Broken System Ch. 57-58 (Patreon)

Ch. 57 - Freedom’s Price

In the aftermath, Benjamin tried to stay alert to other threats. He tried to focus on what was going to happen and what needed to happen, but he couldn’t. None of them could.

There were a thousand things to do. They needed to start waking up the people they’d just freed. They needed to gain valuable information and ransack the belongings of these men for any useful information. Most of all, they needed to make sure that there was no one nearby waiting to strike them down with some awful spell or surprise attack.

Instead, they all just sat there stunned. Nicole had lived until Matt had passed out from the blood loss of his injuries. Benjamin had warned him not to push himself so hard, but he could only use blood burn to give their healer back mana if he actually had health to spare, and he’d run out in a desperate bid to keep her above minus five.

It wasn’t a surprise. Not with the debuffs and warnings that had been stacking up on him.

Seriously Injured: All actions -10% effectiveness.

Magical Exhaustion: Spells -25% effectiveness due to excessive mana usage.

Once that had happened, Emma and Benjamin bandaged their healer as best they could, and then Benjamin did the same for her while Raja was left alone to grieve. Grieving for everyone else would come later. It would have to be because right now, Benjamin’s list of things he needed to do was growing every minute.

“Keep an eye on them,” he muttered to Emma as he got up and got to work.

She nodded numbly, without looking away from Matt with the first expression of concern he’d seen on her in a long time. He thought about that and about the miracle that was her survival as he began to rifle through the pockets of the mages for anything that might be useful or dangerous.

She and Nicole had both used a similar strategy in combat. Be too fast for your enemy to hurt you. It had served them well until they met an enemy that could be everywhere at once. He would have to talk to Emma more to know for sure, but as far as he was concerned, she’d stacked passive abilities that were more mana-efficient and longer lasting, while Nicole had used one-offs that were more expensive and versatile.

The intensity of the fight had burned away all her mana before the danger had passed, but Emma only had fifteen percent of hers left, so it wasn’t like she was in a much better place. Benjamin reflected on that as he got up and made his way to the closest conscious people, struggling to come to grips not only with what had happened but also with what had been done to them.

As a situation, it was a powder keg. One that might explode at any moment, and Benjamin was terrified to approach so many strangers without his healer and muscle by his side, but there was nothing to be done about it. Matt was unconscious, Nicole was dead, and everyone else was distracted by one or both of those things.

So, instead of hiding or finding something else to do until this situation resolved itself, he walked up and started talking to the strangers in ones and twos. He didn’t need to ask their names, thanks to the system, but he did so anyway because that was the polite thing to do and because it humanized the moment.

So did the atmosphere of grieving that quickly permeated the area. In fact, that was probably the only thing the intermittent sobbing and shell-shocked people who slowly woke up to this horrible new reality didn’t start fighting; there were already so many dead.

Nicole might have been the one that he knew, but the summoned creature’s shrapnel had killed over a dozen people. People that everyone here knew. It was a tragedy, and fortunately, no one got it in their head that Benjamin and his friends were to blame.

“I never even thought that breaking their spell was even possible,” Jeong Lee confessed to him after he’d finally checked on his work crew. He was a foreman who had been abducted from Korea over a decade ago, according to his version of events. It didn’t sound much like Benjamin’s version of the peninsula, given that the words north and south had only confused the man.

Benjamin didn’t follow that tangent wherever it was that it might go. It was just one more set of insane implications that made a terrible sort of sense in retrospect. If the Rhulvin summoners could pull people from other worlds, why would they only pull people from Earth, or even from just one Earth?

By the time Matt regained consciousness several hours later, a neat row of graves was being dug, and the dead were gently being laid to rest in plain sackcloth. Well, most of them were. Once the shock had worn off, a few of the men that had been close to the dead had stripped the mages naked and hung them from the highest timbers they could so that the crows could feast on their remains.

It was almost sunrise by the time all of that was done, and they could finally get down to the business of worrying about the future.

“We can’t stay here,” Benjamin argued. “Those mages might have already sent some signal or missed some check-in, and a whole army could show up through one of those portals any minute.”

“This is unlikely,” Carlos responded. He was a smooth-talking warrior from a version of Brazil that still belonged to Portugal and had apparently been quite the knife fighter before a Wolven had ripped off his arm four years ago. “That is just not how the summoners operate.”

Benjamin continued to argue that, “They couldn’t take any chances against opponents like this,” but all of the workers here seemed unconcerned.

“If you’re so worried, why not simply break their bacon?” Juliana asked finally. She was a well spoken auburn haired girl a year or two younger than him that made no mention of where she’d come from. The fact that she was one of the most beautiful people he’d seen in this plantation was impossible to miss though.

“Beacon?” Benjamin looked around, but he didn’t see anything worthy of the name.

“Yeah, you know - that!” She pointed at the large plaza and quickly set about explaining what most of the people here seemed to already know.

It turned out that his hunch about the mosaic pattern in the tiles was correct. It was only his scale that was wrong. Apparently, opening a rift was an inexact science, at least in this world. The exit point of the exact same spell case by the exact same summoner could vary by hundreds of yards from one minute to the next.

Benjamin would wonder about why that was later, but for now, it was unimportant. What was important was what the beacon did. It forced all the possible rifts that might open for miles in any direction to open right there in the center of the little town to prevent accidents.

“So you see,” she said leaning a bit too close to him, “All we need to do is post guards there, and we’ll be ready for them.”

For a split second, Benjamin imagined a rift opening up just long enough for someone on the other side to drop a nuclear weapon through or whatever the magical equivalent was before slamming it shut again. The mages that they faced were monsters, but they were smart, canny monsters. Something like this that everyone would take for granted - they could take for granted they would definitely weaponize against Plantation 24 and whoever it was causing trouble here as soon as they figured out there was a problem.

“That’s not going to work,” Benjamin insisted, “We’re going to have to leave, but if we sabotage this beacon, that might give us a day or two to come up with a plan first.”

“Sabotage?” she asked with a shake of her head. “I’m not sure that’s possible or what it would gain us if we could.”

“Tell me what you need,” Matt said finally, not even trying to doubt him for once.

“Well, this beacon that Julia mentioned. It’s made up of these three interlocking rune rings. That’s what they use the dark stones for, to define the conditions. We could trash it, and then they’d be flying blind, or we could have a little fun with it.”

“What do you mean, ‘fun,’” Carlos asked, leaning forward.

The personalities of everyone here were starting to shine through, and there seemed to be a little friction between different factions or roles of the people that lived here, but he didn’t know enough to interpret that. Part of Benjamin wondered who he could really trust. It was entirely possible that there were other agendas at play right now, but there was no real way to test them.

Secrets could come later, though, when he had things worth keeping secret. “Well, if we dig up this part of this ring two here and move the stones around in the right pattern, suddenly their rifts will open up a hundred feet straight above the center of the plaza, or if we take apart the point where rings one and two meet, suddenly it’s not a beacon anymore. Suddenly, it’s a repulsion, uhmm… thing. If anyone tried to open a rift within a mile, then they are shunted pretty far away from us.”

They debated both options for a few minutes after that before most opted to go with his second plan. While the first sounded like it would be a lot more fun, the second one was a much larger advantage tactically.

Benjamin sighed. While this work was absolutely critical, it wasn’t exactly something he could entrust to anyone else. A quick scan of the skills of the survivors showed that there were a few with healing or plant-related magics, but there was no one with so much as a point in runic magic, so it fell to him.

With a few strong men, they were able to rip up a portion of the plaza he designated. This left him with a hole and a stack of black and white cobblestones, but he was confident that it wouldn’t take too long to fix it. At this point, it was less magic than paint by number.

“How did you learn how to do this,” Jeong asked in hushed tones as they started to put it all back together again. “Are you a Rhulvin trying to overthrow another house or—”

“College,” Benjamin grunted. “Back in California, on Earth. I studied six hours a day for four years. It’s not so hard.”

“The Earth I came from did not know anything of this magic,” the Korean said with a shake of his head.

“No,” Benjamin answered without taking his eyes away from the stones or the pattern he had pinned to his heads-up display. “Mine neither, but programming isn’t so different if you learn the rules, and I learn more every day.”

“This is good,” Jeong agreed. “The more you learn, the sooner we can crush them.”

“So then you’ll come with us?” Benjamin asked, smiling for the first time since everything had happened. “We were going to ask everyone at some kind of meeting tonight, but—”

“I think almost everyone here will wish to join your army, Ben-jamin,” he said, trying on the unfamiliar name. “The monsters have taken our whole lives. I can barely remember the family I left behind. Since I can never hope to have that life back, I will have to settle for taking theirs instead.”

They worked while they chatted, and while Benjamin wasn’t a hundred percent certain that simply restructuring the thing like a giant magical jigsaw puzzle was enough, it was all he could think to do. Besides, since it was now past ten in the morning according to his status spell, thinking was becoming a very tall order indeed.

“Where can I crash out for a few hours of sleep?” He asked finally, stretching. It had been an awful day, but maybe not the worst one of this life so far, and he could live with that.

Ch. 58 - An Embarrassment of Riches

Benjamin stumbled toward the small stone villa where all of his friends were already resting. From the outside, it was the nicest building in town, though that wasn’t saying much. Inside, though - it might as well have been a portal to another, more luxurious world.

He would have believed that was exactly what happened when he saw the small marble fountain and the couches that dominated the living room or courtyard or whatever this place was were it not for the windows showing the fields outside just where they should be. After all - how could any place be so clean with its plastered walls and colorful mosaics were it not for magic? He took a moment to just soak it all in like a tourist on holiday.

His friends were all draped across the couches when he arrived, sparking a feeling of envy as he looked at them. He hadn’t slept on anything softer than grass in months; he’d practically forgotten that cushions existed, and now that he’d found some, well, the excitement of exploring this strange new place had given him a second wind he would have preferred to have gone without.

The last thing that Benjamin wanted was to stay awake any longer, but the whole building put his mind into overdrive. The first thing he did was slip past Matt’s snoring form toward the kitchen. Only Raja’s eyes opened as he passed by, and his silent friend quickly shut them again as soon as he saw that Matt wasn’t a threat.

The kitchen was both elegant and primitive, but Benjamin ignored the strange way that fantasy people made dinner, and instead, he started digging through the cabinets. He found what he was looking for almost instantly and devoured the stale heel of bread along with the small block of pale cheese like a starving man.

The fruit they’d had the other night had been amazing, but nothing could compare to the long-lost feeling of tough, chewy bread that his body had longed for as long as he’d been here. When he found a second, fresher loaf and butter to go with it, his first instinct was to devour it whole, but instead, he forced him to take only a small piece of the fresher loaf and savor it before he brought the rest to the living room and set it down on the central table for his friends to enjoy when they woke up.

Just that simple act was enough to make his eyes tear up as he thought about all the meals they’d shared together up to this point and how any one of them might be snuffed out as quickly as Nicole had been. Benjamin turned, and suddenly wanting to be alone with that sadness lest he actually start crying, he turned and went upstairs to continue his explorations.

The villa had no running water, but it did have chamber pots and several luxurious bedrooms. It also had little runic markings on most surfaces that hinted at hidden functions he’d have to explore in detail once he was awake to have any prayer of actually understanding. He didn’t worry about that now. Instead, Benjamin chose the largest bed, stripped to his shorts, and slipped beneath the colorful blanket.

He was filthy, and part of his mind cared that he was going to get the cool cloth guilty, but the rest of him ignored it. For the last eight months, he’d been sleeping in his clothes in a dirty, sweat-stained sack for night after night. This was heaven. He could die happy here, were it not for the recent deaths, of course.

It was ironic. Every moment that brought him happiness turned instantly to ashes when he remembered what happened, and somehow, everything circled back to that point. Just closing his eyes was enough to make him remember that horrible sight and all that blood.

That was how he fell asleep. He didn’t remember doing it. His body just passed out, completely exhausted, and his mind taunted him with terrible nightmares of the day’s events, where they died over and over again. Sometimes, they all died under the relentless rain of sharpened bone spears that never seemed to stop, and other times, he was forced to watch his friends torn limb from limb while he cowered behind his magical trick.

“You could have saved her!” Raja rasped in his long-forgotten voice. As he turned his bow on his friends instead of the monster, they were fighting. “You could have saved her, but you could only save yourself instead.”

Benjamin tried to explain that wasn’t true and that she was well outside of his range, but he found he couldn’t speak. Instead, he could only chat with his friend with a few simple pop-up text messages that made it impossible to convey any real feelings.

He struggled to type something, and at the same time, he endured the barrage of both bone and arrow, and he drained the life of Emma and Matt to keep his shield up. However, in the end, it failed, and the summoned monster killed him by ripping the bones from his flesh and adding them to the cloud of swirling death while his torn flesh and organs stayed behind as a sad last testament to how little his life truly mattered.

He bolted upright in bed as he fought free of his nightmare’s vicious grasp, with his chest still heaving, thankful to still be alive. It was only when he noticed how orange the light was that he turned to look out the window that he noticed he’d slept pretty much all of the day away.

He also noticed he wasn’t alone. There was someone in bed with him, and judging by the way her dark hair cascaded down her back, she was naked.

At first, he thought it was another strange dream, but it wasn’t until he’d eased himself out of the bed and she’d started to turn over that he decided it wasn’t. He hadn’t paid enough attention to Juliana in their brief conversation to imagine her in this level of detail, and he turned away from her nudity, even though she chastely held the sheet up against her chest.

“Ummm… dare I ask what you’re doing in my bed?” Benjamin asked.

“Your bed?” she answered with a musical laugh. “Lord Grevin might disagree if he was still alive, but he would appreciate your panache regardless.”

“Well, yes,” Benjamin admitted, “It’s not my bed, but I was sleeping here first.”

“On that, we will have to disagree once again,” she said with a smile that was more flirtatious than amused. “I’ve been sleeping here every night for years now. Well - when we actually got around to sleeping, that is.”

“Oh…” Benjamin said, fumbling for any other words as he finally realized what it was her role had been in this little settlement. She was a personal servant of one of the summoner lords, and likely, that role was a little more personal than he’d be comfortable knowing about. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that part anymore. They won’t be coming back to do anything awful to you or...”

“Awful isn’t exactly what I would call it,” she said with a smirk. “I doubt there’s anyone in this god-forsaken place that enjoyed their job more than I did mine. Wouldn’t you much rather enjoy sweaty, drug-laden nights to sweaty, back-breaking days plowing the field under the summer sun?”

Benjamin tried to remember that most or all of this was due to years of magical compulsion. Even if she was talking about how much she loved it, that too was another form of bargaining, but he found the level of sexuality she was exuding to be deeply uncomfortable. The sheet she was wearing as she sat in the bed wasn’t thick enough to cover her curvaceous outline, and no matter how much his heart might be wracked by grief and guilt, she was certainly offering him a very interesting proposition.

“Well, I’m sure once all this is done, y-you can find whatever life it is you want, and—” Benjamin stammered.

“What about you?” she asked, letting her sheet fall away to reveal her pale skin. “Do you see anything you want?”

Benjamin turned to avoid looking at her, but that wouldn’t help escape the image of her breasts that had burned their way into his mind in an instant.

“There’s lots of things I want,” Benjamin said, “A hot bath, a good meal, and information about where these mages keep their valuables and secrets would be good places to start. Maybe you can help me with those once you put some clothes on.”

“Fine,” she said cooly after a moment. “If you’d step out of the room for a moment, we’ll see what we can do about that.”

Benjamin went downstairs to find Matt and Emma already feasting on plates of roasted chicken, steaming potatoes, and freshly baked rolls. Matt had three empty plates in front of him already, while at the same time, Benjamin wasn’t sure that Raja had taken more than a bite or two.

“Benji - you’re up!” Matt called out. “Come - feast with us!”

Benjamin’s hunger won out over his grief, and he quickly dug in. The food was simple. His dad would have called it peasant food, but even so, it was amazing. They’d had their share of herbs to do similar things, but there was something about slow-cooked rotisserie chicken that simply could not be duplicated on their shabby fireplace, which only ever seemed to have two settings: burned and raw.

Outside, he could occasionally hear cheers and toasts. No one would begrudge a party by dozens of men who found themselves suddenly free, but the dinner he shared with his friends wasn’t exactly a joyful occasion. Regardless, it was one he was grateful for, and within minutes, his fingers and cheeks were covered in grease as he sought to gnaw every last scrap of meat from the bones.

“So, do you enjoy your little wake-up call?” Emma asked with a Cheshire smile when she saw Juliana coming down the stairs.

“Gross, Emma,” Benjamin answered, delaying only a moment so he could swallow a mouthful of food. “Can you just save it? Today? Please?”

“What?” she asked, feigning ignorance, and Raja got up and walked outside without a word.

“I don’t think the world is ready for jokes,” he shot back. “Maybe wait a week or two.”

“Whose joking?” she shrugged, looking back to her roll. “Everyone drowns their sorrows in a different way. You want to do it doggy style? I’m not going to judge.”

Benjamin stood up and tried to decide whether or not he should follow Raja’s example when Juliana asked, “Is there a problem?” A moment ago, she’d been a complete vamp, but now that she was dressed modestly again, he barely recognized her as the same woman, save for the unwelcome flashes his mind gave him about what she looked like under her simple dress.

“No,” Benjamin said, ending the topic. “I’ve had rest, I’ve had food, now I want to see everything these summoners had that we might be able to use against them.”

She nodded, but before she answered, he continued. “Matt - please talk to Raja and make sure he’s okay. After I see if we have any secret weapons, we’re going to have a town meeting with everyone. I’d like to be on the road by tomorrow or the day after at the latest.”

His friend nodded at that, but he said nothing. He didn’t need to. Even in moments like this, despite everything they’d been through, or perhaps because of it, the two of them were of one mind, at least on the important stuff.