World Filter

The two groups drew nearer and as they approached they gauged one another.

Sam walked to the front with Cara, smiling. When they got close enough, Mark took a look at the rest of the line-up here.

He couldn’t be sure but they gave off a strong air. With the exclusion of Maggie, two more women stood by the prophet's side. They both had spears and gave off the air of Aura users.

Just behind them, there was another group of people, they looked to be moving with the group but not part of the group. Mark’s attention was drawn away when the prophet spoke.

“Hello, Sam. It's good to finally talk to you face to face.”

She had this charismatic voice that drew one in.

Sam returned the smile.

“Couldn't agree more Chloe. Now I don’t mean to be rude, but we sacrificed a lot to be here. Please don’t tell me the was a waste of time”

Chloe’s eyes flickered over all of them as if taking in everything about them.

“Not at all, I fully intend to help your group for a long time still. It’s wonderful to meet all of you”

Jonathan seemed intrigued by her.

“So can you really see the future?”

Chloe's eyes moved back to him.

“In some respects, yes. It’s a type of magic, just like any other Jonathan. One just has to be able to understand what the spells are outputting”

Mark was surprised she would share that information so willingly. She was basically saying anyone could do it but that didn’t mean they’d get anything from it.

“And what of this problem you said you needed help with? You said you’d tell us what it was when we got here.” Mark asked.

“Ah, Mark. This job is important and tied closely to all of us here so-”

Suddenly one of the men from the group shouted in anger. Mark, Sam, and Jonathan all went on guard.

Searching the crowd, Mark's eyes fell back on the separate group that seemed to following this one. Right away Mark recognized his face but struggled to place it. The man was pointing directly at Mark.

“Oi, you are that guy that almost got us killed!”

It took Mark a moment to recognize the face of Henry, the shit that had picked a fight with Mark in the beginning. Behind him, Mark recognized a couple of them from the fight. If he remembered correctly one of the guy's names was Felix, he had that annoying ball. He recognize more but couldn’t place names to them.

The reason they stood out at first was that they wore subtly different armor than the prophet's people. Annoyance burned in Mark's chest.

“If I remember correctly you were doing that fine all on your own”

Henry looked at Mark with equal amounts of Irritation in his eyes but something was different. The anger and pompous look in his eyes was gone.

“Chloe, this can’t be who you were waiting on” Henry ground out.

Chloe turned to him without the slightest sign of being bothered by the interruption.

“Henry, I told you this would be hard, and that if you wanted to get this done, then we needed help. Well now here it is, are you really going to turn it down”

Henry seemed to struggle with himself and looking back at Mark he seemed resigned.

“Are they going to be enough?” he said looking at the four of them.

A smile crept onto her lips.

“They're enough, trust me”

Sam intervened at this point.

“We are still very much in the dark here. You told me we could decline to do it if we didn’t want to, but that starts with giving us a hint as to what this job actually is”

Chloe seemed to motion for Henry to go on.

He looked at her and then back to them, as if he knew he had no choice he started to speak.

“My name is Henry and I was previously the leader of a nearby group. As a whole, we were kick-ass strong, but then this asshole came in and challenged me for control of the camp. I’ve always believed that might makes right, so that’s how I set the place up. If he had the strength to unseat me, then fine. I thought I’d won, I damned near crippled the guy, but somehow he turned the tables and injured me.”

Mark now noticed Henry was favoring his right side. If he had to guess something near his ribs perhaps his lung. Without expanding his construct he couldn’t tell for sure, so he held off. Who knows if someone here could detect his spell or how they would take it?

Jonathan didn’t look impressed

“Okay and how does that help us?”

Henry looked frustrated at the interruption.

“I made a deal with Chloe, she helps me get my people back and I’ll return the favor by helping her. They won’t let me waltz back in and challenge the guy, that's where you guys come in, help me get there and you’ll have yourself an army”

Mark wasn’t thrilled at the idea of fighting other people, especially ones that they’d need to fight alongside later.

Jonathan’s next question had been one he’d been wondering himself.

“And who’s to say you can win? You lost already, what makes you think to can beat the guy this time around?”

Some of that old cockiness returned to Henry’s eyes.

“I’ve spent time leveling up and I’ve got more items now. That guy beating me was one in a million. I can get back my spot and when I do you will have our help and Chloe’s people too.”

Sam looked back at Mark and Jonathan. Mark could see Sam wanted to take the chance but Jonathan was hesitant.

If this turned out badly all they would be doing was wasting time, who knew if these people would even listen to him if he won? The thing was, their options were limited.

Mark looked at Jonathan and said in a whisper.

“If he messes up, you could always challenge the guy”

That seemed to get Jonathan's attention and he slowly started to nod.

They turned back the group and Sam gave them a look at said they were in.

“Great work Henry! If everything works out then we should leave here with exactly two hundred and thirty-six fighters” Chloe clapped her hands.

Jonathan's brow dropped.

“I thought you could see the future, do we make it or not?”

Without pausing she said.

“Definitely! In 58% of the cases, we come out on top!”

They all stared at her and she looked back at them.

“What? That's really good compared to the other chances we have. We should get going, it's almost time. And, yes Sam, my magic is more probability-based than mystic mumbo-jumbo”

Sam looked like she was just about to ask something and stopped halfway when Chloe answered her question.

As Chole began moving forward, the procession began to pick up once more. Mark could tell that the fighters remained on the outside and the non-fighters stayed safely in the middle. The four of them were quickly absorbed by the roaming caterpillar of people. Sam and Cara chatted freely trying to catch up and Jonathan seemed to gravitate towards Chloe. Franklin had moved over to the women with spears and was admiring their weapons.

Mark was walking and by some unfortunate twist of fate wound up right next to Henry and his group.

Looking over he saw the guy walking with an almost imperceptible limp. Seeing as they were working together there was no use holding grudges, as much as he’d like to, so he decided to break the ice.

“Does Chloe not have any healers in this group?”

Henry looked over with a weary glance but it was the guy next to him that answered.

“Yo, I’m Felix. Sorry about before. I know what we did was wrong, but things were just a little crazy in the beginning. We learned from those lessons. Oh and she does, but we learned that the healer’s strength has to be comparable to the target they are healing, or it’s just not very effective. Some of his wounds didn’t get tended to for days and they’ve healed wrong, so now the best we can do is a patch job”

Henry looked pissed.

“Dude! Tell him my whole life story why don’t you!”

Felix shrugged but didn’t look the least bit sorry.

Mark understood where he was coming from, if an injury was left untreated for too long and their natural healing kicked, it could cause bone to set in the wrong way. That must have happened here but in a much shorter time frame. Usually, Mark healed everyone as soon as they were injured so it was interesting to know that even with enhanced natural healing people could still be crippled if left to heal wrong. As much as he still didn’t like the guy, it might be a good idea to offer the olive branch first. Plus their whole plan was relying on him to win this fight, Mark would kick himself if the guy lost because he held a grudge.

Mark could do something to increase his chances of winning and while Jonathan could probably also make a challenge, it would be better not to tank their chances any more than necessary.

“Well, I’m a healer, would you let me look at it?”

Now it was Felix’s turn to frown.

“Aren’t you a mage?”

Mark shook his head, deciding that speaking to them in gamer terms would get the best results. Luckily he went through a phase back in high school of feinding MMORPGs into the early hours of the morning.

“Primary healer, secondary mage.”

Their small group looked shocked.

“Wait, you’re fucking with me. That was your secondary stats?” Henry asked.

Mark mulled it over.

“Sort of, it's complicated”

Felix was less hesitant.

“Well then yes, he’d appreciate it greatly”

Henry seemed frustrated that Felix was talking for him but he didn’t disagree with the guy.

So Mark expanded his construct to cover him.

[Prana pulse] flared and right away his suspensions were confirmed, the guy's bones had broken and rehealed. It looked like his lung had caved in and a large divet had been cemented in the bone structure. Though that was not all, the hip on the same side was shattered. It had healed mostly right but he would always have a more limited range of movement as a result. At the same time, he felt the amount of Aura that Henry had and was very surprised. He had to have around three-quarters of what Jonathan had. The guy was strong, but at the same time, Mark felt he had at least a decent level of Mana too. They were right that the average healer wouldn’t work for him.

Seeing the problem Mark decided the best thing to do would be to take a map of his body and overlay it over his injuries, then provide the energy need to make the corrections. He’d done this before when replacing lost limbs but this was different. He wasn’t gluing on a new finger. He was removing the old damaged areas and replacing them with perfect versions. The other option was to break them with his Mana, but he had a feeling that Henry would have a problem with this option.

So trying this first he began to create a map in his mind. His Mana attribute helped him envision it and then he pushed Prana forward.

The changes were excruciatingly slow, as little by little his bones reshaped themselves to their perfected versions. Cells were born anew to replace the old. All through the process, Mark walked next to their group. With each step, Henry's gait became smoother and his shallow breathing let up.

It took Mark ten minutes of constant healing and maintenance to completely fix the damage to his body.

Though Henry noticed by the five-minute mark that something was changing.

“Wait are you doing something?” he asked.

Mark diverted his concentration to say.

“Yeah, healing. Can’t talk. Almost done”

“At this range?” he asked but Mark didn’t answer.

By the time he was done, Henry was bouncing in excitement.

“Holy shit, I haven't felt this free in days! Thanks, man, you’re alright. I’m so gonna win this”

They were all surprised by Henry’s miraculous recovery, luckily it hadn’t taken too much energy.

Moving with their group turned out to be the strangest method of travel Mark had experienced so far.

One moment they were walking forward, the next they came to a full stop, right after that breaking out into dead sprints. The group seemed used to this as Chloe lead the way. Taking them on a route only she could see. Though it was not like they could avoid all the Corrupted but the ones they did encounter were separated and weak. Allowing them to cut through them easily. Chloe told them that they were close to their destination now but that the Corrupted were acting strange, they seemed to be trying to keep them away in roaming hordes.

After some maneuvering and fighting they got close to some kind of large residential area.

Houses were built close to one another acting like a natural barrier to their surroundings. Turning down one of the larger roads, a barricade consisting of stacked vehicles came into view. It must have taken a blow recently because Mark could see hasty repairs had been done. A voice went up from the wall.

“Alright Henry, that's far enough”

Their group split off for the main force and came forward.

“Balin, open the wall! I’m here to challenge him!”

“I can’t do that Henry” a voice answered him from ahead.

“Stop joking man, if I have to come in there by force there’s going to be problems. I have every right to challenge him. Let me in!”

The man named Balin seemed to pause and then shouted back.

“Alright, gimme a second. I need to find out what they want to do”

Henry seems pacified by this and they waited. Minutes ticked by and Mark was getting antsy.

After what felt like years, a section in the wall parted and people armed to the teeth made room for them to pass. The area was chaotic and messy, the army maintained a level of hygiene that Mark had grown accustomed to and the people here were leaving trash wherever they happened to be.

As they headed past the wall Mark got a strange sensation from the people around him, their Mana felt wrong. They were staring at them with dull hostility in their eyes.

As more of a reaction, he thickened his construct around himself. Traveling deeper into the small settlement they got to an open area. Similar to a cul de sac.

In the center, a small stage had been erected and a large tent sat on it. It was probably the best-looking part of this area.

A good portion of their group was in here by now, and as they came to a standstill Mark felt a wave of Mana rush out of the tent containing a horrid intent. It traveled down in all directions like a looming cloud, attempting to enter ones mind and dull one’s senses, pushing down their resistance. At the same time, the flaps on the tent opened and two people stepped out. A man and a woman.

Mark's eyes narrowed to a pinprick as two words escaped his lips in a harsh whisper.

“Donny?... Grace!”