Apocalypse: Regression

Nick felt dizzy as he and the others emerged through the rift, feeling like the rip in space and time had chewed him up, split him into a million pieces, and put him back together again. He had to blink a few times to get his bearings. He planted the Weight of Dedication into the ground, its shaft seeming to move, even though he knew he was the one shaking a little as he steadied himself against the disorienting lurch.

When he finally got his bearings, he looked around at the base. It was practically humming with activity, and he could hear the sound of hammers clanging against metal, engines roaring, and people shouting out instructions. The population had multiplied following the flood of volunteers, turning the quiet, somber camp where they had been waiting to be attacked into a bustling hub of adventurers. The people who had come had already started transforming the frozen ground around him too, without even the slightest prompt.

They had set up tents and makeshift structures across the cleared ground. The Daedalus Guild members, distinguishable by the guild logo on their armor, were huddled together as they discussed what Nick imagined would be formations and strategies for exploring. Meanwhile, other adventurers of every stripe tended to their gear, honing blades or poring over maps as their drones, magic eyes, and other assorted scouting tools went in and out of the base, bringing them information.

The sound of magical chanting, engines, and machines at work also drew Nick's attention to the walls that had already begun to spring up, surrounding half the base with the rest still under construction.

“Crap! I let Clarissa work on her own without supervision!” Spencer blurted out as soon as they saw the earth mages working on the other half of the walls. He spared Nick a moment to give him an apologetic glance before taking off in the direction of Clarissa, who was busy helping the people construct walls around the base.

“You know I’ve never seen dungeon-qualified construction teams work,” Seo-ah remarked as the group took in the site for a moment. It wasn’t like the mundane construction they had done on earth. Instead of giant mixers pouring concrete foundations with rebar reinforcements, waiting for them to dry, and then laying out the structure, they were using a lot of specialized magic and tools.

Teams of mages were laying out pre-packaged materials and plastic guide frames on the ground. One team member would then stab a long piece of rebar into the ground while another would use a spell like Jason's life magic to make trees grow up on either side of the rebar. The branches would then intertwine and expand, forming a watertight mold for the concrete.

Meanwhile, water mages were busy mixing streams of water with concrete. Their movements resembled a tai chi performance more than spell casting as they poured the slurry of liquid concrete poured into the wooden wall forms.

While the mages were working their magic, the general workers carried bundles of seven foot long , inch thick steel rods with the help of body-enhancing skills, handing the rods off to the crew that was setting them into the ground, before returning to the stack of rods to grab more. They moved in such an organized fashion that it reminded Nick of ants, carrying loads far larger than their bodies should have been able to as they moved in perfect unison.

As this was going on, defense engineers fortified the emerging ramparts with arcane symbols and traps that, while Nick recognized a few of them, he knew were trade secrets. Arcane traps were the lifeblood of the class and thus nearly impossible to actually learn if you weren’t apprenticing under one yourself.

Those greedy bastards should have shared what they knew before they died, Nick thought, cursing the fact that even in his last life he had never learned how to create arcane traps.

But, even with that sour thought in his mind, he was still incredibly happy with the progress they were making in such a short amount of time. He didn’t know if they’d be able to handle several adult vulpes or a large army yet, but he did know they could certainly handle a lot more than they had faced off against before.

“It’s really coming together,” he commented aloud as he and the others started to make his way through the encampment. He didn’t make it that far before he saw Kaylee nearby, organizing “pick-up groups” of adventurers and sorting them by ability. The pick-up groups were basically teams of people who didn’t know each other before they came into the dungeon. Despite how dangerous it could be to work with strangers and how tough it was for people to trust people they’d never met before in a battle, the alternative was far worse.

“Essence fragments are the priority, so no matter what you kill or what parts you want to keep, make sure you bring back those fragments,” Kaylee instructed them, her clear voice cutting through the chaos of sounds around them without an issue. “Those essences are going to be what keeps us alive. Got it?”

As they responded in the affirmative, she looked at her notebook and then began calling out directions: “Alright then. Squads one through six should be returning soon, and when they do, seven through twelve, you’ll be sent out to scout in that order. Until then, patrol the perimeter. We are not to allow a single monster to get through our defenses. If you see something coming that you can’t handle, send up a flare, okay? I don’t want a single death on our hands. That said, we’re stretched thin, so if you think you can dispose of the threat easily on your own, do so.”

As she spoke, the group of adventurers clad in varied gear, from leather cuirasses to plate armor, listened intently as if every word she spoke was gospel. Whatever fears Nick had about her being unable to adjust quickly enough to her role in the new realm were immediately squashed by her stellar performance.

The only odd thing though, in Nick’s mind at least, was that she wasn’t alone. Next to her was a tall, thin man: Malcolm. He was reading over some notes while Kaylee continued to talk to the motley dungeon divers.

“As for groups thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen . . . I know you want to be out there patrolling just as much as the rest of them, but fifteen, you’re still shy a tank, and thirteen and fourteen, we’ll rotate you in once seven through twelve return from their scouting venture,” Kaylee informed them. “Until then, help with the other groups and conserve your energy. Everyone got it?”

The groups all gave their agreement, and then Kaylee sent them off with a “Good, then get moving. Death waits for no man!”

“Nice job,” Nick said as he approached Kaylee after the groups broke up and departed.

“Thanks,” Kaylee said with an ear-to-ear smile, obviously in her element. “But oh, perfect timing!”

“What’s up?” Nick asked, looking over at the sheet she was giving him. It was a small topographical map of the area around them. It had several blue and red Xs marked across the map, each with a time marker underneath it as well as yellow lines that, with a single glance, Nick could tell were where the defensive walls had been built. “What is this? Did you put this together?”

“Oh, that’s Malcolm’s work,” Kaylee replied as Nick continued to study the map, trying to figure out why he’d had it thrust at him as if something urgent had just happened. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at at first, but the more he stared at the map, the more he began to realize what the significance was.

The majority of the red and blue X’s were all coming from the same direction: the south. Not only that, but they were increasing in frequency the farther away from the camp they got.

“These are enemy sightings, aren’t they?” Nick asked as he looked at the map. “The blue Xs and the red Xs must be where the scouts encountered trouble . . . are the red Xs deaths?” he asked, concerned that it might be the worst possible outcome.

“No, the red Xs are confirmed enemy kills,” Malcolm explained. “We had each group wear body cams and audio sensors. I have a few friends that are combing over the footage, and they put together this map such that the blue Xs are enemy sightings, the red Xs are where we were able to kill them, and the black Xs are where adventurers from our groups have died.”

“There are no black Xs, right?” Nick asked as he double-checked the map.

“We’ve been rather fortunate for now, but if you look at the pace that enemies are appearing right here,” Malcolm said, pointing to a particularly dense cluster of Xs at the bottom end of the map, “then you can tell that our luck is bound to run out soon. We need more reinforcements in this direction, and we need to be prepared for the fact that there might be an attack coming in at any minute from the southern flank.”

Nick, who was used to cooperating with Kaylee but still had no idea really who or how trustworthy this Malcolm character was, looked over to her for her opinion.

“If Malcolm says it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. It’s just that . . . there aren’t really any more groups to send. We have teams thirteen and fourteen, but the pick-up groups are much too weak to send that far away. I’m afraid if they venture out on their own, we’ll get those black Xs rather quickly,” Kaylee said.

“So these encounters have been the professional guild and mercenary groups then?” Nick asked, sighing as he looked at the map, unsure of how to handle the situation.

“Yup. We pulled back the weaker guilds too, so those are only A-rank groups and up pushing in that direction at the moment,” Kaylee informed him. “Which is why I wanted to bring it to your attention. My inclination was to pull all the guilds back from that region, to reorganize and create a single, larger group to push in, but Malcolm says we need to make progress exploring the new realm as fast as possible before the monsters can acclimate to the adventurers.”

“And what’s your expertise on the subject?” Seo-ah asked Malcolm rather pointedly. “I get you’re one of Kaylee’s friends, but why is she listening to you instead of her own gut feeling on the subject?”

“I don’t know if it’s much compared to a seasoned adventurer such as yourself, but I’m actually a professor in the subject, specifically in new dungeon exploration and monster management tactics. I teach over at UAT, the University of Adventurer Technology,” Malcolm answered. “My teaching assistants are the ones who helped put together the map you’re reading, and we’ve done this with other dungeons in the past during our cooperation with the DOA.”

“Oh . . .” Seo-ah went from incredibly aggressive to reserved as Malcolm laid out his credentials. Nick couldn’t blame her either. Everyone in his group seemed to immediately lower their gaze a little. They were, after all, a bunch of teacher’s pets who had met as finalists for a competition that placed the best of the best in each grade against each other.

Nick, however, had spent too many years in the apocalypse and not enough years as a teacher’s pet to care much about the man’s title. The academics, while sometimes effective, were often too confident in their theories without the practical experience to know where they might go wrong and could make mistakes that would get people killed.

“Let’s go with Kaylee’s idea,” Nick decided, trusting his own instincts and Kaylee’s administrative judgment.

“But . . . if we let the monsters build up, the propensity for them to form even larger monster waves is significant,” Malcolm argued, his left eye momentarily twitching as if he was mad only to recover his poker face instantly. “Are you sure that’s a risk you want to take?”

“I’m not taking a risk,” Nick said as he looked at the map. “I’m going to take my own team and push forward while we recall the others. Let’s pair off the mercs and assign them as support for the actual guilds, and once they’re reinforced enough that I don’t have to worry about someone dying, we can send them back out in better, larger, more organized groups to clear monster waves. I think safe rather than sorry is the way to go for everyone else.”

“That . . . That can’t be a good idea. What if you get hurt, or something bad happens? Too many people depend on you for you to take a group out like that on your own,” Malcolm countered like he was upset about Nick’s plan. However, despite his words, the man, for some reason, looked like he was happy with it.

“It’s what’s going to happen,” Nick stated, putting his foot down. Seo-ah and the others didn’t meet his eyes as he looked for back up. Come on, a PhD isn’t that important, is it? he thought as he counted off the deferring traitors. “Kaylee, send out the orders. Reinforce the groups, and wish me luck.”

“Are you really going to venture off into the unknown when you’re the key figure holding this entire expedition together? From what I understand, you’re not even a combat class. You’re a trainer, someone who specializes in building others up to go out instead of you,” Malcolm pressed, his eyebrow raised as he looked at Nick quizzically. “It makes no sense that you would be the one to brave the wild when you could be helping others prepare for it instead.”

Nick had to admit the man had a point, but he also felt uncomfortable even considering it.

“Many wars have been lost by foolish kings who charged in with the front lines,” Malcolm remarked.

“Alexander the Great would have just been Alexander the Average if he hadn’t rode out first,” Nick quipped, trying to foil the man with his own counterpoint, but then he shook his head. That wasn’t the real reason. “I just can’t ask someone else to take a risk I’m not willing to take myself. Tomorrow, I may be cursed as an idiot, a fool, but I’m going to go with the people I trust, and I’m going to see what’s happening myself before I send someone else to die in my place.”

“Charisma blooms in the hearts of the bold and dies in the coward’s embrace. If you wish to wield it like a weapon, you must hold Chance like a lover and take her at every opportunity,” said the familiar voice of the Black Witch in his mind, affirming his choice. He took one last look at the map, silently assuring himself of his decision as he prepared to venture out into the unknown and find out where these monsters were coming from.