were the ones who pushed me to reach out and be diplomatic, just to let you know. They want to have a relationship with you guys.”
“That can be for the future. Can you give us a few minutes?”
“Sure.” Santi walked away, giving them a bit of space but still close enough to hear them talking with his advanced senses.
Most of the talk was around how they were all exhausted. They were hungry and sleep deprived, the constant fighting had sapped them of their strength of will. They were continuing on with pure grit and stubbornness. They needed this, needed the relief and break from the ongoing initialization. Zeke came back a few moments later and nodded.
“What do we need to do?”
“Just travel to our town. It’s about fifty miles from here. I have some of my people coming. When they get here I’ll split off a squad to escort you and Frank’s non-combatants out of here and to our town. You’ll be processed at the central location, given a spot, food, responsibilities, and the rundown on the rules. When we finish with this Pillar, we’ll work on getting you guys past your caps.”
“We have to travel with Frank and Maya?”
“No. Frank and Maya will be staying here with me. Along with some of their better fighters.”
“We’ll do the same. Me and few others will stay and show our worth!” Pride suffused his voice. There were some nods around from some of the rougher looking people in the group. The fighters in the group who had more pride than sense.
“That’s fine. Gather up your belongings and move toward where Frank and his group is set up. That’s going to be out staging area to move out. My people should be here in a few hours, but we might start getting visitors sooner than that.”
“Visitors?”
“Yeah. You didn’t see the giant golden beam in the sky?”
“Oh, well fuck me. Look at that.”
“Bruh, it’s hella bright? How’d you miss it?” Santi asked the leader of the group. The teen simply shrugged.
“Was a little busy with the whole murder sisters. Weird shit happens around here all the time nowadays if you haven’t noticed.”
“Alright. Anyways, everyone who wants a shot at the pillar will be coming to challenge me. Need to get your people out of here before it gets too busy.”
“We’ll get moving. Just keep Maya away from us. I’ll keep my people in line.”
“I can do that. See you in a bit.” Santi left them, gathering Dillan and moved back towards where Frank had set up his headquarters. They were still gone and Santi was forced to sit around with a bunch of nervous strangers staring at him. It took Chloe twenty minutes to come back.
The petite woman walked back with blood smeared across her face, partially wiped away but part of it missed. There was a hard look in her eyes, a fragility disguised as iron. Santi rose and went to her even as Frank and Maya walked by, both of them giving her respectable nods while neither of them had the same looks on their faces. Frank was a former soldier so he could understand that, but Maya was a hard woman if she had gone to a killing like what had likely just happened and came back as if nothing had occurred.
“Hey,” Santi said as he got close to her. Chloe looked at him with a vague blank stare for a second before life flared into her eyes. He wanted to reach out to her, touch her bloody hands and the white knuckle grip on the handle of her system generated axe.
“I’m back.” Chloe bit each word sharply.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m fine. No injuries. Mission accomplished.”
“Alright. Why don’t we sit down and you can talk to me for a few minutes. We’ve got some time before anything should pop up.” Santi guided her to the side of the building. He wove his [Air Current] around them to help prevent eavesdropping.
“What do you wanna ask?” Chloe said as they sat down. Her white knuckle grip hadn’t relented.
“When me and Cameron were kids we used to play outside all the times. You know, kid stuff, just running around in the backyards with interesting sticks and pretending to be knights or soldiers.” Santi let his mind drift to those easy memories. They were distant things, buried under the weight of his life, but they still felt warm when he visited them.
“I always wanted to be a knight. It’s just a kid thing I think. Saw Aragorn charge the Black Gates, you know. That was so cool.”
“Thought knights were supposed to be tall?” Chloe asked quietly, just a hint of warmth in her voice.
“Oh they are. It’s an unfortunate reality. To be a knight you need to be tall. It’s why I became a mage.”
“You became a mage because you’re short?”
“Close enough.” The answer was similar. He had been scared. Scared of fighting close enough to smell sweat and blood and fear. He had wanted the distance that a mage had promised.
“Cam makes a good knight I think. Big and strong and noble. Even has a shield. Need to get him a horse and sword.”
“He’s a good knight. I think you would have been a good knight too. Regardless of how vertically challenged you are.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it. But, what I wanted to say was when we were kids it was always the unending hordes. The bad guys, right. Goblins or orcs or whatever. The other thing. It wasn’t people you normally see in the grocery store. Your neighbor. That’s a lot harder to do.”
Chloe went quiet, her small smile leaving her face as her back stiffened. Santi couldn’t tell if she was reacting to the subject or if it was her worrying about how he viewed her.
“The first time I killed someone I broke down. Cried and threw up. She haunted my dreams for a long time. How still she was, her face slack and pale. It wasn’t like we played about in our backyards in the suburbs. There was no honor or glory or whatever it was that I thought there was in killing someone.”
“They weren’t the first.”
“I know. They won’t be the last either. Might not even be the last today. I just want you to know you’re not alone. With whatever it is you’re feeling, whatever you experienced. You’re not alone.” Santi risked reaching out and placing his hand over hers. He could feel the tension in her knuckles, the tendons straining, all the while she didn’t look at him.
“Thank you. I just need to work through this. It was bad over there. They… they might have been closer to your childhood enemies than whatever humanity they should have had.”
“Then it’s good that they’re gone. I’m sorry it had to be you that experienced that, but I’m glad they’re gone.”
“It had to be done. Santiago, there were things in there that I just haven’t seen others humans do. It was like a monster den.”
Santi let her vent, speaking quietly of what she had seen. There were no tears or frustrations, just a nauseating description of what the death worshippers had been doing in their portion of the town. Santi wasn’t shocked, there were plenty of things he had seen that defied decency or humanity. Whatever Mercy was, she was the herald of worse things to come.
Monsters and mutated animals were the, in the end, the weakest of threats. It was the sapients, the invaders and humans who had done the most damage after the initialization had stabilized.
Santi wedged himself closer to Chloe, offering her the warmth and solidarity of his shoulder. His hand didn’t waver from her as she spoke. When she finally finished, some of the strain had disappeared from her as she finished
Santi heard the tromping footsteps of Zeke and his people. He read the strain of the older people as the kids came back home. In a moment he would have to come out of his little cocoon of magic and tackle the responsibilities of leadership. For this moment he could continue being a friend.
Comments
Dominick Ruiz
This is great feedback and I do appreciate it. I'll talk with my editor and we will work on this
Isthisaname921
On another note, I'm excited to see what insight Zeke gives us into leadership/mind-based classes. Is the system giving him suggestions on how to run his group? Or was he naturally talented in that regard and thus was given the class? Since he volunteered to be in the battle, does his class give him combat capabilities, or is he a (de)buffer? On that note, I wonder what kind of class Mercy has.
Isthisaname921
Of course, I'm sure that they’ve had interactions off-screen that developed their relationship, but as I said, we see absolutely none of it.
Isthisaname921
The crux of the matter to me is that even though we keep being told by other people that they supposedly like each other, they seem to be close co-workers at best in the eyes of the story. Before chapter eight I think Chloe would be hard-pressed to name anything that she liked about Santi other than “He’s strong.”
Isthisaname921
Before the aforementioned confession chapter, I can count the 1 on 1 interactions they’ve had on one hand. While again, the confession was cute, it also felt sudden, what specifically does Chloe like about him? The conversation they’re having sounds like that of people who are only just getting to know each other (which from our perspective is true, the only conversations I can remember from them are either about the system or fighting, not any remotely personal subjects). Santi even acknowledges this fact with him admitting that he doesn’t truly know any of them well due to obvious circumstances.
Dominick Ruiz
I believe this is what the kids call the Talking Stage. Also it's the apocalypse, everything moves faster
Isthisaname921
Mobile won't let me do paragraphs, so I’ll continue here. Throughout the story we *do* get multiple mentions of this supposed romantic tension between Chloe and Santiago, but without specifics, and tbh I didn't really see it either.
Isthisaname921
I like Chloe and Santi’s relationship, and think this chapter’s scene is very well done, however, I do think that there should’ve been more of this before they started dating to make their relationship a bit more believable.
