Chương 5: The Measure of Things

Quiet settled over the chapel once the barricade was back in place, but it was not the sort of quiet Thomas would have chosen for resting. Every movement echoed against the stone, and water shifted inside plastic containers as Margaret divided it among whatever cups and bottles she had found. Beyond the door, Richmond Castle creaked with all the ordinary sounds of an old building, except none of those sounds felt ordinary anymore.

Thomas sat with his back against the wall and tried not to look at Gareth's torn jacket. Eleanor had folded it neatly before placing it beside her. The care she had taken made the empty sleeve worse. It looked less like discarded clothing and more like something waiting for its owner to return. The hour was supposed to be restful. Thomas spent the first few minutes discovering that sitting still let his body produce a complete inventory of everything that hurt.

Amy's treatment had stopped the bleeding along his side and closed the shallowest portions of the wound, but the skin still pulled whenever he shifted. His shoulder throbbed where the basement door had struck him. His palms were raw, his cheek stung, and the exhaustion left behind by Summon Echo had settled into his limbs like wet sand. Across the chapel, Will had lowered himself beside Margaret. He turned the broken length of bench over in his hands, pretending like he wasn't testing different grips.

Amy sat near the emergency supplies, eyes closed, one hand pressed against her forehead. Chloe had already recovered enough to begin examining one of the barghest cores. Apparently, her curiosity required less rest than the rest of them. Thomas reached inward and called up the descriptions of his skills. He had used Bond and Summon Echo through instinct and urgency. That wasn't the same as understanding them. Study remained entirely untested.

The System had placed knowledge in his mind when the class integrated, but it felt like knowing where a light switch was in an unfamiliar room. He could reach for it in the dark. That didn't mean he understood how the wiring worked. The first description appeared. ┌──────────────────────────────┐ Bond Establish a mana connection with a compatible object or willing being. The strength and nature of the bond depend upon compatibility, significance, and understanding.

└──────────────────────────────┘ Thomas had to reread the second sentence twice. He had known, in the loose instinctive way his class provided, that Bond was not restricted to objects. Seeing it stated clearly made the possibility more uncomfortable. A willing living being could accept a bond. That raised several questions, most of which Thomas was not prepared to ask in a room half filled with frightened strangers. The connection to the spearhead gave him an awareness of its physical condition and location.

He had no idea what the same connection might mean when applied to a person, and volunteering to attach his soul—or mana, or whatever the System considered the relevant portion of him—to Chloe for experimental purposes seemed like the kind of decision that should wait until neither of them had recently been mauled. He moved to the next skill. ┌──────────────────────────────┐ Summon Echo Manifest a physical echo through an established bond.

Accuracy, resilience, and cost depend upon the summoner's understanding of the subject. └──────────────────────────────┘ That description was more useful. Understanding affected more than the echo's appearance. It influenced how accurate and durable the summon became, as well as how much it cost Thomas to maintain. The spear had grown more stable between its first and second manifestations, though he had assumed that came from familiarity with the act of summoning.

Perhaps the skill had also benefited from the few things he understood about the weapon. He knew its shape. He knew how it had likely been mounted. He knew enough about ash shafts and practical medieval weapons to fill in what corrosion and lost wood could no longer provide. He did not know who had carried it, where it had been forged, or what it had been used against. Thomas suspected those missing answers mattered. The third description appeared.

┌──────────────────────────────┐ Study Examine a subject to reveal information relevant to your class and current understanding. The depth and accuracy of the result depend upon knowledge, observation, and skill level. └──────────────────────────────┘"That is annoyingly vague," Thomas said. Chloe looked up from the core.

"What is?"" Study."

"You finally read the description?"

"I was occupied when I received it."

"You had nearly ten minutes before the first monster attacked."

"I didn't get a class for the first fifteen." Chloe shifted closer, still holding the core between two fingers. Its dim blue light moved beneath the dark surface in slow currents.

"What does it say?" Thomas repeated the description to her.

"That could apply to almost anything. Excellent."

"That is not how most people respond to a complete lack of limitations."

"It means the limitations have to be tested." Thomas looked toward the core in her hand.

"You say that as someone who picks things up before testing whether they are dangerous."

"It's been stable for nearly an hour."

"It came out of a dead monster."

"And the barghest came out of folklore. We are past the point where conventional laboratory standards can be applied without modification." Marcus raised his eyes from the pistol.

"Nothing explodes in this room." Chloe considered the instruction.

"Intentionally?"

"Nothing explodes," Marcus repeated with the tone of an alarm bell.

"That may limit the quantity of our research."

"It will improve the quality of our shelter." Leaning against the cold stone wall, Thomas nodded with silent agreement to Marcus. Watching Chloe negotiate for explosive rights should be hilarious, but right now he was more exhausted than anything else. The last thing he needed was his best friend to blow up their current shelter. Thomas took the spearhead from his jacket pocket. The diamond-shaped relic rested beside it, cold and completely inert. He had checked it several times since entering the chapel.

The dragon eyes remained dark, and no pressure or strange vision followed when he touched it. Whatever had awakened beneath Richmond Castle had spent its strength and gone silent. He placed the relic aside and held the spearhead in his palm. Rust pitted the iron from point to socket. Without the class and bond, it would have been difficult to imagine the object as part of a weapon capable of killing anything." Study," Thomas said, and his attention narrowed.

The sounds around him receded as the spearhead became unusually clear in his vision. He noticed every irregular edge, every patch of corrosion, and the subtle asymmetry where centuries of damage had eaten farther into one side than the other—a cool pressure gathered behind his eyes. Information arranged itself across his vision.

┌──────────────────────────────┐ Rusty Spearhead Estimated Date: Late eleventh to early twelfth century Material: Rusty Iron Condition: Poor Rank: E- Bond Status: Established Abilities: None └──────────────────────────────┘ Thomas waited, but nothing else appeared.

"What happens?" Chloe inquired.

"You can't see this?"

"No." Thomas read the result aloud. Chloe leaned nearer to inspect the spearhead, though her attention was more on Thomas than the iron.

"Most of that was already on the label."

"The label didn't mention rank or abilities."

"Well, it was written before magic became a recognised curatorial concern." Thomas turned the spearhead slightly. Study had revealed no owner, battle, or hidden connection to Richmond Castle. It had given him an approximate date broad enough to match the existing catalogue entry and confirmed facts he already knew through Bond. The skill description had warned him. Its depth depended on his knowledge and observation. Study was not a shortcut around research.

At its current level, it seemed to organise evidence and draw out information he could understand.

"That might be a good thing, actually," Thomas said. Chloe looked surprised.

"What?"

"If Study told me everything about an object instantly, my degree would have become obsolete within the first day of the apocalypse."

"Your degree may already be obsolete." Thomas stared at her.

"Not because of the System," she clarified.

"The employment market was doing a respectable job on its own." He put the spearhead back into his pocket before deciding against it. Instead, he set it on the stone ledge beside him and looked around the chapel for another subject. The plastic water container would tell him it was plastic and contained water.

The chapel itself was historic, but studying an entire room might be beyond him, and Thomas did not particularly want to discover that overreaching with a mental skill could cause the same physical failure as assigning attributes. His gaze settled on Chloe. She noticed immediately. Her head snapped to him, her eyebrows coming together to glare with mock hostility.

"No."

"You said the limitations had to be tested."

"I know what your expression means." Her voice dropped even further into reluctance to be a test subject.

"What expression?"

"The one you had before breaking the display case."

"That was a completely different expression," Thomas muttered, holding eye contact. Breaking the glass had been a panic response; this was more curiosity and enthusiasm.

"It was not." She took another step away from him, limited by the close chapel walls.

"Keep your eyes to yourself." Thomas looked at the others. Amy appeared to be listening, even with her eyes closed. Margaret had stopped arranging supplies. Marcus watched without comment, a method Thomas had begun to recognise as his preferred way of letting others make mistakes he could see.

"Study says subject," Thomas said.

"Not object." Chloe's reluctance gave way to interest almost immediately.

"That is true." If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

"You felt the need to stop me before I asked."

"I was establishing informed consent."

"You said no."

"I have reconsidered." Thomas hesitated. Bond's description specified that a living person had to be willing. Study included no such restriction. That bothered him more than he expected.

"I'm asking before I try," he said.

"It may feel strange."

"Everything has felt strange since lunch."

"That is not consent." Chloe rolled her eyes, though without real irritation.

"Yes, Thomas. You may use Study on me." He knew intent and consent mattered a lot to Chloe, and he wanted to be clear with his friend. The skill responded more slowly than it had with the spearhead. Chloe's outline sharpened against the chapel wall. Thomas became aware of details he normally registered without consciously considering them: the blood dried along one sleeve, the burn mark near the cuff where the torch casing had split, the way she favoured her right leg after landing badly behind the front desk.

None of it felt like secret knowledge. It was an observation forced into uncomfortable precision. Then the skill pushed deeper. Chloe's posture changed. Her shoulders tightened, and she looked directly at him.

"That feels invasive."

"I haven't received anything yet."

"That does not make it less invasive." The pressure behind Thomas's eyes increased, then released. ┌──────────────────────────────┐ Chloe Brooks Level: 2 Class: Improvised Artificer Danger Rating: Low └──────────────────────────────┘ Thomas stared at the final line. Chloe folded her arms.

"Well?" ┌──────────────────────────────┐ You have reached Level 3. Your assigned attributes have been increased. You have gained five unassigned attribute points. └──────────────────────────────┘ Heat moved outward from Thomas's chest, gentler than class integration but unmistakable. His thoughts sharpened, but his exhaustion persisted. Six unassigned points became eleven.

"What happened?" Chloe asked.

"I reached level three." Everyone in the chapel looked toward him. Will lowered the makeshift club.

"From staring at her?"

"I was studying her," Thomas protested, voice sharpening to defensiveness.

"That doesn't sound better," Chloe muttered dryly. She felt wrung out from the mana usage, but there was still a clear smirk on her face.

"You levelled without killing anything?" Amy interjected, interested in the idea of levelling past level two. Thomas looked at the spearhead, then at Chloe. The timing seemed too exact to dismiss.

"Apparently." Marcus leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees.

"It fits your class." Thomas nodded slowly. Historical Summoner did not describe a soldier whose advancement should come exclusively from killing. Study was one of his foundational skills. Using it successfully on a living person had taken the skill beyond the obvious application of using it on historical artefacts.

"That means classes advance through relevant actions," Eleanor said. She had remained beside Gareth's jacket, but some of the fear had left her expression as a practical problem replaced it.

"Not only combat."

"Seems that way," Marcus said. Thomas looked at him.

"You already knew."

"I suspected."

"What level are you?" Marcus was quiet for a second.

"Four." Chloe sat straighter.

"Four?!"

"I reached two after killing the first hound. Three after the fight with the last one." He glanced toward the barricaded entrance.

"Four came during the sweep."

"We didn't fight during the sweep," Margaret said.

"No. I organised the group, assigned positions, and cleared hostile ground." Marcus tapped one finger against the pistol's grip." Battle Captain." Margaret looked toward the carefully divided supplies. Will glanced down at the improvised weapon in his hands. Eleanor's attention moved around the chapel as though seeing the room through the lens of Estate Steward rather than a simple shelter. The System had not given them occupations. It had given them paths and expected them to walk. Chloe pointed toward Thomas.

"You still haven't told me what Study said." Thomas considered the wisdom of sharing the result and decided Chloe would become more unbearable if he refused.

"Your name, level, and class."

"That is useful."

"And a danger rating." Her eyes narrowed.

"What rating?"

"Low." A moment of silence passed as Chloe considered.

"I blew up a torch in a monster's face."

"The System may have reviewed the incident and determined the torch was in greater danger than the monster." Amy laughed, then covered it with one hand. The sound was brief and slightly shocked, as though she had forgotten laughter remained available. Chloe looked offended for another second, then failed to keep it up." Study Marcus." Marcus raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"For comparison. I will warn you, it does feel like being watched."

"I gathered that. Go ahead and do it." Thomas activated Study again. Marcus noticed immediately. His focus sharpened in a way Chloe's had not, eyes narrowing as though searching for the source of pressure. Thomas understood why the skill might become dangerous to use without permission. Even if the subject could not identify what was happening, they knew something was pressing against the edge of their awareness. The result appeared more quickly this time.

┌──────────────────────────────┐ Marcus Vance Level: 4 Class: Battle Captain Danger Rating: Moderate └──────────────────────────────┘"Moderate," Thomas said. Marcus didn't seem offended, but Chloe did.

"He has a pistol, military training, a combat class, and is twice my level."

"He is also injured, exhausted, and running out of ammunition." Marcus glanced toward him.

"Does it say that?"

"No. I'm guessing the rating accounts for present circumstances."

"Or it's relative to the person using Study," Chloe said. Thomas considered that. Marcus was unquestionably more dangerous than anyone else in the room under ordinary conditions, but the System might have been measuring his ability to threaten Thomas specifically. Thomas had a summoned spear and newly improved physical attributes, but he didn't particularly like being the centre of that calculation.

"Can you Study yourself?" Amy asked. Thomas tried. His focus turned inward and found nothing for the skill to seize. His status remained accessible, but Study did not respond.

"No."

"The System?" Chloe asked. He tried directing the skill toward the translucent interface itself, and nothing happened.

"Also no."

"That would have been too convenient." Thomas looked toward the core in Chloe's hand. The barghests were gone, their bodies dissolved into smoke and mana. The cores were all that remained. If Study could adapt to living people, perhaps it could also treat a monster's remains as a valid subject. Chloe followed his gaze and held out the core.

"Try this next." Marcus shifted.

"Before we continue, we should decide what happens to those." Chloe drew the core back toward herself.

"I'm studying it."

"You currently have two."

"I recovered these two." Chloe sat down with finality.

"You took one while everyone was distracted."

"I recovered it quietly."

"That's generally called stealing," Eleanor remarked from across the room.

"It was lying beneath a bench."

"It belonged to the man who killed the creature," Will said. Marcus shook his head, standing to emphasise his point.

"Not me." Chloe looked vindicated.

"That does not mean you automatically own it," he continued. Her expression flattened. Thomas looked between them. Chloe had the first core from the visitor centre, and the one Marcus had left beneath the broken bench. Marcus carried the core from the final barghest. The three objects, which contained an unknown amount of mana, were gathered within an hour of magic becoming real. The argument was inevitable. He had expected more shouting and possibly an accusation that the cores were cursed.

Instead, everyone looked too tired to summon much enthusiasm for property law.

"What would anyone do with them?" Chloe asked.

"I don't know yet," Eleanor said.

"I have Analyse Device and Modify. When I focus on the core, I can sense energy moving inside it. Not metaphorically. There is a contained flow, like a battery without terminals." She turned the object between her fingers.

"I think I can build something that uses it." Marcus studied her.

"What kind of something?"

"I have no idea."

"That's not convincing. I'm sure someone can come up with something."

"It's been less than an hour. Give me a workshop, wiring, tools, and enough time to understand how the mana behaves, and I might be able to use these as power sources."

"For the castle?" Eleanor asked.

"Lights. Communications. Modified tools. Possibly defences." Chloe glanced at the dead torch beside her.

"Something less disposable than what I did earlier." Margaret looked at Marcus.

"Can anyone else use them?" No one spoke up, and Thomas took a moment to Study the core. He wanted to see what the system would say; it might even give some advice. The dark object came into sharp focus. Blue light moved beneath the faceted surface, following channels too regular to be natural and too fluid to be mechanical. Whatever had animated the creature was gone, but some of its mana was not.

┌──────────────────────────────┐ Monster Core Origin: Barghest Rank: E State: Stable Mana Density: Low Potential Uses: Power source, crafting material └──────────────────────────────┘ Thomas read the result aloud. Chloe extended one hand toward Marcus without looking away from Thomas. Marcus stared at it.

"The System agrees with me," she said.

"It says it can be used as a power source. It does not say you know how."

"No one else has a class that might let them find out." Marcus pulled the third core from his pocket, letting the narrow shaft of chapel light hit the shifting blue pulse inside, then dropped it into Chloe's hand. He held her gaze to make sure she was listening.

"You keep all three. But they aren't personal property—anything you build with them belongs to the group until we're secure enough to worry about who owns what." Chloe closed her fingers around the core.

"Agreed." Eleanor opened her mouth, then stopped. She didn't look entirely satisfied, but Thomas suspected that if Chloe could restore power, there wouldn't be any other complaints. Chloe set the three cores in a row on the stone ledge. Their dim light painted her fingers blue. She activated Analyse Device first. Thomas could not see what the skill showed her, but her attention shifted immediately. Her eyes moved across points within the core's surface that appeared identical to everyone else.

"Energy circulates inward," she said.

"Or it looks inward from the outside. There is no natural release point. I would need to create one without cracking the structure."

"Would cracking it be bad?" Amy asked.

"I don't know." Marcus looked at her, and she quickly continued, saying, "And I will not test that in the chapel."

"Good."

"I heard you the first time." While Chloe played with the cores, the others began testing their classes with varying degrees of success. Will stood near the centre of the chamber while Margaret walked behind him. Each time she moved, he adjusted automatically until his body remained between her and the entrance. When he planted the broken bench against the floor, he seemed to have more of a presence in the room. Thomas watched Marcus push against one end of the timber.

Will slid half a step, then stopped as though his boots had found roots beneath the stone. Margaret discovered that her sense of nearby supplies sharpened when she thought of the chapel as a household rather than a temporary room. She could not produce food or water, but she knew what they had, roughly how long it would last, and what was being wasted. Amy experimented only once.

She placed her hands over the cut on Eleanor's forehead, drawing the edges together more cleanly than an ordinary bandage would have managed. The effort left her visibly paler, and Marcus stopped her from testing further. Eleanor walked the perimeter of the room with one hand against the walls. Estate Steward hadn't made her an expert on medieval architecture, but she had the degree and experience for it.

The class gave her an awareness of the chapel's immediate condition: the entrance was secure, the narrow window was too small for the monsters they had fought, and the room could shelter their current number for a night if necessary. Thomas remained focused on studying. He examined the spearhead again after holding it closer to the beast core. The result did not change. He tried the diamond relic next and received almost nothing.

┌──────────────────────────────┐ Unknown Relic Material: Unknown Condition: Dormant Historical Significance: Indeterminate Bond Status: None └──────────────────────────────┘ The pressure behind his eyes intensified when he attempted to push deeper. Thomas stopped before the discomfort became pain as the relic offered no reaction. Its carved eyes remained dark, and the System refused to explain it. He knew only that it had been hidden beneath the castle, reacted when integration began, and changed his class options.

Whatever intelligence or power had acted through it was now unreachable. Thomas placed it back into his pocket.

"Nothing?" Chloe asked without looking up from the cores.

"Unknown material. Dormant. Anything useful is indeterminate." Thomas sighed quietly in frustration.

"Very informative."

"It has an admirable commitment to privacy." Chloe continued studying the core while Marcus moved to speak quietly with Eleanor. Their disagreement remained restrained, but Thomas caught enough to understand. Eleanor wanted to leave the instant the hour ended. Marcus wanted a clear formation and route before the barricade moved. Neither objected to continuing the search. They disagreed only over whether urgency excused poor preparation.

Marcus won, largely because Eleanor's hands still shook whenever she looked at Gareth's jacket. Thomas leaned back against the wall. The level-up should have felt like success. His mind was clearer, his class stronger, and eleven unassigned points now waited for him to decide what kind of person he needed to become. Instead, the notification sat badly alongside the blood on Amy's shirt and the jacket near Eleanor's feet. He had gained a level because he learned something.

Thomas closed his eyes and saw the hound above him again, jaws closing against the golden shaft. He saw the dead tourist behind the display panel. He saw Marcus kneeling beside his friends and correcting the angle of Mercer's neck before closing his eyes. The System had rewarded Thomas before the bodies were cold.

"You all right?" Chloe asked quietly. Thomas opened his eyes. She had moved beside him while the others were occupied.

"I've been better."

"I am sure you could be more specific."

"I am trying not to turn emotional distress into a research project."

"You would be excellent at it."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment." He decided to take it like one, rather than let his friend push him even further into the spiralling panic today had brought. He looked toward the others. Marcus and Eleanor remained near the entrance. Will and Margaret spoke quietly over the supplies. Amy had fallen asleep sitting against the wall, or was close enough that the distinction no longer mattered. Chloe lowered her voice.

"How many points did you get when you levelled this time?"

"Five."

"I thought so." Thomas glanced at her. She kept her attention on the cores, not him.

"Mine says Silver. Amy's says Iron. She received two free points at Level One and two more at Level Two. I received four each time." Thomas said nothing. Chloe continued, barely above a whisper.

"You received five." He could see the arithmetic reaching its conclusion.

"Yours is better than mine," she said.

"One tier higher?" Thomas hesitated only briefly. She had already worked it out, and pretending otherwise would turn a secret into an insult.

"Yes, I think so. Mine says Gold." Chloe finally looked at him, then her eyes moved to Marcus, to Eleanor, checking that nobody had heard.

"Does anyone else know?"

"No."

"We should keep it that way for now." Thomas had expected curiosity, perhaps ten immediate questions about the exact wording of his class. The caution surprised him.

"You don't want to investigate?"

"I do. Desperately." Chloe picked up one of the cores and turned it beneath the light.

"But the moment people understand your class is rarer than theirs, they'll start deciding what you should do with it." Thomas looked toward the blocked entrance. People had already begun depending on Marcus because he had a pistol, training, and a combat class. Eleanor felt responsible for everyone because she had managed the castle before the world changed. Thomas had killed two monsters with a weapon made from light and history.

He did not want to imagine what expectations would follow if the others learned the System itself had given him something rarer than their own classes.

"Thank you," he said. Chloe shrugged.

"You can repay me by letting me examine the relic later."

"No. You already have your own projects."

"It was worth trying." The hour passed more quickly once everyone had something to do. He considered adding more Strength before the search resumed, but eleven unassigned attributes felt too significant to distribute while exhausted. His earlier allocation had helped. It had also nearly dropped him to the floor for several seconds. Marcus rose when the hour was over.

"We move in five minutes."