Chương 46: 45-The Other Side of the Curtain

"That's it, sweetheart, you are doing just fine," Maggie said through clenched teeth as the crying teenager tightened the tourniquet, stopping the wounded soldier from bleeding to death. God, it hurt. She could not give up, though; these two girls depended on her. She had found them ten minutes ago; they were crouching behind a car, paralyzed with fear. The older one told a tale of horror, weeping nonstop. Her father had been devoured by some beast at their home, and her mother had tried to rescue him and died too.

She had escaped and found the other girl five minutes later, hidden inside a car. She was no more than eight years old and had not yet uttered a single word. Maggie found them clutching each other, gazing into the distance. Maggie could easily recognize the telltale signs of shellshock. She had been a combat medic for five years and had seen very ugly stuff. Nothing as ugly as this morning, though, when their gear started exploding. At first, she thought they had stepped on a mine.

Her squad was moving into position, and suddenly she was on the ground, surrounded by their corpses. She tried to contact command through her magical talisman. The bloody talisman had hummed for an instant, and then it exploded, taking off her left arm. She managed to put on a flimsy tourniquet, stalling blood loss, but she knew she was done for, unless she found help. She shambled through the mud, trying to reach their positions, until she could walk no more. She settled on the ground.

She was not going to make it. She decided to remove the tourniquet and seek a quick death. Then she heard the older girl's cries. Semper Fidelis. She stood up and went to them. She could not die. Not yet. Not until these two were safe. One step. Then another. Another. She knew that if she stopped walking, the two girls would stop moving too. As long as she walked, they kept breathing. She lost sense of time. She could not even feel pain. Only the dreadful walk. One step. Another. Another.

Then she heard the elder girl cry. She had not even asked for her name. They had been found, and not by monsters. Five people dressed in strange robes were hugging the girls. She recognized them as Zealots. They belonged to the Answer.

"Shh, everything will be alright," said one of them, a woman in her forties, as she caressed the younger girl's hair.

"You are safe now. Mary Beth has wanted you to live." Maggie finally sat down. She did not have to walk anymore. Color finally rushed back into her vision. She could feel her legs again. She saw the five zealots take the girls away. The elder one protested.

"That soldier helped us; you can't just leave her there."

"Of course we can't, sweetie," the woman said, smiling at the girl.

"She has a System. She must be punished for it." The Zealot did not even look at Maggie as she pointed at her with her finger, creating a blast of fire aimed at her. Pain came back, too, at the end. The last of the refugees went through the magical gate. With a sigh, Dignity finally relaxed and let the gate close. The thirty-foot rift made a sound that seemed like a scream when it disappeared, as if reality were protesting at being abused so much. It had been a tough night, but her people had made it possible.

The first hours had been the worst, as dungeonspawn emerged from the newly created dungeon in search of prey. Most of her army had been dispersed over the zone, looking for stragglers. There were numerous combats as the Circlers and freshly minted spawn met in the streets. They had saved more than seven hundred people. At noon, the dungeonspawn set their sights on the huge concentration of essence in the middle of town: the main body of refugees, entering the gate into Belona.

Alarel had recalled the troops and organized them in defensive rings around the gate. The attacks were incessant, but disorganized, not an army but waves of Essentials from different dungeons. They were not a match for an organized force like hers, but God, there were so many. They could have lost because of attrition. Her people were there, giving their all, and she was reduced to using her powerful Omega stats to keep a magical gate open. She was fiercely proud of them.

Amazons, Citizens, and Avatars fought together like brothers in squads carefully chosen to harmonize the unique abilities of each of their members. She saw Eleon and Pob fighting together against a particularly powerful wave of invaders, the former changing shape so fast that it was hard to keep track of them. Pob provided incredible twists of luck and powerful magical effects that leveled the battleground.

Both the Beli players and the Imperials present would remember their example later and perhaps tell tales about it when they were back home. As the sun set, things began to change. The waves became less frequent and more powerful—there were fewer dungeons around, but many had gained ranks. Then, allies started coming. At first, Dignity thought they were ex-Fed, changing sides and trying to lend a hand.

They were not in uniform, even though they tended to follow a similar aesthetic, with cloaks, masks, and gaudy colors. They were very effective small-formation fighters, using phenomenal training and gadgets that somehow worked—that ruled out the possibility that they were Feds. Dignity suddenly realized that they were probably Essentials, from Billy's new dungeons. One of them approached her briefly, a beautiful and fit young smiling woman with her body literally covered in strange guns.

Dignity felt a pang of pain as she reminded her of Stompy and her knives. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

"Hi, I am Calamity Jane," she announced.

"Night has been a blast so far. The Hall has already upgraded three times! Three times in a night! And there are lots of other Halls all over the city, eating Essence as fast as they can." Her enthusiasm was contagious.

"We will have all this wrapped in a couple of hours. I just came to tell you that Lawman, Lady Fart, and Itchy Groin are doing well and will return to the camp as soon as the Essence levels stabilize. They could have used that weird telepathy you all use, but they did not want to make you lose focus in the midst of a magical working—they told me to wait until you had closed the gate to give you this message." For the first time in a long time, Dignity smiled. Lady Fart? Itchy Groin? Oh, God, this was a goldmine.

She was going to squeeze it to the last bit. Alice hugged the other girl tightly, "It's okay, we are safe, you can talk now." The girl kept silent, staring at the floor.

"Is it okay if I call you Anne? She is my best friend at school—I have to call you something." For an instant, Melissa wondered if the eight-year-old would ever talk again. The image of that incredibly long tongue wrapping around her mother's waist as she tried to run away from the monster that had already claimed their father would never leave her memory. What horrors could Anne have witnessed? And then, Maggie.

She had kept Anne close to her chest so that she could not see what they did to the only friend who had helped them. These strange people, with their archaic clothes and hats, somewhat reminiscent of the Amish, had then gathered all the survivors in Milwaukee's largest church. There were hundreds of people here, most of them very young. The systemless, she thought, they only want the systemless. Now and then, adults would appear, offering comfort and asking if they needed anything.

Melissa knew a good fraction of adults had refused to be activated. It was a dwindling faction, but still existing. One of the adults, a man in his sixties in priestly attire, came to check on them. She recognized him as Father Rodney. She knew he was systemless, as he had warned people not to be turned into Avatars. A work of the devil, he said.

"How are you and your little friend doing?" he asked gently.

"I call her Anne, I don't know what her real name is. Father Rodney, what are they going to do with the Fed soldiers? Why are they not here with us?"

"Do not worry about them, Alice. They made their choice."

"They are going to kill them all, aren't they? How can you go along with this?"

"They are getting a second chance. Mary Beth is going to make them renounce their system. Then they can join the flock. She is all-forgiving."

"They killed the soldier who saved us," she hissed.

"Burned her alive in front of us."

"That was a mercy killing. She was in no condition to reject the system. They purified her so that her soul could go to heaven." Alice pursed her lips, looking at him coldly. How could he believe that? She was only fourteen and could see right through the lie. Father Rodney went for the second round: "Look around you, Alice. Look at all that has happened over the past months. This is the Apocalypse. Just as it was foretold. And if the Apocalypse is true, all the rest is."

"Father Rodney, you focused a lot on Revelation during our Bible study group. It has nothing to do with what is happening now. Nothing."

"It is the same thing, if you know how to interpret it, Alice. Let me explain…" They were suddenly interrupted as one of the Zealots asked for their attention. She was a beautiful blonde girl with an eyepatch.

"Rejoice, because the forces of hell have received their Answer!" she proclaimed in an ecstatic voice.

"Right now, the zealots of the Answer, the holy disciples of Mary Beth, walk among your streets, destroying hellspawn and wiping the dungeons that spill them. Your home is once again yours. You may freely walk among the streets, for Mary Beth is with you." Father Rodney took that as his cue, and he joined the girl, adding his voice to hers.

"Let us all pray together, for God has tested us,"—the young zealot flicked a finger—"and we have been found—aargh!" Father Rodney screamed as a bloody line manifested on his right cheek, as if he had been struck with an invisible whip.

"Not God. Mary Beth," the zealot gently corrected Rodney, who was on his knees, as she smiled sweetly at him.

"Yes, yes, that was what I meant. She is the first among God's—aargh!" —the whip struck his back this time, throwing him to the ground.

"There is no God. There is only Mary Beth," the girl explained. Then she turned to the congregation, leaving Father Rodney weeping on the floor.

"Rejoice!!" she exclaimed. They all rejoiced. As the sun was setting, the Losers finally reached the Command Center. They donned their elven armor, save Billy, who had manifested as a grim, cloaked vigilante, confirming Dignity's theories. Jenna hugged her mother and sister, and then the Losers gave their full report. Dignity smiled. She had learned to appreciate the comical moments life offered, then and now.

"The Circle greets Lawman, Lady Fart, and Itchy Groin." Jenna's face blanched for an instant. Priceless. Bob muttered at her, "This moment is going to haunt you all your life, so you'd better get used to it." Jenna snapped back, "Don't you have feet to lick?"

"My point, precisely," answered Bob. She finally steeled herself and gave the full report: "Ambient Essence has gone to normal. We have six new symbiotic dungeons in town, one of them seventh rank. They can consume any Essence the citizens of Milwaukee create, making this a safe zone."

"We also have tens of Bosses and five Cores patrolling the streets," she added.

"Only five Cores?" Dignity asked.

"I assume you are not giving up command," she said to Billy. Billy answered through telepathy. Lawman's voice could be a bit jarring.

"Yes, I am keeping this shape in my Library. It is high-level and has a nice combo of abilities—combat, technology, investigation, and intimidation—but that is not the deal-breaker; its reproductive mechanism is incredibly efficient. Keeping it is a sure way to easily get symbiotic dungeons."

"Well played, Billy…" Dignity suddenly stopped, as she received unsettling news in the Blood Link.

"There is action at the border. Let's go there." The Answer had deployed hundreds of zealots forming a line that effectively cut the city in half. They stayed there, not even trying to look threatening, with contentment on their faces. It was the first time they had a chance to study them carefully.

"Well?" asked Dignity, as Jenna looked at them through her Compendium sight.

"All of them are systemless. There is not a whiff of Classes or Competencies on them."

"And they are human. They are emitting essence, I can clearly see it," added Billy.

"They are immune to Truthfinding. I've tried several different perks. All the information is scrambled," finished Bob.

"No system, no dungeon magic, and yet they can do that," summarized Dignity, pointing to a Zealot who was hovering two feet above the ground.

"What is your take on this, Alarel?" Dignity asked the Circle's military advisor.

"This is clearly a stalemate. We would have to commit all our troops in order to overcome them, but we do not yet fully control our own ground. There are still refugees in need of rescue, and we cannot afford to strip our lines. We can do nothing but wait."

"There is more," Jenna added.

"I have been using Spirit Expansion. They have destroyed all the dungeons in their zone. All of them."

"But that is impossible. We have symbiotic dungeons that eat all the essence we produce. They don't."

"The zone they control should be bursting with Essence by now, but it is as clean as ours. That means they can destroy dungeons without releasing their Essence. That is impossible. Who are these people? Where do they get their powers from?" All the zealots smiled placidly, as if they knew those questions would eventually be addressed. They were the Answer.