Chapter 114: Stealth and Help

Arthur followed Karra as fast as his legs could carry him. From the way she glanced behind herself at him from time to time, he could tell she was seriously considering picking him up and carrying him to their destination. To her enormous credit, she resisted this impulse, holding down her speed to what Arthur could handle. By the time they got there, he was wobbling on his feet, trying his best to interpret what his eyes were showing him.

One breath bled into the next until finally, his brain passed a critical threshold and granted Arthur some partial understanding of what he was looking at. His head snapped up at the barest implication of what it meant.

“What in the hell is that?” Arthur looked from Milo to Kout to Karra, then finally to Lith, who was there for reasons that were quickly becoming obvious. Lith leveled his bow and shot an arrow through a small hole in the mined-out rock wall, eliciting a thumping sound and a squeal from whatever was behind it. Mostly because he was so tired, Arthur didn’t flinch. “I thought you were looking for iron.”

“And we found it. Plenty of it, as pure as I’ve even heard of.” Milo looked grimly at the head-sized hole in the rock. “It’s just my luck, you know? I spent so long looking for the most common kind of metal, and when I finally find it, it’s wrapped around a trapped dungeon.”

“No. It can’t be. If monsters are coming out of that thing…”

“It’s a dungeon break, they would,” Milo said. “Only, according to this guy, we got lucky.”

“We got very lucky. Because this wave has been going on for some time. It has to have been, given how slowly the monsters are popping out.” Lith notched another arrow to his bow, never taking his eye off the hole that Milo and Karra had created. It was the window to a bottled storm of system-generated violence. “They’ve been crushing against all that rock as the system pushes them out. For all we know, they’ve been doing that for thousands of years.”

“And now they can get out?” Arthur asked.

The bowstring twanged, drawing another monstrous cry as the arrow disappeared into the dark.

“Not quite yet,” Karra said. “It took a lot of strength to bust that little hole in the rock. I had a metal tool in hand to do it. They’re getting pushed out into a space a few inches wide, at best. Whatever gets out of here would have to be pretty strong. Strong enough to go through a rock wall that’s a few inches thick, at least.”

Arthur watched as dimly lit horrors approached the hole and got knocked down by arrows for a minute or so before the very obvious problem with what was going on occurred to him.

“Wait,” Arthur said, turning to Lith. “If they can’t get out, why are you shooting them? Aren’t you wasting arrows?”

“Because it’s free experience, Arthur. Do you know how my class works?”

“Not really,” Arthur said, then looked away in embarrassment. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m a stalker. I can shoot an arrow a lot harder and straighter than you could, but I’m optimized for beasts, not dungeon monsters. Most of the time, I’m barely strong enough to help with actual dungeon classes in groups. This is…” Lith hesitated. “I know this could be bad if the monsters get out, but right now, it’s perfect for me. I can pull an all-nighter here and watch things while you guys decide what we do with it.”

“We thought it was pretty obvious that we’d leave the wall up.” Milo said. “Dungeon breaks don’t last forever, and once they stop coming through, we can… do something. Karbo should be by eventually, and we can have him figure something out for us then.”

“Well alright. It’s probably better to have a hole so that we can see what’s going on than the other way around.” Arthur shook himself out. “But you found iron? Finally?”

“Yes. So much of it. Even the little bit we got out before we hit the trapped dungeon is enough for me to cover nails plus all the tools I took apart, and then some. Once we can get to the rest of it, we’re set. Pumps for Mizu. Doorknobs. Everything,” Milo replied.

“And Lith, you’re okay guarding this thing?”

“Yes, absolutely. Plus, I’m almost the only person who can get away if anything breaks through. Gods, I hope nothing does bust through. Anything that could won’t be something I should be tangling with.”

“Is there any way I can help?”

“Pep.” Lith shot his bow again. “And lots of it. I can’t really sleep while I’m doing this. I’ll be okay for the first night, for sure, but pepped tea will make it easier. After that, I’ll need as much as you can bring.”

“Doesn’t sound healthy,” Arthur said.

“It’s probably not, but every level I gain means more body stats. I’ll make more than I lose, by far.”

“Well, good enough,” Arthur said. “And I now need to get back to town. You guys okay otherwise?”

“We’re fine. Karra, can you help me bundle up these hematite ores? Ol’ Milo needs to build a cupola blast furnace.”

“Sure, birdsmith. Let's get some rocks.”

—

Back in town, Arthur gathered everyone who wasn’t actively unloading iron ore or guarding a hole in a wall to figure out their best move.

“It seems crazy that there’s no better way to contact anyone.” Rhodia said as she assembled her fireplace close to Arthur’s new shop. “What if someone got seriously hurt?”

“Emergency alchemist pills to hold us over until someone can go get help,” Mizu said. “It’s an odd situation. Normally, our hunter would handle the travel. He’s fast and can take care of himself out there. And Karbo’s militia is making sure there are no monster waves. But they were never meant to hover over us every second, and most new towns get more combat-related classes than we did. There’s nobody we can send right now.”

“What about Karra?” Lily asked. “She’s strong.”

“Not that strong,” Arthur said. “She doesn’t have a single skill that protects her above what her stats will do. She’s not much safer than any of us would be.”

“We could wait it out,” Lily said.

Arthur shook his head. “We can’t, Lily. It’s probably going to be fine, but we can’t take that chance. One strong monster could wipe all of us out. We have to do something. I just don’t know what.”

“Actually, I can help with that,” Corbin said.

Lily jumped. “Holy good gods. Corbin, where did you come from?”

“I, uh, hmm,” Corbin said. “That’s sort of a long story.”

“I think I can guess. You got here in stealth, then stayed stealthed because you forgot you were doing it, and then it was too awkward to unstealth?” Lily asked.

Corbin slumped a bit. “I guess it’s a short story.”

“We considered only our own economies when proposing trade treaties, slowing your recovery from our conflict.”

“Oh, hi, Mizu,” Corbin said without missing a beat.

“Hi, Corbin. How long have you been here, exactly?” Mizu asked.

“A few days. Maybe a week, at the most.”

“And you’ve been sleeping where?”

“One of the sheds. I think Lily’s, after she moved into her little house.”

“And during that time, did it ever occur to you,” Mizu said, visibly frustrated, “that we wouldn’t know you had been stealthed the whole time, and you could have just pretended you had just arrived, whenever you came out of stealth?”

“Oh.” Corbin’s mouth flopped open a bit as he realized the implications of stealth in a way he somehow hadn’t considered before. “Ohhh. Yeah. I probably could have done that.”

Several hands came up and hit several of their owner’s foreheads at once.

“Corbin isn’t stupid,” Lily explained to Kout, who was watching all these things go down in a state of extreme confusion. “But he spends a lot of time hiding. And he forgets parts of how to interact with people.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Corbin said. “But it works out here, right? Because that made me really good at being stealthy. And if what you said about getting to the militia is true, then…”

“Then you’d be a huge help to us,” Arthur said. “Absolutely massive help. Damn, Corbin. I didn’t realize how good at hiding you must be to keep out of all of our sight for a week for a second there.”

“Especially mine,” Kout said. “I’ve got so many points in perception. Nothing is going to find him.”

“The only problem is I’m not actually that fast,” Corbin said. “Stealth is more about moving carefully than quickly, most of the time. I’m not slow, but it’s going to take some time to find anyone to come help.”

“How long?” Rhodia asked.

“A day, or a few days at most. Depends on how far they’ve moved off. They patrol around the general area, which is a pretty large amount of space. But they aren’t hard to track. And then however long it takes for them to get here.”

“And you’d be safe?” Lily asked. “You don’t fight much, right?”

“I can fight okay. But the time estimate assumes I don’t fight. If I don’t get caught, I don’t fight. Stealth classes are scouts and support members. We don’t fight much on our own.” Corbin pulled a simple dagger from his belt and flipped it through the air, catching it by the handle and moving to what looked like a good fighting stance. “I still fight better than anyone here, though.”

“Well, it’s beside the point,” Arthur said. “The alternative is everyone, including you, being in danger. I don’t see there being much alternative. Now, what do you need for food?”

There was still some travel food left, dried stuff everyone had packed for the trip out and more or less stored after that. Arthur put what he could into Corbin’s bag. He also made the biggest meal he could with the ingredients on hand, packing as much into Corbin’s belly as possible, including a tea that would buff his walking pace a bit for the next few hours.

“Do you need anything else? Anything we can give you?” Mizu loaded Corbin up with flasks of water, but was looking for other ways to help. “We gave you trouble for hiding so long, but you really are saving us.”

“No, it’s okay. I travel light. On purpose. Extra weight messes me up.”

“I wish we had more time to talk,” Arthur said. “I haven’t even asked you about your girlfriend.”

“We’re figuring things out. Her class doesn’t really work for the frontier, and… well, it gets complicated.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Corbin.”

Corbin shrugged. “Sometimes it’s like that. Or at least that’s what they tell me. Anyway, I’d better go. This seems like one of those situations where seconds might matter.”

“It is. And, Corbin?”

Corbin turned from walking away and looked at Arthur.

“Hurry back. And when you get back, no more stealthing in town. At least as a regular thing. I know you needed it for training before, but I think it’s time you come back to us. As a member of the group. You’re part of us.”

Corbin made a facial expression Arthur couldn’t quite interpret. And then he was gone.