Equalize

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Checking his notifications as he walked, he realized that the group had killed thirty-five ants. Rocky hadn’t received much in the way of Etherience, his total just barely moving his Etherience bar up towards level seventeen, which he was pitifully far from.

  One nice point about fighting ants again was that Rocky’s greed menagerie finally let the issue of abandoning the loot of the fire-ants go. The twenty-two ants had almost no loot and amongst the whole group; they only managed to acquire three Crystallized Ether.

  Seeing the green meat, the children insisted on searching for something they could be sure was edible, just in case. Chuckling, Rocky handed the boys the Crystallized Ether to hold on to. This meant that each boy carried one Crystallized Ether.

  Rocky did this in hopes that it would help them feel like he wasn’t the same as whoever this Ottawa dictator was. It probably didn’t do anything, but Rocky was willing to try if it could help these children heal.

  After a bit more hunting and with the setting of the sun, the group, now with the children at level five, made their way back to the cave. Once they arrived, Rocky cooked up some ant and overly large jackrabbit meat. Grimacing, he knew he was going to have to be the first one who tested the ant meat.

  Cooked Black Ant Meat

  Considered a delicacy in certain cultures and much loved by the Lizardfolk of Saturn.

  Oh, lizards like insects. Wouldn’t have guessed it. I guess that means it is edible, though.

  The meat looked slimy, and Rocky was not looking forward to the experience. The group had managed to catch and skin enough Ether mutated rabbits to have breakfast tomorrow, and Rocky had stored the carcasses in the cave for the boys, just in case.

  It turned out that ant meat tasted pretty damn good, and while it wasn’t chicken, pork, or beef, it was quite flavorful and surprisingly moist. It was naturally a bit salty, too, which was pleasant because Rocky definitely was missing having that particular seasoning.

  The kids, however, refused to eat ant meat mostly because it was green and was probably too similar to a vegetable in their minds.

  New world same hang-ups. Should I tell them they won’t grow up big and healthy if they don’t eat it?

  Rocky snorted to himself in amusement at his thought and went into the cave to set up a sleeping area for the three children as they finished eating. He laid out all the furs and placed his camping gear in the area as well. Rocky then left all but one water bottle and proceeded outside.

  He then explained to them what he needed to do. As soon as he brought up his own family, the children all froze, but when he mentioned finding his lost loved one, each boy hardened and grew solemn. With Rocky’s help, they organized a watch schedule and routine for that night, and finally, after many checks, Rocky hesitantly left.

  Waving to the children, he told them he hoped to be back by morning.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rocky found himself sneaking through Ottawa in search of the shop and the military headquarters. At first, he was going to rush right to his old neighborhood and hope that his family would just be waiting for him there, but upon further consideration, he chose not to take that route.

  Clenching his teeth, Rocky obviously knew there were survivors and that some of them had the military-grade equipment. It was easy to assume that the military side was either holding the rest of the survivors as slaves or somehow had a faction killing off any who tried to leave the city. This did not bode well for his family, and to say he was agitated would have been a massive understatement.

  It had taken most of his effort the entire day not to run straight into the city and begin screaming the names of his mother and sister. If the situation had been different, he probably would have done just that, but the possibility of a dictator may be better handled subtly. Jason, Alex, and Oliver hadn’t been helpful in that regard.

  The children only knew that their group had been staying in one of the schools, and they had stayed there because it was one of the only buildings that wasn’t converted to a golem. Rocky hypothesized that schools, libraries, and possibly a few other specific buildings were somehow off limits from whatever power golems were being created by. This logical deduction was because in Pembroke the golems would not destroy the school or library.

  This meant that the probability in Ottawa was that most of the survivors would be on a university campus, college campus, individual schools, and or huddled in libraries. In Ottawa specifically, Rocky had to assume that the military faction was holed up in one or multiple schools. The largest campus was probably Carlton or the University of Ottawa.

  Since Rocky was advancing into Ottawa from the Kanata side, he had to make a choice as they were both about the same distance from him. Eyes hard, he chose the University of Ottawa because it was more downtown, and he figured it would be more appealing to a military group, even if that military group wasn’t precisely a preserver of life.

  Another reason he chose not to go to his suburb was because he hoped that the army would try to gather and centralize survivors. If not that, then at least make a list of survivors, so they had a headcount after the Ether crash. If a faction was out hunting for survivors early in the initial days, he was quite sure they would have checked Nepean and Barrhaven thoroughly by now.

  He crept through the city and marveled. Wide-eyed, Rocky struggled to navigate. He was used to using the roads as guides to the town. Not having any landmarks to go off of was really causing him to falter at times. There was no helping it; the city was gone, and in its place, the wilderness was taking over with a vengeance. This brought up another pertinent question.

  Where are all the golems? Where buildings and roads should be, just bare earth remains. I am assuming there are golems around… maybe the military has cleaned them all up already?

  Rocky continued walking through grass and other fauna that was quickly reclaiming in days what humans had built over centuries. The first few schools he had passed on his direct route to the university had survivor groups, but none of them were militaristic in nature. The survivors he did see were all downtrodden and wore suspicious, fearful expressions. With each group he saw, his mood soured when he saw the living conditions. As he moved through the city, he considered how the survivors had looked physically. Even though they were all dirty and wearing rags, everyone was eating—that was certain. Even though the people seemed to be nervous and scared, they also looked to be well nourished.

  A few snippets of conversations he overheard from the schools he checked seemed to praise the city protectors. This led Rocky to believe his earlier assertions that this dictator was holding them hostage with promises of protection and lies. Hands clenched, Rocky vowed to find out where the nervousness and fear he saw was coming from, but first, he needed to check for a ledger.

  Before Rocky saw it, he heard it, the clacking of a large tank rumbling in the distance, and a few heavy syllables of distant conversation. While the vehicle made noise, it wasn’t the base of a large machine motor, just the clatter of moving parts and metallic treads hitting the earth. Eyes wild, Rocky moved to the cover of a large rock and watched as the shadows resolved themselves out of the night.

  “I think we have destroyed all of the lesser golems in the area thanks to the weapons and training we’re all receiving. I don’t see why we have to keep doing these late-night patrols. All the remaining survivors were assigned a school or library and are perfectly safe,” one of the men complained to the group at large.

  “Tommy, I am not going to explain this to you again! You better listen this time. We have no idea what the evolved creatures will do. Nowhere is truly safe with beasts like that monstrous white alligator out there.” The man stopped to spit to the side. “I mean, we know that golems avoid hitting schools, libraries, and hospitals but we have no idea if the beasts will treat them the same.”

  The group never really came entirely into focus and continued on a course that bisected two schools in the distance. Both the schools had fires burn
ing outside that were clearly visible from this distance. Rocky changed course and traveled the direction that the group had arrived from, hoping it led towards their home base.

  It still led mostly towards his previous destination, but he hoped he would run into more patrols. That group had unwittingly given him another search target—hospitals. The closer he got to the base of operations for the military, the more patrols he hoped he would see.

  The conversation had given him a few other pieces of information. That discussion did not seem to be the conversation of a group of murdering psychopaths. It seemed to be the mumblings of men who were missing sleep to protect humans from the new dangers of the world. Lastly, he learned that there was some sort of colossal alligator out there that was being used as a boogeyman to try to scare a man who was currently walking beside a tank. Rocky resolved not to run into that creature.

  Patrols became more regular, and Rocky determined his direction was going to lead him towards what used to be the Ottawa Hospital. It made sense in a way; they probably had medical supplies stocked in the hospital that may or may not be useful in the new world. In either case, if anyone was seriously injured during the initial days, they would still have tried to make it to the hospital before any other building in Ottawa.

  As he approached, he was forced to stop short as he noticed the hospital still had electricity or some sort of power source powering lights. What shone in the light was both inspiring and terrifying to Rocky.

  Row upon row of tanks lined the grass in front of the building. How many there were, Rocky had no idea, but it was quite a few. More than one hundred easily, and with how many patrols might have a tank grouped with them, it was probably closer to two hundred.

  In addition to the tanks, men were walking around inside the building, all of them wearing military fatigues and carrying some sort of gun slung over a shoulder. Rocky stood out in the dark, looking at the complex and was forced to reconsider his earlier plans.

  He had hoped he could infiltrate the home base and gather information. This, however, wasn’t a school ground lit by campfires. This was a fortress lit by floodlights in a startling, dark night.

  To put it into context, the last few nights he had noticed just how bright and close the stars seemed in comparison to his experience with city life. Even with his camping trip into Algonquin, he had never seen the stars without any light pollution.

  Now, however, this one radiant structure tried to fight back that pressing black. It pushed back those stars and reconquered the night. On top of that, the number of active militiamen inside meant Rocky had little to no chance of getting in.

  Rocky began circling the structure, staying far back from the edge of the light, making him near impossible to see if you were inside the structure. However, he was still wary of someone approaching from any other direction and seeing a lone figure backlit by the buildings, so he crept from cover to cover when he could and walked with confidence when he couldn’t.

  These actions were in hopes that anyone who did see him would think he was a militiaman going about business. Perhaps it worked or maybe no one was watching because he didn’t get caught.

  Rocky’s eyes narrowed as he saw something that made him stop his slow, exaggerated circle. He quietly crouched behind the demolished ruins of someone’s car and stared at a large, metallic structure that sat in the middle of a field, just on the very edge of the light from the hospital.

  The dome-like structure seemed to absorb the light of the building off its smooth, gunmetal gray surface. It looked almost alien as it split the white light into iridescent shimmers which ran across its surface. Rocky was forced to assume that this was the shop due to its bizarre, alien features and its posted guard. If he was correct, entering the shop may allow him to begin picking up some of the pieces of his earlier plan.

  Rocky tried using Analyze on the strange building, but nothing happened. Either he was out of range or the dome didn’t have any information attached to it by the Atlantean System. He doubted the latter but didn’t think he was out of range. Perhaps it was for some other reason that the dome refused to be identified.

  This alien dome structure, he could probably make it to without notice. While men were patrolling around it, they were continually entering and exiting the lighted courtyard and were ruining any night vision they might have. Four groups of two patrolled the area around the circular structure. Rocky was also gambling on that there was an interior to the dome.

  Rocky patiently watched the four groups take slow circles around the structure and was utterly chagrined when one of the groups stopped at the bright side of the building. Each subsequent group joined them, and they began talking. What they were saying didn’t carry to him, but he knew his opportunity when he saw it.

  Despite thinking it was overkill at this point, Rocky activated Dark Cloak and sprinted to the opposite side of the assumed shop from the eight guards. Not sure how to enter or if the strange dome was even a building, he placed his hand on the surface, and a moment later, a door slid open in front of him. The door was ominously pitch black, almost as if it was a void in space.

  Swallowing hard against his fear, Rocky was still loath to enter, but he knew his luck with the guards wouldn’t last forever. He steeled his faltering will and stepped over the threshold.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Immediately upon entering the door, Rocky was blinded as his eyes desperately attempted to adjust from the near darkness of the Ottawa night to the cloudless mountaintop sun. His pupils going from full dilation to pinpricks wasn’t helped in the least by his stats. If his watering eyes weren’t mistaken, it was the sun of a midday mountaintop because that was the only scene that described the outlines in the background.

  The haze cleared enough to see a large shape coming right towards him, and in his disoriented state, Rocky jumped backward, tripping over his own feet. Before he knew it, he was on his ass, and a towering, fuzzy shape put its foot down right where Rocky was sprawled.

  With the foot nearly on top of Rocky, he couldn’t avoid being stepped on, but with his speed, he could hopefully choose where the foot would land. Making a snap decision, he pushed back and sacrificed his left leg.

  The cloven foot passed right through his leg, and Rocky felt no pain. In his shocked state, the knee that came directly towards his upper body didn’t even register as it too sailed through him. That limb was followed by another pair belonging to the horse’s back end, and Rocky turned around, his vision finally working enough to process a centaur walking purposefully away from him.

  Heart beating rapidly, Rocky desperately tapped at his chest and head. He felt his muscles relax when he felt his own body. Yet that creature had passed right through him.

  Was that a ghost centaur? What in the hell?

  “Welcome to the Aretrin Bazaar. First time?” a nasal voice spoke to Rocky’s side, the tone clearly filled with mirth. Rocky looked towards the screechy voice and was staring down at a tiny, whip-thin, green creature. Considering Rocky was on his butt, leaning back on both of his arms, and this creature only came up to his waist, minuscule might have been a better descriptor.

  His heart was still in his throat and his breathing could be called hyperventilation, but Rocky muttered, “A goblin?” He knew he had messed up when the smile dropped off the creature’s face, and its eyes hardened.

  “Goblins are classified as a monster race with little to no intelligence and a penchant for destruction! Do you think a goblin would be here? At the Aretrean city of Olympia!” the voice spat with dripping vitriol and with each word its eyes narrowed. Then the tiny thing puffed out of existence like it was never there.

  Look at you, making friends! With tiny green ghosts no less! Yep, you still got it.

  Chuckling, Rocky stood and dusted himself off. A quick look around showed him what he had immediately noticed on arrival and that was the mountains behind the shops nearest him. Now with clear eyes, he saw the peaks were covered in buildings large eno
ugh that even at this distance, they seemed to be gigantic. Located an easy fifty kilometers away was what could only be described as the Greek Pantheon seat of Mount Olympus.

  Ionic columns held massive marble roofs. The interior of the buildings seemed to be closed and open simultaneously in a strange and unique fashion. Staircases, walls, and balconies made of white marble seemed to hang in the air with no support, and only light glinting off something transparent was an indication that something more was at play.

  It was like seeing the innards of a human being walking around with no skin but still alive, absolutely fascinating but also somehow brain twistingly wrong.

  Rocky momentarily wished Sela was here before he quashed that thought mercilessly. He needed to be making progress towards his family. Finally tearing his gaze away from the mesmerizing sight, Rocky took in the views a little closer.

  As the small thing had pointed out, it seemed to be a bazaar. The space was surrounded by a large circle of metal. The type of metal seemed to be the exact same as the shop on earth.

  All over the place, people popped into and out of existence. Throughout the square people, walked through other people and, in some cases, walked right through tents with erected shop signs.

  Rocky hesitantly began moving around, not really attempting to find a specific shop yet just trying to understand what this place was. First off, everyone here wasn’t corporeal, but he could somehow feel his own body. Rocky passed his arm through a tent to be sure he wasn’t the anomaly to the rules.

  A merchant who was seated cross-legged on a large, red blanket watched Rocky’s approach with amusement and bright, sparkling, emerald eyes. The merchant had tanned, golden brown skin, pointed ears, and delicate features. It looked something akin to what Earth’s mythical elves would with a few subtle differences.