[CYA] Chapter 96: An Honor Guard?

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TwnsXUcPzXQCgvg-yCQKZ4S7BdnSHqhnW11xYXADzjI/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Endure, High School Perimeter>

Chip barked a laugh at Alex’s near-to-one-track mind as Alex continued to ask about the shield. “I can see how you’re still alive. Persistence is key and all that.” He hesitated, then bobbed his head back toward the other side of the wall. “Well, that and that.”

Alex shrugged. “Well.. thanks, I guess?”

Chip shrugged. “So, the shields. I have three more mounted in the forms at the moment, and can easily make two more after that with the material I’ve found. There are some strengthening finishes and the metal shop had some metal that’s perfect as banding for reinforcing the edges. That and the leather in the ‘home econ’ room means we can make quite the shields. No magic, unfortunately, but it’s still seven ply plywood. It won’t last forever, but if I can get two or three made for each of your spear users too?” Chip shrugged. “We should be able to be a rather nice reactionary force.”

“My spear users?” Alex glanced toward Natasha.

She smiled. “Yes. I want you alive, remember? That’s too much work for just me. The six of us will be sticking with you, and I suspect I’ll be able to help guide them to classes that work with mine. Two had been holding off on their secondary classes and have already gotten interesting options. Nothing taken yet, but there is potential. Others have gotten evolution options for their current classes, again no one’s taken them yet, but the possibilities are quite interesting.”

Alex grunted. “Alright…just be careful. I don’t want your advancement to depend on me.”

They all nodded understanding.

“Now, why a shield like that? You’re all inhumanly strong, why not a heavier, more protective thing?”

Chip nodded, as if expecting the question. “Material limits, and I mean more than we don’t have enough material to make them bigger, though that’s true too.”

Alex grunted but didn’t interrupt.

“Anything bigger would be easier to break due to the amount of leverage involved in resisting every hit. Additionally, they’d be harder to make and more cumbersome to use, even if the weight wasn’t an issue. This is a Hungarian shield or as near as I can make it. Ones like this saw good use, historically, and are a tried and true style of shield. It’s not ‘traditional’ in that it’s not what we often think of, but it is a good style, especially for more mobile, shock-troop style fighters.”

Alex considered for a moment before shrugging. “Fair enough. I’d still like one. The design of the grip looks like I could still use my sword two handed if I needed?”

“That’s part of the utility, yeah. I’ll make sure to create a couple for you.”

“Thank you.” Alex’s mind was immediately running wild with ideas.

Chip hesitated a moment, then seemed to decide to just say what he had on his mind. “The two will be so you have a back-up, please don’t try to use one on each arm.”

Alex chuckled. “Of course not. That would be silly.”

He pointedly did not look at Natasha. Even so, he could feel her disapproving gaze upon him.

It might have been cool…

Still, as he really thought about it, he saw how the two would have interfered with one another, making it unlikely to have worked well in reality.

Natasha pulled him out of his contemplations. “Come on, we should grab some food.”

Alex grunted before following along.

After a bare hundred yards, Natasha glanced his way. “What would you think about us joining you after dinner, just until dark? We would appreciate fighting the undead to improve our skills, coordination, and teamwork?”

Alex quirked a smile. “And to earn experience from the mine?”

She chuckled. “Yes. I seem to earn experience from protecting you, even when I’m not killing something.”

“So… should I get into danger more often?”

She shook her head, giving him a serious look. “It’s not from literally saving your life. Just fighting beside you, increasing your relative safety, seems to be enough. The others want to earn a similar class, even if a couple might have to wait until level thirty in race and their first two classes, when the third class becomes available. I don’t think they’ll be offered evolutionary changes to their first or second, based on what little I know.”

He grunted. “Right, third class at thirty, and then… sixty?”

“Then the ‘final’ at one hundred, yes.”

“Potentially five classes.” Alex shook his head. “That seems nuts.”

The Russian woman shrugged. “My understanding is that you don’t have to take any. Even the first is optional, technically.”

“Yeah, but not taking them would just be leaving power on the table.”

She chuckled, but it was one of the other women who interjected. The girl seemed to be in her mid-twenties and lithe, though that might have been because the sports clothes she was wearing pulled everything in and kept it in place. Her flecked brown and natural blonde hair was up in a ponytail, held in place with quite a few hairbands, likely for redundancy. If it were down, it looked to only be long enough to brush her shoulders.

As she spoke, her strikingly green eyes met his gaze with hesitant confidence, her voice smoother and a bit lower than he had expected. “Jamison had a book that he got as a reward. It explained that it was better to avoid an additional class, than to take one that overlapped too greatly with those you already had.”

Alex looked her way. “Oh? Any chance he’d let me read it? I wouldn’t take long.”

She grimaced, looking down and away. “He… He didn’t make it here, and I don’t believe anyone grabbed that book from his things.”

“Oh…” Alex felt his shoulders sink just a bit, instantly feeling horrible for making her think about her dead friend. “I’m so sorry for your loss. We can talk about something else.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know him well, but… yeah. I never really expected to see people die, let alone this many of them…”

After a moment of conflicted feelings, Alex decided that she knew herself best, and so he gave her a reassuring smile, even though she wasn’t looking his way. “What was your name again?”

“Oh! I’m sorry.” She gave an embarrassed smile even as she met his gaze. “Leanne.”

Huh… like lee-ann? I can’t say I’ve heard that name before. Alex nodded once. “Good to meet you, Leanne. I hope that your time of watching others die is at an end.”

“Thanks…” She shrugged, clearly not sure how to take his odd proclamation.

Alex cleared his throat, turning forward once again. “Anyway. Do you remember anything else from that book? Even the title could be helpful.”

She brightened. “Of course. I think it was similar to ‘Notes on Advancement’ or something like that.”

From there, she shared a lot of things that were already known to Alex and his group, but a few things stood out. First among those was a confirmation that skill and spell ‘rarity’ was critical for advancement. Because of that, it was generally considered better to have fewer skills that had been mastered than a hodgepodge bag of tricks.

That lined up with what Alex had experienced. This System seemed to be more of a ‘well’ than a ‘shallow lake’ in how it approached and encouraged things.

Quality over quantity it is. That’s a comfort, I suppose. He was grateful that, in this at least, the System lined up with his own inclinations.

Beyond that, there were lots of little tidbits—such as the next tier advancement was at level 100, and required reaching that with all the classes one had, and that being a minimum of three—as well as more examples of how to keep classes from conflicting, some of which made Alex concerned for some of his companions, as some of their secondary classes seemed to overlap a bit strongly with their first.

The discussion filled the walk to the cafeteria, but only just.

Alex was sure that there’d been more in the book, but Leanne had conveyed what she could remember of what the book’s owner had told her. That’s not convoluted at all.

Still, he thanked her for the information, and soon enough, the seven of them were walking back toward the wall, eating on the way to save time and allow them to train sooner rather than later.

The only stop they had on the way was to allow Alex to give a bit more Life to each of the crippled Initiates, allowing his Life regeneration to continue to be useful.

As they headed back toward the waiting undead, Alex wasn’t excited to have six other people to monitor and heal as needed—he’d far rather have them stay safe while he fought alone—but he wouldn’t deny them the opportunity to improve themselves, and who knew? Maybe having a bit of an honor guard would keep him alive in the days to come.

The fact that they were invested in his survival helped with the trust aspect, but trust and competence didn’t always go hand in hand. He’d only seen them fight a bit, and so, if nothing else, this would be an opportunity to assess them more closely.

Yeah. This should be fine. Worst case, we just don’t do it again.

As they walked back, Alex took in the six with him. There was Leanne—whom he’d just met—Natasha—who’d been with him since basically the beginning—Chip—the woodworker who was making awesome shields—and Ben—who had volunteered to let Alex try to take some blood.

He didn’t know the names of the last two. I should remedy that. He smiled, turning to the last woman first. She was tall, almost of a height with Alex, himself, and quite a bit younger than Natasha, and her straight, unbound blonde hair—along with her stylish jeans and teeshirt—evoked a ‘valley girl’ personality, but he decided not to judge her for it. “I don’t think I got your name.”

She held out her hand, tucking her spear to her side as she did so. “Laura.”

“Alex.” He smiled. “Nice to meet you.”

Her voice was clear and her words precise, proving that she was no ‘valley girl’. “You too, I suppose. I mainly want to fight with other spear users, that’s where the weapon really shines, and they seem to want to fight alongside you.” She shrugged. “No reason to make a thing of it.”

He blinked a few times at the mini-torrent of words, but he mastered himself an instant later. “Sounds fair.”

As he turned to the last man—a slender one, shorter and slighter than everyone else here with curly brown hair—he held out his hand toward Alex as well. “Jacob.”

“Alex.”

Jacob gave a half smile. “Nice to meet you. Don’t die, eh? The evolutions to my spear class look interesting, and I’d love to see if I get something better offered after actually fighting beside you, not just working with your woman there.”

Alex’s smile melted away as he glanced at Natasha.

She just shook her head and huffed, no offense or embarrassment on her features. “Not his woman. Just someone who is using him to get back to her husband.”

Jacob arched an eyebrow. “Seriously? I thought that was just a line to get us interested.”

Alex frowned. “Yes, she’s serious. She’s a friend.” He glanced her way again. “Or at least, I’d like to think so. I’m sure the System will make many strange bed-fellows, but that’s really not a literal turn of phrase, at least not in this case.”

Jacob grunted. “If you say so.” He shrugged. “Not that I care much. I just want to level and grow stronger. I’m hoping to survive this mess, after all.”

Alex grunted in response. “Fair enough. Shall we?”

He gestured toward the wall up ahead, glad to move on from the topic.

They all nodded their agreement. It was time to get to work.

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