Kevin decided it was time to explore the world a little bit. He walked toward the ends of the roof when he notice a flash on another roof, just like that there was another person with him. He looked around for a moment, to see if there was a way to get to the next roof without going all the way down to the road. There were bridges connecting the buildings. Most buildings had at least one bridge connecting it. Some of the bridges were at roof level, other connected one roof to a balcony of the adjacent building. It looked like Kevin would have to climb down into the building to find a balcony to cross a bridge to get to that roof.
That’s when he noticed something. The streets weren’t empty. The streets seemed relatively normal except not nearly as cramped as a usual city; sidewalks abutted a six lane road, most intersections even having stop lights. There were no cars on the roads at all. Despite being empty of vehicles, the roads weren’t empty. Down the long road that Kevin could see, he could see figures shambling. He was hundreds of feet away, and the figures were bathed in the shadows cast by the huge buildings, but his new cultivator eyes could easily see that they were not human.
The “Hello” Kevin had about to call out to the other person on the adjacent roof died on his lips as uncertainty struck him. Instead he waved trying to get the person’s attention. Immediately he saw that the person was armed. That inspired him to consider his own inventory.
Kevin had really taken advantage of the Artifacts list. Right now he tapped the ring he had on his middle finger and considered the contents. Inside was a 7.62 caliber LMG, a desert eagle pistol and some other goodies. There might not be any Gun Mastery in the Shop, but for only a few thousand points, Kevin thought it would be silly not to arm himself with a more familiar weapon.
Finally after a few moments of gestating to get the attention of the person, he caught their attention. The reaction was not what he had expected. Almost as soon as the person turned to Kevin, they lifted their rifle. Kevin, raised both hands to show he wasn’t armed before he heard the crack of the gunshot. Kevin jumped as the *wizz* of the bullet flew past his head.
“Holy Shit” Kevin said as he took cover. It was Lucky that bullet hadn’t hit him, Kevin pulled a necklace with a Shop- purchased rabbit's foot for 1,600 points out and kissed the foot before shoving it back down. He decided he wasn’t interested in that fight. Kevin backed away from the edge of his skyscraper where the wall edge was high enough to totally cut him off from the sightline of the shooter.
He ran towards the left side of the building where a roof level bridge went to the next building over. From where the bridge crossed, Kevin shouldn’t be in the sight of the shooter. As he started crossing the bridge he heard another *crack* from the rifle. It struck the framing of the sturdy metal bridge right next to Kevin’s head. He ducked and turned to see where the shooter was. They had somehow crossed to a neighboring skyscraper’s balcony. How had they managed that? It was at least yards, probably more like 40. He turned and crossed to the opposite side of the bridge as he raced through to the other skyscraper.
As soon as Kevin ducked down out of sightline again, he tapped his spatial ring. He pulled out the LMG, an expensive, futuristic looking Advanced Mask that covered from chin to forehead in a reflective black glass that connected to a ballistics helmet he bought from the Shop. He took his backpack off, which was a dimensional backpack. He took a shield out of it and put the backpack back on before using the straps on the shield to secure it over his back. He probably resembled a turtle a little.
Kevin approached the shed on top of the new skyscraper with weapon up, vest and helmet on. He was reminded of his military days as he opened the door and cleared the stairwell.
Kevin made his way down the skyscraper slow and smooth. Clearing floors as he went. He had considered running instead of fighting but he was not going to leave the only other human he’d seen to hunt him. He continued down the stairs when he heard the door open a few floors down. He leaned over the handrail of the stairs and sighted down his LMG. The shooter glanced up for just a moment. Kevin watched his eyes widen in surprise just before he pulled the trigger. Five rounds left Kevin’s weapon in an instant.
He missed. “Fuck” Kevin said at almost the same time he heard the shooter say “Yee-bat.”
Kevin continued down the stairs slightly more cautiously when suddenly an ultra-cold iceball exploded on the wall across from him. “Shit!” Kevin yelled. It suddenly dawned on him that he had abilities. This person would have abilities too. Kevin tapped his ring and put the LMG away. He tapped it again to pull out the desert eagle, pulling the shield off his back.
Kevin could feel that the shield was more than just a shield to him. It was like he had the idea of a shield in him; the notion of what an ideal shield was, should do, should be. He could use the ambient energy in the world around him to strengthen his shield. Instinctively he drew on the energy and enforced his shield. Weapon in hand and hiding behind his shield Kevin continued down the steps. Another iceball rocketed up the stairs. Kevin brought up the shield and the iceball crashed against it. The shield was an expensive steel variety found in the Shop, but even so Kevin wasn’t sure it would have held if he hadn’t been reinforcing it. He lowered the shield and in one smooth motion raised his big fucking gun and pulled the trigger at the shooter.
The shooter avoided the shots and ran through a door, dashing down a hall that was out of site from Kevin’s steps.
“Oh no you fucking do not.” Kevin said, running down the last of the steps and following the shooting into a hallway.
The chase continued, a hallway, a separate set of stairs, another hallway. The shooter alternated between their rifle and iceballs, Kevin using his shield to stop attacks and his desert eagle to return fire. They went lower and lower down the skyscraper.
Kevin entered a hall shield up expecting an attack. When none came he lowered his shield. He saw the attacker running from him in a full sprint through some sort of lounge area. There was a balcony outside. Kevin remembered how the shooter had managed to cross from the roof to a nearby balcony. He sprinted after the shooter, tapping his ring to store the shield but keeping the gun in his hand.
Kevin reached the outside doors just as the shooter reached the edge of the balcony. This must have been what the shooter was looking for the whole time, a floor with an adjacent balcony. The shooter leaped from the balcony wall. Kevin wasn’t sure what to expect but the Shooter Ran through the air as if there was an invisible bridge between the balconies.
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“Fuck” Kevin swore as he threw the door open. The shooter was almost to the other balcony. This might be Kevin’s last and only chance. He raised his weapon, took careful aim and fired. A notification popped up that Kevin ignored.
The Shooter cleared the balcony wall and collapsed in a heap. Kevin considered his Light Heavy type, concentrated on lowering his weight, the ability coming instinctually as he sprinted to the edge of the balcony. He took two great steps as he neared the edge and stopped himself as absolutely abruptly as he could. There was no way he was going to try and jump a 90’ gap without at least a little bit of practice. Kevin started looking around to see if there was any way to get from his balcony to the downed shooter’s balcony.
It was then that Kevin heard a sound. A scraping noise coming from the opposite edge of the balcony. He turned and looked over his shoulder to find a large, black pallid hand reaching up over the side. Through all this action Kevin had almost forgotten about the creatures he saw on the road. The fighting and the guns must have drawn their attention. “The morenkai” the voice called them.
The gaunt creature pulled itself up onto the roof before standing at its full and considerable height. It stood bare in its leathery black and sickly looking skin, long arms giving it a much longer reach than a similar sized human. It was unpleasant to gaze upon. Kevin’s eyes met the face of the creature, which reminded him nothing so much as a slenderman zombie monster. The morenkai had no eyes or nose but a long slit that on a human would go from ear to ear. Even as Kevin noticed the slit, separating the head almost entirely off the creature’s jawline, it parted to show row after row of sharp teeth.
Kevin did not at all hesitate to lift the heavy gun he still held in his hand and pull the trigger. The .50 caliber bullet flew across the space crashing into the morenkai’s chest. The creature stumbled back a step but did not fall. Kevin noticed immediately that the bullet didn’t even penetrate its skin. “Oh Fuck!” Kevin yelled as the morenkai recovered, lunging at him. He tapped his storage ring and pulled out his steel shield interposing it between himself at the creature. He lifted his pistol and fired two more times, missing once and the other glancing off the creature's shoulder.
It turned as the bullet pushed on its shoulder, but threw a strike with its other arm. Kevin caught the strike on his shield, automatically drawing on energy to improve its defense. It didn’t matter. Kevin was thrown back striking the skyscraper wall and falling in a heap. He managed to turn to his back and before the charging monster was on him getting his shield up in time before the long arms of the morenkai came down on him. He held fast to the shield as the creature tried to rip it away. Kevin shot the creature in the foot knocking its balance out and it fell on him. It leaned hard onto the shield and brought its impressive mouth up to bite Kevin’s face off. Before it could bite down, Kevin shoved the barrel of his shiny new pistol into its mouth and pulled the trigger until the clip ran empty. Visera exploded out the back of the monster's head.
--- Points Obtained: Points 12 ---
Blood seeped out of the creature’s mouth and landed on Kevin’s gun and shield sizzling slightly. “Jesus Christ!” Kevin yelled, kicking the creature off. He stored the shield back in the ring and the blood that had been sizzling on it dropped to the skyscraper roof. It didn’t sizzle there. Kevin flicked the, evidently, acidic blood off his gun before looking around. He had made too much noise. He knew more of those monsters were coming. Kevin opened the door to the skyscraper and ran back inside.
Kevin hid inside a room of the skyscraper for quite a while listening for other monsters. Kevin’s mind went back to the notification he had ignored earlier.
--- Points Obtained: Points 3,565 —
“Damn,” Kevin said, “we shouldn’t be worth points.”
After nothing came for him, he got curious and realized he could open the Shop. There were even two other buttons he could press that would give him shortcuts to a Food and Beverage section.
“That’s good, one less thing to worry about,” Kevin said. He wasn’t hungry. After a time he decided he needed to get to the other skyscraper and check out the other shooter. He snuck back to the balcony he had killed the morenkai at, nothing was there. He opened the door and looked around for a while. He opened The Shop again and looked through the mundane items listed. There he found a rope. It was available in various lengths and Kevin selected a 150 foot length. He then looked until he found something sort of heavy but not TOO heavy. He found a section with gym weight.
He had experimented a little while he waited and it seemed he could reduce the weight of something pretty substantially. He had purchased a 10 lb maul from the shop, but with Light Heavy active, it seemed it weighed little more than a golf club in his hand. Kevin decided to purchase a 50 lbs kettlebell for testing. With Light Heavy he found that he was getting rid of a substantial amount of its weight. He tied the rope to it. The ability said Light Heavy was only active when he was touching an object, so to Kevin’s thinking, he should be able to throw this heavy weight as if it weight only a little more than a baseball, then as long as the rope didn’t get too tangled, the actual 50 lbs weights inertia should be enough to make it really fly.
Kevin grabbed the weight and channeled his inner shot putter. With his strength double of what it was before, the less than 1 lbs but really 50 lbs kettlebell soared over the gap between the balconies. Kevin almost couldn’t believe how well it worked. The kettlebell made a muffled crash as it landed on the other side of the balcony furniture more than 100’ from where Kevin was. He pulled the rope about as taught as he could, it looked like he had managed to lodge the heavy weight so the rope was actually pretty tight. He tied his side off to static furniture and prepared to use Light Heavy to reduce his own weight. He peered over the side to ensure his activities hadn’t gained too much attention. It looked like he was lucky. Though he could see morenkai shambling about on the sidewalks below, none seemed interested in what he was doing less than a dozen stores up from them.
Kevin reduced his weight as much as he could, a few test jumps and he really couldn’t even guess what he might have weight now, less than 10 lbs maybe? He didn’t know. He eased himself over the edge of the balcony, grabbed the rope tight. It was miraculously easy. It was like holding a grocery bag as he hand-over-handed himself across the large gap. He kept peaking below to see if he had garnered any attention only to find that he hadn’t. A huge grin broke out on Kevin’s face as the full scope of this amazing ability began playing out in his mind.
Kevin made it to the far side and there, he found the body of the shooter. Kevin’s aim had been true, a .50 caliber bullet to the back was enough to stop almost anyone … well any human evidently. Kevin turned the shooter over. He was young, well younger than Kevin anyway. Light skin and hair hiding under a black baseball cap, dead blue eyes staring at the blue sky overhead. Kevin couldn’t quite feel bad for killing the only other person he’d seen. The shooter hadn’t hesitated to try and kill Kevin, he wouldn’t feel bad for killing someone like that.
Kevin started going through the pockets of the dead shooter, he took the ball cap, the storage ring he found on the man’s finger, checking it he found it had the rifle as well as a few other things in it. He checked the rest of the man’s pockets before seeing the shoes. They didn’t really fit with the rest of the outfit. He touched them and realized they had the feel of an artifact. Kevin unlaced and took the shoes looking around at what he should do with the body. It felt disrespectful, even to this man, to leave him out on a balcony like this but what else was he going to do?
Kevin took a moment to purchase a sheet from The Shop and wrapped the body in it. It wouldn’t stop anything at all but as far as he knew he was the only person here. Kevin untied the rope from the kettlebell and tied it to the furniture on this side too. It would be a handy escape rope in the event he found himself on this balcony again. Worst case scenario he left a few points behind. He wasn’t going to sweat it. Kevin went inside to find another room and do some more experimenting, some thinking and then maybe, get something to eat.