Knives & Levels - Chapter 71

The next couple of days fell into a steady rhythm. The morning would start with Colt and the rest sharing a breakfast—which typically was eaten only in the evening—from the food scavenged from nearby buildings. Even with the large percentage of people simply missing, there was less now than before. Things were getting worse. One could only eat canned meat so many times before going crazy—hunting animals was possible, and one morning, Nate came in with a couple of rabbits he’d caught.

Tracking and hunting down animals was a lot easier now than it had been before, even for someone without as many dexterity points as Colt.

Colt had relished that morning the taste of rabbit not too far from chicken—though a tad earthier than he’d have thought. He hadn’t grown up hunting, so watching Nate skin and prepare the animal was just as interesting now as in the Jungle.

He even joined the soldier in learning the intricacies of butchery, which, given all their kitchen work, wasn’t too far from an extension of what he already knew.

After the mornings came the training, hunting, coordinating with groups, and putting together a network of alliances, going back and working on the people who seemed agreeable to their plan.

The main key, Colt found, was to build trust. Show up. Offer to help—show yourself as a strong and capable ally, and they were more willing to buy into your plan. It made sense when he went through the motions; they didn’t have months to develop these relationships, but they did have levels and strength that few people in this city had yet.

So, mostly, he killed as many monsters as he could run across between the diplomatic missions—a terror of the city as he went on a flat-out assault with the hell-bent aim of gathering levels and clearing as many issues as possible. For this, he didn’t bring anyone else, choosing to do his hunting alone, like back in the alleys. Wanting to sharpen his blade and hone his skills as much as he could in preparation for their plan and his upcoming confrontation with Denny.

Killing monsters came with predictable benefits. Namely, those benefits were in the form of levels and skills.

———

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have 6 Stat points to spend. You have gained 2 points of Dexterity and 2 points of Soul.

Thread Weaver (Basic) has gained a level!

Olympic Physique (Basic) has gained a level!

Olympic Physique (Basic) has gained a level!

Phantom’s Gambit (Intermediate) has gained a level!

———

All the stat points gained in the middle of the training went straight to Soul since Colt had gradually come to the understanding that it was likely the best stat for him. He also wanted it to surpass 200 as soon as possible. 

Slowly yet surely, their loose knit of potential alliances was starting to tighten. Harry pulled through with his father, committing to help should they find the Bull. The cops came around, dedicating themselves and seven other men and women to help with their plan after long discussions. A couple of other groups had members swinging their way, still on the fence about helping but near desire to.

All that was left was the execution, which was the biggest issue.

Every night, Colt roamed outside of New Nashville, as close as he dared, his eyes scanning for a Minotaur let loose—it had to be at night, he thought, given that the other citizens were allowed outward in the middle of the day, though soldiers accompanied them.

Aside from Dungeon Divers, few in the city had a reason to be out in the middle of the night. The more he and Nate discussed it, the more the rules and structures of New Nashville seemed to be structured around keeping people within at that time.

It made sense. It could be more dangerous in the dark. Colt saw a few more monsters roaming then, though given he was scouting for a particular beast, he was keeping himself under wraps in the dark, making sure not to slay anything too much. At least it came back to Nashville that piles of dead monsters were being found outward. A couple of people from their new allies began to join in, too—roaming the night and seeing if they couldn’t spot the bull. But it was a dangerous task, so he kept it mostly to himself and his group members.

To end his evenings, Colt would find a vantage point to spy on New Nashville. His eyes always landed on the magnificent city, the stadium, and the lights, a beacon of safety.

It had made a promise to the people within it, vowing to them that they would be safe and free from the dangers of this new world within.

Yet the monster inside would have free reign over them.

The nights passed, and again and again, he didn’t find what he was looking for—the irritation and worry he’d been wrong was growing like a gnawing darkness inside. All of the plans hinged on getting the leverage to get Denny out of his safe house.

He began thinking of any other way to obtain a suitable tool. But nothing felt right.

Denny wasn’t the type to care about much but his own power. He didn’t know what bond the man shared with the minotaur, but he felt the connection between them, like an Edict.

After days of building alliances and hunting, one morning, Nate woke Colt up earlier than usual.

Colt rubbed at his eyes, having pulled a late night before, trying to find the key to their plan and once again having no success.

Nate sat near the end of his bed, a rather bemused expression on his face as he watched Colt pull himself together in the morning like an angry animal. Colt tried to tell him to go away and come back in an hour, but the soldier refused.

“Let’s take a walk. I’ve got coffee already ready for you.”

With the promise of a warm and toasty almond-flavored coffee—a recent scavenge from a nearby building that Colt was thankful to god for.

That was enough to get Colt out of bed—he groaned, he complained, and his muscles were even more achy as he gave in to the temptation of caffeine and sweet, warm bean juice. Still, Colt pushed through anyway, got out of bed, threw on a stolen hoodie, and eventually followed Nate out of the house they were staying and into the streets.

The mist was back this morning with a vengeance… In fact, it was one of the denser days to it.

Colt sensed an odd weight to it, like it was laden with Edicts. An overall presence came with a mist this thick that he hadn’t quite felt before. The Edict there was loose, too, lavish in its love of the mist, but what it was he couldn’t determine.

Nonetheless, he followed after Nate, trying to ignore the passing concern about the odd mist.

“I got some information yesterday,” Nate said as they moved, head down as ever, weaving through the forests and buildings of Nashville. They were headed further west than Colt was used to going—ranging into a place where the density of the buildings began to fall apart, slipping into more of a forest than a broken southern city.

“And? That’s where we’re headed?”

“No. I already confirmed the info I got. I don’t think seeing that sight is good for the soul, much less for the morning. A group of bandits our allies had been tracking vanished. I checked their last known camp and found them all. Slaughtered. In a way, that was far less human than you would imagine. You might think ‘monster,’ and maybe you are right too, but I have a theory.”

Colt lifted his knees carefully as he forded across a particularly thick bush. His ears keen, he grunted an acknowledgment of what Nate was saying and left room for the man to finish as they forded through the forest. It smelled of mildew this early in the morning.

“What if he’s using the minotaur to do some dirty work? Hardly think that most people would be up for butchering folks who refuse to leave. I have the location of where they were staying—he might be restricting its activity to wait us out. The way it looked, it appeared a big monster did all the damage on its own. It didn’t eat them. It just killed them. If I were a betting man, I’d say that it was at the hands of the Minotaur.” Nate said.

Colt thought it over; from the rumors and information he'd heard, monsters didn’t necessarily eat humans all the time. The kobolds in their first dungeon would have, but generally, they just had a general disdain for humanity, a desire to finish them and end them if at all possible.

Food wasn’t always part of the equation.

“If it is, then there has to be a way it’s getting out of the city.” Colt had been keeping an eye out for that in particular, checking the streets.

“Basements connected to buildings,” Nate shrugged.

It was… Probably the case. But if he were to spend all day cracking open buildings and checking the basements only to get nowhere would only serve to let Denny garner more strength and solidify his power.

His mind churned.

“We need to set him up.”

Colt said as he arrived at the answer; of course, it was that simple. They needed to bait a trap that would force Denny to use the Minotaur to do his dirty work…

It couldn’t be them. If they were the bait, they’d be way too much, Denny would approach himself with all that he could muster, hell-bent on destroying them and enacting an execution. One of their allies… One who was strong enough to make Denny hesitant to send his guards but rather sent the Bull to take care of them.

“Shit. Who’s going to accept being bait?” Colt rubbed his brows as they kept on forging through the mist. Nate didn’t answer that, only shaking his head as he had the same problem.

All of their alliances were taking shape, but asking someone to put themselves out like that as part of the plan was different from simply finding the bull and pulling an ambush. Even that was going to be a test to see which of the groups were willing to follow through with it. Willingly singing themselves up for an operation in which the risks could very well end in their death or something going horribly wrong? That was another thing entirely.

Eventually, they reached a street in the forest—the first piece of human-made land in the last five minutes, as this part of Nashville grew more dense with vegetation.

A familiar street.

Colt’s heart stopped in his chest for a second, and his limbs went weak for a second as he felt an unreal sensation. Carefully, he followed Nate still. The man’s back was stiff as they went, and eventually, they stood in front of it.

Their restaurant. Their shitty little Italian-American fusion joint, where he’d spent half a year toiling away under Donny. Where he’d met Donny, where he’d met Sarah—Jimmy, who was now trapped under a dictator’s thumb.

His heart sped up as he saw it, a surreal sensation of unrest.

Nate pulled out a wrapped piece of cloth tucked away in his waistband and coughed. “I checked. It’s like we left it in the dungeon—the kitchen is a mess. The front of the house is untouched and empty. Other than that, it’s like how we left it. We’ve come full circle, it seems. Whatever implications that has for dungeons, I don’t know. Where the rest of our coworkers went—I don’t know either. But I figured we had a new life now. No matter what is happening with Nashville. So…”

He’s right. It’s odd it’s still the same as it was. Colt dismissed the thought though as Nate pressed the wrapped piece of cloth into his hands.

Colt opened the piece of cloth. Within it was a dagger—smooth and forged of dark metal. As Colt held it in his hand… The metal reacted like a living thing, and the handle was wrapped with a slick black leather from a monster. It felt heavy in his hand—both its weight and the way the universe seemed to react.

He inspected it.

———

Name: Skyheart Steel Dagger [Rare]

Description: Forged from the heart of a once great and dreaded prince, this sky-steel dagger has the ability to enhance and channel Edicts through it. Some say, in the dead of night, that this metal still beats to the rhythm of the dead prince.

———

Colt’s jaw dropped. This was the heart. Nate should have used this to advance his Edict—not—whoa, that property, ‘enhance and channel Edict through it…’

It was powerful for him. With the way Cut worked—with the way that his Movement worked—his eyes shot to Nate, who was staring at the old restaurant, not meeting his expression.

“Nate—“

“You can’t say to take it back. There’s no changing it back to the heart. I’ve Forged it. A weapon fit for our group’s ‘rogue’ as Julia likes to say. Since you were missing a dagger, you needed a weapon. I just have one request.” Nate pointed the finger at the restaurant in front of them, a sad smile on his face, “I want your first use of it to destroy this building.”

Colt stopped, the emotion overwhelming. The sheer sacrifice—Nate had given up this artifact for him because he wanted to make a weapon for him.

With eyes still on Nate, he raised the dagger; the way the early morning light reflected off the dark steel was a thing of beauty. He could’ve sworn he saw a sky full of stars in that metal as he looked at it. His attention turned to the restaurant. A thanks wouldn’t do this gesture justice. No, if Nate wanted the restaurant they used to work wrecked—then he would do so without question.

He layered Cut thick on the blade, feeling it converge, and then, the blade gave a beat in his hand, infusing his Edict with an extra little kick, swelling it and contributing to its power. With a slash—Colt sends an invisible blade of death the size of a car at the building. But he wasn’t done.

Colt pulled on Movement—the world was crawling. He felt his Cut slowly moving forward and lashed his sword out thrice more—each one wrapped thick with an Edict of destruction, each one layered and glowing with the power invoked by both the universe and the blade. The entire time, he had eyes on the restaurant, flinging out its destruction in a split second.

Yet to Colt, it felt like an eternity.

This place had been a jail for him for so long. A dead-end job in which he’d felt trapped, forced to stay and without options, taunted and tortured by an immature man-child. And now, as he sent slice after slice into the air, halting the invisible blade’s momentum, he would see it finished.

With seven slices paused in the air, he gave one last look at the restaurant.

And wished it well in hell.

Colt let Movement fade, and the invisible lines crashed into the restaurant all at once, shredding through the brick exterior and turning the inside to a pulp. Seven different angles tore the thing to shreds, evaporating the world that was before once and for all. As he and Nate gazed at the wreckage, a light feeling rose from Colt’s chest, and he understood just why Nate had wanted the place gone.