Frost's first day at the underworld hideout of the Realm Liberation Front was eventful, but it came to an end with a relaxing meal and a mug of ale.
Whispers had spread throughout the base like wildfire that he was the son of Drake Direshard. They started to talk amongst themselves and look at him strangely. It reminded Frost of his time at the mine. First they'd given him strange looks for his hard working attitude, and then it had turned into beatings and constant punishment. This time he'd be ready.
He wasn't afraid to use his main attribute, now that he knew how it functioned. Something like that would be a little bit overkill in a situation like this. Clay had instructed him to conserve it until the last possible moment due to the exceptional energy usage. As well, he was to avoid revealing his name to the enemy for obvious reasons. Whether your name was revealed in the activation of an attribute was optional, and a little bit more focus on the casting could allow you to omit it. He'd been told to avoid revealing his name here, too, but after the display in the yard and the resounding rumours, that had proved to be impossible.
With any luck, there wouldn't be any trouble anyways.
"Take these," Lex was saying. He put a few things that looked like playing cards on the table. Two of them said heal, and two of them said fire. "Skill cards. One of each."
[GreatGadfly30: Useful items indeed. I made extensive use of them in my travels]
[TheConquerer356: A true warrior has no need for such petty supplements.]
"I love these things," Lana said happily. It was the first time she'd smiled since the fight, despite the fact that she seemed to be ignoring Frost still.
"These are?" Frost asked, taking one of each card into his hands.
"Push Void energy into them, and they'll activate the attribute stored inside. Since they're so small, it is exceptionally easy to store them in your inventory. Try it."
Skill cards, huh? Frost placed his hand on the first and then second card, willing them into the Void. They joined the sword in having that same nagging feeling at the back of his mind. He nodded in approval. "How are these created?"
"Sometimes they're found in distortions, but mostly people with the attribute store them in these cards. If you get blank cards, you can store your own attributes for yourself or others. Since you pay the upfront cost of activation upon storing it, you can use it in battle later at no cost. Attribute cards like heal, the one you have now, are fairly common. It won't heal anything crazy, so don't go getting your arm lopped off, alright? Cards like that should tide you over until you can learn to heal on your own," Lex was in teacher mode again. After realizing he'd talked too much, he aggressively took a slurp of ale.
"Got it," Frost said. "The Void is a gift that keeps giving."
"You haven't seen the start of it. Even now I sometimes run into powers I can't explain. The universe is wider than any one person can understand or explore." He leaned back in his chair. "The place I grew up is wildly different from your Earth."
Frost was struggling to hear his words over the vibrant chatter in the room. They were in the rec room towards the back of the hideout, a place where all of the off-duty soldiers came to drink and talk drama. The goings on in the city and in the wide world. Frost overheard some of the "rumours", which seemed to be spoken in a language he couldn't understand despite the translation. Words that had no meaning in English wouldn't compute despite the system's efforts.
"Tell me about it," Frost said to Lex. Usually he let people keep to themselves, but in this instance it was a different matter. He wanted to know.
"Where do I even start? The entire planet is a desert except for a single city. Here, they call it Dune. A very famous writer from Earth travelled there once."
Frost's theory about fantasy being based on real locations was starting to become true. He couldn't help but laugh hearing this. "To think that he based it off of something real–"
"So you know most of what I'm about to say, I take it?" Lex asked.
Frost shrugged. "Fremen? Sandworms? Paul Atreides?"
"Nothing like that," Lex growled. "Actually, we do have the sandworms. The rest of the stuff is bull. No awesome spice hallucinogens or anything like that."
"I'm disappointed."
[Checkpointer20: Life is disappointing.]
Well that's a bit cynical, isn't it? Frost thought.
"I would be too. I read the book and it's clear it was based upon reality, but… He had a wild imagination to say the least."
"Still, to think that he travelled there. Is there any fantasy that's actually original? What about things like Middle Earth? Westeros? Randland? Discworld…?"
"Randland is an original," Lex said. "A shame, I know."
"Damn," Frost said. "Wait. So the rest–"
Lex just shut down his questions with a knowing look.
"I would simply like to say that I have no idea what either of you are talking about," Lana mumbled. She reached forward and sipped her ale sadly.
"You ought to read more," Lex prodded. "There really is some lovely literature on Earth. Some of it you don't even need to pay for. It can be read online for free."
"Are you talking about web serials, or sailing the high seas?" Frost joked.
"Both," Lex said matter-of-factly.
"I'll report you to the cops for that, you know."
"Don't joke around now."
Frost sighed and turned to Lana. "And you? Where are you from? Roshar? Narnia?"
Lana shook her head in frustration. "Nothing like that, you nitwit. I was born in the Void."
[GreatGadfly30: A Void child? How interesting. That explains a lot.]
"Oh." Frost hadn't even considered the possibility of something like that until just now. He felt a little bit insensitive, but quelled it by reminding himself that this girl had tried to cut his head off just a little under a half-hour ago. "How'd you end up on Earth?" He asked, trying desperately to recover the conversation.
Lana's face went dark. "I– My sister…"
"Lex!" Clay boomed loud enough to jolt Frost and Lana. He came in from the courtyard and approached the table with haste. Apparently he'd been drinking on his own. The whole room stopped to look at him, anticipating his next words. It was clear that he'd had a bit too much to drink, but was trying his best to act rational. "We've… Got a bit of a problem."
"What is it?" Lex asked, worried.
"Apparently they've–" He burped, "spotted William Fletcher in the underground."
Lex shot up out of his chair which promptly fell over and created a massive scene. Everyone stopped talking and stared directly at him. "That's not funny," he said. "You're serious?"
Clay nodded slowly.
"He's not coming here, is he? No. He can't know about this place, right!?" Lex brought his arm back and slapped Clay across the face. The man stumbled and fell into a table. "Talk to me, you damned drunkard!" He yelled.
"Calm down!" Frost tried his hand at de-escalating the situation.
"Everyone to arms! I don't give a damn how much you've had to drink. We're on high alert starting now and ending whenever the fuck I say. Are we clear!?"
"Sir!" The coherent men yelled. Most of these men were not Voidhunters, and kept their rifles close at hand while they were relaxing. These ones were immediately to arms and ready to go at Lex's word.
Clay was moaning and groaning on the ground. The men started to move and cleared out of the room at Lex's order. It left only the four of them and the few drunken soldiers that were too lost to know what was going on. Frost was confused, and Lana appeared terrified at both what she'd heard and Lex's panicked demeanour.
William Fletcher. That's the guy that shot Lex, right?
Gunshots started ringing out in the direction of the entrance as if to affirm their worries. Already!? This finally prompted Frost to stand up.
"Give it to me straight," Frost said, "are we fucked?"
Lex shook his head, looking terrified, and summoned a sword into his hand. "That's if we're lucky."
"I'm coming."
"You'll come even if I tell you not to." Lex unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt. "And you, Lana? Are you a better listener?"
"Never have been," the girl said. It clearly took effort to amass her courage, but she knew she couldn't be shown up by Frost.
"Don't continue to fight if it looks hopeless. There's a back exit here that we can use to escape. William Fletcher is a formidable foe, but he isn't invincible like Medeara."
Clay was mumbling unintelligible things on the ground behind them as they moved out into the courtyard. The gunshots grew closer, and now shouts could be heard in between the shots. There was a loud struggle going on through the doorway not even ten metres in front of them. As if to affirm this, a bullet slammed through the door and sliced the side of Lex's head open. He just scoffed in response.
"William!" He yelled. "The one you want is me!"
He charged forward carelessly and slammed his body through the doors. Promptly he skidded to a stop, flourishing his weapon in hand and freezing in place at the terrifying scenery before him.
A man stood in the middle of a pool of gore. Bodies were torn apart by bullets and blades. None of them were in one piece anymore, with heads and arms and legs strewn about carelessly. Terrified looks were plastered on their dead faces. Despite that, there were no signs of a struggle. The survivor didn't breathe heavily and he didn't seem to be particularly worried. Even now, as Lex entered, he simply turned his head with a grim smile on his face.
Fireflies fluttered around him, illuminating the blood that ran cold into the divots of the floor. One of them landed on Frost's nose, and it immediately caused him to freeze in terror of realization. It was the man from earlier. The one he'd seen outside. These fireflies had been used to watch them somehow.
Everyone that had gone to stop him was dead. The thirty men in the base had amounted to nothing.
Lex was paralyzed with fear.
"Lex Aitsuko," the man said, his voice like shuffling gravel. "Everyone's luck runs out."