Chapter 16: Chapter 16: When the Druid is Sus ????

The druid and his squad checked our shelves, then our kitchen and pantries. No one had gone upstairs yet.

"Girl, you," one of them said to me. He wore a robe embroidered with stars, and overall had the vibes of a mage. "Your name’s Sophia, right? You hiding anything under that hat?"

"What? No!" I almost shouted. I took off my sunhat for him to see my hair, then held my hat up for him to check, front and back. "You think we're some sort of…drug lords or something?”

"Focus," the druid told his teammate. Or his subordinate, more like. The hat-inspector wandered off, joining the others in checking the house's store of pots and pans and other kitchenware.

"Found a knife," he announced. "Sharp tip. This thing could go right through a skull."

I clenched a fist in frustration. "Of course there are knives! In the fricking kitchen!!"

"Interesting," he said. "So that's how it is. In that case, you got a basement?"

"No."

He cocked an eyebrow. "You sure? No basement, where you hide your…I don't know, human meat farm? I'm pretty genre-savvy, you know."

No you're not! We're stuck in a MOBA, not a survival horror!

“Go check outside the house for traps,” the Druid told him. “Don’t touch anything until I come.” And thankfully, upon hearing that, the mage-looking dude left the house.

The crowd inside the house stared at me and the druid. I retreated to the corner of the kitchen, to watch over this investigation-crew and make sure they didn't steal or break anything.

The druid tapped the water pipes under our sink and listened. He better not be thinking about prying it open. I felt so frustrated, I almost didn't see the armored hand grabbing him by the shoulder. It was Mr. Atlas.

"This house is off limits," Atlas told the druid.

The druid turned around slowly, looking Atlas in the eye. "And by whose authority do you speak?"

"Listen up. Word of advice for being around here: it's best you know your place."

"Oh, what are you playing at?" the chainmail-wearing knight shouted at Atlas. Then, she saw Saber near Atlas. "Oh, so that's it? She's your hoe?"

A slow smile crept across the knight's lips as she snapped her fingers in Mr. Atlas's face.

"You don't scare me," the knight said. "Let me show you how I made it this far. One-on-one duel, to first blood. Come on. Don't be a pussy."

Mr. Atlas let go of the druid, then nodded at the knight. "Duel to the death. Let's go outside."

"No, pal, you don't want that," the knight said.

"I know what I want."

The knight stared blankly at Atlas with a frown. She spat on the ground. "You need help," she finally replied.

The druid made a low grunt, almost like a laugh. "Someone with a mettle around here. Give your name."

"Robert Atlas."

The druid grunted in acknowledgment. "I am Jal Al–"

"I didn't ask," Atlas interrupted.

The druid paused for a moment, face cold as stone. Then he finally said, "Let's see how this goes." He turned and exited our house through the door. The rest of his team followed. The knight raised her hand toward Mr. Atlas. I thought she was gonna flip him off, but she ended up not doing that, and instead just lowered her hand back down hesitantly.

I breathed a sigh. "Welcome back," I said to Atlas.

As the rest of the day passed, the number of people injured or dying within our house dwindled. The healer, whose name I learned to be Reens, took care of their wounds one after another, slowly but steadily. A single person passed away, apparently from head trauma. He arrived alone, without any teammates, and was being cared for by another lonesome arrival.

The recovered ones expressed their gratitude to us, and especially to Reens. Some of them told their story, of how they had gotten lost, usually in some wilderness, before finding themselves outside the walls of the arena. A few voluntarily shared their abilities, or at least their non-combative one, like how water-purification was mine, or not sleeping was Mr. Atlas's. We had a recovered archer who could see in darkness, and an earth-mage who could turn loose dirt into stone with an eight-hour ritual. Perhaps most importantly, we heard that two lone survivors had formed a team. An official team, with them seeing each other's health bars in green, and having friendly fire immunity. Upon questioning, Mr. Atlas gleaned that team membership could be initiated through physical contact between a member of a team and a non-member, provided both verbally agree to the alliance.

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"Want to join us?" I asked Reens. I probably should've consulted with the others first, but snagging a healer had to be done fast, before someone else took her. She agreed, on the condition that we take in her two sword-carrying teammates as well.

"Fine by me," Mr. Atlas approved.

I held my hand out to Reens for a handshake, and she took it. "Will you join us?" I asked.

"I will," she affirmed.

I blinked twice to check her health bar. It had turned green. Yes!

But when I tried the same with her two friends, a new message flashed across my mind, nearly audible.

[Max party size reached: 5]

After learning about the situation, Reens apologized profusely to me and returned to her own, original team of three. Bummer. I mean, I gotta respect that loyalty, but still.

Soon, daylight came to an end. The four remaining members of our team clustered in a room upstairs that had been vacated, and we ate a dinner of melons together.

"Saber," Mr. Atlas said, "I'll need you to make an announcement later. Town hall, tomorrow night. We need people in groups of at least 10. And have them send one representative each to figure out next steps."

"I'd prefer not to," Saber said. "To do public speaking, I mean."

"Fine, I'll do it."

And Mr. Atlas did, after dinner, as a crowd gathered by our house in search of shelter for the night. He hookshot his way onto the rooftop and addressed the masses there, and he gave his planned announcement upon the heights.

"Representatives, figure out anything useful your group can do," he added at the end of his message. "Doesn't have to be magical. Woodworking, farming, doctors. We need all those right now. Tomorrow night. If anyone's got a watch, we’ll be meeting at 8 o’clock sharp."

For the night, we again allowed the injured to sleep inside, but this time we raised the HP threshold to 250, and we saw a lot more patrons at our makeshift community shelter. Our team of four reserved a bedroom to ourselves, as the "staff room," and opted to sleep there and keep our things there. I hoped the rest of the house provided enough capacity that we could avoid opening up our one remaining room to the public. Mr. Atlas volunteered to watch over the house for the night. Before leaving the room, he spoke to us in private.

"How many people do you think are here right now?" he asked the group.

"A hundred?" I estimated.

"Someone who knows math, how much land does that give us per person? Assume the arena is one square mile."

"A lot," I said. "About…uh, gimme a sec…25,000 feet squared, per person. Or 2,500 meters squared." I wanted to check on my phone calculator, but my battery had already fallen to 10%. I wanted to save the remainder for life-or-death situations, like how Saber recorded enemy footage with her phone.

"Good," Mr. Atlas said. "So food supplies should be fine. But save your melon seeds. Right now, our priority is shelter. We've got people sleeping outside, on the grass. It won't take many nights before some folks get very, very upset. I want that addressed at the town hall tomorrow. Speaking of, Hei, how are you useful?" Mr. Atlas deliberated for a second, then re-worded, "What out-of-combat abilities do you have?"

"I can drive," Hei said.

Atlas gave a single, slow nod. "I'll remember that if we come across a car."

"And I can also teleport," Hei added. "That's my second ability. Eight second cooldown, 40 meters range…"

"Great, you can aid victims trapped inside collapsed buildings –"

"...When I reappear, I emit a burst of energy, dealing 80 damage to all targets within a 10-meter radius."

"– Well maybe not," Mr. Atlas decided. "And, before I forget. We need to get a group of 10. Who are we recruiting?"

As we deliberated, A small book zapped into existence above each of our hands, with a puff of smoke and small arcs of cobalt electricity. Mine fell onto my fingers, which I had sprawled out upon the hardwood floor.

"Ow," I muttered, even though it hurt me less than it startled. It was a small booklet, wrapped in brown leather and about the size of a passport. A pencil with an eraser cap was secured snugly to the side of the book with an elastic loop. The cover was blank. Gingerly, I flipped it open with my fingertips. On the inside of the front cover was a page of printed text.