We reached a small town outside Denver, I had assumed it would look like Greenriver, but that was wrong. There was a large tent city outside and despite the number of people there were few fighters and none even close to our close to our gold rankers. large populations seemed to more of an inhibition than an advantage, their guardians are forced to stay close or else the population starts to panic.

  Many of the leaders were dead and political strife is everywhere. Dad had to put his foot down so we weren’t treated like disposable soldiers. They didn’t take that well, they are still fixated on pre apocalypse mindsets where money and influence were the greatest sources of power. Tomorrow we’ll get to show that there is now a third source.

  Day 92, Owen Landers

  “Who are you?” The oldest man asked, “Are you with the government?”

  He had a slight accent, not from any country that Silas could place. They had exited onto an isolated rock formation a mile away. Surprisingly, a dragonkin had already made it this far out. Fortunately, it was in the ravines.

  “Dad, he just killed those things, don’t piss him off,” the son tugged the older man’s sleeve.

  So they were immigrants to somewhere. The six weren’t all related, the siblings and the fifty-something-year-old man were related and looked Mongolian. The other three looked to be from India. Silas wasn’t sure what had led to such a group being captured, but it made sense that the portal opened to a place like India, as it was the most likely location after China.

  Silas held up a hand, “It's not an issue, I’m just happy you can speak English.’

  “Why wouldn’t I be able to speak English? I am not uneducated,” The older man’s expression darkened.

  Silas’s anger flared at the man’s antagonistic stance. He shoved down the feeling. Part of him was wondering if wisdom helped regulate emotions and critical thinking. It didn’t matter, this man was scared and likely had a fight reflex.

  He raised an eyebrow, “Does it matter whether or not I think you're educated? We’re strangers, my opinion should be irrelevant. Unfortunately, that's not how life works, you need me to live so my opinion is very much important. I have other people to keep alive, so I need to know if you’re going to keep this attitude or drop it.”

  The older man took in Silas’s outfit, noting the burns, cracks, and gore covering him. He nodded slowly, “For now, I can put aside my opinions.”

  “Good. Now on to your first question. I am a United States soldier, so while I am technically with the government, I am currently stranded here,” Silas watched the older man’s face perk up, then deflate, “I am Silas, now tell me who you are, where that portal opens, and what sigils you have.”

  The father and son glanced at each other uncertainly. None of the three Indians seemed to know what Silas was saying and the girl missing an arm was simply curled up on the ground, silently weeping. Silas could understand if they didn’t want to share their sigils, he would demand to know them.

  Finally, the father looked up, “What do you mean by sigil? Like a family stamp or insignia?”

  Silas blinked, “No, a purple crystalline object that you can absorb to gain superpowers.”

  They stared at him blankly. Silas looked at the Indians.

  An old woman in that group held up her hands, “I do not know what you speak of.”

  So they did speak English. He was starting to feel uneducated for not being bilingual. It wasn’t the information you knew that was important, it was the information that you could use. Yeah, that was what Silas told himself.

  It had been more than sixty seconds, so a demonstration was in order. Holding up a hand, Silas opened a portal to the safe house. He intended to retrieve Bella and Samantha not drop the people off. They took a step back as the purple oval expanded in crackling lightning.

  “How have you not heard of Sigils? Does wherever you came from have no one with any supernatural abilities?” Silas asked a bit incredulously.

  It was the Indian woman who answered. She bowed, “ I am Rekha Lal, I had some connections among the military. The soldiers used biological materials from the invaders to increase their combat abilities. It was a vital innovation.”

  “What the hell is she talking about,” Bella said as she marched through the portal, “Also, glad you could get them out without dying.”

  “Had some help from Nimrod,” Silas shrugged.

  “The god?” Bella asked a bit incredulously.

  Silas quickly explained what occurred. The eyes of new people widened in fear. Samantha looked at Silas with concern. Bella looked unimpressed.

  “So you just get extra stuff for doing what you were going to anyway,” Bella said, “At least we’ll have a way for the interface to tell us what techniques are.”

  If Silas were a betting man he would bet that the interface would give him just enough information to want it, but not enough to actually use it. It had to be something good right? Pissing off an evil god had to be worth something. Silas liked that train of thought, God, if you don’t like Nimrod, please make that reward awesome. Not the most pious of prayers but it would work for the moment.

  “Won’t the monsters get more dangerous if they succeed?” the Mongolian man said uncertainly.

  Silas wasn’t sure why it mattered to this man, he had done nothing to get here, “I won’t care, I’ll be dead. Also, who are you and why are you people even here? I can’t believe that a nest of dragonkin could kill off any good sized population center, especially an armed one.”

  The old man took a step back in surprise at suddenly being the target of Silas’s questioning, “Uh, I am Batu Temuulen. I was running a branch of my father’s security company in Delhi, taking advantage of the city’s high crime rate.”

  “He’s a local thug, extorting local businesses,” Rekha interjected.

  “No, local thugs take the money and don’t offer protection,” Batu argued, “We owned the local thugs, but we were a true security firm. Also, I didn’t hear you complain when I sheltered you in my compound.”

  “Look where that got us, stranded with a butcher in a foreign world,” Rekha said, “No offense.”

  “Not a problem, butcher kinda fits at this point,” Silas shrugged.

  “Sorry sir, my father is a big deal where we come from. I am Aron, and my sister's name is Mandy. Please help us. My father is too proud to say it but we need your help,” Aron pleaded.

  “Aron and Mandy?” Silas asked, pretty sure those were fake names.

  “We went to college in America, it was easier than coaching our friends to say Naranbaatar or Mandukhai correctly,” Aron said with a shrug.

  “Aron and Mandy it is,” Silas glanced at Batu and Rekha, who were still bickering, “Where does that portal exit? It's not some monster infested den, is it?”

  Aron looked at his sister, “Could we please walk and talk. My sister needs medical aid.”

  “Not quite,” Silas said. He opened a portal to the next safe house, “I have a two mile range, so it will be a few jumps before we make it back to base.”

  The safe houses were cramped, being designed as a portal point for three people, not nine. Still, people could take up a surprisingly small amount of space when monsters prowled around outside. The rooms were covered with soot from the bodies pressing up against the wall, giving the safe houses a particularly unappealing odor.

  Aron explained what had happened while they moved. Silas had expected something similar to Bella’s story, hiding away in a small town, hoping that everything would simply blow over. Aron described a completely different scenario.

  Batu had been fairly wealthy from his extortion business and had used that excess to indulge in a survivalist fantasy. An armored compound in the countryside with enough food to last a decade. A water filtration system and solar power offered everything needed for survival. Batu had even stocked the compound with a theater and every movie and game he could get his hands on.

  They had arrived safely enough. Batu had gotten a few dozen employees out, but the compound could handle more. So he would take his armored bus out, because, yes he had one of those, and look for survivors. It was surprisingly altruistic for someone who basically controlled a branch of the mafia.

  Rekha had been part of a vocal group that disliked Batu being in charge because he was a criminal, despite him rescuing her. She gathered a group of people to take down their perceived enemy and kind of succeeded. Batu was forced out, but hadn’t taken the keys to the bus out of his pocket. A set of keys that was also the only way to access the pantry and lock the front door. So they chased him down and got caught by the dragonkin.

  Silas’s father had been a police chief, but the county he grew up in had fewer than fifty thousand people in it. He had never had to deal with highly organized crime. There was one time he had to break up a gang made up of high schoolers who had decided that vandalism was cool. If Silas remembered right, an irate mother had chased them out of her basement with a spatula, which resulted in a 911 call to save them from the woman. Not exactly the most helpful bit of information at the moment.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  It felt odd to think that the woman was less trustworthy than the criminal. Silas would make sure not to give her group any dragonkin sigils. Best to keep them dependent on him for water and safe food. Though he doubted she could catch up to him in terms of power, he had an extra eight hours a day to maintain his lead.

  “Thank you, Aron, what was directly on the opposite side? What will we have to fight after killing everything on this side?” Silas asked. This was actually what he cared about most, as he wouldn’t be able to immediately portal out of danger.

  “It was in a small residential community on the edge of Dubai. It's a wealthier area, and the portal itself opened in the backyard. I wasn’t allowed to explore, but they appear to have occupied the building,” Aron shrugged, “I assume they also occupy the neighboring ones. They covered them in foul smelling mud bricks.”

  “How did they get the semi-truck through the portal, I assume they aren’t the best drivers,” It was something that confused Silas. The portal was large enough, but what caused them to connect the vehicle with fire? Did their sigils let them feel how flammable an object was?

  Aron shrugged, “I don’t know, I was pulled into the kitchen where we were all held until one of them rushed in and dragged us through the portal.”

  Silas paused, they were being held prisoner on the opposite side? He had been under the assumption that it was a coincidence that they had arrived while he was watching. Things had been off for a bit, too much to chalk up to coincidence. Silas was unsure how any of the dragonkin’s inconsistencies could be leveraged into an advantage for them. They were hidden and portal manipulator made them impossible to chase down or catch.

  Maybe they were trying to use their portal's dead zone to catch them? It made a certain amount of sense, no guards, the timing of the prisoner reveal, and the fire to make them investigate. The only thing it didn’t account for was the attitude of the boss dragonkin, it had seemed far too pleased about Silas’s successful extraction.

  “Stupid lizards,” he muttered, getting a concerned look from Bella.

  It didn’t really matter, they were ten miles from the camp. If any random dragonkin did show up, he would kill them, then portal their corpses a few miles away. They weren’t in any real danger.

  The final portal opened just outside the lake, letting everyone out of the safe house. Silas breathed in the air. It was by no means clean, but it had the murky smell that he had come to associate with lakes. Plants had started growing in earnest and a small number of organisms had started propagating in the water.

  A scream cut through Silas’s relaxation routine.

  He spun to find one of the Indian women scrambling back from a large insect. Samantha and Bella had smirks on their faces while everyone else was terrified. Silas had reached for his weapons, but stopped when his eyes landed on the monster they all cowered from.

  “Bad, Steve, those are friends, not food,” Silas scolded the cockroach.

  The bug looked him up and down emotionlessly. Then it scuttled off to the body pile. Eventually, they would outgrow the pile of meat, but for now, the food went bad faster than the humans and bugs could consume it.

  “You keep monsters as pets?” Rekha said, “You do know that they are responsible for carrying diseases.”

  Silas could already see the trouble she could cause. He had worked with judge mental people like her before. Rekha was absolutely certain she was morally superior to everyone else making her resistant to constructive criticism or personal reflection.

  “New people, that's Steve, he and his nest work garbage disposal for us. You know what that means?” Silas asked.

  The six new people shook their heads.

  “It means that Steve has done more for your survival than any of you have,” Silas smiled, “Now before a real monster tries to snack on you, let's get you some superpowers.”

  Silas had considered giving Rekha the werewolf sigil as it scaled with the defense of a group. However, that sigil would immediately make any holder stronger than he was, at least when it came to lifting ability. Aside from the boost to strength, it was a relatively useless sigil, making it doubly useless to give away.

  Other sigils he refused to hand out were the sphinx sigils. No way was he giving mind control powers to people he didn’t trust. Even if it was only subliminal, that could be devastating.

  Kicking the rock out of the doorway he entered the cave. First, he scooped up three dragonkin sigils. Those would go to Batu and his kids, Silas also grabbed a flesh lord sigil for Mandy, hoping it would heal her arm. The remaining eight sigils were randomly selected from things he wasn’t sure of. The centi snake, German raptors, rubber monkeys, and a few other creatures were all common to this area and he had no idea what they did.

  “Alright,” Silas said as he dropped the purple crystals on the ground, “I would like to start by saying, you are in my debt for giving you these. I had to fight and bleed for them, so they didn’t come cheaply.”

  Batu nodded, clearly familiar with favors and debts. His children were less enthusiastic, but still curious. Rekha and her two followers were more skeptical, but unwilling to argue.

  “Good, here’s how this will work, Batu, Aron, Mandy, I need you on cooking and water purification duty,” Silas tossed the dragonkin sigils over, affirming the notices that popped up as soon as they touched the crystal, “Mandy, this is a duplicate of the one I have. I’m hoping it can fix up your arm.” Silas gestured to the pile, “It didn’t get your names, but you two and Rehka, pick your sigils from this pile. The reminder will be given to Batu and Aron to finish off their slots.”

  “Did you give them something better than what is here?” Rehka asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

  Silas folded his arms, “So what if I did. What would you do about it? This is not a democracy, I am giving you stuff and you get to decide whether you want it or not. You cool with that?”

  Rekha didn’t back down, “And what would happen if we chose not to obey you?”

  “It's not obedience that I’m looking for, it's trust,” Silas said, “I will inevitably leave myself exposed and I don’t want to rely on someone who will collapse.”

  “This is not how trust is built,” Rehka said.

  “If saving your life and giving you superhuman powers doesn’t build trust, I suspect nothing will,” Silas shrugged, “I hear that a situation like this already played out once before.”

  Rehka sputtered, “He’s a criminal!”

  Silas was not in the mood to argue with Rehka, he pointed at her two friends, “Do either of you want a sigil or should I give the ‘criminal’ first pick?”

  Both of them were of a similar age to Rehka and both women. They glanced at their leader for permission. It was a strange action, but different cultures had different standards. That was evidently enough to break Rehka’s resolve, that or she wanted to take the opportunity from Batu.

  Rehka picked up the sigil from the brightly furred nightmare. Silas couldn’t say he was surprised, it looked the most dangerous, being a spiral with a maw at the center. She also picked the rubber monkey sigil. Her people got the centi snake, one of the small corgi dragon things, a spider sigil, and a glass like ghost creature. That left a German Raptor and feathered jaguar sigil for the father and son.

  Silas was curious about what abilities they held, but he was more interested in Bella, “So what did you get?”

  She smiled, “I had similar options to you. Northern Territory Citizen was the free one, my time cooking gave me Outback Chef, and finally, I had Greater Hearth Conserver. I picked the last one for two titles and kept three for myself.”

  “That sounds like it should work well with Thermal Cultivator,” Silas asked.

  Bella nodded, “Yes, for a spirit cost I can reduce the accumulation of wear and tear on any object I consider a part of my household. It also gives me vitality and wisdom every time it grows.”

  Silas frowned, “Only two?”

  He was aware that the Portal Manipulator would be higher quality than the Hearth Cultivator. It cost ten titles, and the ability bore that out. Portals were overpowered. However, the portal ability only cost five titles, the greater part doubled that. When viewed that way, it was logical that he should get more.

  The news made him sad. So much for all men being equal. He supposed that God made them equal, but their actions changed that. It was just represented in physical power here as opposed to money and influence. That made it all the more urgent for him to get home to Abby. What if someone with a better than average sigil threatened her while he was gone?

  ‘Sure, it's only two, but that is still twice as good as any other sigil,” Bella smiled as she set about removing the straps from her crippled arm.

  The clawed shield fell to the ground followed by the lighter underarmor. She pulled up her sleeve, revealing the stump ending just past her elbow. It was no longer the blackened mess that they had tried to save. Her high Italian had gone to work healing it in far less time than they had expected.

  Silas knew what she was excited about. He was too. Grinning he held out the prosthetic arm to her, “Let's see if it works.”

  She snatched it up and strapped it to her arm. Bella held out her arm while Silas connected the plates in her jacket to it. Most prosthetics weren’t securely anchored. Crippled people weren’t supposed to be in combat, so it didn’t matter as much to them. Silas had gotten around this by connecting it to the plates in her jacket. In the future, he would come up with something better, something that wouldn’t require her to live in her armor.

  Bella frowned, glaring at her hand. It wasn’t doing what she wanted. The focus slowly turned into a smile as she figured out how to use her greater sigil. Her eyes widened in shock right before she punched herself in the face.

  “Adding motion not quite as easy as you thought?” Silas asked.

  “No shit,” Bella muttered, rubbing her nose, “I didn’t realize all motion was in a straight line.”

  “Unless an outside force like a fulcrum or an obstacle acts upon it, energy will always go in a straight line,” Samantha chirped.

  That sounded right. Bella had an extra point of spirit, dramatically speeding up her testing. Each finger had to be moved individually, leading Silas to link them like a mitten. It wouldn’t be an issue in the future, but for now, it was a problem. He was glad he made the default position a fist, Bella could simply force it open before releasing her sigil to pick something up.

  Currently, it was a work in progress, but eventually she would get it. It also gave her the ability to use two hands on her weapons. He would need to take some inspiration from a human hand now that he knew Greater Thermal Cultivator wasn’t telekinesis. Tendons made of woven bone that could be tightened to open the hand could do a lot for Bella.

  There was one other great thing. Silas grinned as he passed over the chainsword. Two hands meant a Silas could now fulfill a childhood fantasy.

  “Really,” Bella rolled her eyes.

  “Do it,” Samantha said, pitching her voice to mimic an evil old man.

  “You are both children,” Bella sighed.

  That didn’t stop her from putting some spirit into the chain. Silas had expected some wind up as the teeth rose to full speed. Not, this time. The teeth vanished as they immediately hit a terrifying speed. Bella wobbled for a moment as she got a hold of the rotational force, then she grinned as well.

  “There needs to be a guard on the back,” Bella said as she let the whirring blade slow to a stop, “I need to be able to push the spinning blade into my target.”

  She mimed pressing the blade forward into an imaginary target with her hand. Bella switched to her pauldron, using that to press forward instead. Silas wanted to tell her it was a bad idea, there was no way she could slice a monster in half while the guard was attached. However, if having four inches of spinning blade shoved in wasn’t good enough to get the kill, Bella would be better off retreating.

  Silas started putting together a mental blueprint for the upgraded prosthetic and the guard when he realized something awful. He had six new sets of armor to make. It didn’t stop there, he needed to make six sets of underarmor and underclothing. He almost groaned at the amount of repetitive work he would be doing every night. At least he had another Flesh Lord to keep him company.

  Glancing at the refugees, Silas opened up the chain of command and rank section of his military addendum. Chain of command was still blank likely due to their little group lacking a true command structure. Ranking, however, had six new names on it. Silas was first on both lists, though he had no idea by how much. Mental gave Samantha second place and Bella third while they were swapped on the physical list.

  Unsurprisingly, Rekha was just below Samantha on the physical list and at the bottom on the mental one. The weird flexi creature probably gave control and the monkey likely gave body. He knew that Mandy got one vitality and one focus from her sigils, meaning anyone below her on the physical list had no physical sigils. It was simply unlikely that anyone was less capable than a teenage girl missing an arm and in shock. With that as a baseline, it would be easy to tell who was getting close to becoming a threat and monitor their growth.

  “What did you do to me,” Rekha said while looking at her arm in horror.

  Silas blinked at the sight, she had gotten the flexi arms that the doctor sues abomination had possessed. He wasn’t sure what value the ability had, but it was gross looking. The forearm was bending like it was broken, she wasn’t screaming in pain so he assumed that it wasn’t.

  “What does your sigil do?” Silas asked.

  “It increases my flexibility. I thought that meant that I could touch my toes,” Rekha was getting close to panicking, hyperventilating as she focused on the limb.

  “None of your other limbs are doing that. I would suggest focusing on something else,” Silas suggested.

  “My other…” Rekha fell as her mind went to her other limbs and they went all bendy.

  “How much do you bet that the greater sigil gives her stretchy powers?” Samantha asked.

  Silas shrugged, It would be cool, for the moment there was little he could do for Rekha. He looked over the other women, one was sitting on the ground, just feeling the dust and saying ‘I feel everything’ over and over. Silas thought she had gotten the centi snake and spider sigils. The final Indian was looking at her two companions while reading her interface carefully.

  Mandy still had a shell shocked look on her face, reminiscent of how Bella looked after her husband died. He caught Bella’s eye and gestured to the injured girl. Her face filled compassion as she moved to sit by girl.

  Batu and Aron were also experimenting with their sigils. Aron was jumping up and down with a look of amazement while Batu was squinting, appearing to read a notice. It was all a bit comical, like a bunch of children discovering a fun puzzle.

  “so what do we do with them?” Samantha asked.

  She had seen the same issue that Silas had noticed. None of them were fighters, and none of them took their situation with any composure. If a floppy arm caused a panic attack, a broken one would be a crippling injury.

  “I need to know their abilities, only then can we use them during our hunts,” Silas sighed, “You’re right, as they are now, they will all die.”

  What was it that made Bella and Samantha different? It wasn’t something physical, Batu and Aron were stronger than the girls when they first showed up, by simple virtue of being adult males. However, Bella and Samantha had resolve to push through pain and violence to get up one more time. Hopefully these people could develop it as well.