Hands of Fate - Survivors of Flight AA214

Chapter 22

Orion

Day 12 of First Landing

Population of Thornhill - 35

Five food buffs. That was how many I could have on at once. I tested it with a piece of crab claw, scarlet fowl, wild boar, clam, muskrat, and finally, a new creature---a turtle. Killing the turtle was not pleasant. I loved turtles. Yet, the river was plentiful with them and to survive, we would have to exploit the land.

When I ate the turtle, simply fried in muskrat tallow, it reminded me of a mix between chicken and beef. The buff it provided was similar to the boar buff.

Fried Turtle Meat - D

Hard Shell

Blunt attacks against you do less damage for 2 hours

My five other food buffs were:

Hide of the Muskrat

Grants a brief shield against rain and water

Scarlet Fowl Flight

10% Increase in top sprint speed

Boar Padding

10% resistance against piercing and slashing

Crab Carapace

Weak protection against fire magic and projectiles

Rock Clam

Remove chill for one hour

The Hard Shell buff I received after eating the turtle meat knocked out the first buff I had received: Rock Clam. Only five buff cards would spawn from Soul Food, my legendary skill.

Now that I knew this, I could build a base of food to have at all times. I would need to start drying and smoking various meats and cooking stuff like pemmican or dried meatbars to have buffs at my beck and call. I would also need to increase the quality of the meats, with spices or marinades, to improve the rating, thus increasing the duration and effectiveness of the buffs.

Five more turtles would have to face my knife as I closed my eyes to their demise, the reptiles wriggling helplessly on their backs as I tried to make their end as quick as possible. Inside, I died a little with every cut. Turtles were one of my favorite animals, but when the world gives you turtles, you make turtle soup. I threw their dark irony meat into a large clay pot on the mess hall’s campfire and then added some muskrat tallow to brown the meat.

I had learned a rule about cooking that the buff provided would be the one with the key ingredient. If I ate a roasted chestnut, the chestnut would be the main provider of the buff. However, if I ate a boar tenderloin with roasted chestnuts over it, depending on if the boar meat weighed greater than the weight of the roasted chestnuts, the boar meat would be the one giving me the buff. If they complement each other, I would receive both buffs. This didn’t mean I couldn’t enhance the dishes with things like wild plants and spices. A better-cooked dish meant the rating of the dish would go up, and the effect and duration of the food would be better. That was what I theorized from my experiment so far.

The leveling has been slowing down despite my daily cooking. I am a level seven Cook now. My first levels in most things came quickly, but now I had to grind out levels to get anywhere. My skills would constantly have to be honed and kept sharp, or else they would degrade like my Pottery skill. I concluded that I would need better equipment and more complex recipes to progress to level 10.

In relation to my progress on skills, Ethan had shown me how to suture for emergencies, but despite his teaching, I never received his skill in the card. We theorized that we had natural or class-related abilities that would not unlock or level up according to our potential and current aptitude. Ethan leveled up quickly in his class-related abilities like Suture, Prescribe, and Diagnose while remaining low level in more universal skills like Crafting and Pottery.

Interrupting my train of thought while cooking, I noticed a mob of people approaching from the beachside.

Well, looks like the classless finally got sick of my shit. I think I could take at least five on before they got me.

To my surprise, two pilots in uniform came leading the charge. I knew where this was going immediately. I sighed and tossed a few wild onions, garlic, and some aromatic leaves I found during my foraging trips into the pot and covered it with water and plenty of salt. It would continue to cook while they had their meeting.

I stood in the back near the fires with my arms crossed, watching everyone gather in the mess hall, standing around in this impromptu town hall meeting. Bianca and Herman both shook their heads and then eyed me as if begging me not to do something stupid. The two captains took their place at the front while I sat back and watched the show from my seat in the back.

“Alright, calm down, everyone,” the captain spoke, trying to quiet the boisterous crowd, all shouting their questions as if he had any answers. “Listen, I’m glad you are all here. Is everyone here, by the way?”

“It’s noon, so people should be stopping by to get some food here, Captain,” Gladys spoke up.

Gladys was my assistant, though it would be more fair to call her the main cook. Usually, I would drop off my kills for her and have her prepare it while I went and did other tasks. She was a decent enough worker but without a class, her butchery and prep work was slow. Today, Bianca gave her a break. It figured she’d be close to the Captain because she was a flight attendant.

“Who’s missing?” the captain asked.

“Alex and Sasha, I think they are hunting,” Bianca said.

“They’re probably necking,” one of Marek’s kids said, and the triplets erupted into snickering, which Marek silenced with an intense stare.

“Okay, so I guess we will start without them, and you can pass along what I’m about to say,” Captain Alvarez---well, that was what was on his nametag at least---said in his thick Texan accent. He reminded me of a classic cowboy Sheriff. “Listen, I know y’all folks are scared out of your wits right now. I don’t know what’s going on before I got here, but I have to thank you all for keeping it together in these tough times.”

“Keeping it together? My son died!” Ruth said.

“I heard you, Ruth. I don’t know what this dungeon is, but no one is going near it while I’m here, you understand?” Captain Alvarez said. The captain adjusted his belt buckle and loosened his tie as a politician would preparing to talk to the ‘common folk.’ “Now. My job as your captain in any emergency is to see that we get you all back to your homes safe and sound.”

More clambering and murmurs came from the crowd, and Alvarez raised his hands to silence the crowd in a calming gesture.

“I’ve been told y’all have been building shelters and such, and I think that’s a wonderful idea. We’re going to keep doing that, but we also need to think about getting out of here.” The captain lifted his cap and wiped the sweat off his black matted hair. “In S-O-P, after we have verified everyone is safe and we have food and shelter, which you folks have, we have to establish a signal back home.”

As expected... that’s not good.

“And how do we do that?” some old guy whose name I forgot yelled in the crowd.

Good question, how do we do that, Captain?

“Given that no one has any phones or telecommunication devices, our best bet is to build a large signal fire. Given the capabilities of this... golem I’ve been hearing about, we can build a strong signal fire and signal for help. Get off this island.”

More clamoring and a feeling of hope returned to the crowd; there was genuine hope and smiles coming through to the adults. Ethan and Anika both looked unsure while Herman was shaking his head. Bianca stared at me pleadingly for support or to say something.

“This might not be an island,” I said flatly, cutting through the crowd’s noise. A tension filled the crowd and the noisy speculative murmurings was replaced by silence. The crowd was sensing I would cause trouble.

“And who might you be, young man?” Captain Alvarez smiled and squinted his beady eyes in my direction.

“He’s just the cook, Orion, don’t listen to him,” some Karen said.

“How do you know that, Orion?” Captain Alvarez said, stroking his black mustache.

“I don’t. I just think it’s possible we might not be on an island,” I repeated.

“Okay, well, a deserted peninsula or some far-off coast, thank you,” Captain Alvarez nodded and continued working the crowd. “Like I was saying, we have to establish a signal fire; we have to be visible, and then in the long term, we have to build a boat.”

“Sir... Captain...” Bianca said meekly, “I don’t think Slate knows how to build boats yet. Marek isn’t a shipwright, and also, I’m not sure we should waste resources building either of those things...”

“Bianca, you have done an amazing job so far keeping these survivors alive. I cannot thank you enough. But my job here, darlin’, is to get these people back to their homes,” Captain Alvarez said to the sound of agreement and delusional sentiment. Bianca shrunk in the crowd’s favor of the captain.

Between the two, one had years of experience being a leader, and the other was thrust into the job and was probably now feeling an overwhelming sense of imposter syndrome.

“Captain, someone has told you we are not on Earth, am I correct?” I spoke up again. Another hush of silence.

“That is correct,” Captain Alvarez said. “I’ll have to see the stars and moon for myself. But that’s what all these fine folks have been telling me, sir.”

“So why would we make a signal fire as if we are on Earth, expecting help from people who are looking for us on Earth and not here on some distant, possibly alternate, planet?” I asked.

“It is S-O-P, my young friend.” Captain Alvarez explained that, to his credit, he did not sound the least bit condescending about it.

“What does the S in S-O-P stand for again?” I asked. I probably did sound condescending.

“Let’s say that you are right. That we are on some faraway planet somewhere. It stands to reason that this planet we are on might support the same type of intelligent, sentient life who will come and help us. And if they have these magical powers all of you talk about, maybe there is someone there with the power to take us back home. It doesn’t hurt to try to contact anyone.”

“There are other people on this planet. We just don’t know if they share the same values as us or will kill us or pillage on sight,” I explained.

“Son, even if they wanted to take stuff from us, we have nothing but sticks and the clothes on our backs,” Captain Alvarez said.

“No,” I shook my head, frowning. “We have people with valuable classes who can make work so much easier. We also have young women.”

The crowd broke into panicked murmurs as they realized my implication of what outsiders with ill intent might do with young women, or any women for that matter.

“You can’t mean... this is the 21st century; that stuff doesn’t happen!” one Karen exclaimed.

“We might be in the Iron Age here. Even back on Earth it’s not like exploitation of labor and ‘that’ stuff doesn’t happen. I know their names and they are strong. Much stronger than us. At least their most powerful are.” Most of the people who hadn’t gone into the dungeon or had classes all looked like I was high on drugs. I couldn’t blame them.

“How do you know what’s outside here?” Someone asked.

“The dungeon told me,” I said, and more disbelief came from some of the crowd while Captain Alvarez raised his eyebrows. At the word "dungeon," people either scoffed or got angry. The death of Bryden still lingered in the air.

“I can’t take what this dungeon of yours has told you in good faith, my young friend. I understand there are magics at work here, but I’m only fulfilling my duties as the Captain of the plane.” Captain Alvarez’s warm voice made you feel at ease, but it also held authority and command in it.

Despite wanting to hate the Captain, I just couldn’t. He was being thrown video game and fantasy words and ideas at him by some dumb kid, but despite that, he listened attentively and didn’t outright dismiss it. The captain still stuck to his guns and operated what he felt was his duty, I knew that.

He’s a good man, but he might end up killing all of us.

“So what can the rest of us do in the meantime?” Roza asked the captain, holding her daughter closely.

“Bianca and the builders will work on the construction of a signal fire tower, which me and first officer Kestrel here will oversee and support. Other than that, as far as I’m concerned, our top priority besides finding a way to get back home is food and water. We have plenty of shelter right now, so I want every able body fishing, gathering, boiling water, or hunting.”

When talks about working hard and pulling together came back to the forefront, it was clear some of the crowd didn’t like that one bit. The same old grumblings echoed throughout the mass.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

My feelings were mixed. On the one hand, we had this authority figure who could come in and convince people to work on the basics. How long that would last, I had no idea. On the other hand, that same figure might get us all killed. Still, he might have been right. I thought eventually we would have to reach out to others in this world to trade, but I didn’t know if we were ready yet.

By late evening, the old council had gathered by Shelter Two to discuss our plans.

Besides the captain and his copilot, one more person had joined the community by day’s end by the name of Sophie Park. I won't tell you how I, someone notorious for forgetting people’s names, knew her entire name, other than the fact that when she came into the camp, the men noticed.

It was weird seeing new arrivals come in, completely fresh. After being here a while, you get dirty, you get dingy, you get in the muck, you lose your makeup and your hair gels, and you get primal. Seeing someone like that suddenly appear throws you off, makes you feel longing for the old world, and also miserable for being so far beyond civilized life when they were but a day away from it.

Bianca somehow felt more at ease, despite losing her seat of power, while socializing with Sophie. I think the weight of being in charge got to her. It was mostly my fault, of course, I could have made her job a lot easier in retrospect.

Bianca and Sophie looked like best friends, talking up a storm on their way to us, and all in all, Sophie didn’t look like someone who had been told she was being thrust into a different planet to fend for herself. Maybe it was because the Captain was here or because she and Bianca had gotten on well together. They parted each other with a small wave, as Sophie headed towards Shelter Three and Bianca towards the four other old council members gathered here.

“Someone had to know it was coming,” Anika said, bringing the first issue on the agenda. “The Captain.”

“Who’s that, Bianca?” I asked about her new friend, my eyebrows raised. I knew who it was, but wanted Bianca to introduce us.

“Don’t EVEN think about it,” Bianca snapped. “Also, what the heck? I thought you would put up a bigger fight with the Captain. You don’t seem to hold back when I was in charge.”

“Is that Sophie Park?” Ethan asked with fanboy excitement. “She was sitting in first class, wasn’t she? Oh my god, I can’t believe she’s here.”

“You know her too, Ethan? You dog, you,” I prodded Ethan in the side of the chest with my fingers, making him giggle.

“This isn’t the time for joking or whatever boy crap you have going on. What are we going to do?” Bianca asked, her fists clenched and teeth bared.

Herman shrugged and spoke up first. “Sabotage that signal fire.”

“I’m trying to get Slate to do whatever he can to not work, but the golem is a machine. Why did he have to be so useful all of a sudden?” Bianca sounded exasperated.

“Didn’t know you were this power-hungry, Bianca,” I said, slightly impressed by her willingness to get back into control.

“I don’t give a crap if he’s in charge, but he can’t build that signal.” Bianca looked extra irritable today if that was at all possible.

“He just came here.” Anika frowned. “Hopefully, he has seen the moon by now and realized we aren’t on Earth anymore.”

“The moon is almost out by now. You can barely see it. It’s been some time since the waxing crescent cycle, so as more people come in, it’ll be harder to convince them,” Ethan said.

“That’s interesting, same moon cycle as ours perhaps,” Anika observed, nodding to herself. “Maybe we are in an alternate Earth.”

“Guys, please, what about the Captain and the signal fire?” Bianca pleaded.

“How far along is it?” I asked.

“It just got started. The base will be mud bricks, and Slate is taking a real long time getting bricks to the shore, thank God,” Bianca said. “But it’ll probably be done in a few days.”

“Did you guys ever think maybe the captain is right?” Ethan suggested.

“What do you mean?” Anika asked.

“Orion already told us there are other people on this planet. Maybe they will help us. We always assume the worst about people, but that’s just a human trait,” Ethan said. “Maybe one of them has a teleporter class like we do. Who knows?”

“And if they are human?” I asked.

“Most people I’ve met are kind. Humans get a bad rap, but if the average person sees someone in trouble, I think most people will help,” Ethan said.

“You are way too optimistic,” I responded, shaking my head at his perceived naivety. Though it could be me just being cynical.

“If it gets built, it will only attract boats or planes,” Herman said contemplatively. “If they have planes, maybe they have an advanced civilization. If they only have boats, then maybe... they’ll be traders or fishers or... even worse, pirates.”

At the word "pirates," we all feared the worst.

“We have to be put back in charge and we have to stop it,” Bianca paced. “Rye, can’t you do something? You were all talk about threatening people, can’t you, you know...”

“Geez, one day without power... I am honestly impressed.” I smiled, but Bianca was not amused in the slightest.

“Just tell Slate not to build it,” Anika said.

“Oh god, why didn’t I think of that? If Slate doesn’t, then Marek will just do it, and he’ll assign more and more people away from daily tasks to make bricks and build his stupid signal fire. It’s backbreaking work that will drive people nuts. The Captain is already getting people to build wheelbarrows to haul bricks to the build site,” Bianca cried.

“We needed wheelbarrows, so maybe he’s not so bad,” I said nodding. “Besides... the whole maybe getting us killed thing.”

“You guys are thinking the worst. The captain is just doing what he thinks is best... I can’t support a coup,” Ethan said.

“Orion, would Alex support you?” Herman asked, implying he wanted to take action.

“No. Alex thinks of himself as a hero, so I doubt he will stand by and let me do anything,” I said, inspecting my knives. “That said, he might not agree with Captain’s decision to stay away from the dungeon, but he won’t fear any threat from the outside we might get from the signal fire.”

“What does Marek think? Is he on our side?” Bianca asked.

Ethan shook his head. “Marek and Roza both want their kids to get back home. They are hoping on the slim chance that the captain will somehow get their kids back to Earth.”

“We just have to continue and prepare for the worst. I’ll make more hemostatics and herbs for healing while Ethan can continue making more thread and bandages,” Anika said.

“There is a third option besides a coup or just compliance,” I suggested.

“What?” Bianca asked.

“We can just leave. Go across the river and go north. Us five plus Cass. We can start over from scratch.”

Bianca took my suggestion and mulled it over, then shook her head.

“Rye, you always tell me to think about the future and the long-term goals of this place. We need everyone here. Sure, we can build a small cozy off-the-grid cottage somewhere and have a decent life. Maybe we’ll get a watermill going and some crops, but... we’ll never build a community with just six people.” Bianca brushed her auburn hair off her face and said with a determined smile, “I want to build a place that lasts, that the future children of this village will be happy living in.”

I sighed and nodded. “Fine, then open the dungeon.”

“What? But the captain said---” Ethan started, and Bianca looked annoyed at my suggestion.

“Just open it for three hours each day near dawn. I’ll go in by myself, loot weapons on the first floor, and stockpile them somewhere safe. If something happens, at least some of us can be armed. I’ll also be able to level up in combat.”

“Promise me you’ll stay safe,” Bianca said, her expression conveying that this was my last chance to prove myself and the last matter when it came to the dungeon.

“I’ll stay safe, Bianca. I don’t want to miss the faces of the newbies when you are back in charge.”