As Finn led me towards our eventual destination — the workshop — we chatted. Initially, he tried to give me the full tour. Thankfully, he stopped when I mentioned I just graduated from here and instead began to tell me what different rooms were being used for now.
The gym hall, which lay in the bottom two floors of the L building, was where the young ones and non-critical personnel were being housed. A low level anxiety began to solidify in my gut when I didn't see my friends there. The school had dividers set up to give people some privacy. It was pretty important to keep everyone in one place right now, though, so they weren't allowed to spread out into the classrooms. Maybe I just didn't see my friends because they were in one of the nooks or whatever. Hopefully.
To keep people out of them, most of the classrooms were locked up tight, except for the one nearest the sick bay, which was now being used as overflow. In a stroke of luck, an ambulance had been in the neighbourhood when everything went down. The EMTs had been given special combat healer classes and they were now treating wounded as fast as their spell cooldowns would allow. One of the school nurses was working alongside them, but her healing lacked the combat element. I had a hunch that she might end up being very powerful.
When Finn started running out of places to show me, we left the main building, finally aiming for the workshop itself. It dominated most of the first floor of the ‘new’ building, with only the front third dedicated to normal classrooms. It had a small entrance inside the building itself, but most people didn't bother with it.
Instead, we used the large doors that opened out towards the sports fields. They were designed to allow for materials to be delivered by truck through the school’s back gate, and were kept open during the day to let fresh air in.
As we got nearer, I noticed the back entrance into the school had guards. They didn't exactly look like a professional group, though — mostly standing in a gaggle and talking quietly. One of them spotted us as we approached.
Five-feet and six-inches of softball regional champion was suddenly hurtling towards me at high speed. “Kai!”
“Jesus,” I gasped as I caught Ollie. I barely managed to brace myself before we wiped out on the concrete.
"We thought you were dead for sure!" She wailed, clutching my shirt.
The rest of my friends stowed their makeshift weapons and ambled over at a more leisurely pace, although the relief was very clear on all of their expressions. Mine… wasn't so happy. There were faces missing.
"Where's George and Estelle?" I asked softly.
Ollie's embrace became wooden. "Gone."
"Fuck." My heart began to ache. So we were down to Ollie, Immie, Scott, Alec, Camilo, and me. Six out of eight. Fuck, two of us were gone and… and we were probably lucky to only lose two. Three quarters of the neighbourhood were missing.
The others joined the embrace, forming a group hug with me at the centre, and I felt tears of relief, grief, and fear all bubble up in my eyes. So many emotions, and way too much shit to process, but… these five people were here.
"How did you get here?" Alec asked, which reminded me that his arm was around my shoulders. His strong, gentle arm… oh goodness.
"Yeah," Immie murmured, becoming the first to step out of the hug. "Fewer and fewer people have been turning up as the day goes on. Only reason we had any hope for you was the lack of body, the dead squirrels outside your house — plus that family that saw the Silver chick around there."
"I was out on a walk — talking to my brother on the phone when it happened," I shrugged, hating the fact I had to lie to these people too. I just… the thought of telling them about all the crazy shit going on in my body and mind was just… way too scary. "That Silver girl actually found me later though. I'm about to go make you some better weapons. Ones that actually kill monsters."
"Legit?" Ollie asked, a big grin splitting her freckled face. "Oh, you totally got some weird-ass crafting class."
"Yup!" I said. "Tinker! At least, that's what I'm calling it. The weird system-thought-vibes weren't terribly specific."
“Just call it the system or the UI or whatever,” Alec laughed. “It’s not like we haven’t dealt with terrible game UI before. All those early access survival games that Immie dragged us into — they basically trained us for this.”
“Hey,” I protested, jumping to Immie’s defence, “Some of those games were pretty fun.”
A throat cleared, and we suddenly all remembered Finn. “I hate to interrupt the reunion, but those weapons are pretty urgent.”
"Ah, he's right," I grimaced. "Where are you guys going to be once I'm done tonight?"
"In one of the phys-ed classrooms." Alec said. "All the fighters are in the classrooms near the gym."
Right, some of those doors had been open when we went past during the tour.
"Sweet, okay, see you soon!" I said happily, and with a final, reluctant wave, I moved off towards the workshops with Finn in tow.
“We'll be just outside!” Ollie called brightly.
Just inside the door, my guide stopped and called, "Hey, Charles! I got someone here for you!"
There was a crash from inside the dimly lit workshop. Emerging from the candlelight, came a man with a perfectly trimmed white beard and a hairdo of wispy white hair that wasn't. His wiry old limbs moved with the sort of purpose that spoke of a life lived around dangerous machines.
"Who is it, then?" He said curtly. "I'm busy riggin' up lanterns and such for the folks in the gym."
"Hi!" I said, stepping forward to offer my hand. "Charles? I'm Kai. I got the choice of Alchemist, Bard, and Tinker. I chose the latter."
He took my hand and while keeping a straight face, attempted to crush it. God, I hated this macho bullshit fucking ritual. When my hand flexed but didn't give, he grunted in approval. "Aye, my name's Charles. I suppose we gotta introduce our ‘class’ now too, huh? Well, when that mysterious telepathic voice-whatsit came, I picked what I always have — Handyman. Are you here to help in the workshop?"
"Yeah, and I have some info from someone who's been testing how to kill monsters," I nodded, eager to get started. I loved making things, and it was especially exciting when those things actually got used. I definitely didn't want to be idle right now.
Finn, chuckling from behind me, murmured his goodbyes and turned to leave. Something in his parting look caught my attention, though. There was a brief moment of… something, then he disappeared into the dusk. Huh.
Over the next ten minutes, I explained to Charles how the monster parts could be used to make effective weapons. When I showed him my haul of teeth and plates, he gave them a considering once over.
"Those teeth are too curved to be safe as axe heads without a bit of work. Darn, but now I wish my power tools would work. A couple minutes with an angle grinder and we'd have more than serviceable heads."
"Yeah, it's a bummer…" I replied, each syllable slowing while more and more of my processing power was diverted to a forming idea.
Forging by hand was tough, and we needed weapons ASAP — couldn't wait. There was a power hammer in the workshop, though — an old one. I didn't know exactly how it worked, but…
"Charles, these are just iron, right? I'm not crazy for thinking that?"
"Aye, it's pretty clear in the colour of the rust, why?"
"There's an old steam engine a student built. Never took it with him when he graduated — left it here in storage. The whole time I was at this school, it was sitting there in the back, collecting dust. I definitely wouldn't run it at full pressure or whatever you call it — it might explode." I pointed to the old power hammer. “Then there's that. I don't know anything about machines like that, but…”
I could see the beginnings of a denial on his withered old lips, but then he stopped and grunted. Then he grunted again and turned towards the storage room door. "Steam powered… kiddo, not gonna like, this sounds like a damned foolish idea. Desperate times, though… yeah. I reckon it's worth a try. God knows our boys need weapons, pronto."
"I'll go get the dolly and wheel the engine out into the shop," I said, thankful that I could be useful.
"Good. I'll go look into breaking down the hammer," he agreed, and we went to do our tasks while the few other crafters in the workshop looked on with interest.
Inside, the store room was dark. It was lit by only a single candle, but my eyes had been adjusting to the dark since the sun began to fall.
I found the steam engine behind a stack of timber and carefully moved everything out of the way. The engine had obviously started life as several other things before they were hacked apart and welded together. The welds did not look professional, that was for certain. Whatever it used to power was long gone, leaving nothing but a drive shaft with an old bicycle gear on the end. It still had an old bike chain looped around it, although it was rusty as hell.
Getting it out of the storage room was a nightmare, but eventually it was free, and I returned to see Charles and several other people busy disassembling the power hammer.
"Ah, Kai! You found it!" Charles exclaimed. "Good lad, let’s see if we can get her hooked up. Any ideas for fuel? I doubt we have any coal laying around."
I shrugged. "Anything that burns? This is all new to me."
"It'll have to do," the old man grunted. "Ah, bike chain! Looks completely fucked, though. See if you can grease it a bit while I cut away some of this housing to make way for it."
I hopped to do as I was told, hoping there was a can of WD40 around to ease the job. I did not want to resort to less… elegant solutions. Thankfully, the workshop had a whole cupboard of cans. Perfect.
When I was done with the chain, I got back to find the engine already lit with timber scraps. There were three other crafters helping, two guys and a girl, and between the five of us we got the chain hooked up to both machines. A sixth member of our crew, another girl, rushed out of the room to get some water from the old swimming pool that sat underneath the gym. It was barely maintained, but hey, at least the school could say it had one on its website.
Once we were sure everything was ready and the boiler was spinning the drive shaft at a moderate pace, we put a block of wood on the anvil and engaged the hammer. It rose, slowly, then abruptly fell. Smack. The wood cracked under the impact.
“Nice job on the steam engine idea,” the girl who’d fetched the water said, clapping me on the back.
Now that I wasn't so focused on the work, I stopped to actually look at her. She was about my height — so actually kinda tall, for a woman — with her blonde hair pulled up into a tight bun. “My name’s April, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I grinned, enjoying the praise. “I’m Kai. I think I’m honestly just glad we won’t have to go all the way back to the medieval era.”
“Same,” she said, shaking her head in dazed awe. “I can’t believe it was only this morning that I was scrolling TikTok on my phone while I got ready for work…”
She slowed to a stop, and I laughed out loud. I knew an idea forming when I saw one.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed, and held out her hands. They were calloused and criss crossed with burn scars. “Gas welders! I’m a welder by trade and now I’ve got the metalworker class. Gas welders don’t need electricity, the only thing they really need is acetylene. Oh my god, I could make some badass steam engines!”
Without another word she turned and raced to Charles. Before she could speak, he pointed at me and said, “Get working on those axe handles, I’ll set up the forge.”
Ah, right! Time to use that timber in storage. This was all honestly really exciting! It might've been a little fucked up that I was having so much fun during the apocalypse, but… it was — it was fun. Also, we had a welder who could do gas welding in our crew? So cool! Gas welding was fucking hard.