Knives & Levels - Chapter 68

Harry's group was a small squad of eight—the father, the son, and some other strangers who banded together in fear of New Nashville and did their damnedest to stay far away from the city. Colt sat on the boulder remains of a monster next to Harry, while their group listened from above. But as Harry recounted his story, Colt got a sense of what life was like outside of the confines of the city he’d first been introduced to.

The truth was that, whether Denny liked it or not, Nashville was a big place. For a group of only two thousand or so, Denny didn’t yet have the influence to dominate the rest of the city.

Small little groups like Harry’s were scattered about—forming a loose network of survivors, spreading tips to one another, occasionally joining and making bigger groups, making sure to give the hostile New Nashville a wide berth. There were bandits and renegades, too, the further one got from Nashville.

Once you got over a certain size and caught the eyes of Denny and his men, the trouble started. They began to send ‘envoys’ which were just groups of soldiers intent on forcing you to either bend the knee and join the rest of the city. If you pushed back, they would give you the ultimatum of leaving Nashville for good or ‘facing the consequences.’

To Denny, it didn’t matter if your group was peaceful or bandits. He wanted to crush both.

“We’ve seen too many new friends die,” Harry wiped at his eyes, “The damn monsters killing us are bad enough. Dungeons leaking them, too, is frightening—but now we have people killing people. I don’t know what is worse. It’s all just one big nightmare.”

It hurt to hear that. Colt pictured it was something like that outside of the walls—but the confirmation, the pain on Harry’s face… He pushed ahead, tucking away the feeling. Not dismissing it. But storing it as fuel for later.

“It can end. Imagine a city in the middle of Nashville that simply keeps the peace in the region and allows people to live how they want—as long as they aren’t harming one another. It isn’t so far-fetched a dream,” Colt said, and as he spoke to Harry, he got a better grasp of what he wanted.

See, defeating Denny wasn’t enough. Once Denny was gone, New Nashville would be off-kilter, and its direction needed to be corrected, or someone as bad or worse could take control.

He wasn’t about to try to hop in and govern the city himself. But he could lead an election—they could find the type of person to take charge of the city with the promise of helping the region. A place of true freedom that offered care and benefits for the people who wanted to hide in its walls. From there… He didn’t know. Democracy wasn’t free, and always had a cost.

Still the idea of leaving those poor people in the city with Denny sat wrong. Even if he freed Jimmy, then it was like Nick said: who was coming for them, to free them?

“We can turn it into a safe refugee—this whole city, that is Nashville. Not a stadium. And if we work for it, we can make the whole city safe again for the survivors within it.” Colt said.

Harry hung his head, “Pa isn’t going to go along easy with that. You heard him. I’d love to help, but the rest of our group… They go with what he says.”

“He’s right that I’m being an idealist. I’m sure things won’t shake out the exact way I envision. But I think, with the power we have, it's better to take a step in the direction things should be and fix the things that go sideways instead of wandering off and letting people suffer whom we can help.” Colt stood up, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder.

He looked off at Julia, who was kicking a rock not too far away. She’d gotten bored with the conversation about five minutes ago and was waiting to move on at his command.

Harry tapped his hand against his knee, his eyes shifting back to the building.

“I’ll help. But we aren’t enough alone. I can give you others—groups like us, some bigger groups. We’ve formed something like a loose support network. Like-minded folk who want to live their lives without an overgrown government breathing down their necks and trying to force them into the city or out of their homes.” He got up—put a finger, and then said, “Wait here.”

Colt sighed in relief as Harry ran off to the apartment, looking at Julia with a raised eyebrow.

“Quest complete?”

“Almost. More like our quest has evolved and grown into more, but this information is useful. We just need to convince enough people to help us take down Denny.” Colt crossed his arms; he felt a lot lighter now. Full of hope. Yes, that Minotaur was strong. Yes, Denny was strong, too—he was the only ‘Epic’ class he’d run across. How that translated to skills and danger, he was getting a sense of.

But one sole figure abusing his authority could only stand so far up when against a horde of people tearing him and his corruption down.

Harry ran back out. With a marker and a piece of paper, he went straight to the boulder and got to work, sketching out a rough area of the surroundings. The map was little more than loose directions and points of interest that were landmarks.

Then, next to those landmarks, he began to write down ‘groups’ they knew of that called those places home.

At the end of twenty minutes, Colt had one of the first maps of this new Nashville. It’d been shuffled around and merged with a forest, but it was his old city.

“Find them. Talk to them. I’ll see if I can’t work pops over and get him to change his mind, but I think some of these—actually these guys in particular—“ Harry pointed to a group on the map near a Waffle House from the old days. “They actually live in that place but operate outside of it mostly. Cops and some civilians haven’t had much of an agreement with New Nashville. They’re a bigger group. I think they might hear you out the most… They’ve lost some people to New Nashville.”

“Thank you for all of this,” Colt said.

Harry looked at him and shook his head, “I know trusting this is a long shot. You don’t have all the answers. But this is the first bit of control I’ve felt like I’ve had since the world ended. If we can make this city better for everyone, I’m willing to put my neck out… Besides, you’re one of the strongest guys I’ve seen. I can feel those Edicts rolling off you, too. Nothing like the ones our group has.”

“We’ll stop by later to see your decision and figure out where we can from there. I have one last question: Are there any more of those stone monsters around here?” 

“Yeah, let me just add it to the map…” The man marked another couple of spots nearby with the black marker and handed the map off.

Any extra experience and skills is just another edge against when we have to fight Denny.

Colt gave him one more pat on the shoulder with a quick, “Thanks,” collected Julia, and left the group to their own devices.

As he walked away from the apartment building, he received a notification.

———

Olympic Physique (Basic) has gained a level!

———

Well, it appeared that the system classified this as a victory, so with warmth in his gut from external validation, he pressed ahead, more confident than before in their course of action.

Nothing was perfect. But this was a light at the end of the tunnel; it felt right.

The two of them slipped back into the depths of Nashville again, weaving through the misty streets filled with trees. A forest and city merged together and became one. Even if someone could sort out making cars work again, this would be their biggest challenge in navigating the city. Colt wondered what it was like in other places in America—Denny had mentioned the troubles in some of the others…

But were they forests, too? Deserts? What else?

He and Julia stalked outward, moving deliberately; the girl was humming pleasantly, “That went well, good job,” she said as she ducked under a tree branch.

“We got information and a better starting point. Hopefully, Nate and Sarah have gotten somewhere, too. I think we’ll have time to check out the group Harry said would be the most agreeable—after we kill these monsters,” Colt said.

“Can you just… Finish them quick? It was hell training on them last time. We don’t have the time, right?” Julia asked.

He didn’t say anything. And when she looked at him and pouted, he didn’t say anything either. If it took her twenty minutes to finish off one of the monsters, then so be it. He let her complain about it wasting time, which it wasn’t. It was grinding skills and experience.

They encountered their first batch of monsters, just like Harry promised. And Colt got to work with abandon, instructing Julia to sit off to the side and not get involved. While he knew these creatures, he feared she might get overrun or otherwise force him to dispatch them faster than he intended.

He wanted a nice, precise fight. Colt was careful not to weave his Edict too thick around his knife, aware that with such a weak object, using it to channel powerful fundamental forces was more than it would be capable of holding up to. The restraint with his Edict was like tying an arm behind his back while fighting.

Colt practiced the art of doing more with less. Calculating and using just enough force with Cut and Movement to slice off rock limbs.

Some of his Cuts were too weak—not going all the way through. Others too strong, sliding far too fast through the rock. The goal was precision for the sake of taming his Edicts and their powers a bit more.

At the same time, he dodged the monster’s attacks—boulders flew at him, stony limbs tried to hit… But another critical weakness that made these creatures superb training partners, was their sheer slowness. They moved faster than a regular human. But in a world like this, where inflated stats and skills came into play, they were like a heavy brawler.

Each action had a hell of a lot of power behind it, and if it hit, Colt would’ve been screwed.

Beads of sweat rolled off his brow as he worked, wrestling not only with the enemies in front of him but the Edicts he spilled out.

When one of those powerful blows came at him he simply either stepped aside from the boulders, phased through them, or otherwise avoided the brunt of whatever damage they were capable of.

Seven minutes, while practicing restraint and testing his own limits and capabilities by making himself do just enough damage to wound them, he saw the group of six monsters limbless and sitting ducks for his Water Mage to blast into oblivion.

And he’d been greeted by a small bounty of notifications for the effort.

———

Knives/Daggers Proficiency (Intermediate) has gained a level!

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

Thread Weaver (Basic) has gained a level!

———

He drank a bottle of water as he sat nearby, letting Julia sit there and blast the monster with her jets of water. Each blast downward carried more force than the one before, and the results were her weaving her Edict more thickly into the attack and her own skill level-ups.

It was only a matter of time before he saw the rest of the notifications.

———

You have defeated One-Eyed Lesser Earth Elemental - Level 48

You have defeated One-Eyed Lesser Earth Elemental - Level 42

You have defeated One-Eyed Lesser Earth Elemental - Level 47

…

———

There was no level through the first set of these monsters, but they had a couple of more groups to work through, and he was feeling the distance to the next level get closer and closer. Slowly filling the lake until he reached level 53. Then, after that, they would be headed straight to this new group, and see just how much they might be willing to help. 

Colt cracked his knuckles and wiped the sweat off his brow. One more group of monsters, then they'd meet these potential allies. Each step brought them closer to taking Denny down