Chapter 253: Dadah Lake

As the rescue convoy reached Dadah Lake, they quickly realized what had caused the convoy to slow down. They had originally thought that there might be something useful in Astaqra Towns, or the ruins of them.

But that was not the case.

They were down to only one mana-powered bus pulling the entire convoy, as everything else had run out of fuel, and there were men outside helping push.

So, they were basically walking across the desert.

But with vehicles full of supplies.

They also couldn’t simply set up a new home here, as they were in a region where soft silica sand had completely taken over. Even along the shore of the lake, there was nothing that would pass for arable cropland.

If they stayed, they would starve.

Yara didn’t hesitate as she led her utility speeder to land a hundred metres from the group, which stopped entirely when they saw the incoming vehicles.

They had taken a defensive posture, which seemed like a good sign to Yara, though she could see that they were mostly using cheap blades and standard pistols.

"Stay two steps behind me as I approach. If they’re my father’s people, then they should understand protocol. If they’re not, I’ll still be close enough to hit the dirt so you can shoot over me," Yara instructed.

"I don’t see any obvious snipers in their group, but be careful, a light composite battle suit will only take two shots at best if they have pistol skills from the System."

Out of caution, Yara did not take off her helmet, but she did remove one glove, and slid a ring onto her finger. Then, she moved out from behind the utility speeder, and raised the hand, with the ring facing the travellers.

"Rossi Family soldiers, Miss Yara has returned," she called.

That caused the group to freeze for a second as they stared at her, then slow smiles began to spread across their faces, and they lowered their weapons.

"Young Lady Yara, to think that fate brought you to the same location as us! It’s not much of a spot, but it looks like your group is doing alright. Wait here, I will call your father out, he’s in the front bus, charging the reserves."

And that was even better news.

Not only were these travellers her family’s people, her own father was here.

From the front bus, the only one still working, emerged a mountain of a man, nearly two metres tall, with silver streaked through his carefully trimmed black beard.

"Yara, my precious baby girl! How did you find us? Have you come to support the family? We might not have the house anymore, the Giants overran it. But we’re not out yet," he declared.

Yara laughed. "This time, it’s me taking care of you. We brought a transport vehicle to load your survivors and your vehicles. We will take you back to Marimgar City with us, and get you settled in.

We’ve got a little over three quarters of a million people, thanks to the Kalkan Fleets, and a city wall that can repel Frost Giants by the thousands."

Her father smiled. "And what am I supposed to do in such an upstanding place as that, full of heroes who save the masses, rebuild a fortress city in the middle of the apocalypse, and convince an entire naval fleet to join them?"

Yara winked at him, "I hear that the city still needs a logistics and finance expert."

Behind her, Sanchez laughed quietly.

Now that he could see the man, there was no doubt about who "Yara De Marimgar" was. She was Yara Rossi, daughter of the once legendary crime boss Vincenzo Rossi, whose business empire was officially in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and rumoured to run into the trillions.

The legends surrounding the man made him seem larger than life, and now that he got a good look at the middle-aged Mafia Don, Sergeant Sanchez could see how people would believe that he was the one who had the Provincial Governor vanish from existence without a trace.

"Your people look quite well armed. Did you get all that from the System? Or did Marimgar secretly have some sort of weapons program that none of us knew about?" Yara’s father asked.

"It’s all from the System. We can explain on the way. The Escape Shuttle that we brought has no weapons, so it needs to drop fast, load everything and get back to cruising altitude. Are your people ready? We will help drag vehicles with the speeders."

That got things back on track, and the older man nodded. "Call them, and tell your friends they can call me Uncle Vinny."

Sergeant Sanchez smiled behind his helmet’s visor. "Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Uncle Vinny. I’m Carlos Sanchez, formerly of the Irashian Special Forces. Now, one of many heroes of Marimgar. That’s what the System called us, so that’s what we call ourselves.

It’s a nice little confidence boost."

The mafia boss chuckled. "Well, I can see how that would boost morale. It called us the same thing, that first day. But we haven’t heard from it since, except to announce the start of our trials, and once when it rewarded us for not failing too badly."

That was about what they had expected. None of the human survivor groups would have been doing too well.

The closest group was so far behind them, according to the System. Even if that was considered to be relatively good, it was still not great. But it might be worth asking if Vinny had not just informed them that the System hadn’t been sending them the same sort of messages that the people of Marimgar had been getting.

So, Sanchez asked the important questions first.

"What did you manage to get for classes? If you’ve got rare ones, especially crafting or healing skills, I should let the Boss know in advance."

"The Boss?

Never mind that, I’ll ask my daughter later. I got the Blademaster class, but mostly my men got warrior, then we’ve got two tinkers, and a pair of techno wizards, who are quite adept at making technological things work on magic, or recreating lost technology with magical substitutes.

A few of our staff had cooking skills, which was great. But we lost them during the last battle when the main house was overrun.

Damned Giants smashed right through two metres of reinforced concrete."

Sanchez nodded quietly, and decided to explain before Yara had to.

"The one that I call boss is Kallista De Marimgar. She’s got a special class that lets her set quests, and grant us rewards for completing them. Given her abilities, every hero in town calls her boss. It’s her skills that let us dress so well."

Sanchez gestured to Yara’s armour to prove his point, and then to the warriors flanking her, who were in heavy power armour.

"The shuttle is inbound. 30 seconds to extraction, everyone get ready to move. Dad, the power armoured warriors will help. They can push an armoured vehicle out of a mud pit, so they can definitely roll a bus through the sand."