Dreamweaver Chapter 13

We were now trying to get everyone moving by having escaped out the back door of the ruins of our former school. It was beyond repair, and actually now seeing it from the outside it was amazing so many people had lived through however we were brought to this world. It looked like a building that had gone through World War II bomb runs in Germany, almost because of the earthquake stuff and also orc damage together.

It was also the ideal time to go before the orcs came back.

I wondered if the travel between worlds was part of why the building had eroded so much. Some of the damage didn’t appear to be from the orcs and they didn’t have siege weapons. So it’s clear the energy of being summoned was partly part of the damage.

We’d been moving for some time and at first no one was talking but I couldn’t ignore how upset everyone was. In addition to the grief, and anger, there was a lot of desire for revenge. We’d finally worked our way down the stairs, and barely gotten out the back with a long line of tired and gore covered students in ruined clothes.

But there were signs some of the orcs were watching us with scouts and so we kept everyone armed and tried to keep even numbers throughout the line of people with the weapons or with the people with weapons at different hall check points as we worked down to the ground floor. People also were really scared and a lot of the halls were still dark so it took a long time.

It was confirmed we weren’t alone still when we heard steps in some of the darker halls that had no light in them as strange heavier footsteps ran away from our retreating party. That made the others really nervous, since it was believed there were no other survivors left in the school and the orcs had pulled a lot of the bodies out already on the first floor at least.

They had yet to come back to the second floor and the third where we were at before coming down.

“You think we have time to salvage the kitchen area?” Akimoto suggested.

“I don’t think we have time, before the orcs come back,” Asakura Sensei said.

“Besides even if we did have time to screw around I’d rather find a place to get the gore off all our clothes,” Yumi said dourly. She was right. Everyone was covered in guts and blood, both their own and that of their friends, and that of the orcs.

And because we’d been pulled to some other new world, none of the plumbing worked in the school because there was nothing to feed water up through the pipes from underneath.

“I …agree…though I know a lot of people will be mad later when we don’t know where food is going to come from,” I said.

“Yeah that’s true,” Akira agreed.

“If we had maybe a couple really fast scouts to go they could probably hit it up,” Akimoto pleaded.

“We’re being watched,” Akira was the first one to notice after me.

“Eh? That’s bad,” Yumi paled.

“Well that cuts off the kitchen idea. You would get pillaged by the scouts waiting for you to break away from the main group while you were either going through it or on the way there,” I said.

“You think so?” someone said.

“Think about it. Wolves attack the deer that separate from the herd. It’s common sense,” Akira said.

“Hmm, that reminds me we don’t know what kinds of predators are nearby do we? There could be other things besides the wolves,” I said.

The others didn’t like that idea.

“Damn. If they are watching us now…not a good idea I guess,” Akimoto finally agreed.

“I know we are going to have to find food later though,” Asakura Sensei said.

“We need to basically get as far as we can from here before dark again,” I said.

“But people need to rest too,” Asakura Sensei said worrying. I could see she was looking at Rina. I was also thinking of Rina. Rina has been really quiet lately. I worry about her. I’m just lucky that Asakura is willing to help her so much, so that I can help the others.

“If we can find a safe place that pig orcs can’t get too then sure. We’ll rest at that time. We don’t want to be too close to them when they come back,” I said cheekily.

“Eh? Will they come back?” Asakura asked.

There’s a panic as others start to realize it.

“Way to go Shun, you just stirred up the hornet’s nest again,” Akira said.

“The fact is it has nothing to do with hornets. The pig orcs either come back or they don’t. And to them we looked like easy prey. There’s no reason they won’t try to chase after us when they got pretty much everyone else. Why would they let us escape,” I argued back.

Nobody disagreed with me then.

“Uh,” Sensei looked really tired. Her shoulders were slumped over and some strands of hair had fallen out of place. She was good looking enough though that she didn’t wear makeup everyday; thus she was lucky because all the girls wearing makeup had raccoon and panda eyes from all the crying causing their make up to smear. Rina and Sensei were the only ones that weren’t like this, though the effect was less on Yumi because she looked good and had good facial structure and skin.

It’s true that it was a lot to ask but … the orcs would surely follow us after they reorganized. But we had no idea how long that would take. Theoretically they could possibly burst through that fortress gate at any minute. They probably would rearm, get more people, discuss strategy, also try to build up their morale but who knows, anything was possible at this point.

We’d decided to follow a way that led towards a far distant river way down at the edge of our sight in the valley lowland away from the school. It was almost hidden because of the forest that grew around it except for hints and different places where it was revealed around rocky spots, plus the trees and forest areas followed the river so closely giving clues that it was there. It was Asakura Sensei’s suggestion, that most cities were formed next to rivers. Her argument wasn’t for just cleaning up there but also that all living things need water in order to survive. And there could be a way to get fish from the river.

So if there was a city it would most likely be near the river for water, fishing, trade, and travel even, I thought. While walking towards it, someone had brought up the idea of wondering if we should go upstream or downstream from it but that thought was suddenly interrupted.

You see, after we’d gotten out the back, there was a long line of us trying to march away from the school, but someone had noticed something else…

“Hey what are those?” Yuriko asked. She was staring at something with her eyes in a sort pose that suggests confusion and being upset at the same time.

I could only turn my head partway because Asakura Sensei and I had Rina’s arms over our necks and shoulders helping her move and keeping her on her feet. We kept her tightly between us to ease the drag and gravity pulling at us and keep her buoyed up. “Eh?”

“Hey, what do those say?” Yumi asked Raya suddenly. Both of them pointed to something funny I hadn’t seen before.

We all stared. Sure enough surrounding the ruined school at even intervals sticking up out of the tall grass were painted monolithic structures and rocks with some strange symbols carved into them which looked hastily erected recently. I looked at them carefully, it was some kind of polished black stones similar to marble or obsidian and the carving on it was deep and carefully etched and very neatly arranged probably from the work of many people in coordination together though we couldn’t see anyone here now. They were spaced in a circular formation all around the school.

“They haven’t been there long. Notice how the rocks have no patina, and they look like everything is all fresh? There’s also trampled grass where they were put down, and no grass growing between the grooves and gaps in the rocks in their little piles respectively,” Yumi said.

“If this was an RPG those would be the summoning ring or summoning circle anchor stones and monoliths,” Yuta said pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Hm, Yuta is right like usual,” someone said. It looked like he’d gained a female follower of some kind.

Personally I thought it was naive to compare it to some game.

“Eh?!” a lot of people gasped in surprise at once. If we weren’t in a hurry a lot of the students would have wanted to study the stones and look for traces of what had put them there. It was clear there were probably were some footprints around there because the beautiful green grass of the meadow was trampled around the area where the stones were placed. Even without special training you could tell that.

“Then can you read them?” Akira asked.

“Not exactly. They are this system’s writing and I can see a clear symbol that I should be able to remember and reference for later. But…for some reason they are the only thing I can’t read so far. Even if I could it’s a carved symbol and not a readable sentence,” Yuta finished.

“It’s weird that you can read everything except that. There must be a special meaning for it,” Asakura said.

“Maybe you can write down those symbols and we can study them later,” I suggested.

“Hurry, we’re getting farther and farther from the school,” chuckled Yuriko. It’s true that by now we were starting to get to where it was hard to see the school’s summoning stones. In a few more minutes of walking we’d be away from the school entirely.

“You got it boss. I probably won’t be able to get many of them though since we’re in a hurry to get away,” Yuta saluted. But he was so nerdy it made me embarrassed. Come to think of it, we had to do something about Yuta’s hair. He had a bowl cut just like that wannabe necromancer kid that was probably hiding out somewhere close to Kenji.

I worried what that might do to him having an image like that…

“That doesn’t make sense. We’re sure your special skill is reading languages…” Yumi grumbled.

“Could it have had a malfunction?” someone asked.

“Hmm that’s possible, if there’s no other explanation,” some replied.

There were so many people around us that it was impossible for people not have an opinion of some kind it seemed. After all our line of survivors walking down the land resembled a crowd of people that might be standing in line for an amusement park ride…except nobody wanted to get on this ride.

“Wait a minute, if magic is a system and it has writing would you have to have another skill to read magic symbols in addition to Yuta and Raya’s base language skills?” Asakura Sensei finally guessed.

“Eh?!” some girl was completely shocked.

“Eh?” Many people were as surprised as she was.

“So it was like that…”

“Who would have thought…” someone else said.

“So that means, the skills interact and have like compounding effects and stacking ability…if you didn’t have magic skills or a magic subclass then you can’t read what the magic writing would say,” Rina said tiredly while trying to walk forward as best she could.

“But how are we supposed to know who has a magic skill?” Yumi grumbled. “It’s not like everyone is going to be able to run around tossing fireballs…”

“I’d want to go around tossing fireballs,” Yuta grumbled.

“Really? You want to be able to do magic?” Yuriko asked him sincerely.

“Yeah, who wouldn’t? If I had something like that when the orcs hit…” he didn’t finish the sentence. We all hated to think of how many people had died there.

“Actually that’s pretty unlikely,” Asakura Sensei reasoned. “I mean think about it. If you could do something like fire magic there would be forest fires and wildfires all the time. Even if they didn’t try to start them it would inevitably happen from sparks hitting dry grass or pine needs. Towns are made of kindling pretty much and wooden buildings all packed together and people would lose their livelihoods easily off just one person trying to experiment with it. Just practicing in your room one time would make your whole family homeless, and then they’d hate you for it. Also they’d have fires like every week if people really could toss fire around and have fire magic. Do you really think a city can endure that?”

The others nearly stopped in their tracks, as common sense finally hit them. I didn’t realize it but so many people’s hopes were snuffed out just like that. A lot of people had played too much final fantasy it seemed.

“Eh?!”

“Uh, so it’s like that.” A girl then started swearing under her breath.

“RPGs are so deceptive huh?”

“Yeah we’ve been cheated,” Yuriko said.

“Damn! We’ve been living a lie!” Yuta grumbled. He covered his face with his hands in grief. One of the girls patted his back to comfort him. It seemed to be one of the Yuta followers.

“Oh man, I should’ve just gone out and gotten a job! I’ve been tricked!” another said.

“Yeah, I thought I was going to be a fire mage too,” someone said.

“So we can’t?!” someone pouted.

“Not fair!”

“Ah man, I thought there might be some redeeming traits to this world!” someone cried out.

“Don’t give up hope. There has to be some cool skills still,” Asakura tried to encourage them.

“Eh? If there’s no fire magic there might be something else though right? Sensei is always right!” Akimoto suggested. “I mean, there clearly is magic here, but it’s probably just not something so self destructive right? Maybe it’s something that’s used for attack but just wouldn’t burn everyone’s houses down over night?”

“I suppose. That’s very possible, if Yuta and Raya can suddenly read other languages there must be something,” I admitted openly.

“I don’t get it? Why is fire so bad?” one kid said, we all stared. It turned out it was the same goth kid that wondered why it was bad to put live people in the item box. Several people rolled their eyes. I couldn’t help but notice he’d been throwing rocks at squirrels just a second ago.

Speaking of which, I hadn’t gotten a chance to go through all the stuff in the item box yet, because we’d had so many interruptions.

After seeing him say that I saw a few people pray for the first time, hoping they could change their lives and not be like him.

“Well it makes sense, think about how many arsonists would be running around if you really could be a fire mage?” Asakura Sensei said logically.

“Eh?! I was thinking it’d be like he walks into a shop and says something like, “hey old man, give me a discount or you’ll use your fire insurance this year. Naturally its part of the monthly ‘protection tax’,” Akimoto joked…at least he partly joked, but partly what he said was true and somewhat serious too.

“That’s not a bad idea,” the goth kid said under his breath. Several girls walked a little faster to get away from him subtlety. He didn’t seem to realize people were staring at him, while he walked with his head down.

How could he be so open about it?

“Ah, I didn’t think of that. If everyone had awesome powers then life would be more violent huh?” Yumi questioned.

“Eh? So if a lot of powerful people were together in a town, how would they keep people from like pushing other people down anyway? What would keep the normal people and the others safe from the fire mage or whatever it was that had the big strong skills?” Asakura Sensei wondered, as she was walking really close to Rina and to the side of me.

“Yeah, I’m worried about that too? The boss pig orc was clearly like a king or general. So are there people like that among the humans too? If there are, will they lord over the others unfairly?” Yumi wondered.

“If we killed the king, then will his generals come after us too?” I wondered aloud.

Several people cringed.

There’s an odd silence.

“Well they would have to pick another leader first. Maybe that will buy some time,” Yuta said.

“Well if there were humans like that, what would their classification be? Are they still human or something higher than human?” Asakura Sensei asked.

“Hmm, not sure. Good question, but hope we don’t meet any,” Yumi said closing the subject.

“Well even with no fire magic skill there is undoubtedly an attack magic of some kind,” I reasoned. “I’m just not sure how it works yet, or what it is. After all, we had someone discover necromancy, so there must be something.”

“Eh? What do you think Sensei?” someone asked us close by.

“Eh…well it’s true that sometimes bad things happen to good people. I think we just have to look out for each other more and then we’ll be OK. Try not to obsess too much about being like Kenji and others. I don’t think it’s healthy,” Asakura said trying to be cheerful and hopeful but she was having a tough time too.

Without realizing it she’d made some of the students chuckle.

“Shun, what’s going to happen to us?” Rina suddenly asked while leaning on me.

“I know you are tired but, you have to tough it out. We’ll get through it,” I coached and tried to encourage Rina, who I knew was listening.

“Yeah, I know that. But even so, it’s like my strength is gone. My legs are all wobbly and keep slipping out from under me. It’s like this every day. They just collapse. How am I supposed to have a future here?” she said evenly. What she said was true, sometimes we’d be helping her walk and suddenly she was falling to the ground and we’d catch her by the arms and shoulders to keep her from hitting the ground.

“Rina is pretty enough I’m sure she’ll have a lot of boy followers that want to help. In fact, I’ll probably have to help him beat them off, which I’ll do without mercy,” Akira coughed trying to encourage her. I could tell his burns hurt terribly though, or he would have helped me with carrying her, but I wasn’t sure if that was good or not too, now that I realized he liked her.

I wasn’t sure to interpret Akira as a help or a hindrance hearing that. Part of me felt good that maybe someone could help make sure Rina was taken care of but I also worried someone would take her away and if they’d treat her well.

Still, he had Yuriko to help him move, so I couldn’t feel too sorry for him.

After a long time we’d gone a few miles. But we knew that not everyone was going to make it. There were too many challenges to solve. First we did a buddy system and tried to have two unhurt people carry one hurt person in the same we that Sensei and I were carrying Rina, but some people were tired and hurt like Akira. Some were pretending to be hurt but not really hurt like Akira was really hurt. There were also people who didn’t want to help like Goth kid and Shale who we hadn’t seen since. Then we had trouble also with people that were too close to death when we’d left the school.

In the end we couldn’t force people to help others. Of the sixteen seriously injured, meaning seriously injured enough to not walk by themselves without help we knew even before leaving that four of those would die.

Sadly enough one more jumped off the roof of the building, believing he was saving the people that would be slowed down trying to carry him. I couldn’t talk after that for awhile because it had emotionally shaken me up so badly.

That left eleven people that had to be carried around and not everyone was taking turns. We had the know how of how to make homemade Boy Scout stretchers using broom handles and blankets, but the problem there was that we’d already made and needed the broom handles as spears and weapons and the school didn’t really have any blankets because it wasn’t foreseeable that people would have been sleeping at the school at night.

After all the last thing parents want is for their kids to be sleeping with each other at school with young adult bodies and hormone surges. At least that’s what Asakura Sensei had said when we’d talked about the idea of finding blankets.

Also because my attention was on keeping Akira going and Rina up, I wasn’t able to check on if the other students were taking care of each other and especially the wounded students, because it took all my strength doing just what I was already trying to do.

That was why we’d lost a lot of time trying to leave the ruins of what was left of the school. I was worried about if we’d made enough progress before the orcs figured out what was happening. Their scouts had already reported some of what was going on I’m sure.

We were now entering a wooded area and I guessed we were even close to the river, with the school barely in sight a few miles behind us. This wooded area would have more places to hide in and run too, but that could also mean other things besides orcs. After all we knew nothing about this world.

It was right then that suddenly Akimoto gave a frantic shout! I turned to face his direction. I had a bad feeling, but couldn’t see what was up yet. He was shouting for other people to go over to where he was but there were so many students between us that I couldn’t see what was wrong.

I took in a deep breath and gripped my axe blade more tightly, after pulling it down from a homemade back strap I’d rigged for it.

“Yumi, can you carry Rina for a bit? Let me go check what the problem is,” I said.

Yumi nodded tiredly.

“No way!”

“Another one?!”

“Eh?!”

“More trouble it seems,” some kids were saying, but I couldn’t see around the students that were pointing and crowding at something ahead.

“I thought we had more than our share of trouble already?” Kenji exclaimed. “Doesn’t it ever stop?”

Man, I still hadn’t had a chance to go through the item box, but there was so much need to help people.