Ben Border closed the door to the small office he’d been given. It was nothing like the one he’d had for the last ten years in his role as President of a local bank. It had been a small bank, but he’d still had a nice office. Corner windows, good view of downtown Portsmouth.

  He’d done pretty well for himself.

  Then the Connection had come.

  And all that had been lost.

  Something that had taken years to build, lost in seconds.

  He’d lost a lot, but so had his partner Simu. A junior-executive, Simu had been traveling with Ben to an important meeting in Concord. Ben wondered how the people they were supposed to meet had fared with the Connection. He wondered how all the people that had worked in his bank and its branches were faring. He’d hoped some of them would wind up in Northwood, but that was a slim hope. The branches had been much further away. They’d had to have found communities of survivors closer.

  Smiling, he walked away from the office. Those first few weeks, months really, when he and Simu had gotten to the school, it had been bad. They’d had no direction, nothing to do. They had joined the work crews, that was the only thing they could do and they had to in order to get food. Simu had hated that but Ben understood.

  It had made sense. Limited Resources, food and shelter meant that people had to earn it. There was just so much to do, all the help was needed. At his age, Ben had no desire to become a fighter. That just scared him. But there had been nothing that suited his talents. The depression had started setting in. All his training and experience meant nothing.

  But now it did.

  He had a purpose.

  He was starting an economy from the ground up. Using his experience and knowledge. Ben had a direction again. It was too bad that not everyone did.

  Stepping out into the lobby, Ben saw Simu talking with one of the adventurers. It was someone that Simu spent a lot of time with. Theodore was the man’s name. Ben didn’t like him. There was just something off about the man. Ben wasn’t sure what it was, but he could feel it.

  Ben remembered the time that Theodore had come to talk with them in the cafeteria, in the days when he had no direction and could feel the depression coming on. Theodore had talked a lot about nothing, going round and round. He talked about how it wasn’t fair that the adventurers got more benefits than everyone else, that people couldn’t choose to do what they wanted anymore and were forced to become laborers if they couldn’t do anything else. How unfair it was.

  Simu and a couple others at the table seemed to be buying it, but it made no sense to Ben. Theodore was an adventurer himself. He had a power that the others didn’t. He benefited from that privilege. Ben understood their new reality. It wasn’t fair, but since when had life really been fair? He’d been one of the rich, and he’d done what he could to help out others.

  Something like the Connected System was completely unfair. It favored the strong. Ben understood that. He accepted it. There were ways to work around that kind of system but it would take time for Clan Brady to get there. A fledgling Clan wouldn’t be fair. There were things that needed to be built first. Eventually it would even out.

  After Theodore had left, Ben had tried talking with Simu but the other wouldn’t listen. Ben was blind, Simu would say. Theodore was right. Lochlan Brady was wrong. Ben recognized the signs of a fanatic. It got so bad, he started distancing himself from Simu.

  Seeing his former co-worker now, Ben cut a sharper angle through the lobby. He didn’t want to talk to Simu. But it was too late. Theodore had seen him and pointed it out to Simu. Ben pretended to not see them, heading for the doors. He could hear Simu picking up his pace, rushing to join him.

  Together, side by side, they walked out the doors.

  “Ben, how have you been?,” Simu asked. “It’s been a bit since we talked last.”

  “It has and I’ve been busy,” Ben replied.

  “Working for Lord Lochlan,” Simu said. Ben picked up on the sarcasm.

  “Yes. The Clan needs an economy and Loch tasked me with starting it.”

  “Loch,” Simu chuckled. “You’ve gotten close to our Lord haven’t you?”

  Ben sighed.

  “No closer than anyone else. You know he hates being called Lord.”

  Simu shrugged.

  “False humility,” he said. “Anyone with that level of power isn’t one of us anymore.”

  “Us?”

  Simu waved his hands at all the people outside the school. They walked down the concrete steps, Ben watching all the activity. It was a nice Fall day out. Not too cold, pleasant with the warmth of the sun. He’d always loved Fall in New England.

  “All of these people,” Simu said. “The ones that he forces to be labor.”

  He practically spit out the last word.

  Ben sighed.

  “I know you don’t like building the wall,” Ben said. “I didn’t either, but it won’t be much longer. Once we get through the winter, I’ll probably have a place for you in the new banking venture.”

  Simu laughed. It was a harsh sound. Ben didn’t like it. The noise was not something he’d ever heard from Simu before the the two had worked closely together for years.

  “You really are one of them now aren’t you?,” Simu said, shaking his head. “I had hoped you wouldn’t be but I see I was wrong.”

  “One of who?”

  “Lord Lochlan’s sycophants,” Simu said, turning and leaving.

  He walked away, disappearing into the crowds of people.

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  Ben watched him go, wondering what had just happened.

  “He’s got it all wrong,” a voice said, coming up behind Ben.

  He turned, surprised. He hadn’t heard anyone approaching. The man was about Ben’s age, maybe older. He had long shaggy hair and beard. Very unkempt. The man’s eyes were haunted. He was hunched, tired looking, like he hadn’t eaten in days. One hand rubbed at the side of his head. Ben thought he knew him. Jim? Was that the man’s name?

  He’d been one of the ones that came to the Clanhold with Theodore wasn’t he? Ben thought he’d seen Jim spending a lot of time with Theodore and seemed to look lost when Theodore was running Dungeons and stuff with his adventuring team. What had happened to the man?

  “He’s the sycophant,” Jim said, kind of mumbling. “He’s the follower and doesn’t even know it. It’s hard to see and escape,” Jim kept talking, walking right by Ben. “I didn’t see for a long time. I do now. But sometimes I don’t. Why does my head always hurt?”

  Ben reached out to stop the man. Jim needed to be brought to the healers, but it was too late. The man was gone. Lost in the crowd. Ben would need to remember to tell one of the healers to keep an eye out for Jim. Right now he had to talk to Alison about what other items should be added to the Adventurer’s gear lists.

  ***

  Jake watched the line of people. About a half dozen of them, moving slowly, heads hanging. They were ragged, tired, lacking in hope. Jake had seen eyes like theirs before. The eyes of people that were afraid, tired and worn out. They’d had any resistance beat out of them.

  Sometimes literally.

  Three others walked with them. One in the back, two on the sides. These ones stood straight. They wore mismatched armor but at least wore armor. Each carried swords, one even had a shield and one had a spear.

  Guards with their prisoners. More slaves really. Jake had been watching the people in Concord for a couple of days now, trying to get the lay of the land. He understood the dynamic. The Connected System rewarded those with power, those that craved power. Those that strived to Advance.

  In Concord, the powerful people had taken that to extremes. They’d gained their power and lorded it over others, pushing those weaker down to little more than slaves. And there were a lot of them in Concord. Not as many guards or fighters of any kind.

  From what he’d seen, there were three levels of citizens in the ruins of Concord. The lowest were the slaves. He’d heard them called serfs, but they were slaves. The next level were the guards, called the soldiers. The final level were the knights. Those were the ones that went out and fought the monsters in the city, delved the Dungeons. Those were the ones that got the good stuff, the most powerful.

  The ones in charge of the city and the three hundred or so people now living in the downtown area. That included all three levels of people. Jake hadn’t living in Concord, he didn’t know what the locals had considered downtown. There was a small hotel that the upper level of citizens had taken over, the rest spreading out in the buildings around it. What used to be restaurants, a theater and businesses. A grocery store was down the hill a short distance, along with a liquor store. Both those were now empty, pillaged of everything that had remained.

  Jake had gone into the grocery store the first night he’d been in town, finding absolutely nothing except stuff that had gone rotten. The citizens had taken everything they could. He didn’t blame them. Winter was coming and from what he’d seen, there wasn’t enough food to feed everyone. At least they’d been smart enough to raid the clothing store at the other end of the shopping plaza, so there was plenty of clothing for everyone.

  A large pile of ash lay in the middle of the plaza’s parking lot, the constant wind having blown most of it around, collecting against buildings. Jake had found plenty of bones piled up. He’d been surprised there had been a need to burn bodies, which is what he assumed had happened. Most places he’d been, there were no bodies. The Connection took them. People either Adapted or they disappeared. He assumed they disappeared, since there weren’t any left behind in any houses or apartments and no sign of scavengers eating them.

  He didn’t like what was happening in Concord. But what could he do? One man against all those guards and other Classed people? He knew they all had at least Common or Uncommon Classes. His was Rare, but he was still one person. Even if he was a Level Eighteen Aurastriker, there wasn’t much he could do.

  Shifting his position on top of the five story building’s roof, he watched the small group trudge down Main Street, heading for the buildings that were their quarters. They were at one end, what the remaining street signs had said was North Main Street. The hotel was at the beginning of South Main Street, the actual Main Street between. Other signs said the road heading east was Loudon Road, with indicators for I-93, Route 4 and Route 202. Dover was that direction, Portsmouth even further away.

  Something kept drawing his attention to the West. Something wanted him to go that direction. But he couldn’t leave the people in Concord. There were too many suffering. He thought the world had gotten bigger, which was odd.

  Before he’d headed to Concord, the only reason to go that direction because of that weird something drawing him to go east down Route 4, he’d done a lot of walking in the Goffstown and Manchester areas. He knew the distances, but the space between where it was mostly housing and forests had grown. He was sure of it. The cities and downtowns hadn’t, but the places between had. If that was the case, how long would it take him to walk all the way to Dover? If that was even where he was being drawn to. Maybe he’d have to go all the way to Portsmouth.

  With a sigh, Jake entered the building’s stairwell, making his way down to the first floor. He exited out the back entrance, not wanting to go out onto Main Street. The one group had passed, but there would be more.

  Slowly opening the door, he looked around, making sure there was no one. He’d have to circle back up to Main Street and cross Bridge Street, crossing the long bridge, to get to Loudon Road. He wanted to stay on the ground, but the Merrimack River was in the way and he had no way to cross. Swimming wasn’t an option. He traveled light with his backpack and camping gear, he couldn’t afford for any of it to get wet or lost in the river that was raging far more than it ever had before.

  Best bet was to wait until nightfall, then cross.

  Jake was about to reenter the building, finding an empty apartment to hang out in until dark, maybe find some food or something not pillaged yet, when a sound stopped him. It was grunting and cursing. Followed by a scream. Drawing his swords, Jake ran toward the sounds.

  The noises led him to an alley between buildings. He could see three people. What looked like two men and a woman. The woman was on the ground, hands raised to ward off the two men. None had weapons drawn.

  Jake cursed, Activating one of his powers. A line of energy grew around the sword in his right hand, the edges crackling, little bolts snapping off. Flames spread along the sword in his left. The noise drew the attention of the men.

  “Go away,” one said.

  “Mind your own business,” followed the other.

  Both took a step towards Jake, eyes on his swords.

  “You might want to leave,” he told them.

  They laughed.

  Jake sighed and charged.