Chương 10: The Workshop

Gareth made it halfway back to the chapel before his legs stopped believing the rest of him could make it. He stumbled into the wall, one hand pressed against his side and the other held out as he needed it to argue with gravity. Blood ran between his fingers in dark lines, almost black in the fading blue light, and for a second Thomas thought the older man might somehow stay upright out of stubbornness alone. Then his knees buckled. Chloe grabbed one arm. Thomas caught the other.

The movement pulled at the shallow cut across his own ribs, and the hollow under his sternum gave a cold little twist in protest.

"Still alive," Gareth said, before either of them could ask. Chloe tightened her grip.

"That's becoming a very low bar."

"It might just be the only bar we get in the coming days, kids." Thomas tried to answer, but the spear in his hand scraped against the floor, and the sound made all three of them flinch. The golden shaft still flickered around the old iron head, unstable and thin after the fight. He released it before he could think too much about whether he should. The haft dissolved into tired light and streamed back into him, easing the hollow under his ribs by a fraction.

The original spearhead dropped into his palm, cold and ugly and wet with redcap blood. Not enough mana returned to make him feel good, but enough returned to make him feel slightly less like his chest had been used as kindling. He shoved the spearhead into his pocket and got Gareth's arm over his shoulder. Chloe took the other side. Together, they dragged him toward the chapel. King's Gate was closed behind them. That should have felt better.

Instead, Thomas kept seeing the dark slope beyond the portcullis, where small shapes had shifted between patches of dying blue light. Smaller than barghests. Lower than people. Too far away to count and too many to ignore. The chapel door was still barricaded, but someone had left a narrow gap for the sweep team. Chloe kicked the bottom of it with her boot.

"Open up!" Furniture scraped inside. A man Thomas didn't recognise swore softly. Then Marcus appeared in the gap, his pistol raised, until he saw who it was. His eyes went from Chloe to Thomas to Gareth, and the tension around his mouth hardened into something sharp.

"Priya," Marcus called over his shoulder. Gareth lifted one weak hand.

"Before anyone makes assumptions, I was useful." Priya appeared behind Marcus with Amy at her side and took in the blood, the limp, and the way Thomas swayed under Gareth's weight.

"That's rarely reassuring," she said. Then the chapel became motion. Marcus pulled the barricade wider. Amy dragged a bench clear. Two people Thomas didn't know helped move a table out of the way, both too frightened to speak. Priya pointed once.

"Lay flat on the bench. Amy, clean cloth and bandages. Captain, light. Water if we can spare it." People obeyed before they finished understanding the orders. Thomas and Chloe got Gareth onto the bench. He tried to sit. Priya placed one hand on his chest and pushed him flat.

"I can sit," Gareth said.

"And I can become unpleasant. Lie down." Thomas stepped back and nearly kept going. The chapel tilted gently around him. He caught himself on the nearest pew and breathed through the thin, scraped-out feeling under his ribs. Chloe noticed. Of course she noticed.

"Sit," she said.

"I'm fine."

"You look like wet paper."

"That is a hurtful but specific description."

"I need you to sit anyway." He sat against the wall before Priya could turn the full force of her attention on him. The chapel had changed while they were gone. Not much, physically. It was still a stone room, full of bad lighting, frightened people, and furniture stacked in ways it was not meant to be. But there were more faces now. Four more, if Thomas counted correctly through the blur of movement. A woman in a torn raincoat. A man with dried blood along one cheek.

An older tourist clutching a paper cup in both hands. A younger staff member whose eyes kept darting to every door. More people to survive whatever this situation has become. Gareth hissed through his teeth.

"This will hurt," Priya said.

"It already hurts."

"Then you have the necessary context, don't you?" Amy flinched when Gareth swore, but Priya guided her hands into place.

"Here. Firm pressure. You are keeping blood inside his body, not asking it to stay." Amy swallowed, nodded, and pressed harder.

"Good," Priya said. Thomas leaned his head back against the wall and watched the room organise itself around injury. Marcus checked the barricade. Eleanor took the four new survivors aside one at a time, asking low questions with a notebook balanced in one hand. Margaret moved through the chapel with bottled water and the expression of someone who had found a helpful task. Will stood near her, broad shoulders hunched, eyes fixed toward the door. Thomas understood that too well.

Somewhere beyond the castle, beyond redcaps and darkness and whatever else had come with the System, Will's farm waited eleven kilometres away. His son. His daughter-in-law. His animals. A life that had been real yesterday and now sat on the wrong side of impossible. Margaret touched his arm. Will did not look at her, but his hand closed over hers. Thomas looked away. Priya reached him after Gareth stopped bleeding in the dramatic sense.

"Thomas."

"I'm much less interesting."

"Medically, all of you are interesting in ways I dislike." She crouched beside him and pulled his torn jacket aside without asking. The cut across his ribs was shallow, ugly, and beginning to sting now that someone official had noticed it. Priya cleaned it with a cold wave of magic and helped bandage up the wound afterwards. Thomas considered the hollow under his sternum; the fight had scraped warmth from him, leaving his hands feeling distant.

"There is something else," he said.

"Mana, I think. I pushed too hard or used too much." Priya's eyes sharpened.

"Describe it."

"Hollow under the ribs. Spread outward. Shoulders, arms, legs, fingers. Breathing felt thin. Vision got too sharp. My body felt far away from my hands." Chloe, pretending not to hover, went still. Priya absorbed the list as if it were normal medicine wearing strange clothes.

"Better now?"

"Some. Reabsorbing the spear helped. Levelling helped."

"Do not do it again tonight."

"Wasn't the plan."

"Your plans seem to have a poor success rate." Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Thomas could not argue with that. She taped gauze over his side and sat back.

"Sleep. Water. Food. No summoning unless you are actively being killed, and even then I would prefer you run first."

"Optimistic."

"Medical advice isn't there to make people happy." Chloe smiled faintly.

"I like her."

"I'm not trying to be liked," Priya said.

"That's probably why it's working." Thomas looked down at the clean, tight lines of tape across his ribs. He liked her immensely. In a castle full of monsters, magic, and too much unknown, Priya's calculated efficiency was the most reassuring thing they had in the castle. The night after that did not so much pass as wear everyone down until morning became technically true. Marcus set watches. Two at the barricade, rotating all night. The pistol stayed with him. The torch bracket stayed near Will.

Chloe kept the bag of barghest cores looped around her wrist even after she fell asleep sitting up against a pew. Thomas slept in fragments. Every scrape of wood woke him. Every whisper became a redcap at the door. Once, a distant shriek carried through the stone from somewhere outside the castle, high and sharp. Everyone in the chapel woke up to the noise, looking around in panic before exhaustion forced them to settle back down.

Eventually, grey morning light pressed through the high windows, making the chapel look less haunted. A packet of crisps landed in Thomas's lap. He opened one eye and looked at the bag: salt and vinegar.

"Breakfast," Margaret said. She stood over him with a cardboard box tucked under one arm, ready to rebuild civilisation out of vending machine snacks. Her hair had come loose. There were dark shadows under her eyes. Thomas picked up the packet.

"I've had worse breakfasts." Around the chapel, crisps, chocolate bars, biscuits, and bottled water were handed out like battlefield rations. One of the new survivors stared at a packet of cheese and onion as though it had personally betrayed him. Chloe dropped down beside Thomas with a bottle of water and her own packet of crisps. Her hair had achieved something structurally impressive overnight.

"Apocalypse breakfast," she said.

"Salt, fat, and regret."

"You forgot vinegar."

"That's your packet. Luxury item." Thomas opened it carefully. His hands were steadier than they had been last night. The hollow under his ribs had faded while he slept, leaving something more like an internal bruise than an open wound. He could feel warmth moving there again. Improvement, technically. Gareth was awake and furious about it. He had been arranged on a padded section of floor near Priya, one side wrapped heavily, arm bandaged from wrist to elbow, thigh bound under strips of clean cloth.

He ate like he was insulted by the concept of rest.

"I can walk," Gareth said.

"No," Priya said.

"I did not ask."

"And yet you received an answer." Amy looked down quickly to hide a smile. Eleanor clapped her hands once near the front of the chapel. The sudden noise caused a wave of flinching through the survivors.

"We need to decide what happens before midday," she said.

"Not everything. We can't solve everything. But we need water, food, sanitation, watches, and a better idea of which parts of the site are secure." Marcus stood beside her, looking like he had slept for fifteen minutes and hated every one of them.

"Gate is closed," he said.

"That helps. It doesn't secure the walls, the lower paths, or any interior access we have not checked. No one moves alone. Groups only." Margaret lifted the cardboard box.

"And we need to stop thinking only about what's already in cupboards." Will looked at her.

"Margaret."

"No," she said, pointing at him with a packet of prawn cocktail crisps.

"Do not use that voice. I know the farm's out there. I know you want to go and why. I also know that if you try walking eleven kilometres through whatever that is, you will die somewhere in a ditch and make me very angry." Will's mouth closed. Thomas stared at the crisp packet in her hand. There was something deeply unsettling about being threatened with widowhood by a prawn cocktail. Margaret continued.

"There are grassy areas inside the walls. Planters. Staff spaces. Soil somewhere, unless idiots designed the entire place. The shop may have seed kits. Herbs. Children's growing sets. Anything. We need to know." The woman in the raincoat raised her hand halfway.

"There were little sunflower kits in the gift shop. Maybe herbs too." Margaret turned to her with the focus of a hunting hawk.

"Good. You're with me."

"I am?"

"Yes." Marcus nodded to the man with the cut cheek.

"You too. We check the shop and the nearest staff areas. Fast and quiet, then back here." Will shifted.

"I should go with you." Margaret's expression softened for half a second, then hardened because softness was not what he needed.

"No," she said.

"You're going with Thomas and Chloe." Will frowned.

"Where?" Chloe spoke up.

"The workshop." Several people looked at her. She tapped the bag at her side.

"We have three barghest cores. We have tools. We do not have reliable power, enough light, warning systems, or anything better than stacked furniture between us and the next thing that tries to get in." Eleanor folded her arms.

"What can you make with them?" Chloe opened her mouth, paused, and for once did not fake certainty.

"I don't know yet," she said.

"But I know they store mana. The cores can likely output it. Batteries will run out, and the monsters outside do not seem bothered by darkness. So unless someone has a better plan for getting electricity into a medieval castle during the end of the world, I need the workshop." No one offered a better plan. Thomas chewed his crisp in quiet contemplation. He didn't mind being assigned to the same area as Chloe. It seemed no one was better suited to keeping her safe.

In fact, barricading her in a room with tools was probably the best bet for both of their safety. Priya pointed at Thomas.

"He should be resting."

"I slept."

"You were unconscious in fits and bursts. That is not truly rest."

"I can walk."

"That sentence has become popular among people I do not trust." Chloe glanced at him.

"You sure?" Thomas was not entirely sure, but Chloe shouldn't go alone. Gareth could not go. Daniel was still burned. Marcus was needed with Margaret. Eleanor was needed in the chapel. Will was strong and steady, but he did not understand mana, cores, or anything about the new ways of the world. Also, Thomas wanted to see the cores on a workbench.

"I'm sure enough," he said. Priya looked displeased, which was apparently her resting medical state.

"If the dizziness returns, you come back. If the hollow feeling worsens, you come back. If that wound opens, you come back. If Chloe says you look like wet paper again, you come back." Chloe nodded.

"I accept this authority." Thomas gave her a look. She smiled.

"Only when it's pointed at you." Will picked up a heavy torch bracket someone had removed from the wall the night before and tested its weight in one hand.

"Workshop, then." Margaret turned to him.

"You listen to them." Will's eyebrows rose.

"I mean it," she said.

"You are not checking the road or going to the wall for a better view. No drifting toward the outer paths. You are carrying things, opening doors, and coming back." Will looked toward the chapel doors, past them, toward everything he could not reach. Then he nodded once.

"I'll come back." Chloe took the core bag, a torch, and a multitool from someone's keychain. Thomas took the spearhead and water. Will took the torch bracket and a canvas maintenance bag. They prepared with the strange care of people who had no proper equipment but a great deal of fear.

"Second cupboard in the staff passage," Gareth said.

"First one sticks. Blue tag opens the workshop." Daniel lifted a hand from his place near the wall.

"Red tag for storage—small brass one for the office. Don't force the office door. It swells." The route was short: out of the chapel, through the interior passage, past the staff corridor, across the small service yard, into the maintenance workshop. Sheltered for most of it. It was simple on paper, but terrible to visualise. The barricade opened just enough for them to slip through. Cold air slid into the chapel. The corridor outside smelled of damp stone, smoke, and old blood. Nothing moved.

Thomas went first, and Chloe followed. Then Will, who shut the barricade behind them. No one spoke for the first stretch. Thomas listened too hard. Every footstep sounded offensive. Somewhere in the walls, water dripped with slow, patient timing. Each drop made him think of claws. They passed a smear of barghest smoke still staining the stone. The body had collapsed after the core was removed, leaving behind something like ash and tar. Chloe's torchlight slid over it.

"Still hate that," she muttered.

"Specifically that," Thomas asked, "or in general?"

"Yes." They reached the staff corridor. Inside were normal things, which made them feel briefly miraculous. A high-vis vest. Spare bulbs. Tape. A coil of extension lead. Cleaning supplies. A toolbox that made Chloe grateful when Will lifted it from her and placed it into the canvas bag. Thomas watched the corridor while they worked, nervous energy sending his head flicking back and forth. They moved on to the service yard. Grey morning light filled the small space, but it did not warm it.

Stone walls rose on three sides. A narrow opening led toward a path Thomas could not see properly from the doorway. Somewhere beyond the castle, something gave a high, sharp call that might have been a bird if he were feeling generous. Will stepped out first despite Margaret's instructions, then stopped and waited for them. His shoulders were set, torch bracket ready in one hand, eyes scanning the wall, the roofline, the gap toward the path. He looked toward the outer grounds for half a second too long.

Then he looked away.

"This door," Chloe whispered. The workshop sat beneath a shallow stone overhang, its sign faded but still legible. Staff Only. A polite warning from a dead world. Chloe tried the blue key, and the door froze for a second before acquiescing. She pushed it inward. No monster leapt out. No redcap laughed from beneath a bench. No System warning appeared.

The workshop waited in dim grey silence, smelling of dust, oil, damp wood, old metal, and the comforting evidence that people had once fixed things here because broken had not always meant fatal. Chloe lifted the torch. Workbenches lined two walls. Pegboards held tools in uneven rows. Coils of wire hung from hooks. Boxes of screws and plastic bins sat beneath handwritten labels. A vice was bolted to one bench. Three portable work lights were stacked in the corner beside a crate of old battery packs.

It all felt shockingly normal after how the last eighteen hours had played out. Thomas stepped inside and felt something in his chest loosen. Chloe saw it too. The brittle edge she had carried since the night before did not vanish, but the tension went out of her shoulders. She crossed to the nearest bench and swept dust aside with one sleeve.

"Oh," she said. Thomas leaned against the doorframe, tired enough to recognise the echo.

"Good oh or terrible oh?" Chloe set the bag on the workbench and looked around at the tools, the wire, the lights, the batteries, the waiting machines.

"Currently unclear," she said, and Thomas chuckled at the callback to last night. Will shut the workshop door behind them and stood with his back to it. Chloe opened the bag and, one by one, she took out the three barghest cores and set them on the bench. In the grey morning light, they looked smaller than Thomas remembered. Dark, dense, faintly glassy, each one holding a depth that did not match its size. They did not glow, but when Chloe aligned them, the air above the bench seemed to tighten.

Thomas felt the pulse in the local mana a moment later. Low. Hungry. Waiting. Chloe rested both hands on the edge of the bench and smiled at the cores she intended to turn into the castle's new power source.