Abyssal Border Wall Protocol: Chapter 10 (ROugh Draft) (Patreon)

Chapter 10: Level One Landscaping

I woke at daybreak, right around seven, with my hand wrapped around Old Bessy’s handle and glass under my boots. The living room smelled like wet dirt, cold soup, broken drywall, and slug slime. The kind of smell that crawled into your nose, set up a tiny tent, and got squatter rights.

I sat up on the couch and stared at the place where the front door used to be. It lay across the floor in two pieces, one half shoved into the broken coffee table, the other resting against the wall like it had tried to protect the house and lost the argument. The picture window was gone. Glass covered the couch, the rug, and half the floor. Black streaks ran down Mom’s wallpaper, because the apocalypse could murder people, steal women, and still find time to ruin the walls.

The countdown blinked in the corner of my vision.

System menu:Countdown: 05:00:00

Five hours. Thirty-two slugs would be dropped around me at noon.

I stood up, stretched my back, and waited for the usual panic list to start screaming. Dig trenches. Cut stakes. Repair the killing lanes. Move the horses. Stack javelins. Haul cinder blocks. Find more scrap metal. Break my body in new and exciting ways before lunch.

The list came up short.

The yard was ready. Mostly. The trenches were dug. The stakes were placed. The main kill channels were set. The house had holes in it, which meant trapping it would take work, but the outside defenses were in better shape than I had any right to expect after sixteen slugs tried to remodel the property with their faces.

I looked around the wrecked living room and scratched at the dried mud on my sleeve.

“So,” I said. “What the heck do I do now?”

The System gave me the silence it reserved for times when it could have been useful.

A horse whinnied outside.

My head turned toward the missing door. Another hoof struck dirt, followed by the low nervous blow of a horse smelling blood, slime, sweat, and every other bad smell in the yard.

River and Strider.

“Right,” I said, picking my way around the glass. “The escape plan hinges on two horses.”

The morning light had that fake System brightness to it, all pale shine and no warmth. The front yard looked like somebody had given a landscaping crew a siege manual and a grudge. Trenches cut through the grass. Stakes stood in ugly rows. Mud had dried around black stains where the slugs had dissolved. The old fort near the creek had become a wet pile of broken sticks and childhood memories I was going to ignore until the day gave me room to feel terrible.

River and Strider stood near the cart in the side yard. Both had their heads up. River’s ears flicked toward every sound. Strider stared at the house with one wide eye, and I could not blame him. If I had four legs and more common sense, I would have walked away from here yesterday.

“Yeah,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I know. The place looks bad.”

River stamped.

“Worse than bad. Fair correction.”

I filled their muzzle feed bags with oats. They stared at the food, then at the house, then at me. That told me plenty. Horses were stomachs with legs, hooves, and opinions. When oats lost the argument, the day had already gone sideways.

I put a hand on River’s neck and let Calming Presence settle into my voice and hands. “Easy, girl. You’re okay. You’re staying up the road today. At some point, we are going to have to see if there is any warhorse in you, but today is a good day for regular horse. Regular horse is a respectable career choice.”

River blew air through her nose.

“No slug wrestling for the horses,” I added.

Strider kept watching me like he understood the plan and wanted in on it. “I see there’s a little blood thirst in there, boy, lets see if we can’t get some kind of warhorse skill at some point,” I said, rubbing his neck.

I looked at the cart, the harness, the feed bags, the tools, and the supplies under the tarp. These two were my road now. They were my food, my water, my tools, my forty-eight miles, and my chance to leave before this place became a slug swamp with sentimental value. I had spent days trying to make the house safe. Today, River and Strider mattered more than the house.

“Okay,” I said. “Training day.”

I started simple. River first, then Strider, then both together. I led them past the broken porch, past the black stains, past the torn siding under the kitchen window. I dragged a broken board across the ground so it scraped and clattered. River shied at the sound, and Strider took two quick steps sideways.

I kept the lead rope firm and my voice level.

“Walk.”

River walked.

“Hold.”

She stopped.

“Back.”

She resisted for two steps, then backed up.

“Easy.”

Her head lowered, and I rubbed the side of her neck.

We repeated the commands until they started to mean something. Walk. Hold. Back. Easy. Stay. Strider worked better near the cart. River trusted me more near the house. Both hated broken glass, which made sense, because broken glass was one of the few problems in the yard that could hurt them without teeth.

I cleared a path with a broom and shovel, muttering the whole time. “Look at me. Sweeping before the thirty-two-slug murder party. Mom would be proud, right up until she saw the rest of the house after the slug after party.”

After that, I hitched River to the cart, walked her forward ten yards, stopped her, backed her, and turned her. Then I did the same with Strider. The cart creaked. The harness leather pulled. The wheels bumped over ruts in the dirt, and every bad turn reminded me that driving a horse cart involved more than sitting up front and pretending I was in an old Western.

A soft ding rang.

Skill gained:Wagoner: Level 1, Novice.

“Wagoner,” I said. “Okay, sure. Add it to the apocalypse resume.”

The skill settled into my hands and eyes. Wheel angle made more sense. Harness tension became easier to read. The cart’s weight complained through the reins, the shafts, and the wheels. I took them in a slow loop around the driveway and up to the tree medow, then another. We practiced starting without jolting the load and stopping without bumping River’s back legs.

Skill increased:Wagoner: Level 2, Novice.

By the third loop, I could feel the cart before it caused problems. Too sharp on the turn, and the rear wheel dragged. Too fast on the stop, and the load shoved forward. Too loose on the reins, and the horses made decisions, which sounded nice until those decisions involved my supplies in a ditch.

Skill increased:Wagoner: Level 3, Novice.

Animal Handling climbed faster.

Every correction, every calm word, every time I caught River or Strider before they turned nervous into stupid, the skill pressed deeper into my mind. I worked them around the cart, past the porch, near the road, then back again. Halt. Back. Turn. Hold. Easy. Stay.

Skill increased:Animal Handling: Level 10, Novitiate.

Technique unlocked:Steady Lead.

Technique description:Familiar animals under your handling respond with reduced panic when guided through fear stimulus, monster scent, blood scent, unstable terrain, loud noise, and combat aftermath. Effect strengthens through voice, touch, line of sight, lead pressure, and practiced command rhythm.

The technique hit with a warm pressure behind my ribs and down through my arms. River still felt scared under my palm. Strider still watched the ruined house like it might jump out to get him. The difference was in how soon I noticed the trouble. A twitch in the neck. A shift in the shoulder. Too much weight on the back legs. I could catch the panic earlier and guide them out of it before they made all four of us regret being alive.

“Walk,” I said.

They walked.

“Hold.”

They stopped.

I grinned despite the yard, the house, and the countdown.

“Good horses.”

I kept working them until the commands came cleaner. The System rewarded the repetition, or maybe it rewarded the fact that training horses beside a monster-stained death yard counted as difficult. Either way, I took it.

Skill increased:Animal Handling: Level 15, Novitiate.

I wanted to see if I could get a third technique, but no luck. It looked like techniques were not unlocked every five levels like I thought they might be.

“System, explain when techniques are acquired,” I asked.System Help Answer:Technique acquisition:Techniques are skill expressions created through repeated action, reinforced practice, XP pressure, and rank advancement.Standard technique thresholds:Novice: Level 0–9.Basic ability. The skill forms and begins providing instinctive correction.First technique unlocks at Level 5.Novitiate: Level 10–19.Second technique unlocks at Level 10.Apprentice: Level 20–34.Third technique unlocks at Level 20.Journeyman: Level 35–49.Fourth technique unlocks at Level 35.Expert: Level 50–64.Fifth technique unlocks at Level 50.Adept: Level 65–79.Sixth technique unlocks at Level 65.Master: Level 80–89.Seventh technique unlocks at Level 80.Grandmaster: Level 90–99.Eighth technique unlocks. Existing techniques deepen, combine, and may evolve through mastery.Legendary: Locked.Additional techniques may be acquired outside standard thresholds through rare action-pattern crystallization, title influence, environmental pressure, combat adaptation, or system-recognized specialization or XP purchases.Current Skill:Animal Handling: Level 15, Novitiate.Known Techniques:Calming Presence.Steady Lead.Next standard technique threshold:Level 20.“Well,” I said, rubbing River’s neck. “That answers that. No free horse magic at fifteen.”River flicked an ear at me.“Yeah, I know.”

I led River, Strider, and the cart up the road to the fenced meadow. The tree there gave shade, the fence gave them a boundary, and the distance gave me one less thing to worry about when the slugs came. I tied them with long lead lines and then gave them water, feed, slack in the ropes, and enough room to shift without tangling themselves into a farm accident.

I rubbed River’s neck, then Strider’s.

“You two are the evacuation plan,” I said. “That makes you more important than me today. Stay bored. Bored horses survive.”

River nudged my shoulder, and I let myself stand there for a breath longer than I had time for.

Then I looked back down the road at the ruined house and the torn-up yard waiting around it.

“Right,” I said. “Now I trap the house.”

I got back to the house and stood in the front yard with my hands on my hips, staring at the damage like a contractor who had lost a fight with a swamp demon.

I started with the front door.

The opening was too wide, so I narrowed it with the broken coffee table, two chairs, and half the door itself. I wedged the furniture against the frame, then drove stakes through the gaps at low angles. A slug would see a path through the middle. The path would force it to squeeze. Squeezing meant pressure. Pressure meant stakes in soft slug meat… if they were made of meat, I truly had no idea. I knew they were gooey, at least.

Kill Channel settled behind my eyes as I worked. The skill made the room look different. Doorway. Gap. Turn. Drag line. Pressure point. The couch became a wall. The fallen shelf became a guide rail. The rug became bait because it hid glass, nails, and jagged pieces of broken picture frame.

“Sorry, Mom,” I said, spreading the rug over the mess. “The living room has entered its murder decoration phase.”

After that, I stopped trying to make every trap a hole in the ground. Pits worked, but slugs crawled. Crawling things could climb over the dead if enough bodies stacked up, and I had seen enough of that yesterday to respect the problem. I needed traps that hit from the side, from above, and from places a monster with a mouth for a face would have trouble noticing.

I tied rope from the garage hooks to porch beams, fence posts, tree branches, and two chunks of bent gutter I hammered into place with more hope than engineering. Then I lashed spikes to the ends of old boards and set them to swing when a trip line pulled loose. They looked like terrible farm equipment made by a drunk executioner. A few were low enough to slam into slug bodies. A few were angled to stab into their mouths if they pushed through the right gap.

I tested one with a rake handle. The rope snapped tight, the board swung down, and the spike buried itself in the dirt with a hard thunk.

I stared at it. “That would have ruined my afternoon.” I reset it, then made four more.

The side yard got the best of them. I ran thin rope across the grass between stakes and covered parts of it with dirt, leaves, and torn grass. The ropes led to hanging spike boards braced against the porch and the apple tree. When a slug dragged itself through, the line would pull, the brace would slip, and the board would swing into the side of the monster. Maybe it would kill. Maybe it would wound. Maybe it would pin one long enough for the trench to finish the job.

At this point, I accepted all three maybes.

I made two deadfalls from cinder blocks, shelving boards, and rope loops. They hung low, ugly, and ready to drop if a slug pushed under them. I made a nail board from the remains of a kitchen cabinet and placed it under a thin layer of grass beside one of the trench ramps. I tied a shovel head to a rope and rigged it like a pendulum near the back door, because the world had ended and I was giving slapstick murder a chance.

A soft ding rang while I was tightening the last knot.

Skill increased:Trap Making: Level 12, Novitiate.

“Great,” I said, pulling the rope until the board lifted into place. “I am becoming a worse neighbor hour by hour.”

The house looked worse when I finished. That took effort. The front room had become a throat full of furniture, glass, and stakes. The side yard held rope lines, swinging boards, and cinder block drops. The back door offered daylight, then a shovel blade to the face. Every easy path was a lie. Every hard path was still bad.

I walked the lanes once, then twice, checking the ropes from angles a slug might crawl through. Fieldworks helped. Kill Channel helped. My hands knew where things would pull, where boards would bind, and where a rope would catch on a broken nail at the worst possible time. I fixed what I could and accepted the rest, because noon did not care about craftsmanship.

The countdown slid under a minute.

I carried my javelins to the front yard and stood at the apex of the trench angles. From there, the killing lanes spread out in front of me like a big, ugly V pointed away from the house. Stakes lined the trenches. Scrap metal waited under grass. Rope traps hung to either side. The house sat behind me with its broken mouth open.

Old Bessy rested against a fence post within reach. My bow was on my back. The javelins stood point-down in the dirt beside me.

The countdown blinked.

“Liz, Mom, Alison,” I said, watching the empty yard. “If you are watching, the landscaping got weird.”

3…

2…

1…

The air folded.

Pressure slammed across the yard, cold and heavy, and the smell hit half a breath later. Pond rot. Copper. Wet leather left in the sun. The grass bent, the shadows twitched, and thirty-two slugs appeared across the property.

For one second, everything held still.

Then the screaming started.

Thirty-two mouths opened at once, and the sound scraped and shivered down my spine. The first line lurched forward, bodies dragging through grass and mud, tentacles whipping, black slime dripping from pale folds. They came from the creek side, the apple tree, the front yard, the side of the house, and near the old shed. The System had spread them out, which felt personal.

The first slug hit the creek trench and dropped out of sight.

A wet crunch followed.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The second went in beside it, impaled itself halfway through, and thrashed hard enough to slap mud across the grass.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The third triggered a rope line near the apple tree. A spike board swung down and punched into its side with a sound like an ax biting wet wood. It screamed, rolled, and dragged itself straight into the stake bed below it.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

I laughed once. It came out too sharp. “Okay. Swingy murder boards stay in the design.”

More slugs reached the outer trenches. The front V did its job. They followed the open spaces because open space looked easier. Then the ground vanished under them, or a stake caught their lower bodies, or a cinder block dropped from a rope and crushed soft tissue against dirt.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

Skill increased:

Trap Making: Level 13, Novitiate.

The next ten minutes became noise, mud, and System messages. The traps did the work while I stood at the apex and watched for failures. I counted as best I could. Seven dead. Ten dead. Twelve dead. The bodies started dissolving, but the black smoke came slower than before. Slugs piled on slugs. Half-melted bodies sagged over stakes and filled parts of the trenches.

That was new, and not in a good way.

The first one crawled over a dissolving body near the front left trench and dragged itself into the yard. It had two stakes through its lower half, and a rope line had cut a groove into its side, but it kept coming. Its mouth worked open and shut, clicking spear teeth wet with black slime.

I pulled a javelin from the dirt.

“Of course,” I said. “The dead ones are making ramps now.”

The slug climbed over the last stake and came at me across open grass. It was slow. Hurt. Angry. I planted my feet and waited until the mouth opened.

Monster Reading pressed at the edge of my sight.

The tentacle twitched before it snapped forward.

I shifted left, let it slap past my shoulder, and threw.

The javelin took it in the mouth, punched deep, and drove the head back into the dirt. The slug convulsed, then started smoking.

XP Gained:30 XP.

Skill increased:Throwing Weapons: Level 4, Novice.

“Good,” I said, grabbing another javelin. “Everybody learned something.” The yard kept killing them.

Two slugs tried the side of the house. One hit the kitchen gap, pushed through the cabinet brace, and got its body wedged tight. The broken plates under the towel cut into it as it thrashed. The second shoved into it from behind, and both of them jammed in the opening like the world’s worst plumbing problem.

The kitchen wall groaned.

One of the cinder block drops came loose, fell crooked, and smashed the back slug hard enough to split it across the side. That should not have been possible; it appeared my trap skill was making the traps stronger, hit harder and deadlier.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The wedged slug pushed forward another foot, straight into the stakes I had angled through the cabinet doors.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

I stared at the kitchen window.

“Sorry about the cabinets.”

The house answered by creaking.

A slug reached the front door kill path and crawled inside. Furniture cracked. Glass ground under its body. Something in the living room snapped, followed by a long, wet scream.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

Skill increased:

Trap Making: Level 14, Novitiate.

Then another.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

Skill increased:

Trap Making: Level 15, Novitiate.

The living room had entered its murder phase with commitment.

The second slug that made it over the bodies came from the right trench. It had used two corpses and a collapsed section of dirt as a ramp. More of the bodies were dissolving now, but the process dragged out and was slower. The smoke curled up in heavy ribbons instead of vanishing in a quick hiss. Too many monsters in one place slowed it down, or the System wanted me to enjoy watching physics become a suggestion.

The slug dragged itself over the lip of the trench and came toward me.

I had time. Plenty of time. That was almost worse. A fast monster forced action. A slow monster gave my imagination room to, well, imagine.

I threw too early.

The javelin hit the side of its mouth and tore a long wound, but it glanced off instead of punching through. The slug screamed and kept coming.

“Bad throw,” I said.

The tentacle snapped out. I stepped back, waited for the mouth to open again, and threw a second javelin with more weight behind it. The point went in clean.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

A soft ding rang.

Skill increased:Throwing Weapons: Level 5, Novice.

Technique unlocked:Weighted Cast.

Technique description:Improves force transfer, grip timing, and point alignment when throwing spears, javelins, weighted tools, stones, and improvised projectiles.

The technique folded into my mind as if it had always been there, and then it powered into my hands. Grip. Shoulder. Hip. Release. The next javelin felt different when I lifted it, like the weight had moved into a place I understood instinctively.

“Well,” I said. “That would have helped thirty seconds ago.”

The third slug got closest.

It came from the center trench after three dead ones made a bridge of melting bodies. Its lower half was shredded. One tentacle hung loose. The other whipped at the grass, tearing up dirt as it dragged itself toward me. I watched the twitch in its side, the mouth rhythm, the way the tentacle drew back before striking.

Monster Reading sharpened as more information filled my head.

Skill increased:Monster Reading: Level 2, Novice.

“About time you joined the party.”

The tentacle snapped forward. I stepped outside its reach and threw with Weighted Cast, guiding the motion. The javelin flew harder than I expected. It hit the slug low in the mouth and drove through into the dirt beneath it. The monster thrashed around the shaft, tearing grass loose, then sagged.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

After that, the fight became a waiting game.

That sounded easier than it was.

The traps kept killing, but slow death still made noise. Slugs screamed from trenches. Slugs broke stakes. Slugs triggered rope traps late because their bodies dragged over the lines at odd angles. One spike board swung after the monster had already passed and stabbed the ground like it was embarrassed. Another trap worked twice because the rope caught on a broken porch nail and reset half the swing. I gave that one a nod because any trap that wanted overtime deserved respect.

The sun climbed. Sweat ran down my back. My hands cramped around the javelin shaft. I walked from the front apex to the left side of the yard and back again, watching the lanes, counting bodies, checking for movement. Twenty-three dead. Twenty-six. Twenty-nine.

The last three were in the house.

I heard them more than saw them. One in the living room, dragging itself through furniture. One near the kitchen, caught in the cabinet brace. One near the back door, scraping across the floor toward daylight.

The back door slug found the shovel trap.

Metal slammed into meat.

The slug screamed, recoiled, and rolled onto the glass and short stakes outside the threshold.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The kitchen slug tore half the cabinet brace loose, then shoved itself deeper into the angled stakes. The wall cracked. Dishes fell somewhere inside. Mom’s house gave one long wooden groan.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The last slug took another twenty minutes.

I stood in the front yard, javelin in hand, listening to it die inside my living room. It dragged itself forward, hit glass, backed up, hit furniture, pushed through, and found another stake. The whole house seemed to breathe with each impact. Then the picture window frame snapped, and a pale, torn head shoved partly through the opening.

I raised the javelin.

The slug opened its mouth.

The broken window stakes shifted under its weight and drove in from both sides.

It froze, pinned in the frame, mouth open, body twitching inside the house. Black slime poured down the siding.

XP Gained: 30 XP.

The yard went quiet except for dripping slime, settling wood, and my own breathing.

No more movement came from the trenches. No more screaming came from the house. The last bodies smoked in slow, ugly curls that wafted up through the many holes of my childhood home, dissolving into black stains that soaked into the dirt and floorboards.

Combat summary:

Abyssal monsters terminated: 32.XP gained: 960 XP.Current XP Pool: 961.

Skill increased:

Trap Making: Level 16, Novitiate.

I stared at the message until the numbers stopped moving in my head.

Nine hundred and sixty XP.

I walked to the porch, looked at the broken steps, then decided the yard was good enough. I sat down in the grass at the edge of the front trench, away from the smoke, the slime, and the parts of the house that still sounded like they were thinking about falling over.

For almost two hours, the house had killed monsters while I stood there and threw three javelins.

I looked at the ruined yard, the broken house, and the last black smoke curling from the living room window.

“Okay, can’t stay here anymore, not after tomorrow,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans. “But first we level.”

“System, show status,” I said.

Abyssal Border Warrior Status Page:

Name: Justin Barnes.Age: 20.Race: Human.

XP Pool: 961.Level: 0.Star Rank: 8 Stars out of 10.Border Title: Drafted.

Health: 100 percent.Mana: 20.Mana regeneration: 1 per hour.

Aspects:Body: 2.Recovery: 1.Motion: 2.Sense: 1.Mind: 1.Will: 0.Mana: 1.

I stared at the page while smoke crawled out of my house and into the blue sky. Drafted looked worse every time I saw it. Like the System had grabbed me by the back of the neck, thrown me into a war, and then filled out the paperwork after.

“Yeah, one glaring weakness, can’t have a zero hanging around,” I said. “That needs to change.”

Nine hundred sixty-one. Two Stars left till level one.

“Purchase one Star in Will and one Star in Mana,” I said.

System Notice:Purchase request received.

Aspect Star purchase:Will: +1 Star.Mana: +1 Star.

Cost: 200 XP.

Confirm purchase?

“Yes.”

System Notice:Purchase confirmed.

XP Pool: 761.Star Rank: 10 Stars out of 10.

Aspects updated:Body: 2.Recovery: 1.Motion: 2.Sense: 1.Mind: 1.Will: 1.Mana: 2.

Mana updated:Mana: 45.Mana regeneration: 2.5 per hour.

The Will Star hit first.

It came in through my spine and ribs like cold iron sliding into place. My fear stayed where it was. My exhaustion stayed too. The shaking in my hands tightened until I could hold them still if I paid attention. It felt like grabbing the loose rope inside my chest and wrapping it twice around my fist.

“That is useful,” I said, realizing it also increased my mana regeneration. It looked like mana and body were linked along with will, giving five mana per star and one to regeneration per hour per star.

Then Mana opened wider.

The first Mana Star had felt like finding a trickle of water in dry ground. This one made the trickle into a narrow stream. Something cool and bright moved behind my stomach, down my arms, legs, and into my palms and feet. It brushed against the ache in my shoulders, the cuts on my hands, the sore pull in my back. It wanted to move. I could feel that much.

I held out my right hand and tried to push mana into my fingers. A faint pressure built under the skin.

A deeper tone rang across the yard.

Gong…

It did not sound like the skill dings. This one had weight. The air around me tightened, and the status page shifted.

System Notice:Star Pattern complete.

Level 1 Pattern reached:10 Stars out of 10.

Pattern interpretation beginning.

I sat up straighter. “Okay,” I said. “Here we go.”

System Notice:Level advancement available.

Current Level: 0.New Level: 1.

Level 1 advancement requires Border Title selection.

Title choices generated from confirmed actions, aspect pattern, skill development, combat behavior, environmental preparation, and survival method.

Available Border Titles:

Choice 1:

Fieldworks Mage.

Title pattern:Temporary defensive construction.Trap line development.Early mana adaptation.Repeated terrain-based monster termination.

Effects:Improves mana interaction with ditches, berms, stake beds, barricades, trip lines, deadfalls, and prepared ground.

Improves durability of fieldworks created by hand tools and available materials.

Improves synergy between Mana Manipulation, Trap Making, Digging, Woodcraft, and Fieldworks.

Minor increase to construction speed when creating defensive terrain under time pressure.

Choice 2:

Field-Wrought Survivor.

Title pattern:Repeated survival through labor, injury control, prepared retreat, animal handling, practical skill development, and controlled fear response.

Effects:Improves endurance during siege conditions.

Improves recovery while building, repairing, defending, or retreating from field positions.

Improves use of simple tools, improvised weapons, emergency first aid, and survival labor.

Minor resistance to fear, pain, exhaustion, and shock while protecting a chosen position.

Choice 3:

Border Wall Field Mage.

Title pattern:Prepared terrain.Improvised fortification.Monster engagement from defensive works.Early mana awakening.Repeated survival against escalating Abyssal spawn pressure.

Effects:Improves mana use while occupying prepared defensive terrain.Improves synergy between Mana Manipulation, Trap Making, Digging, Woodcraft, Monster Reading, and Throwing Weapons.

Improves construction, repair, and use of temporary field defenses.

Minor mana regeneration increase while defending prepared ground.Minor improvement to spell formation involving terrain, barriers, stakes, earthworks, and field obstacles.

I read the choices twice.

Then a third time, because this was the first thing the System had offered me that felt like it could decide whether I lived for more than a week.

Field-Wrought Survivor sounded useful. Pain resistance, recovery, and siege endurance had a lot of appeal when my entire life had become getting beaten by yard work and monster biology. It was the kind of title a smart person might take if they wanted to keep breathing but it focused on retreating.

Fieldworks Mage sounded clean and neat. It sounded like I could lean into traps, earthworks, and weird mana construction until I became the world’s most dangerous county maintenance worker.

Then I looked at my hands.

Mana moved under the skin, small and stubborn. I had no spells yet. I had no fireball, no shield, no lightning, no magic sword, no glowing wizard robe, thank God. What I had was dirt, wood, rope, broken furniture, javelins, a cart, two horses up the road, and a world thrown into a system-managed apocalypse.

Border Wall Field Mage.

The words Border Wall mattered. That was the job, or the sentence, or whatever the System called it when it ruined your life and world and gave you deadly math homework. Field mattered because I had survived with ground, tools, and bad ideas. Mage mattered because mana was coming whether I understood it or not.

“Border Wall Field Mage,” I said.

System Notice:Border Title selected.

Selected Title:Border Wall Field Mage.

Confirm selection?

“Yes,” I said. “Confirm.”

System Notice:Level advancement confirmed.

Level increased:Level 1.

Border Title acquired:Border Wall Field Mage.

Star Rank reset:0 Stars out of 10.

Title effects active.

Mana regeneration adjusted:Base mana regeneration: 4 per hour.

Prepared defensive terrain title bonus: Minor increase while occupying recognized fieldworks. Bonus: mana times two, regeneration times two.

Skills gained:

Infuse mana, level 1, Novice.

Mana Trigger, level 1, Novice.

Mana detonation, level 1, Novice.

Recognized fieldworks detected:Temporary trench network.Stake beds.Improvised barricades.Trip lines.Deadfalls.Prepared house interior kill channels.Rope-triggered impact traps.

Fieldworks condition: Damaged.

Recommended action: Repair.

The information and level flooded into me; all the connections and combined effects of the Aspects and my skills firmed and solidified. Energy hammered into me, forging me into something new. Something that could survive another day, and if I was lucky, maybe longer.

When the energy faded, I stared at that last line. “Of course that is your recommendation.” I shook my head; maybe that would get more useful later.

A second pressure rolled through me, deeper than the Stars. It settled in my bones, my palms, and the bottoms of my feet where they touched the grass. The yard changed around me. The trenches looked the same, but I understood them better. The broken traps stood out in my mind. The lines that still worked felt like hooks in the ground. The ruined ones felt like gaps with the pointy bits pointed the wrong way.

Mana stirred when I looked at the nearest trench.

For a moment, I could feel how to push it into the dirt.

The feeling slipped. “Yeah,” I said. “We are going to need practice.”

I read the title again.

Border Wall Field Mage. “Okay,” I said. “That sounds better than Drafted.”

I closed the page and sat there for a few more breaths. Then I remembered all the XP I had.

“Shit… I mean Shizzz. Liz and Mom needed crafting rooms.” If Liz got hers, she could start making things. One hundred XP each for the rooms. Resources after that. Messages after that. The Joint Commons later.

I had 761 XP.

I could afford to help them and still keep enough to work with.

“System, transfer one hundred thirty XP to Elizabeth McKnight and Kathleen Barnes,” I said.

System Notice:XP transfer request received.

Recipient:

Elizabeth McKnight.

Kathleen Barnes.Transfer amount: 260 XP.Transfer fee: 2 XP.

Total cost: 262 XP.

Confirm transfer?

“Yes.”

System Notice:Transfer complete.

Total XP Pool: 499.

I let out a breath through my nose and looked toward the empty sky like Liz, Mom, and Alison might be hiding behind it.

“Liz, Mom, you should both have enough for the crafting room now.”

A chunk of wood fell inside the living room.

I turned my head. The house creaked again. “Big lifestyle changes coming tomorrow.”

I pushed myself to my feet. The sun was well past noon. Tomorrow would bring sixty-four of the slugs and the open road.

I picked up the shovel and went back to work. The work felt different now, easier, a lot easier. Field mage and my skills moved the world in a way that was not wholly natural. Not that I was surprised, as all of this was not natural. Well, at least what I thought was natural. The system, the monsters, this whole thing was natural, just in a cosmic way.

I pulled my system status page up as I worked on resting all my wonderful little traps.

Abyssal Border Warrior Status Page:

Name: Justin Barnes.

Age: 20.

Race: Human.

XP Pool: 499.

Level: 1.

Star Rank: 0 Stars out of 10.

Border Title: Border Wall Field Mage.

Total confirmed Abyssal monster terminations: 64.

Health: 100 percent.

Mana Pool:

Base Mana: 45.

Current Fieldworks Mana: 90.

Mana Regeneration:

Base Mana Regeneration: 4.5 per hour.

Current Fieldworks Mana Regeneration: 9 per hour.

Mana Calculation:

Mana Aspect contribution: 20.

Body Aspect contribution: 20.

Will Aspect contribution: 5.

Active Fieldworks Bonus:

Border Wall Field Mage doubles available mana pool and mana regeneration while occupying recognized prepared defensive terrain.

Aspects:

Body: 2.

Recovery: 1.

Motion: 2.

Sense: 1.

Mind: 1.

Will: 1.

Mana: 2.

Skills:

Aim: Level 5, Novice.

Technique: Focused Shot 1.

Animal Handling: Level 15, Novitiate.

Techniques:

Calming Presence.

Steady Lead.

Archery: Level 5, Novice.

Technique: Power Increase 1.

Axe Wielding: Level 6, Novice.

Technique: True Bite.

Blunt Weapons: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Digging: Level 12, Novitiate.

Techniques:

Clean Cut Earth.

Earth Haul.

First Aid: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Improvised Weapons: Level 4, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Infuse Mana: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Mana Detonation: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Mana Manipulation: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Mana Trigger: Level 1, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Monster Reading: Level 2, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Throwing Weapons: Level 5, Novice.

Technique: Weighted Cast.

Trap Making: Level 16, Novitiate.

Techniques:

Kill Channel.

Fieldworks.

Wagoner: Level 3, Novice.

Technique: None unlocked yet.

Woodcraft: Level 9, Novice.

Technique: Rough Hewing.