Drew nodded his head, “I know, well, my head knows that anyway, but my heart still keeps telling me I could have done better.” He sighed, “When did you get so world wise? Where was the scared little ensign who saved my life back at HQ? The one who didn’t want to leave her safe room?”
Sarah shook her head, and laughed, Drew wasn’t sure he had ever actually heard her laugh before, but it was a nice sound. “Well, I’m pretty smart you know? That’s why they accepted me into the academy and made me an officer. We’re all much smarter than you dirty enlisted.” She pretended to dust off her hand that had been on his shoulder and Drew laughed.
“Yeah, well, I prefer to work for my pay, thank you very much.”
“Alright, there is a ton of stuff I need to do. Wait here; I’ll get some people to go with you.” Sarah said, giving Drew a final smile before she headed back into the main room. Drew sighed, and putting his back against the wall, slid down to rest his feet. He ran his hands through his hair; it was getting long, out of regulation. Soon it would be turning curly. He hadn’t told anyone about the three xatherite that he’d gotten from the shaman. He glanced at his map and decided that he really wanted sacred shell to round out the last spot in his mostly fully constellation.
For one, it was another element, which meant that he could theoretically add a considerable amount of firepower, especially if his fireball, storm, and cone of frost all linked with it. He wasn’t sure what radiant energy was, but he imagined it was sort of like sacred damage type from his pathfinder days, and umbral was probably the profane equivalent. The other reason was that he was pretty sure there was going to be an additional bonus for completing an entire constellation, and he wanted to know what that bonus was.
Slotting sacred shell into the yellow slot. He barely felt it as it was such a low-grade xatherite, and the headache just seemed to fade into the general haze his brain was in after the emotional trauma of the past few hours. He waited for a few heartbeats but didn’t get any indication that he had done anything. It would probably need to be attuned before it gave him any of the bonuses. Another plus of using such a low-grade xatherite. It would attune much faster than his other ones. He glanced at the other two xatherite.
Mental blow would be amazing for Daryl. He wasn’t sure why it was an indigo instead of a green, but the system did weird things. This would give the scout something to use as an attack skill, and a way to defend himself. He glanced down the hallway, concerned for Daryl. He wasn’t sure what the man would do now that he’d lost his wife. Rescuing Angela had been his primary objective ever since they met all those days ago.
Hopefully Daryl didn’t blame him for the failure. Drew swallowed. He’d never been good at helping grieving people. His only real experience was with a cousin that died in college. He pushed those thoughts away as something to deal with later. Who would he give volley to? JP seemed the obvious choice. The power of putting area of effect spells in links was becoming more obvious to Drew with all his storm spells. They had been a massive force multiplier. And JP was currently the only one in the group that had anywhere near the amount of elemental xatherite to take advantage of it.
There were a couple of decent spots for JP to slot it in too. He frowned, thinking about how he was going to have to tell the three men that he could access their maps soon. It felt a bit like an invasion of privacy, knowing exactly what xatherite they had and how they connected. Drew tried to put himself in their shoes and knew he would be offended if he wasn’t told that someone had that kind of access to his map. Vowing to tell them the next chance he got, he pulled his last water bottle and some jerky from his backpack, snacking to relieve the emotional pressure of the day.
As he ate, he pondered the shaman’s words. He said that Drew was built to kill. All the xatherite he’d gathered had been made to kill, or to defend himself from being killed. Even the non-combat colors like blue and indigo. What did that say about him exactly? Was the shaman, right? Was the captain? Was he just there to kill things, to be a good soldier? Ares didn’t seem to think so, Ares called him a leader. A savior for humankind. A protector.
Katie would probably tell him that he was being stupid. The troll was obviously trying to unbalance him, and he should ignore everything it said. With a pang, he realized how much he missed the brunette. He had hated having to split the party but knew that it was the most logical course of action. Inside he realized that he didn’t want to explore another dungeon without her. He was growing to depend on her ability to call him on his crap, not to mention her very useful skills.
Several pieces of jerky later, he saw three people heading up the tunnel towards him and he stood up to greet them, glad for something to distract him from his thoughts.
Chapter Forty-Four — Core
The three people came to a stop a few feet from Drew, who greeted them with a wave, “Hey guys. I’m Drew.” He neglected to give his rank, and he wondered if it was because he was purposefully trying to distance himself from the captain. All three of the people were adults, and he vaguely recognized them from their time in the pit looking for survivors.
“Hello sir, I’m PFC Kyle, and these are Airmen Jones and Wilson,” the lead figure said. They were all young, probably early twenties, and Drew nodded his head to each as they were introduced.
“Alright, nice to meet you. First off, what are your first names and what combat xatherite do you have?” None of them had weapons, so Drew assumed they had other skills.
“Ah, first name is Dak, sir. I have an orange that turns my skin into stone. Tires me out something fierce, but I can’t really be hurt in that form.” That was from Kyle, and from his accent, he was from somewhere in the great lakes area.
“I, uh, don’t really have any combat xatherite, but the Ensign said you’d need my help clearing the gate. I have a terrakinesis violet,” Jones said, “Oh, and my first name is Adam.”
“Glenn,” Wilson said, with an up-nod that made Drew think he hadn’t quite been acclimated to the military before the advent. “I got two, a blue that allows me to summon throwing daggers and a yellow that can deflect projectiles.”
That made sense, none of them would have been able to fight against the trolls, as they didn’t have any elemental attacks. He turned to Adam, “The trolls didn’t use you to clear the dirt?” he asked the airman with a quirk of his eyebrow.
“No, sir. They didn’t ever find out I had it. I read about how the emperor of China used to have his workers killed after they finished digging stuff up. These guys reminded me of how he ran things. So I sort of used it to make it take longer.” Adam looked a little ashamed at his inability to do anything productive against the trolls.
“Good, no telling how many people you saved. If the trolls had been able to get into the building earlier, we might not have been here before they went all trigger happy,” Drew said with a nod, and then he turned and began walking down the tunnel. “We don’t have a lot of time; I’d like to get this done as quickly as possible.” All of them had been in the pit, so they understood what they were getting into.
The smell hit them before they ever came close to the pit. Drew put his sleeve up to his mouth to block the stench. It had been bad before, but a few hours of decay hadn’t improved the situation at all. The first step into the room was nearly overwhelming. Pushing down an involuntary gag, he surveyed the room. Dark shadowy things seemed to crawl around the corners of the room at the edge of his vision; he was sure that it was just his imagination playing tricks on him, but as they made their way down the spiral Drew cast fireball and frostfire ball whenever he saw more than two bodies together, cutting down on the number of possible wereghouls.