<Alex, Real - S.O.S., High School Classroom>

Several nearby parents glared Kaylee's way, ushering their children away from the presumably foul language, but Kaylee was seemingly too occupied to notice.

"There's a way to signal other bases?" She frowned, clearly talking to herself. "No… it's not free communication just… Huh… It can only be used to send a 'Save Our Souls' signal."

Alex frowned, taking a moment to remember that 'Save Our Souls' was actually what S.O.S. stood for… or maybe he'd just read that in a book? Regardless, it didn't matter enough to take more time on, and he decided that he should pull her from her contemplations. "I'm guessing you aren't just telling us for curiosity sake?"

Kaylee shook her head, eyes focusing on Alex. "No. A nearby base just sent out an S.O.S."

"How nearby?"

"Forty-two blocks north, seven west."

Alex raised an eyebrow at Kaylee. "That's close?"

Kaylee grimaced. "Well… no… but if there's a base, that means there're Initiates."

He gave a slow nod. "What do we know?"

"Nothing." She sighed. "I got the S.O.S. and a location. That's it."

He sighed. "We should gather and decide. The timing can't be a coincidence."

"Agreed."

A few minutes later, Alex rubbed at his temples, both agreeing with the decision and regretting it at the same time.

The Initiates had all agreed that they had to go see if they could help the other initiate base.

Alex was actually not going to be on the team, as he desperately needed a few hours of sleep after their previous rescue mission, as did John and Natasha.

Instead, James and Pilar would go with Lenka as the lead. The idea was to get in quietly and reinforce the—hopefully—already well-defended position, giving them a 'forward operating base' of sorts as well as allies that they could count on in the coming days.

They had their phones still, and so they would call for backup as needed. In that way, the three who'd already gone out that night would be able to rest.

With the stealth approach, they didn't expect to get to the base before evening at the earliest, even though it was still well before dawn. While that was unideal, it was the best they could do with the resources they had at the moment.

As soon as it was decided, the three designated members got a quest to help the base in distress. With nothing more really to be done, those three departed, and the others headed back to much needed sleep.

Given the plans that they'd made, Alex was incredibly surprised to be awoken just after dawn by James. "I'm sorry, Alex, but you're needed."

Well, that can't be good. The food and coffee in the young-man's hands were a further indication that things weren't as they should be. Alex could have used his all-but-neglected Create Rations spell, but hot food from the kitchens had to be better.

"We let you get as much sleep as we could, but you have to go."

James was whispering, but still, the others sleeping nearby were starting to stir, so Alex forced himself up and followed the other man out of the room. "What happened?"

"Undead." James quirked a smile, clearly trying to be funny.

Alex gave him a flat, unamused look.

"A lot of undead?" The young man tried one more time.

Alex sighed and snatched the coffee from the other man's hand. He almost spat it out, given just how sugared it was, but he managed to swallow and give a grateful smile before demanding, "Explain."

"Well, some people like coffee and—"

Alex groaned and took another sip.

"Fine, fine. I'm tired too… Okay. North of us, here, there are more and more undead." He met Alex's slightly hopeful gaze. "No turned from what we can tell, all spawned, seemingly leveled on the turned as well as each other. It seems that most turned just aren't strong enough variants to win against spawned undead. They are just level fodder, the turning process is simply a way for spawned undead to get experience twice for the same beings, or something like that."

Alex almost pushed back on the idea, but then he realized that such would be a tangent. Hey, the coffee is taking effect. Instead, he blinked a few times and focused. "So, I'm guessing that you couldn't sneak through?"

"No, and Pilar's attempts to cut a hole for us brought far, far more than we could handle. Honestly, I think you'd have been hard pressed. Thankfully, that was long enough ago that they've essentially re-dispersed."

"Videogame logic…" ALex grunted. "So, what's the plan?"

"Full push, only Lenka, Kaylee, and I will stay here to hold down the fort, as plays to our strengths. You five will punch through to the other base, and we hope that there's still something to salvage."

Alex frowned. "That bleak?"

James nodded. "The increase is insane, Alex. Most aren't even on the streets, but they are happy to come down if you make a racket."

"Which we're going to do."

"Well, if you have to? Between you, Natasha, and Grant, you might be able to be silent enough, and with Pilar and John as backup, you should be able to win-free if you are swarmed."

Alex grunted. "Lovely."

"Indeed. From what we could tell, they aren't in all the buildings yet. So, there is that good news."

He grunted again. "So, Kaylee still thinks it's worth the attempt?"

James nodded. "I do, too. Anyone able to establish a base and hold out in that is worth having around."

Alex grunted. "We don't really know how things have been elsewhere, but I hear you." He nodded, took another swig of the overly-sweet coffee and rubbed his eyes with the back of his thumb. "Alright. Let's do this."

This was becoming a habit, and Alex wasn't quite sure how to feel about that.

It was odd that he didn't get the quest that the others had, but he was honestly too tired to care at the moment.

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As James moved off toward his usual haunts on the roof of the school, Alex moved toward the main entrance. He had a building tightness in his chest that warred with his attempts to wake-up and focus.

What if he couldn't get there in time? What if he couldn't save these people either?

It was a foolish fear, of course. If he didn't go, he couldn't save them. Trying was the only way there was even a chance, and if he was going to remain true to who he was, he had to try.

What if I'd gone out last night? It was a foolish thought. He'd needed the sleep, and they'd made a reasonable plan with what they knew at the time. He couldn't second guess decisions that were past. The only thing he could do was move forward.

He felt a weight fall from his shoulders, even as a tension remained in his chest. He'd convinced himself cognitively that this was the best course, but his heart still felt trepidation.

Save who you can, Alex. That's all you can do.

It would have to be enough.

The others were arriving about the same time he was, with John being the last to get to the exit, still rubbing one of his pistols with a cloth of some kind, which he put into his Inventory before holstering the weapon.

Natasha took the lead, of course, and no one contested her. Their order would be Grant in front with Natasha behind followed by John and Pilar with Alex at the rear.

It wasn't optimal from a combat-utility perspective for Alex's abilities, but as a healer and reserve force? It was perfect.

They all agreed easily, and they were off, pushing the limits of their speed.

Kaylee had seemingly finally agreed to implement the full defenses around the base given the previous group's report, and so they were forced to climb what was effectively a battlement and jump off the far side in order to leave the base's influence.

The greater number of undead were instantly obvious on the north side of the base when compared to the south that they'd been on when going after the 'lost sheep.'

Grant had to pull his war hammer from his Inventory every dozen steps for quick blows—not taking the time or effort to use his sledge—but he kept putting it away to allow for faster movement otherwise. It wasn't that it was heavy—war hammers were actually quite light—but he just wasn't used to running with such a thing in his hands.

He'd have to get used to it eventually, but then was hardly the time. Additionally, Alex suspected it was also good practice with the Inventory Skill, but he didn't take the time to ask.

Alex, himself, ashed any downed undead he came close to, but he didn't deviate too much to do so. It was better to leave them to recover than to slow down enough to finish them off.

Natasha also didn't hang back to pick up the ash, once again for time concerns.

They'd all emptied their Inventories of incidentals, and James, Kaylee, and Lenka were going to see what they could figure out about the boxes while they were gone.

It was almost funny to see Natasha occasionally glancing backward with something akin to longing in her eyes, and Alex thought he understood. She was using the ash to improve her Inventory, and they were passing up that potential for growth.

Still, they needed to be fast.

Unfortunately, that was starting to be a problem. Specifically, for Alex to use both of his Detect spells evenly required eleven mana. He took almost a hundred seconds to regenerate that much, and their group was definitely covering more than a hundred feet in that time.

Fudge monkeys; they covered that distance in less than four seconds, not factoring in undead interruptions, and even with those considered, ten seconds per hundred feet was slow.

Add in the fact he was ashing as many undead as he reasonably could? He was going to be out of mana all too soon.

Unfortunately, the result was a decision between operating partially blind for part of their rapid trip—an easy way for something to go horribly wrong—or slowly eating away at his mana stores, and that was untenable.

He still had his Potion of Mana Regeneration, but that would only help for five minutes or so—even if he'd be filled up at the end as well—and this venture would take far more than five minutes to complete.

Around his calls that indicated where the next enemies were, he put forward the issue. "This is taking too much mana for me to sustain."

Natasha instantly snapped back. "Then stop. We can handle not knowing exactly where they are."

Her spear licked out, severing the leg of a ravager, causing it to fall behind as they continued running. Alex kicked the creature, sending a small burst of his health through it, ashing the undead that would likely have been able to catch up to them after it healed naturally.

"You're more useful removing our enemies permanently and ready with healing if we need it."

John, Pilar, and Grant each voiced their agreement, even if Grant's was more of a grunt as he caved in another skull before ripping his weapon free.

Those undead would likely stay down, at least long enough for their fellows to consume them for the experience…

Alex was able to ash them too.

With his magic only being minimally needed to send health into undead to finish them off, he began to slowly recover as they continued their near-sprint down the increasingly occupied streets. Thankfully, the undead were still quite a ways from truly filling the space.

Grant led them around the slower variants and through those most likely to try to run them down.

In the end, it only took a bit less than half an hour more to draw near the other base.

In one way, it was insultingly close to the high school. On the other hand, if the Initiates at this other base had any civilians kept safe within, the chances of being able to get them back to the high school unharmed was essentially zero.

As Alex and his group drew nearer, the undead all seemed to be oriented in the direction he was going, moving at whatever shambling passed as the undead's best speed.

That, of course, meant that the Initiates stopped really coming across the faster variants, and Grant was able to bash in the back of quite a few heads on the way past.

The kills were stacking up, but Alex wasn't hopeful of earning another level from this venture. He was certain that at least one of the others would advance though, so that was good.

The sound up ahead was growing as they drew near, the sounds of impacts, crunches, and breaking glass. All of that was overlain with a building susurration of burning, crackling flame.

Occasionally, an undead would seem almost to fall from high up on one side out into the street ahead. If Alex had to guess, he'd have said that they were coming from where they were heading, a large, heavily built building which had housed an art studio of some kind.

It made a sort of sense from a purely defensive perspective. Such places would have solid physical security and limited entrances and exits. It was quite a large place, taking up a full block, so that would have meant it was plenty big as well.

When they were close enough, Alex called a halt before he, Grant, and Natasha quickly cleared out the closest undead.

As this was part of the plan, they didn't have to discuss anything. Alex closed his eyes and put ten mana into his Detect Life, revealing all life out to a thousand feet, and continuing to show him for ten seconds.

It was almost overwhelming, but as his mind automatically filtered out things like plants and insects, he was left with… nothing.

There was nothing living within the radius, and the base should have been within that radius. "Nothing."

"What?" John glanced his way, momentarily taking his eyes off of the undead that were still mostly stumbling toward the base ahead. "Are we too late?"

"Or they have some way of blocking my Detect spell? I'm not seeing any obvious blank spaces, though."

He couldn't create a similarly sized area of Detect Undead, or rather he could, but they all understood that such would contain so overwhelmingly much information at the moment as to be useless, not to mention using more than half of his maximum mana.

In the moment of indecision and uncertainty, some defense inside an upper floor triggered, and with a great roar, an odd beast was flung through one of the upper windows.

It tumbled and spun through the air, arms pinwheeling before it slammed into the wall across the wide street.

From there, it slowly peeled off and fell toward the ground.

Alex triggered his Analyze, and his eyes widened at the result.

Twisted, Turned Initiate [Uncommon]

It didn't give Alex any more information than that, not even showing question marks for the level, but that decided it for him. "That's a turned Initiate."

It slammed into the ground, crushing an undead that had been on the street below. The surrounding undead began to slowly turn toward what would be an almost free source of experience.

The other Initiates looked at Alex with skepticism obvious on their features. He returned their gazes one by one, thumb playing with his wedding ring even as he clutched his dadao in the other hand. "Please? I have to try. If we succeed, he might be able to tell us what happened."

There was only a moment's hesitation before Natasha gave a firm nod, not a trace of a smile in evidence. "Yes."

Grant thumped his hammer's haft into his off-hand. "Let's get to it."

John and Pilar shared a look, the gunman shrugging. Pilar rolled her eyes. "Come on, there's already fire, so this shouldn't be too hard."

Alex found himself grinning. Maybe, just maybe, they'd actually be able to save another real person.

Even if it was just one, that would make this venture worth it.

Alex nodded and took off at a dead sprint, the others only moments behind.

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