CHAPTER 16 - BAD TO WORSE
I woke up to sunlight streaming through the big windows in the front of the building. I’d managed some solid sleep, thank god. I’d been exhausted after the running, fighting, and everything else that had made up my day. Waking up on the hard floor of the security office with only my lab coat as a pillow wasn’t ideal. But given everything I’d just been through, it was better than the alternative.
There were others stirring. I spotted Lords standing near one of the windows, clearly on watch duty. Had he been there all night? I figured not; he’d probably had people taking shifts. I went over to stand beside him.
“I’m happy to take a shift tonight, too,” I told him.
“Hmm?”
“For night watch. Smart move. I should have thought to offer before.”
“Ah, yeah. Well, for now it’s just me and my men. We’ve been trained for…well, not precisely this sort of thing…”
“I doubt anyone has!” I replied with a chuckle.
He smiled at that, although it looked a little forced. “Right. But at least we’ve had training to deal with a crisis. A couple of us are former military. The students are an unknown quantity still.”
“You’re still hoping help is on the way, then? That someone else is coming to save us?” I asked.
His face fell into a deep frown. “Yes, that’s my hope. But I gave what you said last night a lot of thought. Do you really think this thing, whatever it is, is everywhere?”
I shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea. Seriously, I have no more information than you do. Here’s my thoughts, though. If we assume it’s global, and the whole world is in the same mess, and we’re wrong? Then rescue comes in a day or two and we’ve put in a lot of extra work for nothing. But if we assume help is on the way, and it turns out nobody is coming because they’re facing the same mess we are?”
“Then we’re all dead,” he replied. “I do see your point. You were very effective out there last night. Your friend, too. How many of those crystals do you have?”
The question made me more than a little nervous, but I had to say something quickly. Too long a pause and he’d assume I was lying. “Three. I got lucky and got doubles of the same crystal back to back. If you get two of a kind, they merge, which is why I can control two zombies. One crystal only let me control one.”
“That’s impressive. My men and I have one each. We shared them around to make sure everyone got one. Mine is strength. Bradley’s got strength, too. Samson has stamina and George agility. You think we ought to get more of those things, then.”
It wasn’t a question, and I was glad of that. Some rest had brought him around. “I do, yeah. Every monster we kill seems to drop one, so it’s easy enough to get more. If we work together, we can gather some, maybe get more doubles so we can boost people up. Once you have a double, you can slot another crystal. The memories they give—you got those too, right?”
He nodded.
“Well, once you get a double, you get a little more information about them. The number of crystals we can slot is equal to the highest tier crystal we have. If we get four of a kind, they’ll merge into a tier three crystal—more powerful, and we get to slot a third stone. I think if we gather eight of a kind it merges into a tier four and opens a fourth slot, but that’s just a guess.”
“It makes sense, though,” he replied, rubbing his chin. “I’ll talk with the guys, see if they’re up for some patrols to gather more stones. We need supplies anyway. We’ve got some food and water here, but not enough. And we should try to find more survivors, too.”
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“Sounds like a plan. I’m happy to help if we go scouting.”
He nodded and then left, heading deeper into the building to chat with the other campus cops.
The conversation hadn’t been an easy one. A quick lie had helped, but I had a lot more crystals than I’d let on, and if word about that got out, it might backfire on me. The last thing I wanted was to give up all those stones, though. Yeah, passing a few on to friends who needed them was one thing. Being ordered to hand them over by a relative stranger had zero appeal, though.
Part of me still wondered about what happened if a person died, too. Did humans drop stones, like monsters did? Maybe we only dropped stones if we had some socketed when we died? If it turned out that killing people resulted in significant loot drops, things were going to do seriously sideways in a heartbeat. Everyone was already on edge. Give terrified people a good reason to kill each other, and things would go from bad to worse fast.
I checked my inventory.
Magical Stones
Point 1: Black Stone (Tier 3) - Control Undead
Point 2: Clear Stone (Tier 1) - Agility
Point 3: Black Stone (Tier 1) - Nightvision
Point 4: X
Point 5: X
Spare Stones
Black: Heal Undead, Animate Dead
Clear: Strength, Will, Stamina, Unknown
Losing that Augment Undead spell sucked. I really liked that one, and wanted to see what the impact was on my zombies’ fighting ability. But it was a good lesson to have, too. I had been just stripping stones out and re-inserting them. At least I learned that was risky now, instead of losing a higher tier stone.
Removing the Control Undead stone was out of the question, now that I knew it might shatter on removal. It was the only thing better than tier one I had. Losing it would put me almost back to the beginning. For better or worse, I was stuck as a necromancer right now. Accidental or not, that was probably not going to make me super popular with everyone else. Lords had been right to order me to leave them outside for the night. I could only imagine how they were starting to smell by now, even thought they’d been stuffed full of preservative before being shipped to the University for dissection.
I wanted to believe Lords was right in being super cautious, and that things would get better before too long. My gut said this was too weird for things to go back to normal anytime soon. Unless this was some sort of mass hallucination, I couldn’t see a happy ending here. Maybe the event was limited to a small area, and all we had to do was walk out. But if electricity and cars didn’t work in the area, how was help going to get to us?
No, survival was going to require action. Sitting around hoping someone else would save us might feel nice in the short term, but it wasn’t a strategy I was willing to bank on. It was time to take some action, whether the others were interested or not. I quietly grabbed my pack and axe, and moved to the door.
I stepped outside into the morning sunlight, intending to do a quick loop around the building to see if there was anything useful out in the open. I had my pack and my axe, and ordered Rosie and Guildie out of the car as I approached. I’d been right; they were beginning to stink a little. Maybe if I slotted that Heal Undead spell, I could fix that? But I didn’t want to risk losing Nightvision. That was too helpful. The better answer would be to find some more zombies and kill a few to get more black stones. I needed to find some more so I could Control a third one, anyway.
Nobody seemed to notice as I slipped away down the sidewalk looking for trouble. Those zombies had been out wandering last night. I was betting some of them would still be around somewhere.
Noises from a few streets over caught my attention, so I headed that way. I was cautious in my approach. No sense rushing into something deadly. If I ran into more than I could handle, I’d go back and get help from the security office. Alfred was there, plus the campus cops. That was plenty of backup.
Two blocks away brought me to a row of apartments I’d never visited before. I wasn’t sure if these were student housing or faculty, but they had the vibe of being attached to the college in some way. They’d also clearly been ransacked.
The first apartment building was a mess of shattered windows and broken doors. Furnishings from inside had been thrown out through upstairs windows, from the looks of it, and then just left scattered across lawns. That didn’t look like zombie damage; the undead were a little more mindless in their approach. I had my money on goblins doing this. Either that, or something I hadn’t seen yet. I moved forward with as much care as I could manage.
I’d only made it halfway across the lawn when a hissing noise from behind me got my attention. I whirled in place, raising the axe, and found myself staring into the eyes of the largest snake I’d ever seen. It hissed at me again, then moved forward in a rapid, sinuous motion that closed the gap between us in seconds.