Stepping out into the hallway again, he had mana guard back up and the faint red light of the dancing blade was illuminating the hallway for a few feet either side of the door. The glow wasn’t even enough to penetrate to the far side of the hallway. “Frak, this isn’t going to work.”
He needed more light. He’d acquired a few flammables from his raid on the locker room, but he needed a better option than dancing blade. So he turned left into the large open space that was the cube farm. He stepped as quietly as his boots would allow him. The sound of the cloth duffles rubbing against his uniform jacket reverberated loudly in his ears as he strained to hear anything.
With a grunt, he swung the duffles down onto the floor, his fingers gripping the axe handle as the dancing sword blinked out of existence. He stood there on the threshold of the cube farm, his eyes peering into the darkness and his ears straining to hear the skitter of another spider.
He waited a minute, and then on a hunch he pointed his finger to the leftmost corner of the room and launched a fireball in that direction. The bright ball of flame moved quickly, but still lit up the room better than the blade had. It revealed the dark shapes of massive spiders before exploding with another loud scream as two of the beasts were caught in its area of effect.
Drew’s free hand was already moving in the pattern that would allow him to resummon the dancing blade. Meanwhile, he clumsily swung the axe one handed in a circle around him, as a deterrent against the now swiftly approaching forms.
He hadn’t seen any of them that were any larger than the one he had already fought, so hopefully that meant there wasn’t a boss type monster here. As soon as the axe had finished its arc without meeting any resistance, he dropped it. The hand that was previously holding it began casting cone of frost. The spider screams that followed told him that he’d scored at least a partial hit. His other hand beginning to cast major spark already.
The flash of electrical power that surged from his left hand arced to a nearby spider that curled up on itself with a twitching motion. His right hand was already throwing a minor acid dart at the same location. His left hand moved to form another fireball. The pattern repeated, lighting the room in weird flashes of burning flame, arcing electricity, and red shadows as the sword attacked any spiders that came close enough to him.
When it was over, there were a couple of small fires throughout the room as paper and fabric burned. Using the firelight, he could see half a dozen spider bodies; some were half melted, others still twitching as electricity arced around holes eaten away by acid darts. The carpet around him had clumped bits of frozen blue ichor and sliced off spider legs.
The adrenaline that had caused the full fury of his spells to erupt in bright flashes faded again, and he felt a weakness in his knees. The curious thickness in the air around him proved that the few spiders that had gotten close enough to be killed by the sword hadn’t even managed to deal enough damage to break his mana guard spell. The air smelled thickly of ozone, smoke, and burning spider flesh. “That...that wasn’t even that bad.” Drew said to himself, looking around the room. Open spaces were much easier for him to lay out the hurt. He leaned down to pick up the axe from where it had landed a few feet away from him.
Congratulations citizen, you have attuned your first xatherite. Minor Acid Dart will now begin to level up.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 1. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 2. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, your Minor Acid Dart has reached level 3. Damage has increased.
Congratulations citizen, Major Mana Guard has been attuned.
Congratulations citizen, Major Refresh has been attuned.
The blue screen appeared in Drew’s eyes as he finally calmed down after the fight. He willed the blue message away, and taking advantage of the newly lit room, he left the duffles near the entrance as he advanced on the two side doors along the right side of the room. He was really hoping that there was a janitor’s closet in the storeroom area. He had some ideas for a more permanent light source. Or at least one that worked more than a third of the time.
As he waited for the cooldown on dancing blade to end, he put his ear to the crack between the doors and listened. Hearing nothing, he tried the doorknob. Upon finding it locked, he threw a quick acid dart at the lock. The pop fizz of dissolving metal echoed through the room and then the door lurched slightly, the latch no longer keeping it closed. Pushing it open all the way allowed some of the light from the still burning fires to illuminate the room. Drew couldn’t help but laugh. The adrenaline of the fight coupled with the absurdity of his situation suddenly hitting him. He grabbed the mop and a couple of spare heads from the corner and then looked around for any other supplies that might come in handy.
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The problem was carrying capacity. He could only carry so many things, and he had to keep his hands clear and be relatively unburdened to fight. In video games, this would have been solved for him by a magic backpack or a bag of holding. Or the GM would just hand waive the weight restrictions as being too much paperwork. The reality of the situation was significantly different from those idealized versions he had spent so much time in. He already had his hands full with the axe and the duffles. Adding a torch on top of it all meant he was going to have to give something up.
He was reluctant to discard the axe. While he hadn’t used it during the second fight, if anything got in close, it was imperative that he be able to use it’s weight and reach to keep his opponent away from him. His defensive and healing spells didn’t seem like they would hold up to a major barrage. Especially if he came up against something that had anywhere near the firepower he did.
He looked around. The room was moderately large, containing a number of shelves with cabling and other electronics. All of which were now useless, since nothing with electronics worked. But standing in a corner was a two tier AV cart. Walking over to it, he pushed it a few times to determine how sturdy it was. Made of thick plastic, it couldn’t hold a ton of weight, but it was probably enough for the duffles. And as the round posts in each corner were hollow, he could put the mop turned torch in one of those and have light without sacrificing his casting and the axe.
Sliding the once expensive laptops off the cart, he cleared the cart of everything but the wire and the toolkit. He looked around and grabbed two more unopened boxes of cabling, then some other cleaning supplies that looked flammable.
The squeaky wheels of the cart wouldn’t help much for his stealth, but by the time he was back at the duffles he had something of a plan. First he set to coating the mop head in the shoe polish that he’d found in the locker room. He then soaked it in some of the cleaning chemicals that were labeled as flammable. While he waited for the mop to soak them up completely, he cut off several lengths of cabling and braided them together, giving him 8 feet or so of stronger ‘rope’ he could use to pull the cart.
Tying the the cabling to the cart and then putting everything on it only took a few more minutes, but it was enough for the scattered fires to begin to die down, their fuel consumed. Looking around quickly, he thrust the mop through several of the spider webs for good measure, coating it in the thick webbing. He lit the whole thing on fire with a quick spark into some steel wool. Mana guard prevented the resulting cascade of sparks from hurting his hands too much. He waited a few seconds to see how his new torch would work, then slipped it into the hole at the front of the cart, pleased with the height of the torch and how much light it gave off.
Pulling the cart with one hand and holding the axe in another, he could easily drop the rope he was using to pull the cart if combat started.
“Not perfect, but it’s better than I was hoping to get.” Drew said to himself as he surveyed his handiwork. He pulled a bag of chips from his supplies and munched on them while he did another quick raid of the desks, hoping to find more food, or a candle, or something.
He found a few candy bars and lots of nonfunctional electronics that he couldn’t think of a use for. “Lots of metal here, would be nice if I found someone who knew how to make weapons or armor.” He shook his head. The lack of system generated loot meant that eventually humanity was going to need to make their own weapons and armor. However, how many people in DC actually knew how to use a forge? Or grow crops? Or butcher a corpse?
He glanced at the various spider bodies in different stages of burned, melted, frozen, and shocked. He had the three inch folding blade he had started wearing after he joined the coast guard. The blade had been dulled by years of opening boxes and cutting rope (or line as all the ‘real’ sailors used to call it) when he was on the cutter, but it would probably work for a field dress.
He probably should try to get something from the bodies; poison glands, chitin, and meat were all things he had harvested from spiders in games. But he wasn’t a doctor, he’d never taken an anatomy class, and he had hated dissecting the frog in biology. In truth, he had no idea where to even start butchering soccer ball sized spiders. So he just left them there, in favor of moving forward and escaping the bunker.
His next stop was the bathrooms. He wasn’t entirely sure how long it had been since the advent--a problem that kept nagging at the back of his mind--but as soon as he saw the stick figures, he realized he needed to use the facilities.
“This is where the zombies kill me when I’ve got my pants down…” Drew muttered to himself as he looked around. The bathrooms seemed clear; no signs of spider webbing. So he propped the door open and inspected each of the stalls. Finding that they were empty, he brought the cart into the bathroom and spent a few minutes attending to some bodily functions.
He reached for the bar to flush the toilet out of habit. Nothing happened. “Right. No pumps to make running water a thing.” Human waste management was going to be a big issue, particularly if there were any large groups of humans around. Which also meant he couldn’t wash his hands. “No running water; tons of people are gonna die from bad food alone.” He shook his head. “This is gonna suck.” He raided the bathroom for toilet paper, adding it to the cart, and then moved on.
The next few hallways were uneventful. There were just a few lone spiders that he could handle from a distance with his newly expanded light source. The only thing of note were blue boxes informing him that he had attuned Major Spark and received another level of Minor Acid Dart.
That’s when he got to the stairwell. He left the loud cart and axe behind, opting instead to hold the mop ahead of him while he scouted to make sure it was safe. Opening the door was simple; the electromagnetic locks that had kept it closed were no longer functional. The smell of iron immediately filled his senses.
Looking down, he saw a thick trail of of some sort of brown substance on the stairs leading down. Frowning, he leaned down and looked at it more closely, the red glare of the torch casting weird shadows. Then it clicked; the smell, the color.
Blood. It was human blood.