Explorer of Edregon

Greg sighed, scratching his stomach as he leaned back against the solid wooden chair one of the crafters had made for them. He knew the simple fact that he had any furniture at all and a roof over his head while so many people were currently living in temporary tents as the camp was rebuilt was lucky, but sometimes, he found himself missing his old apartment back on Earth.

He hadn't known what to expect when he'd accepted Sender X's cryptic message, but it certainly hadn't been this. He was just a regular, overweight dude from a small town in the middle of nowhere for crying out loud. Why on Earth had he thought he'd be able to make anything out of his new life when he'd done absolutely nothing noteworthy with his old one?!

Greg paused, remembering what his old therapist had said. The best way to stop himself from slipping into a downward spiral and letting his self-deprecating thoughts get the better of him was to recognize them early, and put a stop to them before they could even begin. Taking a few deep breaths, he distracted himself by focusing on the sensation of the smooth wooden chair under his fingertips and the sound of his own breathing. Once he'd started to calm down, he actively turned his thoughts around, thinking of all that he had managed to accomplish since coming to Edregon.

While he wasn't nearly as high a level as most of the others from the first wave, he'd survived a handful of monster battles at this point, even killing a few of the smaller ones with his very own mace when they lunged at him. He'd received compliments from Spur, the leader of the new world, on more than one occasion for his ability to follow orders despite lack of military training. Hell, he was a Warrior now, even if he was still only level 7 after spending an entire month on Edregon.

He'd even made a friend. Something he'd struggled more than a little bit with back on Earth. Speaking of…

Greg smiled as the door swung open and Abby finally returned. He knew she'd rather he not wait up for her, but he always enjoyed chatting with his fellow guard. Whereas he was content doing the bare minimum and spending most of his free time relaxing, it seemed Abby was always going out for late night training sessions or trying to do whatever she could to better the camp.

"How was training?" he asked, watching as she leaned her quarterstaff against the wall and sat heavily onto her cot.

"Tiring," she sighed, getting to work on unlacing her boots. "Though productive. You sure you don't want to join me one of these nights?"

"No thanks, I'm quite happy to spend my twilight hours relaxing," he chuckled, earning a tight-lipped smile from his fellow guard.

"I think our differences are one of the reasons we get along so well," Abby admitted, placing her boots carefully at the foot of her bed and stretching. "Have you decided what to do with your passive point yet?"

"Not yet," Greg admitted, feeling slightly embarrassed as she brought it up once more. Despite the fact that it had been over a week and a half since hitting level 5, Greg hadn't actually spent his first passive point. There were just so many amazing options! What if he spent it on something, only to immediately run into a situation where he needed to pick a different one?

He'd had the same issue with his attribute points at first, but had ended up dumping them all into strength the moment he was jumped by his first monster.

"You should really pick something sooner or later," Abby said, giving him a pointed look. "You want to level up and grow stronger, right? That's not going to happen if you keep hoarding your points."

"I know," Greg sighed, nervously fidgeting with the fang from one of the monster's he'd killed. When his mace had smashed into the wolf's head hard enough to dislodge a tooth, he'd felt like he had to take it with him. Even if he'd only had the initial courage to fight thanks to Patty and her freaky voice. "What did you do with your passive points?"

Abby gave him a strange look like she always did whenever he asked her for details about her class, but didn't say anything. She was a strangely secretive person about certain things, and while he respected her privacy, he'd always thought it was rather odd. She was so up front and open about all that she did to try and make the camp a better place, that the fact she didn't like to give advice on what passives or skills to take to be a better guard seemed strange to him.

"You should ask Kym," she finally said, nodding as if agreeing with her own advice. "I've heard he's a wealth of information."

"He always has so many different people crowding around him," Greg complained, frowning at the memory of the last time he'd tried to talk to the stranger. It had taken him a lot of courage to approach the quiet man, but when he'd found a few louder members of the second wave surrounding him, Greg had backed off to try again another day.

He felt like he should have some seniority as a member of the first wave, but it seemed that wasn't how things worked around here.

Just as he was about to ask Abby if she thought there was anyone slightly less popular he could ask instead, there was a knock on the door.

"Grant and Choe should still be on guard duty, right?" he asked, glancing at the two empty cots belonging to their other roommates. The four of them had been assigned the same tiny stone building because they were all guards. He would have preferred his own room, but again, he was lucky to have a roof over his head at all.

"Right," Abby nodded, a slight frown on her face as she stared at the door. Rather than get up and answer it, she slowly grabbed her boots once more, carefully shoving her feet inside and quickly lacing them up.

"Uh, I don't think you need to put shoes on to answer the door," Greg chuckled. He knew Abby was former military, but it wasn't like anyone was going to tear into her for not looking presentable in the middle of the night. "Here, I can get-"

"Don't move," Abby snapped, causing him to freeze halfway out of his chair. "Let me handle this."

"Abby Carter, open the door or we will open it by force," a familiar voice called out.

"Is that Spur?" Greg asked, his heart dropping as he saw the frown on Abby's face deepen. "Abby, why is the Commander coming to see you in the middle of the night?!"

"I said don't move," Abby repeated, grabbing her quarterstaff and taking up a defensive stance as she stared at the door. Their tiny stone room was barely large enough for two people to be up and moving around at the same time, so Greg immediately pressed himself farther back into his chair as he saw fire in her eyes.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Abby, what did you-"

His words were lost as their wooden door simply rotted away, and his very blood froze as The Roamer stepped into the room.

Wearing his signature dark cloak and dirty grey Project Ark fatigues that looked like they'd been through countless battles, Greg wouldn't have had any issue picking him out of a crowd as the fabled Explorer even if he hadn't just melted a solid wooden door with but a touch.

Unlike most of the people around camp who only knew of him via word of mouth, Greg had received quite the first-hand introduction to The Roamer back before the battle for wave two. He had shown up out of nowhere with an elf and tiny human at his side of all things, and when Abby had refused to let him past them to see Spur as they'd been ordered, he'd somehow astral projected his very soul out at Abby, scaring the wits out of even the trained soldier and forcing his way inside.

Greg still didn't quite know why his soul took the form of a laughing woman, but he figured there were all types.

The Roamer had been a terrifying force of nature back then, and Greg would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed with what the man had managed to accomplish in such a short time.

But that was then. He wasn't nearly as impressed anymore.

No, now he was in utter awe.

Greg stared with his mouth gaping as The Roamer lowered his goddamn magic arm, the man's sharp blue eyes passing right over him to land on Abby. Greg saw the spark of recognition in those eyes, and The Roamer's face hardened. Strangely, Greg thought he looked almost more upset than anything.

"Abby…" The Roamer started, getting cut off as Commander Spur and Phil quickly filled in behind him. If Greg had been surprised before, he was utterly thrown for a loop as The Roamer, the leader of their entire camp, and the head of the combat classes all crammed themselves into his tiny room.

"Sergeant Abby, we're taking you into custody for the murder of both Patty Johnson and Kyle Dawer," Spur said bluntly, his face a mask that betrayed none of his emotions. "Lower your weapon or we will be forced to use drastic measures."

"What the heck is going on?!" Greg cried out, his eyes shooting back and forth between his fellow guard and arguably the three most powerful people in camp. While he didn't think Spur was personally as dangerous as Phil or The Roamer, he could just order everyone to do whatever he wanted, which was pretty much the same thing.

"I'm a guard for the camp," Abby said simply, planting her quarterstaff and looking at the three intruders like she was stating that the sky was blue. "It's my job to better the camp and protect people. Patty and Kyle were serious threats that needed to be dealt with."

Yeah, Greg nodded, realizing Abby was absolutely right. She was one of the best guards they had. He knew better than anyone just how hard she worked to help others. Even if she had killed those two people like Commander Spur claimed, she had every right to do so. Hell, they should be thanking her.

"Myers was right, she's using a skill or something," The Roamer said, narrowing his eyes at the guard. "My Resistance skill just leveled up, which pretty much confirms it. I'd bet that's how she got past the guards without them remembering."

"Damn, even after you warned me, I still find myself thinking she was totally in her right as a guard to kill them," Spur muttered, holding a hand against his head and wincing. "Abby, drop the skill! You know better than anyone not to mess with people's heads. You killed Patty for doing the same for crying out loud!"

Sucking in a deep breath, Abby hesitated for the briefest of moments before letting it all out, looking like all those late nights of training had caught up with her all at once. Greg stared at his friend in shock once more as he went over what Spur had claimed again.

She had killed two people?!

"I am not doing the same thing Patty did," Abby said, frowning at the accusation. "And it's not a skill, it's the Capstone I got for ridding our camp of the threat of Patty in the first place. Righteous Action. I'm not ordering people to do whatever I want, I'm just helping them see that what I'm doing is in the camp's best interest."

"I think influencing the way people think counts as messing with their heads, regardless of what you think," Spur spat. "Where did this even come from in the first place? I remember having to practically order you to stop acting like you were still in the military, and now you're playing judge, jury, and executioner? Seems like quite a shift in only a few weeks."

"He's partially to blame for that," Abby said calmly, pointing directly at The Roamer and causing his eyes to widen. "He tossed the rules to the wayside and did what he thought was right, and what did that result in? He saved the camp from Patty's influence. His only mistake was not killing her immediately."

"We didn't know what killing her would do to all the people she'd influenced, and we needed every able-bodied person to fight on the front lines," Phil frowned, his fingers twitching as they rested against the hilt of his sword. "By ending Patty's life in the middle of the battle, you could have very well killed us all."

"But I didn't," Abby said simply, looking between the three of them. "I made the right call, you can't argue with that. Why is it that when Spur executes someone in broad daylight in front of a thousand confused Earthers he's doing the right thing, but when I do it without anyone watching, I'm the criminal?"

"For starters, I'm the leader of the camp," Spur said, his eyes narrowing. "Enough of this. Will you drop your weapon and come quietly, or do we have to make you?"

Abby seemed to genuinely consider her odds for a moment, her knuckles whitening as her grip tightened on her quarterstaff. After a few tense seconds, however, she sighed, tossing her staff onto her cot.

"I'm confident I could take you in a fight, Spur, but I'm not dumb enough to think I could beat Phil or Vin on their own, let alone together."

Greg had been silent throughout all this, but as Phil stepped forward and began tying Abby's hands behind her back, he finally spoke up.

"Abby… Did you really kill two people?"

"Yes," she said, without a shred of regret in her voice. "I told you, Greg, you have to put in the effort if you want to make this new world a better place. You can't just sit around on your ass forever and expect things to change on their own."

"Take her away before she starts spreading her ideologies like a plague," Spur sighed, turning and giving Greg a stone-cold look. "Don't tell anyone what you heard here, got it? In fact, just forget the whole thing."

"Yes, sir," Greg said, quickly adding a hasty salute for good measure.

Nodding, Spur led the way out with Phil at his back. The Roamer, Vin, actually paused in the doorway, shooting Greg an apologetic look.

"Sorry about your door," he said after a moment, glancing at the rotting remnants hanging off the frame. "I'll check in with the crafters about getting you a new one in the morning."

"Don't worry about it," Greg said reflexively, shying back under the man's powerful gaze. Part of him was worried if he said the wrong thing, he'd be the one rotting away next.

With a nod, The Roamer finally left as well, leaving Greg once again sitting alone in his room like nothing had happened.

Ever so slowly, Greg got up and walked over to his cot, slipping under the thin covers and doing his best to put the entire ordeal out of his mind. Spur had ordered him to forget everything that had happened, and by God he was going to do his best to do exactly that.

Otherwise, The Roamer might come back in the dead of night a second time, and Greg didn't want to see how that turned out for him.