Kaia the Argent Wing

The workshop classes were down in the bottom floor of the new building, but out the back overlooking the fields. As Finn led me through the high school, we chatted and I kept a lookout. He stopped explaining what everything was when I mentioned I just graduated from here and instead began to tell me what everything was being used for now.

The gym hall, which lay in the bottom two floors of the L building, was where the young ones and non-critical personnel were being housed. Thankfully the school had dividers and such so people had some privacy, but it was pretty important to keep everyone in one place right now.

Most of the classrooms were locked up tight, except for the one nearest the sick bay, which was now overflow for that. Thankfully, an ambulance had been in the neighbourhood when everything went down. The EMTs got some special combat healer classes and were now treating wounded as fast as their mana could recover. One of the school nurses was also here, and she'd gotten a healing class that might end up being very powerful too.

We were almost to the outdoor entry into the workshops when a group guarding the back entrance into the school spotted us.

"Kai!" A voice squealed, and five foot six inches of softball regional champion came in towards me at extreme speeds.

I caught Ollie and braced myself before we could wipe out on the concrete, then hugged her back.

"We thought you were dead for sure!" She wailed, clutching my shirt.

The rest of my friends stowed their makeshift weapons and ambled over at a more leisurely pace, although the relief was very clear on all of their expressions. Mine… wasn't so happy. There were faces missing.

"Where's George and Estelle?" I asked softly.

Ollie's embrace became wooden. "Gone."

"Fuck." My heart began to ache. So we were down to Ollie, Immie, Scott, Alec, Camilo, and me. Six out of eight. Fuck, two of us were gone and we were by far the lucky ones. Three quarters of the neighbourhood were missing.

The others joined the embrace, forming a group hug with me at the centre, and I felt tears of relief, grief, and fear all bubble up in my eyes. So many emotions, and way too much shit to process, but… these five people were here.

"How did you get here?" Alec asked, which reminded me that his arm was around my shoulders. His strong, gentle arm… oh goodness.

"Yeah," Immie said, becoming the first to step out of the hug. "Fewer and fewer people have been turning up as the day goes on. Only reason we had any hope with you was the lack of body, the dead squirrels outside your house, and the family that saw that Silver chick around there."

"I was out on a walk talking to my brother on the phone when it happened," I shrugged, hating the fact I had to lie to these people too. I just… the thought of telling them about all the crazy shit going on in my body and mind was just… way too scary. "That Silver girl actually found me later though. I'm about to go make you some better weapons. Ones that actually kill monsters."

"Legit?" Ollie asked, a big grin splitting her freckled face. "Oh, you totally got some weird-ass crafting class."

"Yup!" I said. "Tinker! At least, that's what I'm calling it. The weird system-thought-vibes weren't terribly specific."

“Just call it the system or the UI or whatever,” Alec laughed. “It’s not like we haven’t dealt with terrible game UI before after all those early access survival games that Immie dragged us into.”

“Hey!” I protested, jumping to her defence, “Some of those games were pretty fun.”

“I hate to interrupt the reunion, but those weapons could be pretty urgent,” Finn said apologetically.

"Ah, he's right," I grimaced. "Where are you guys going to be once I'm done tonight?"

"In one of the phys-ed classrooms." Alec said. "All the fighters are in the classrooms near the gym."

"Sweet, okay, see you soon!" I said, and moved off towards the workshops with Finn in tow.

When we got there, my guide called through the open door, "Hey, Charles! I got someone here for you!"

There was a crash from inside the dimly lit workshop, and out came a man with a perfectly trimmed white beard and a hairdo of wispy white hair that wasn't. His wiry old limbs moved with the sort of purpose that spoke of a life lived around dangerous machines.

"Who is it, then?" He said curtly, although not without malice. "I'm busy riggin' up lanterns and such for the folks in the gym."

"Hi!" I said, stepping forward to offer my hand. "Charles, is it? I'm Kai. I got the choice of Alchemist, Bard, and Tinkerer. I chose the latter."

He took my hand and while keeping a straight face, attempted to crush it. When it flexed but didn't give in to the test, he grunted in approval. "Aye, my name's Charles. When that mysterious then telepathic whatsit came, I picked what I always have—Handyman. Are you here to help in the workshop?"

"Yeah, and I have some info from someone who's been testing how to kill monsters," I nodded, eager to get started. I loved making things, and it was especially exciting when those things actually got used.

Finn, chuckling from behind me, murmured his goodbyes and turned to leave. Something in his parting look caught my attention, though. There was a brief moment of… something, then we disappeared into the dusk. Huh.

Over the next ten minutes, I explained to Charles how the monster parts could be used to make effective weapons. When I showed him my haul of teeth and plates, he gave them a considering once over.

"Those teeth are too curved to be safe as axe heads without a bit of work. Darn, but now I wish my power tools would work. A couple minutes with an angle grinder and we'd have more than serviceable heads."

"Yeah, it's a… bummer…" I replied, each syllable slowing while more and more of my processing power was diverted to a forming idea. "Charles, these are just iron, right? I'm not crazy for thinking that?"

"Aye, it's pretty clear in the colour of the rust, why?"

"We could forge them flat," I explained. "There's an old steam engine some kid built and left here in storage. It's been sitting there collecting dust the whole time I was at this school. It's pretty rickety and might break on us, but what's the bet we can rig it to the power hammer?"

I could see the beginnings of a denial on his withered old lips, but then he stopped and grunted. Then he grunted again and turned towards the storage room door. "Steam powered… kiddo, you might be on to something! Hell, since this whole end of the world business looks set to stick around, I reckon we could make a better engine in a week or two."

"That sounds like so much fun," I grinned. "I bet you we can use the crazy magic stuff to augment whatever we build too. What's the chance that the magic mutated wood on some of the animals burns super hot?"

"I'm not sure about any magic, but we can give it a go," he shrugged, sharing my enthusiastic grin. I liked this old man already.

"I'll go get the dolly and wheel the engine out into the shop," I said.

"Good plan, I'll go look into breaking down the hammer," he agreed, and we went to do our tasks while the few other crafters in the workshop looked on with interest.

Inside the store room was dark. It was lit by only a single candle, but my eyes had been adjusting to the dark since the sun began to fall.

I found the steam engine behind a stack of timber and carefully moved everything out of the way. The engine had obviously started life as several other things before they were hacked apart and welded together. The welds did not look professional, that was for certain. Whatever it used to power was long gone, leaving nothing but a drive shaft with an old bicycle gear on the end. The associated bike chain was sitting dusty and rusted on top of the main drum of the engine.

Getting it out of the storage room was a nightmare, but eventually it was free, and I returned to see Charles and several other people busy disassembling the power hammer.

"Ah, Kai! You found it!" Charles exclaimed. "Good lad, let’s see if we can get her hooked up. Any ideas for fuel? I doubt we have any coal laying around."

I shrugged. "Anything that burns? This is all new to me."

"It'll have to do," the old man grunted. "Ah, bike chain! Looks completely fucked, though. See if you can grease it a bit while I cut away some of this housing to make way for it."

I hopped to do as I was told, hoping there was a can of WD40 around to ease the job. I did not want to resort to less… elegant solutions. Thankfully, the workshop had a whole cupboard of cans. Perfect.

When I was done with the chain, I got back to find the engine already lit with timber scraps. There were three other crafters helping, two guys and a girl, and between the five of us we got the chain hooked up to both machines. A sixth member of our crew, another girl, rushed out of the room to get some water from the swimming pool that sat underneath the gym. It was honestly only there so the school could say it had one. The dark, cramped quarters in that room made it less than ideal for actual use.

Once we were sure everything was ready and the boiler was spinning the drive shaft as fast as it could go, we put a block of wood on the anvil and engaged the hammer. Smack. The wood was crushed and compressed into itself and we all cheered.

“Nice job on the steam engine idea!” the girl who’d fetched the water said, clapping me on the back. She was about my height and carried her blonde hair in a tight bun that was wisping at the edges. “My name’s April, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I laughed. “I’m Kai. I think I’m honestly just glad we won’t have to go all the way back to the medieval era.”

“Same,” she said, shaking her head in dazed awe. “I can’t believe it was only this morning that I was scrolling tik tok on my phone and getting ready for work…”

She slowed to a stop, and I laughed out loud. I knew an idea forming when I saw one.

“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, and held out her hands. They were calloused and criss crossed with burn scars. “Gas welders! I’m a welder by trade and now I’ve got the metalworker class. Gas welders don’t need electricity, the only thing they really need is acetylene. Oh my god, I could make some badass steam engines!”

Without another word she turned and raced to Charles. Before she could speak, he pointed at me and said, “Get working on those axe handles, I’ll set up the forge.”

Ah, right! Time to use that timber in storage. This was all honestly really exciting! We had a welder who could do gas welding in our crew? So cool! Gas welding was fucking hard.