Warbreaker's Risk: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure (The Connected System Book 2), page 32
They waited.
Nothing shot out, no noise could be heard.
He figured he was being cautious, but in a world where Dungeons could appear in a bush, being cautious was staying alive. Loch stepped around the door, looking down the dark stairs. The light from above, the setting sun coming through the windows, didn’t extend that far down into the stairwell.
From what he could see, the walls were concrete, the stairs wood.
But he couldn’t see the bottom.
He really hadn’t thought this through. Of course it would be dark. There was no electricity.
“Pipes,” he said, still watching the dark below for movement. “Can I have a couple of those glow sticks?”
He’d grabbed handfuls from the hardware store after testing one to make sure it still worked. Whatever chemical reaction occurred when it got snapped hadn’t been lost in the Connection. He wondered if someone could do something with that knowledge. Hadn’t Cerie mentioned something about Alchemy being a Profession Class? Could an Alchemist make chemical torches of some kind?
Another thing added to his ever-growing lists.
Piper walked over with a half dozen in her hands. Loch didn’t want to waste them this early but knew they had to search the basement. At least make sure it was empty before settling in for the night. They could do a deeper search in the morning when the light was better.
Taking two, putting one in his jeans pocket, Loch snapped the first one, giving it a shake to fully activate the light. Jenny took a couple as well.
Holding the glow stick out, Loch walked down the stairs.
“Cerie,” he called, hoping to use her light as well.
The fairy flew over, hovering over his shoulder, following him down the stairs.
He took a few steps down then stopped.
“What’s up?” Jenny asked.
“I was kind of expected to hear I’d entered a Dungeon,” he said, continuing down.
As he got out of the light, he realized the glow stick was brighter than any he had ever seen before. It wasn’t as bright as a torch or a flashlight, but it was definitely stronger than before.
They really needed to get someone Classed as an Alchemist. If the chemical reaction of a glow stick was stronger, what else would be? Not all of Earth’s tech had been turned off. Some of the chemical-activated things could still work. Hopefully, there was someone at the camp that knew about that stuff.
At the bottom, he tossed the glow stick into a corner. Taking the other from Jenny, he tossed it in an opposite corner. It didn’t make it, striking something and bouncing along the ground. With the increased brightness of the sticks, he was able to get an idea of the general layout. Seeing some details in a five foot or so radius around the glow stick.
The basement was the full size of the building above. Along one side were the various mechanical and plumbing equipment. Hot water tank, furnace. The rest of the space was filled with shelves.
“Can you go brighter?” he asked the fairy.
Her glow increased. It wasn’t as strong as it had been in the Challenge Dungeon, which she had said would be the case. There wasn’t as much ambient Spirit here as in a Dungeon. And the Dungeon hadn’t been as dark. It had been dark, but not the complete absence of light, dark. The basement was completely dark.
Jenny stayed at the bottom of the stairs as Cerie followed Loch as he walked among the shelves. There were a couple of gun safes along the wall, but he ignored those. The guns would have been nice, but from what he’d been told, they didn’t work.
Something else an Alchemist could play around with?
There were a handful of bulletproof vests, some flashlights, gas masks, emergency kits, batons, and holsters. He saw radar guns and radios on one shelf, large stack of rechargeable batteries next to them. Boxes of handcuffs. Piles of uniform shirts and pants in plastic bags. Safety vests of various sizes.
He surveyed the entire basement.
Aside from some cleaning supplies, there was nothing else.
It was clear of monsters.
They walked back upstairs, leaving the glow sticks in the corners.
“We’ll grab the supplies in the morning,” he told the others. “Right now, let’s get some food and some sleep.”
He looked around the open office. It was crowded without much room between desks. Looking into one of the offices, he saw that it was pretty crowded as well. A desk with a chair, two visitor chairs, file cabinet and small bookcase.
“I guess we use the sleeping bags on the floor.”
He walked over to one of the desks in the open office, taking a seat. Swiveling around, he started opening drawers. A couple were locked, the ones that opened only containing office supplies. Pens, papers, staplers.
There was a laptop on the top of the desk, the screen up. No power.
The papers looked interesting, but nothing he needed to read. Maybe later if he got bored. There was probably a lot of gossip he could learn about the town by going through the papers.
“Are we going to take the guns?” Brian asked, taking a seat at another desk. Jenny had claimed one of the chairs along the wall.
“No. They don’t work and will just take up space.”
Brian grunted.
“Guns?” Cerie asked. Her eyes glowed green. “Ah, I see. No, that specific kind of technology will not work. It is forbidden by the Connection.”
“You know what guns are?” Loch was surprised.
“I have some knowledge about firearms in my data.”
“You know about guns but didn’t know what a police officer was?”
The fairy shrugged.
“I only know what the Silver Bark Clan input into the Codex Band. And they only know what their pre-Connection scouts told them. Apparently guns were important but police officers were not.”
“Makes sense. Guns were pretty important.”
“Scouts?” Jenny asked. “What do you mean? Those invaders had scouts on Earth?”
“Yes. Every one of the major Clans did.”
“What are the major Clans?” Loch asked.
She glared at him.
“I can only answer one question at a time.”
Loch shrugged. The fairy sighed, turning back to Brian.
“When a world is getting close to being Connected, the Clans want to learn as much as they can about that world, so the Connected System allows them to open small portals. Usually, no more than one or two scouts from each Clan. They can spend years on a pre-Connected world, learning all that they can.”
“That’s not fair,” Jenny muttered. “So they know about us, but we have no clue about any of it? That puts us at a clear disadvantage right from the start.”
“The Connection is not fair,” Cerie said as if Jenny was a child. “The Connection values strength. Having the newly Connected work harder makes them stronger. And Earth was designated as a Resource World.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There are two types of Connected Worlds,” Cerie said, flying down so she could sit on the edge of the desk, legs dangling over. She looked like Tinkerbell at that moment, but was acting anything but. “A Growth World is one where the Connection doesn’t allow invaders but allows the newly Connected to grow and thrive within the Connection. These are the worlds where the major Clans grew from. A Resource World is just what the name implies. The world and the people on that planet, you, were deemed to not be capable, or worthy enough, of Advancing to become one of the major races. The world is meant to be used for its many Dungeons and Resources. A place for the other races of the Connection to come to grow and Advance.”
“So we’re just meant to die? Be used as training dummies,” Brian growled.
Cerie’s eyes glowed green again.
“Yes. That is basically what a Resource World is.”
They all fell silent. Loch had gotten some of that before but not all of it. He looked at Piper, she looked to be on the verge of tears. He reached out, taking her hand.
“I have no intention of just rolling over and letting these invaders have our world,” Loch told her and squeezed her hand. “We’re going to fight and prove to this Connection that humans are worthy. There is no way we’re just going to give up. We’re going to fight and we’re going to win. I promise you that.”
“I don’t think that’s something you can promise,” Piper said weakly, forcing a smile.
Loch laughed. That was something he and Kelly had taught the girls. Never promise anything that you couldn’t keep, and that there were just promises that could never be kept, no matter what.
“Normally, yes, but this one, I intend to keep.”
Words appeared in his vision.
NEW QUEST:
DEFY THE FATES
EARTH HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A RESOURCE WORLD BY THE CONNECTED SYSTEM. THE FATE OF THE PEOPLE OF RESOURCE WORLDS IS A GRIM ONE WITH MOST NOT SURVIVING OR EVER BECOMING A MAJOR FORCE IN THE CONNECTION. YOU HAVE VOWED THAT THIS WILL NOT BE HUMANITY’S FATE. CARRY THROUGH ON YOUR VOW AND TURN HUMANITY INTO A MAJOR FORCE.
REWARDS: UNKNOWN
The words faded as Loch read them over. The moment felt huge. He knew they were more than just words. It was a challenge from the Connection to him. He felt like the Connection was taunting him, teasing him to prove it wrong.
And he would.
Loch didn’t need a quest to do it.
This Connected System had taken his world from him, had taken billions of lives, had taken Kelly from him. It put his girls in almost constant danger. It had robbed them of all their future dreams.
He wasn’t going to let humanity be turned into resources or primitive tribes living off the scraps the stronger left for them.
Other words appeared.
THIS IS A CLAN-WIDE QUEST. ALL MEMBERS OF CLAN BRADY, CURRENT AND FUTURE, WILL BE GIVEN THIS QUEST AND BE REWARDED FOR WORKING TOWARD THE END RESULT.
“Dad?” Piper asked, reading the words.
“Lord Lochlan,” Cerie said, shock and fear in her voice. “What have you done?”
“What’s happening?” Jenny asked.
“I got a quest,” Loch said, explaining what the words had said.
“So, you need to form a Clan like the ones she talks about?” Brian asked, pointing to Cerie. Loch nodded. “From what she hints at, humanity is basically meant to become a slave race for those other Clans as they strip-mine Earth of all these Resources?” There was anger in his voice. As a black man, Brian especially didn’t like that idea. “And you just vowed to stop that from happening?”
“Yeah,” Loch said. “It appears that way.”
“Sign me up.”
“What?”
“I’ll join your Clan,” Brian said. “No different from joining the Army, but now, instead of fighting for the US, I’m fighting for humanity. Seems that’s a better reason to fight.”
BRIAN JEFFERSON HAS REQUESTED TO JOIN CLAN BRADY.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“It is just like joining the Army,” Brian said. “Have to sign on the dotted line.”
“Cerie,” Loch said.
“I cannot believe you challenged the Connection.”
“Skip that,” Loch ordered. “What is this about Brian requesting to join Clan Brady? What the hell is Clan Brady?”
“What is there to explain?” she asked, clearly upset with Loch. “You knew you had a Clan.”
“I thought it was just the family. Me and the girls. Others can join?”
Cerie let out a scream of frustration, flying off the desk. She flew right up to Loch’s face, her small eyes glaring at him.
“We will talk about this quest later,” she growled. Flying back to the center where everyone could see her, Cerie took a deep breath or went through the act of it. “I have mentioned Clans before. There are two types, or levels, to a Clan. A Family Clan is a family line. It can include an immediate family and the siblings of the patriarch and matriarch, as well as cousins, but the cousins wouldn’t be main branch. What makes a Family Clan the main branch is strength. The strongest member of the blood family is the Clan head, sometimes called a Jarl.”
Loch knew that word. He thought it meant a chieftain for a Viking tribe. Or clan, he realized.
“It is much like your noble system with a king and queen, followed by princes, princesses, dukes, and counts, and so on. Each having a claim to the throne, but being in a line of succession. That is how a Family Clan works. The other level of a Clan is made up of numerous Family Clans, with one main family that is the head of the Clan. The other ones are vassals to the first, giving up some of their freedoms for the power and protection of the stronger Clan.”
Loch didn’t like the word vassals but understood the system Cerie was describing was really no different from a town being part of a state and the state being part of the overall country. Each of the smaller groups gave up some of their freedoms to be part of the larger, gaining benefits from that association that outweighed the negatives.
Usually outweighed the negatives.
“The Silver Bark Clan is one of the major elven Clans in the entire Connected System. The OverJarl.” Cerie paused, eyes glowing green. “Or emperor. That is a term that might explain it better for you. The emperor of the Clan is named Oberon Silver Bark.”
The name teased at Loch’s memory. Hadn’t there been an Oberon in mythology?
“Wait,” he said, something else teasing his memory. “Wasn’t that elf I killed named Silver Bark?”
“Misheal Silver Bark,” Cerie confirmed. “He was not of the main line but one of many hundreds of cousins. I believe that he was the one thousand, three hundred, and thirty-fifth in line to be OverJarl. If he Advanced far enough, fast enough, and grew powerful enough. The Silver Bark Clan is composed of hundreds, if not thousands, of vassal families, some have only a dozen members and others have hundreds of members of their own. There is a hierarchy to these families and their standings in the overall Clan and Clan Holdings.”
Loch motioned for her to stop. It was a lot to take in, but really didn’t seem that different from the way things had worked on Earth. Maybe the Earth of hundreds of years ago, but weren’t there still places operating under that kind of system? The United Kingdom still had a monarchy, even if they were more for show than actual governing power.
But it sounded like these Clans were run like a true royal dynasty. Cerie had said that Connected could live for hundreds of years. That was time enough spawn many children, who would have a lot of children, who would have a lot of children, and so on. All those generations living at the same time. Each of them creating a branch of the main family. Then all the vassal families would join, each of those having their own branches, making the entire Clan that much bigger.
It was staggering to think about. A Clan could end up having the population of a large city, maybe even a small country. They were essentially countries.
And now Loch was forming one?
“I don’t want Brian being a vassal,” he said.
“Hey, it’s just like being in the military again,” Brian said with a shrug. “Or being an employee. Look, I know I don’t know you that well, but I get a good feeling about you. You’re stronger, you could lord it over every one of us, rule that camp like a king. But you’re not. You’re out here trying to help everyone. You gave Jenny that sword which makes her stronger, and didn’t ask for anything in return.”
Loch started to protest, saying that giving Jenny the sword was a selfish act. Making her stronger made the whole group stronger and helped protect Piper.
Brian held up a hand to stop him. Loch didn’t speak. This was the most Brian had spoken at one time, which told Loch it was important to the man to say it all.
“Yeah, giving her that does help you in the long run, but you still didn’t have to do it. I’m not anyone’s vassal, but I am a soldier. Soldiers follow orders from their commanding officer, and I’m okay with that.”
Loch still wanted to protest, but Brian had a point. Like everything having to do with the Connection so far, Loch really didn’t know what was happening, but he just went with it. His priority was always going to be the safety of his daughters, but he had already committed to helping protect the survivors in the camp. Forming a Clan, it seemed like it could help.
But did he really want the responsibility?
No, but it didn’t look like he was going to be given a choice.
“What do I have to do?” he asked Cerie.
“Just accept the request. As the Clan’s Jarl you have to handle all that, but as the Clan grows, you can pass those functions onto Magistrates or Administrators. There are some Clans where the OverJarl hasn’t been seen in centuries as they are off working on their Advancement.”
Loch focused on the words.
BRIAN JEFFERSON HAS REQUESTED TO JOIN CLAN BRADY.
He mentally accepted it, thinking of it as a checkbox and him adding the check. The words faded, replaced by new ones.
BRIAN JEFFERSON HAS JOINED CLAN BRADY. HE HAS NO FAMILY CLAN OF HIS OWN AND JOINS CLAN BRADY AS A VAGABOND CONNECTED.
CLAN BRADY HAS NO CLAN ORDER CREATED. BRIAN JEFFERSON RECEIVES NO TITLE OR RANK AT THIS TIME. AS A RANKLESS CLAN MEMBER, BRIAN JEFFERSON WILL ONLY RECEIVE A +2% BONUS WHEN USING CLAN RESOURCES OR BUFFS. MORE BENEFITS WILL BE GRANTED UPON EARNING THE FIRST RANK, TITLES, AND ANY FUTURE PROMOTIONS.
CLAN BRADY HAS NOW GROWN BEYOND THE FAMILY CLAN, AND A CLAN ORDER MUST BE CREATED. CREATE ONE NOW?
YOU HAVE EARNED THE ACHIEVEMENT: A GROWING CLAN RANK 1
A GROWING CLAN RANK 1: YOU HAVE ACCEPTED THE FIRST MEMBER INTO YOUR CLAN OUTSIDE OF YOUR FAMILY.
REWARD: WILLPOWER +2. NEARBY CLAN MEMBERS RECEIVE +2% TO ALL BUFFS CAST BY YOU.
“What’s a Clan Order?”
“The rules, rankings, structure of the Clan,” Cerie answered. “You do not need to create one immediately. But as the Clan grows, it will be required.”
Loch pulled his backpack closer, taking out a bottle of water. Opening it, he took a long swig, leaning back in the chair.
