Normann Hawkins stared at the operator in front of him. The nameplate was a good clue, but so was the leather armor she wore. Rift-forged armor and weapons had a certain quality about them that made it easy to distinguish; a detail that was just off of normal or unique. This set looked like a stereotypical set of leather armor from any game, the kind a level one rogue would wear. Plain and simple, no ornamentation. Except the edges of the armor, when hidden in shadows, looked like the night sky on a clear day.

  Lyn Hills had short, almost white-blonde hair styled with the right side shaved close to her head, while the left was just short of a bob. She had blue eyes and strikingly sharp features. Her armor further highlighted the lithe structure. She didn’t stand still either, bouncing on her feet slowly with her hands behind her back. She kept switching between staring at him and the Rift behind him. She opened and closed her mouth, then blushed hard and looked away.

  Normann snorted as he turned his attention to the monster corpses around him. Most of the scaldren had primitive weapons, though the wooden sword with embedded stones were probably worth something. If he had the time or inclination for swordplay, he might have been interested. Normann had always been terrible with weapons of any kind. He lack of hand eye coordination or something like that according to Lucas. He learned a little, but always struggled. Lack of Brawn and Fluidity in comparison to the other operators, know, he didn’t put that much effort into learning. To do so was acknowledging that he was going to continue to survive.

  He ignored the weapons. The scaldren who came from [The Smothering Hollow] were weak and sickly, and their gear reflected that. Haphazard and badly in need of repair or replacement, the monsters fought with a ferocity that was betrayed by the feeble nature of their equipment. There was one item that held his attention though.

  Normann knelt down next to Ulmic’s corpse and picked pulled the thin book off its belt when Lyn followed. “I can’t believe you did this all by yourself,” she said in a forced breathiness as if trying to match a certain timbre. Her voice was earnest and quick, like waiting on the edge of a diving board to jump.

  He held it up and a tool-tip popped up in his HUD:

  An excellent find. The SYSTEM had large set of items that were consumable, granting a wide range of effects. The items considered ‘tomes’ came in two forms: either providing a singular use of a spell or a single use enchantment, a special effect relating one of the many different enchantments. Thread wasn’t a popular enchantment, but often it provided some sort of debuff that slowed an enemy when used in this manner.

  “You are bleeding a lot and probably need to be healed. I don’t-”

  “I’m fine,” Normann said. He looked back at the other bodies and the smile on his face grew. The book was a great find, would sell well, but he’d have to carry it around and he hated carrying things.

  “You have a chunk missing from your shoulder.” She pointed at his right shoulder, the fist size hole in it. His HP had gone back up after being stabbed by something, but the wound was slower to recover. He pressed on it and felt no pain, no wound. Just smooth skin underneath torn cloth.

  His attention was on another scaldren in the pile he left in the middle of the street. He stood up and walked past her to the corpse.

  There was no simple means of looting with the SYSTEM. To loot a corpse, an operator had to go through the remains and take whatever was on the body. It worked well for most humanoid monsters, for more animalistic or even stranger ones, materials were harvested. Every creature from a Rift would breakdown eventually, transforming back into the magic it came from. This didn’t mean the SYSTEM didn’t provide random magic items like the tome Normann found. An operator has no easy means of storing them once they harvested. Everything had to be carried. Between recovery items, numerous weapons of different damage modifiers and enchantments, specialty gear, and other equipment, a sentinel at higher ranks had a lot of carry on them.

  There were a few things that could be found to assist with that struggle, though. Normann smiled softly as he crouched down and pulled a small cloth bag from the scaldren’s belt. He held it up, and within a few second of focusing on it, a tooltip appeared in his HUD:

  Dimensional bags were a rarity, even in his timeline. Enchantments were common place enough, and arrays, the means in which multiple enchantments were combined, were slowly becoming more common. But a dimensional bag, even a small one like this, was far from simple. No array had been discovered to allow humanity to create their own.

  Every single bag, no matter the size or shape, used by an operator was obtained through a Rift or a monster. Most of the valuable items were obtained through a Rift or a monster. Crafting had been a slow process, and most of what humanity developed was directed more to mass production and energy-generation until the full collapse of world governments sixty years ago.

  Lyn’s armor came from a Rift, probably one she had cleared previous rather than a gift. For the first ten years or so, there was a famine of armor, weapons, and gear in general for operators. Once earned, a piece of gear could be bound to an operator’s core, preventing anyone else from using it. It also prevented the item from being passed down. Crafting magical items had resolved some of issues, but there were other factors that led to the great prevalence among operators.

  “What’s that?” Lyn had crouched down near by; she wasn’t close, but he could feel her gaze on him.

  “A dimensional bag,” Normann said. With only 15% capacity left, the [Scaldren Brown Satchel (small)] had other things within it, though until he opened it, he wouldn’t be able to tell what was inside. He couldn’t open it until he bound it to his core. A foreign energy stabbed into the storm within him; it didn’t disrupt it or even slow it down, but stitched the magic of the bag and intertwined it with the anima within him. The phantom pain passed quickly, and he attached it to his belt.

  “Really? Those are rare.” She shuffled closer and leaned in to look at it.

  “Yeah.”

  “And that?”

  Normann assumed she was referring to the tome in his other hand. “An enchant tome,” he answered then stood up. He closed the tooltip, focused on the [Scaldren Brown Satchel (small)], and after a second menu popped in his HUD, he selected to bind it to his core.

  “The Guild doesn’t like newbites binding things,” she said.

  Normann closed his syes and took a deep breath before turning to Lyn, who stood face him, though she refused to meet his eyes. She held her arms straight at her side, hands in fists, and anxiously bounced.

  Governments struggled to meet the demand that Rifts required. They couldn’t adapt quickly enough to the struggles and needs of the world, groups of operators filled that gap. First as squad of four sentinels, then larger ones, called heavy squads with eight sentinels, then eventually large organizations. There went by many different names, especially with these early years, but eventually most people just called them guilds. In this current timeline, if he remembered correctly, there were half a dozen guilds in the greater Chicagoland area, but only one of them was referred to as ‘the Guild’: Hammers of the Honored, also known as HoH, led by a Kashkanov Eduard Igoreveich.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I’m not a Guild member,” Normann replied. Nor would he ever be. Not again.

  “Doesn’t matter, they help out other new operators like us, you know?” Lyn said. “Training, gear, support. That sort of thing.” He raised an eyebrow at her – howd’ he do that, he couldn’t do that before – but she continued to avoid looking at him.

  “Uh huh. Support.” Normann nearly spat the word out. He’d experienced HoH’s support before, and would never willingly submit himself under it again

  Lyn didn’t seem to notice. “Squads are needed to clear Rifts. For someone who lacks a full set, they help us get through Rifts and survive. They like it when they can guide you through, make sure you don’t die.” Her voice dropped, turning wispy as she struggled to get the words out. “They protect us.”

  “Right,” he drew the word out, “and all you have to do is follow their orders.”

  Hammers of the Honored weren’t the highest end guild, even by the time he was conscripted. Despite becoming the only major guild in the Midwest through a variety of means that included suspected assassination of other guild leaders, they struggled with any high ranked Rifts, lacking a full and cohesive roster to handle the real problems. They recruited any and every operator, no matter the quality. They were also the first to conscript normal people for the purposes of supplementing their squads against larger and more dangerous Rift breaches.

  “Yeah, I mean, it makes sense right,” she nodded and finally met his gaze. “That’s what we’re doing here, right? Waiting on them? I’m certain they sent someone to help.”

  Lyn looked past him then spun around, searching the sky and the streets for anything move their way. She had two daggers sheathed in the small of her back. “They should be here soon. I called them before I ran here.”

  They probably weren’t. The Rift was F-rank, so beyond acquiring some very basic gear or components for a newly integrated operator like him or someone who just needed one or two more, there was little reason to actually close it. Many larger guilds acted the same, despite the contract they held with the local and federal government. Mostly F- and E-rank Rifts were left for newer or weaker members, like Lyn here, to handle it. Never a direct order to not engage, but there would be a strong unspoken emphasis on personal growth and allowing newly integrated operators to develop, and die, through challenges. “So why are you here?”

  “What?” Lyn asked.

  “Never mind.” Normann chuckled then turned away and walked to the Rift. He slipped the tome into his newly bound bag.

  “Wait, where are you going?” Lyn shouted as she followed. Her stride was fast and light. He barely heard her raced up to him, stopping just behind him.

  Normann paused a step away from the Rift and faced her again. The time to breach had dropped by five minutes or so, which meant plenty of time to wait, but he had no real desire to do so. While entering the ift would stop the breach countdown, there was limited time to complete the challenges within. As this Rift led to a dungeon, that meant a slightly longer amount of time.

  In the original timeline, this Rift was breached, releasing horde after horde of monsters into the streets of Chicago for three days. North Lawndale was destroyed by them and the fight to stop the horde. It had spread away from the school long enough for them to escape, but it had been a long three days. He couldn’t remember a reason for why the breach occurred though, just that it happened. The SYSTEM usually sent out cores in sets of four, less if the Rift that spawned the cores wasn’t a dungeon. Normann accepted his, so three other operators were missing.

  Lyn Hills wasn’t a sentinel he knew, but given the amount he met and the high mortality rate for sentinels, it wasn’t a surprise. She may have died early in her career or stopped before he was conscripted. If she was present now, then she probably was present the first time. No one else had arrived, most likely meant those selected by the System either declined the core as he once did or simply choose to stay back, leaving Lyn as the only operator in the area he could rely on. Not that it was all bad news; he suspected that she had at least two if not three components already.

  Thin translucent lines were scattered around her eyes and across her face, forming a pattern of sorts. Blue eyes were a shade brighter, almost luminescent, while two thicker lines stretched down from the corners of her cheeks to her chin. At least a neuroptics component, if he had to guess. But not a complete set, if the leather armor sat as cleanly as it did on her body. With the role next to her name, Striker, she most likely possessed some attack oriented abilities for her frame.

  But she was young. Real young. He put her age around 18 at the most. The System did like younger operators, those who lives were just starting out and capable of so many grand things.

  That didn’t mean he had to be okay with what was essentially a child being sent into the Rift and possibly dying. His core, the foreknowledge of what the System could do, and his skills would have to be enough.

  “Go home, Lyn Hills, Striker,” Normann said, turning his attention back on the Rift. A quick focus of his attention and the tooltip popped up again, showing the timer at “22:47”. Plenty of time, but he wanted to wait. Oliver had a whole set of theories regarding entrance into a Rift, specially a normal one like a dungeon, but he never paid that close attention. All he could remember about that discussion the difference in difficulty and something about entering at a low time, like under five percent left.

  “What?”

  “I said go home,” he repeated. “I can handle this.”

  “Don’t you only have your core? No other components?”

  “Right.”

  “And you want to close the Rift by yourself?”

  “Correct. Go home.” He refused to watch another kid die in front of him.

  “A Rift needs a full squad. You need to wait-”

  “Wait? For what?” He tried to reach the Rift, but she grabbed his arm and tugged, spinning him to face her. Her grip on his forearm was fierce and he wasn’t certain he could break it, even if he used proper leverage. Her Brawn must have been higher than his, by a decent amount at that. Instead, he gave Lyn his entire attention, staring down at her. She didn’t flinch, simply met his gaze. “The Rift is a dungeon, meaning a squad of four operators. Hopefully of equal rank, but skill trumps power, especially skillful power.”

  “Right, and you’re only-”

  “This Rift has less than a 25 minutes until it breaches if no one enters in. Even then, it is unclear how much time a squad would have to finish it.” The Rift was a few feet away, leading into a little subpocket of existence that now threatened reality. He could feel the turbulent energy of it, the magic that formed it in the first place, almost discordant with the storm within him. He needed to enter it. But not yet.

  “25 minutes?” Lyn’s voice disappeared into a timid whisper. She let his arm go but didn’t step away.

  “Less than, more like 21. Any freshly integrated operator has the instinct to run to the Rift. Whether they follow that instinct or not, doesn’t matter. No one else is here.”

  “The Guild-”

  “Isn’t coming,” Normann said, “or if they do arrive, it’ll be when the Rift breaches. No one is coming, Lyn Hills, Striker.” He leaned toward her, looming into her space. It wouldn’t do to be this aggressive normally, but the girl was young, maybe barely eighteen. That she had more than her core proved she had some experience, but she hadn’t learned the biggest lesson about the SYSTEM yet. The one he struggled to know. Someone had to teach her.

  “This Rift will breach and its inhabitants will spill out onto this street. They won’t be like the ones out here, these sickly creatures that broke under the first real challenge they faced, but stronger, more varied. They will also destroy every structure around the Rift in an effort to remake reality to match their own. They will hunt down the people in the area for sport, food, or some reason that we will never know. First this block, but they’ll circle out, taking more and more. Sure that Guild of yours might show up, but how many people will not just die but suffer-”

  “I know!” Lyn shouted and pushed him. He didn’t move that time as her shoulders shook. She didn’t look at him, staring down at their feet and using her bangs to hide her sorrowful expression that he still saw. “I know.”

  “Then why are you asking what I am doing,” Normann asked. Lyn looked up with wet eyes. “There is no one else, Lyn Hills, Striker. We aren’t just operators, we’re sentinels; we’re the ones who decided to fight against this threat. There is no one else to do this. No one coming to save us from the threat and possible death. No one to help us. Just us against the monsters.”

  “I don’t-”

  “Someone has to go in there and close the Rift. It’s F-rank, so not that difficult. But I’m not. I have my core and that’s it. When I go in there, I’ll be fighting it on my own. Maybe I’ll find some equipment, but probably I won’t. It’ll be just me and whatever I can do. I don’t know if it’ll be enough, but it needs to be done. No one else is stepping up to do it.”

  Normann patted her shoulder and gave her a smile. “Go home,” he said with the best smile he could find himself to fake, “I’ve got this.” He walked away from her and reached out to press against the Rift, but a new screen appeared in his HUD:

  Normann Hawkins stared at the new screen, the one that had just popped into his HUD just before he was going to enter. He had been ready. He could do it. The monsters out here weren’t any thing special, anda even with a horrific name like [The Smothering Hollow], it wouldn’t be too bad. He could handle it. But the SYSTEM had other plans.

  “Fuck,” He said, lowering his head and dropping his shoulders. “Just... fuck.”