Chapter 214 - Good Riddance (Patreon)

Zeke sat on the bed, his broad back bare, and his elbows on his knees as he looked out of the open door leading to his balcony. The tower – and his bedroom – were positioned just well enough that he could see the mounds of undead burning in the distance.  It had been four days since the battle, and they were still trying to clean everything up.

A hand on his back announced Abby’s presence, and she slid across the bed to drape her arms around his neck. When she did, she asked, “How much longer do you want to stay here?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” was Zeke’s response. He was desperate to leave, but he was reluctant to go. On the one hand, each day brought new skirmishes with undead stragglers. Most of them were monsters that had been turned as the horde had marched through the desert, but there were some people as well. Only one had been strong enough that Zeke had been forced to act. It was a giant, zombified coyote and a boss-tier monster that, despite being in the same category as the fallen paladin, was a much easier kill than Abdul Rumas – especially considering that the entire team had been there for it. Everything else had been low enough leveled that the remaining guards could deal with them.

But Zeke couldn’t stop wondering what would happen to Jariq after he left. What if another monster on the level of the wolf were to assault the city? They only had a handful of level twenty-five adventurers left, and those were relatively weak examples. It would be a massacre, especially if such a threat were to present itself before the repairs on the walls were completed.

However, Zeke was growing restless. After the battle, he’d remained on the wall for a few more hours before returning to the tower, dropping [Heart of the Berserker], and settling down to recover. It took almost thirty hours this time, which was better than before, and by the time he’d regained his strength, Zeke’s chronic need to move had reasserted itself.

“What’s the estimate on rebuilding the wall?” she asked.

“A couple of months,” Zeke said. “It’s the runes that are the problem. Every brick has to be enchanted separately. Otherwise, there’s no way it would stand up to even the basic level monsters around here.”

“Didn’t seem to work on the horde,” Abby remarked.

“No, but it was never designed to, either,” Zeke responded. Indeed, he’d studied the wall a bit, and while he was impressed with the runecrafting that had gone into it, he also recognized that it was woefully inadequate against anything exceeding level fifteen. But then again, it had never really needed to be.

“You could help,” Abby suggested.

“I have no interest in that,” Zeke stated. “And that’s not really where my talents lay. I’m good at skills and tearing things apart. Building something, though? That’s never been my thing.”

“It could be if you worked at it.”

“I’m not going to sit here for years, Abby,” Zeke said. “This plane is…it’s crumbling. Or at least this island is. I know there are other islands out there. Hundreds of them, according to Talia. But here? The undead are going to destroy everything.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I kind of do,” he said. “Look at what this tiny army did to this city. Sure, maybe Beacon or Salvation survives, but do you think the Waystations will? The unmarked towns? The farms and ranches?”

“There are plenty of powerful people out there that can do what you did,” Abby said. “Lady Constance, for one.”

“Then why hasn’t she acted?” Zeke asked. “Everyone talks about how strong she is, and I don’t doubt the public perception. But seriously – if she was going to do something, she already would have. In only four days, we’ve already seen thousands of refugees stream into Jariq. And by all accounts, there are thousands more on the way. The city’s already bursting at the seams.”

“I don’t –”

“Dozens of towns have already fallen,” Zeke went on, talking over Abby. “And yet, after all those people have died or been converted, Lady Constance remains in her city, doing nothing. She’s content to let the entire island be converted, which tells me that she’s either got a death wish, or she’s thinking exactly like we are. She wants to move on.”

“Or she’s just given up.”

“What?” asked Zeke, turning his head.

Abby pulled away and pushed her blonde hair out of her face. As she adjusted to sit with her legs crossed, Zeke turned to face her, leaving one leg dangling off the bed while the other tucked itself under him.

“Think about it,” Abby said. “What do we know about her?”

“She’s a terrible mother, for one,” Zeke answered. “For another, she’s probably the strongest person on this island. Maybe the world. I mean, the other islands can’t be stopped up like this, right? It stands to reason that someone did something to stop the flow of people to the next plane. That means that most of the powerful people move on. I’m betting that there aren’t many who have stuck around as long as Constance, and she’s probably used that time to continue her growth.”

“That’s a scary thought.”

Zeke agreed, “Not going to argue with you there. In the space of a few years, I’ve just about reached the peak. She’s had all the same advantages I’ve had. Maybe more, because her goddess seems a lot more hands-on than Oberon.”

“So, even though she’s the same level as a few hundred other people, she’s way stronger,” Abby reasoned. “That’s great.”

“Which means that, if she wanted to, she could’ve ended this threat at any time,” Zeke said. “Sure, at first, she was trying to get Micayne to resurrect her husband, but now? Her husband’s gone. His soul has moved on. The only viable reason for Constance not to have done something about the army of undead is that she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t care about those people any more than she cared about her own daughter, but I can’t think that she wants to spend the rest of her life living on an island swarming with zombies. So, I think she’s planning on leaving, same as us.”

“You don’t think there’s any way to win this fight, do you?” Abby said.

Zeke shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. But probably not,” Zeke answered. “But if what we saw is any indication – you know, with the monsters and the number of zombies – it’s probably well past the point of no return. For now, we need to head out, find the wyrm, and finish our quest. After that, grind up until everyone’s level twenty-five, then figure out where the portal is, and get out of here.”

“That’s…a callous way of looking at the situation,” Abby said. “The Zeke I met a couple of years ago would have thrown himself at the problem and fought until either he was either the winner or dead. What happened?”

“I grew up.”

Indeed, it wasn’t a single event that had triggered it, and there was still a good deal of the hero complex left. If Zeke saw someone in trouble, he would help. However, he didn’t see how his fighting a losing battle would be beneficial to anyone. Even if he could save a few people, what then? The island was doomed, as far as Zeke could tell.

“Let’s say I find Micayne and kill him,” Zeke explained. “I’d have to carve my way through a massive army to get to him, and who knows what other surprises he’s got in store? But for the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that I get to him and kill him. What then? I can’t be everywhere at once. The spread of the undead disease is exponential. One zombie turns two, then those two turn two more apiece. On and on, and in a flash, the whole island is covered. If we’d have taken them out when they were confined to the Farindale Forest around Micayne’s manor, maybe we could have done it. But now? It’s impossible.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Abby said.

“No. I don’t. But I can see the writing on the wall,” Zeke said. He massaged the bridge of his nose, adding, “Look, Abby – I don’t like this. I want to save everyone. But the fact is that we can’t take them with us. This island is done. Gone. It’s only a matter of time.”

“This isn’t like you,” she said, reaching out to touch his knee.

“I know,” he admitted.

The fact was that the decision was based on an uncomfortable truth. He couldn’t save them all. He couldn’t save any of the people who, for all their time since being reborn, hadn’t made any strides to save themselves. To cross over to the next plane, a person had to have reached level twenty-five. That was an indisputable fact espoused by the closest thing to a god that Zeke had ever met. He didn’t think Oberon was an actual deity – the short man had even said as much – but that didn’t matter. He was powerful, knowledgeable, and he’d yet to show Zeke any reason to mistrust him. If he said it was true, then Zeke was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So, with that in mind, even if Zeke could somehow rescue a few people, what was he going to do with them? Usher them along until they reached level twenty-five? That could take years. Decades, maybe. A lot could go wrong in that time.

“I’m sorry, Abby,” he said. “If you know of anyone that’s close to level twenty-five that you want to save, I’m all for it. But for now, we have to look out for one another first.”

She sighed and looked away. For a handful of seconds, she didn’t respond. Then, with a shake of her head, Abby said, “I know. I don’t like it, but you’re right. I do know some people, though.”

“Who?”

“Mags, for one,” Abby said. “She’s close. Maybe Dirk from my old guild, if he’s still around. Cort, too. Other than that…”

Zeke didn’t need her to finish her thought. Abby was something of a loner. She had plenty of acquaintances, but few close friends. In that respect, the entire group was similar. Zeke, because he hadn’t really tried to find friendship since being reborn in the Radiant Isles, Talia, because she’d been raised separately from anyone else, and since then, had been transformed into a revenant. Zeke didn’t know much, but he suspected that Talia’s acquaintances wouldn’t react well to her new race. As for Carlos…well, he’d never mentioned any friends, aside from the man who’d died when Zeke had destroyed a third of the city.

“So, you want to hit Bastion and Beacon, first?” he asked.

“After the wyrm.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request. Beacon would be a bit difficult to reach, but going to Bastion wouldn’t steer them far off course. Besides, it wasn’t as if they knew where the portal to the next plane even was, so there was every chance that they’d have to return to Beacon anyway.

“Did you spend your stat points yet?” Abby asked.

Zeke had, investing everything into agility. Of late, he’d had a difficult time keeping up with true speedsters like Talia or the hag. Fifteen points wouldn’t make that much difference, but it was a start. He knew he would eventually have to make a choice in relation to his development. There just weren’t enough stat points to go around if he wanted to maintain balance between his stats. And he wasn’t getting achievements at the same rate he had when he was lower-leveled.  While he’d expected that to be the case, it did rob him of the ability to spread his stats around.

But that was a worry for another day. The battle against Rumas and the undead horde had tipped him over the line to level twenty-four, and he suspected that, unless something monumental happened, he wouldn’t soon reach the pinnacle at level twenty-five.

“I did. What about you?” he asked.

“Twenty-one,” she said. “Not that far to level twenty-two. Think we’ll catch you by the time you hit twenty-five?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably,” he said. “I level a lot slower than everyone else. The only reason I’m as far ahead as I am is because the Framework gave me credit for killing that warlock. I have no idea what level he was, but it was high enough to give me two levels’ worth of experience. Oberon also mentioned that he was from a higher plane, which violated some rules or something. That’s the only reason Oberon could intervene.”

“Given what you went through, it still wasn’t worth it,” Abby said.

Zeke suppressed a shiver. Most of his memories of that torturous experience had been sequestered in an untouched, oft-forgotten corner of his mind, but every now and then, some of it would resurface. When it did, a cold chill went up his spine, and panic bloomed in his mind. It never lasted long, but it was enough to remind him just how weak he really was. The experience had been so traumatizing that it had left him transformed into an entirely different race, and every time he looked at that line on his status, he was reminded of what it had cost.

“I agree,” he muttered. “But that’s all in the past. For now, we’re looking forward, right? We’ll hit that wyrm, save your friends, then grind it out to level twenty-five. In the meantime, we’ll keep an ear to the ground for any information on the portal to the next plane. With any luck, we’ll be leaving all this behind soon enough.”

“You make it all sound so easy,” she said.

“I’m pretty sure none of it’s going to be easy,” he countered. “But it needs to be done, because I don’t think there’s any other way to survive what’s coming. We got a little taste the other day, but I’m sure it’s going to get exponentially worse with every passing day.”

“So optimistic. Clearly, you’re not a glass-half-full kind of guy anymore,” she joked.

“That is me being glass-half-full.”

“Well, at least we have each other,” Abby said. “That has to count for something, right?”