Chương 68: Crosshairs

"Beast cores," Val repeated.

"What are Beast cores?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Enzo leaned back in his chair.

"I used Analyze on Murph earlier today. The result mentioned she has a developing mana core. I'm assuming it's something like our reservoirs, where Beasts store their mana, but given how little we actually know about any of this, they probably have other uses too." Val looked at him askance.

"You only just now used Analyze on her?"

"I never really thought about it. Murph is Murph." He paused.

"Except now she's Murph Plus. With magic." The others exchanged looks. Robert straightened.

"Your dog has magic?"

"Yeah. But it's her secret to share." Matt leaned forward, clearly amused.

"Your dog has secrets?"

"Apparently so." Enzo sighed.

"And I'm not going to give them away." Frank shrugged.

"Sounds fair to me. Best believe the Watch and the hunters won't tolerate nobody bullying Murph. She's been helping keep everyone fed since the day we started hunting." Enzo nodded.

"On that note, Val, how are our supplies looking?" Val's expression shifted.

"We're going to have to start rationing properly soon. Jack's already reduced the portions a little, but not officially. We need to stretch things out at least another month and a half, maybe two, before the gardens really start contributing." She glanced at Enzo.

"Unless Sumi can figure out a way to grow everything quicker." Frank frowned.

"Does that mean we need to start turning people away?"

"The numbers showing up at the gate each week are still going down, right?" Frank nodded.

"Then it should be fine, assuming everything goes to plan. Some people will be unhappy about the rationing, but it won't be for long."

"Like Jeremy?" Enzo asked. Val groaned.

"I see you've met our resident discontent."

"I did. He was unhappy that Murph was getting fed. Is he going to be a problem?"

"I doubt it." Enzo frowned. He didn't really like that answer. Val noticed.

"Look, Jeremy toes the line. Barely, but he does. The issue is that his wife and kids would probably go with him if we kicked him out, and they're good people." She sighed.

"They also donated two coops full of chickens when this all started. The man himself is a waste of space, but as a family, they're earning their keep." He nodded.

"Alright." He glanced around the table.

"But I think we need to be clear that people's pets and Beasts are part of the community."

"Agreed," Frank said. Robert and Val nodded.

"Actually, how many Beasts are there?" Enzo asked.

"Do we know?"

"There's at least a few dogs and over a dozen cats," Val said. She frowned.

"Pretty sure there are some birds. Maybe a snake and a lizard or two. And some fish, though from what I'm told, a bunch of them died without electricity."

"That's a lot of cats." Val laughed.

"A third of them belong to one lady and her husband."

"Have there been any changes in them?" Val shrugged.

"Everything got a little bigger, but the cats tend to come and go as they please. I think they're feeding themselves. Not sure about the dogs. Two of them go out with the hunters, like Murph, but only with their owners. I assume they've grown, too." Frank cleared his throat.

"One small wrinkle, now that I think about it. We did round up a breeding pair of rabbits from one of the families. With the promise of returnin' 'em once we got a few litters out of them. And the little girl gets to visit and help with caring for them in the meantime."

"That's fine," Enzo said.

"As long as we are actually planning to return them?" Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Frank shrugged.

"You'd have to ask Ruth, but I doubt she'd break her promise to the kid. Just thought I'd mention it. It happened early on, when things was just being organized."

"While we're still talking about food," Matt said, tapping the map.

"No reason we can't supplement our supplies with some of the Riders' catch. They haul it from Sausalito to Mill Valley twice a day. First thing in the morning and just before dark." Enzo looked at him.

"How?"

"Wagons. They have a team that pulls them, and a few guards, but nothing we couldn't handle."

"How are they keeping the fish from going bad?" Val asked. Matt glanced through the pile of papers in front of him, then pulled one free. He slid it across the table.

"We think they're using these to preserve them." Enzo picked it up. Someone had sketched a rough outline of a building, presumably a warehouse, with what could only be large enchantments drawn on the outer walls. He turned to Matt.

"Painted?" Matt nodded.

"They have smaller ones on the wagons." Enzo examined the enchantment. It wasn't obvious from just looking at it what was being done, but there were only two ideas he could think of. If you wanted to keep food preserved, you'd need to either literally preserve its state with magic, or lower the temperature. The latter would probably be easier. He just didn't know how they were achieving it. Heating would be easy enough with fire, but cooling just seemed a little more complicated.

Maybe fire to draw the heat, and water to disperse it. Robert crossed his arms.

"How much food would one raid actually give us though?" Matt shrugged.

"Enough to help with the pressure for a few days. And we're planning to hit their fishing operation anyway, right?" He glanced at Enzo. Enzo looked up.

"Yeah, but I don't want to tip them off with a single raid before doing some real damage. Ideally enough to cripple their operation permanently." He looked around the table.

"The big problem is that I can't think of a plan that doesn't involve just burning the boats. We have nowhere to store them for our own use."

"What about Strawberry Cove?" Val asked.

"Remember when we were riding home? We saw people fishing around Silva Island. There are no docks there, but we could beach the boats and let the 101s take care of them." She turned to Matt.

"Strawberry would be their territory, right?" Matt looked thoughtful.

"On paper, sure. But the Riders control Richardson Bay. Unless we took or destroyed the majority of their boats in one go, the 101s wouldn't be able to protect them, let alone make use of them." Robert laughed.

"Sounds like a good idea to me." Val nodded.

"That's entirely dependent on the 101s being willing to work with us, though," Enzo said.

"Which we won't know until Signe and Pops return."

"Well," Matt said slowly, "if it turns out they don't want to work with us, we could always make it look like the 101s attacked the Riders' fishing operation by dumping the boats on their doorstep." Everyone turned to Matt. He looked up, glanced around the table, then raised his hands.

"I'm just saying." Enzo wasn't ready to commit to that kind of false flag manipulation. The 101s hadn't done anything to them, assuming Signe and Pops were fine, and he'd much prefer to make friends. With the way the world was now, cooperation was going to be essential if they wanted to survive. Especially if people like Gus were common. Already he was considering what they might trade with the 101s for regular access to fish after the Riders were out of the picture.

Maybe magical equipment or fruit and vegetables, once their farms were up and running and they'd figured out some spells to help them along.

"It's not a bad idea," Enzo said. He raised a hand to forestall Val's protest.

"But only if the 101s become a threat to us. Working together remains the goal." Matt shot him a look of thanks. Robert nodded.

"Makes sense." Val hesitated a moment, then nodded, too.

"In the meantime," Enzo continued, turning back to Matt, "Keep some eyes on the marina. See if they can get a better idea of the route they use to move the fish, how many boats they have, personnel numbers, and so on. Tell the scouts not to take any unnecessary risks though. Just get what they can from a safe distance."

"Understood."

"On top of that, I need you to assign any other scouts to look for more rifts."

"How come?"

"Two reasons. We need the mana crystals they produce. And we have to clear any that have Eaters or Beasts from our area of the city."

"How are they meant to find them though? Unless you expect them to check every building and basement, they're only going to spot the ones out in the open." Enzo frowned.

"Good point. Let me get back to you. I'll see if I can make something that lets normal people see mana flows." Matt made a face, but he nodded without saying anything.

"Is there anything else that needs to be discussed?" Enzo asked.

"I'm going to get back to work otherwise."

"We had another seizure a couple of hours ago," Val said.

"Frank's people are watching over her." Enzo stilled.

"Was she moved to the guild hall?"

"Yeah," Frank said.

"I, uh… spoke to her brother, too. He reported it. If she doesn't make it, he's okay with Sumi…" He hesitated.

"Doing whatever investigation she needs, so long as we help give her a proper cremation once it's done. I told him I'd let you know." He exhaled.

"Sure, we'll take care of it. Let him know he can take a few days if he needs it as well. I know things are tough, but I'm sure we can give people the time they need." Val wrote something down.

"That's a good idea. I'll make sure everyone knows." Awakenings were going to continue to be a problem. Mana density was increasing. They'd all but scientifically confirmed that. Mana was also everywhere, and that didn't require verification. The issue was keeping it from saturating people, and that didn't have an obvious solution. And though none of them had openly spoken about it, they all understood that genes were often passed down. That put Signe's parents in the crosshairs, along with his own.

He just couldn't think of a way to pull mana from a person. Any such enchantment would need to be huge to carry all the concepts, not just to drain and redirect, but also to protect the person and all their bits during the process. And it would need to target not just the ambient mana throughout their body, but any passively absorbed mana stored in the gene-carriers' reservoirs. Enzo paused. Frowned. Then his eyes widened. He'd felt something similar to that the same day he'd met Robert and Mary.

"I have a crazy idea."