Will almost triggered his card immediately, but the fact that the crow hadn’t attacked yet kept him from using the Magic Missile.

Also, it spoke. He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t more shocked by that, but Will accepted it pretty easily. Since this animal could speak, it was definitely smarter than the average mob. Carefully playing his cards right here was key.

[Waylan [F] - lvl 3]

This is an intelligent Integrated being. To view more information, gain more levels in Identify or add Waylan to your party.

“You—“

“You—“

Will and the crow—Waylan, apparently—started speaking at the same time.

“By all means, go ahead,” he said automatically, years of workplace survival instinct taking hold. Samuel took a mile for every inch Will offered, but trying to speak his piece first had invariably led to a long, long lecture about respect.

“You’re the killstealer!” Waylan cried.

Will just stared at him for a second. Of all the things he’d expected out of his first ever interaction with a talking animal, this had definitely not been on the list.

“The what?”

“Why the fuck are you even here? It was almost midnight!”

The crow locked eyes with Will, and neither of them spoke for a handful of seconds.

“Look,” it said, its voice growing more serious, “I thought I was the only one in this plaza.”

“So did I,” Will sighed, running a palm through his hair. He could feel his life force draining away. This was the worst variant of a water cooler conversation he’d had. “Guess I’m not. That mean you also got the Tutorial?”

“Yeah,” Waylan said, nodding his little crow head. Will was pretty sure it was a he, at least. The voice sounded male. “Told me anything smart enough gets the whole deal.”

“And a crow passed that? Weird.”

“You’re not throwing shit at me and screaming. Thought you fuckers would. Weird.”

Where did this thing even learn to speak?

Eh. Whatever.

Will had always been quick to adapt. When his ex-girlfriend had broken up with him a year prior, he’d shrugged, found a roommate who didn’t smoke too much, and moved on. He’d been similarly taciturn when the last place he’d worked at had let him go. Will had always wondered if there was something wrong with him, but that stoicism was serving him well now that the world was ending.

There were more important things than figuring out why a talking crow had such a dirty mouth.

“You’re like me, then,” Will said. “What class do you have?”

“Not telling ‘till you tell me yours.”

A new monkey screamed, dashing towards the two of them from its hiding spot behind an overturned table.

Will reacted immediately, releasing the magic stored in his card immediately.

At the same time, Waylan screeched, and blue light flashed in front of him. A brick appeared as the light faded, arcing towards the same target.

The poor monkey didn’t stand a chance. Despite the natural magical velocity of his Magic Missile, Waylan’s brick had some speed to it, and it beaned the monkey straight in the middle of his face. Bone crunched and blood sprayed, knocking the monster backwards. Will’s spell slammed into half a second later, caving in its already-damaged head.

His Magic Missile decayed into dust, and a brief examination of his deck revealed that all four cards were once again open for selection.

[You have gained 14 coins!]

“Fewer coins for that kill,” he said. “Either that, or it was weak.”

“Fucker wasn’t any weaker than the other ones I’ve fought, Identify says,” Waylan replied. “Looks like we shared the award.”

“Ah. Lame.”

“Lame,” the crow concurred.

[Due to participating in a team kill with [Waylan], another Integrated, you have unlocked the [Party] feature.]

Given the crow’s sudden reaction, Will assumed he’d seen the same thing.

“Laaaaaame,” Waylan said. He started flapping his wings. “Nice to meetcha, killstealer, but now—“

“Hold on,” Will said, interrupting the crow before he could run away. “We could work together. I have a special class. Unless you have some item that lets you store and eject bricks from nowhere, I bet you do too.”

“Great, there’s two of us,” Waylan said. “We could get fewer coins for doing the same shit.”

Will had to be careful here. Revealing that Will would die if Waylan didn’t help him kill the serpent would weaken his negotiating position too much.

Or he could just ignore all that and just talk. He really couldn’t be bothered to do this whole give-and-take social skills thing.

“I can do things you can’t,” Will said. “Take it or leave it.”

“Like what, counting to five? You’re just a bigger one of those monkeys, ain’t ya? And you don’t even drop coins, I bet.”

Damn, this felt almost like talking to one of the smartass new hires. What a pain. Will was honestly tempted to just let the crow go.

“Good luck with the serpent then,” Will said, shrugging. He turned around.

“Oh, of course,” Waylan said. “You can’t kill that shit. Good fuckin’ luck, man.”

The crow flew away.

Will sat there, manifesting his deck and shuffling it.

Well, that’s that. Will was going to have to figure out another way to deal with this, then. Then again, he suspected there was a chance Waylan came back. Will knew his type.

He was entirely unsurprised when the building started shaking again. Will sheltered under a desk when it became apparent that the snake’s accidental assault on the office was causing parts of the roof to cave in.

Fifteen minutes later, the crow reappeared. One of his wings was damaged, and his flight was erratic. Crimson blood matted parts of his midnight-black feathers, and his head hung low.

A flask of pink liquid that Will recognized as a healing potion appeared in midair. Wayland held onto it by a thread, and Will watched as the crow dipped its beak into the flask, sipping the potion. Bones and flesh mended themselves in moments.

Stolen story; please report.

“So about that party,” Waylan said.

Will shrugged. “Sure.”

Waylan irritated him, but his abilities were interesting. And he was only a self-serving asshole, not one that actively took joy in bringing others down. That alone was enough for him to be okay with the crow.

More importantly, Will needed help killing that snake, and the System apparently

Creating a party was surprisingly simple. The System guided them through it, and soon enough—

[You have joined Waylan’s Party.]

[New Achievement: Team Player] - You have entered a party. Reward: 100 coins.

Huh. Why hadn’t he earned one for other things like his first kill? This wasn’t sticking to convention. Then again, it wasn’t like convention applied to the end of the world. Even if its form was somewhat familiar, he couldn’t rely on solely his existing knowledge for this.

[Level up!]

[1 skill point received. 500 coins received. Mana refilled.]

[Due to Trial Runner, your stat point has been automatically assigned.]

“Ooh, coins,” Waylan said, beady eyes glimmering. “Great start to our relationship.”

Joining the party also came with a bunch of extra text boxes that Will skimmed quickly. In short: the highest level individual (Waylan) controlled the party’s name, but anyone in it could leave at any time. They had to unanimously agree to add a new member. The XP penalty for killing a monster with teammates was significantly reduced.

Also, he could see a much more detailed stat sheet for Waylan now. The crow’s class was Demiplanist, and he too had the Trial Runner title. The skill he’d been using to throw bricks around was Inventory.

“I don’t get one,” Will muttered. “Of course it’s the dumbass.”

“Crows have good hearing, you dumb bitch.”

Will repeated himself, doubling his volume. Waylan decided not to listen.

“Alright,” Will said. “I assume you tried your hand at fighting the Earth Serpent down there.”

“Crows don’t have hands.”

“So you did. You learn anything?”

Surprisingly enough, Waylan answered seriously. “Yeah. It’s faster than it looks. Its tongue is its main attack, but the thing has a nasty barbed tail, too. We definitely need to get stronger first.”

“Well then,” Will said, drawing a card. “Good thing this office still needs an exterminator. Or two.”

“Hmph,” Waylan said. “I smell… fifteen monkeys on this floor. Let’s play a game. The one with the more killswinsokaylet’sstartbye!”

[Party name changed to: Waylan & Co.]

Will chuckled, shaking his head. At least Waylan was annoying in an endearing way. Like a particularly energetic cat. His ex’d had one of those. Will had just been coming around on the thing when he’d come home early one afternoon and walked in on her with some man he didn’t recognize.

Oh well. What was done was done.

The card in hand was Shield, which wasn’t terrible but wasn’t useful if Will wanted to focus on killing as many monkeys as he could.

Speaking of monkeys—one of them screamed off on the other side of the floor, and Will caught sight of another flying brick, followed shortly by a black blur that he recognized as his new crow companion.

“One!” Waylan squawked.

Will looked around, but didn’t immediately see any enemies.

Discard. Draw.

Resonance Wave. Not the optimal card for killing monkeys, but maybe…

Will pointed at the ground and activated the card. Magic flowed out from his hand into the floor, which promptly started rumbling.

Since this was California, the building was designed so that it wouldn’t collapse against a tiny earthquake, especially a localized one that didn’t target anything load-bearing, but Will had experienced many a quake during his time here. He knew that even if the building held, not everything would.

Not that Samuel had cared. It was always fun when other teams were ducking and sheltering during a magnitude 5 while Samuel just kept on yelling at his team to keep going as everything fell off the shelves.

Though Will’s card wasn’t as powerful as the San Andreas Fault, the effects were almost identical to what he remembered. Around him, desks shook slightly as the ground beneath them groaned, and the few objects that hadn’t been overturned yet fell over and broke. It wouldn’t kill anything, but that wasn’t the point.

He’d cast the spell centered on himself, and the monkeys hidden in the debris around him were smart enough to figure that much out.

Will hefted his baseball bat with both hands and turned a hundred eighty degrees at the sound of fur rustling, swinging blindly. He felt and heard a satisfying crunch as the steel bat crushed the ugly monkey’s skull. The bat vibrated with the impact, and Will felt the force run up his arms.

He took a look at the monkey, which now lay prone on the ground, its head misshapen from his hit. It looked like it’d been hit by a car. Was I always this strong?

“Lemme just check your pulse,” Will deadpanned. He delivered another swift strike, and the monkey’s weakened head exploded like an overripe watermelon. “Okay, no pulse.”

He’d always wanted to try that line. Somehow, the stupid inane garbage felt less stupid and inane when it accompanied magic. Once the adrenaline wore off, he was sure he’d regret everything he said.

[You have gained 26 coins!]

Will looked through his menu, looking at the Party subsection. Just as expected, there was a chat function.

Will: One.

“Fuck off!” Waylan cried, his voice muffled by a wall. A moment later, Will heard a thunk followed by screeching from two separate voices. One of them abruptly stopped. “Two!”

Will wiped his gorey bat on the dead monkey’s body, bending down—and he heard the rustling of another monkey. He turned as fast as he could, but the monster was already within arm’s reach. It was too close to use the bat on.

“Draw!” he shouted on instinct, turning his hand over.

Will cast before he even knew what the card was. Since he’d discarded the Shield and used the Resonance Wave, he only had Chill and Magic Missile left in the deck. Both offensive cards.

Blinding white magic surged forth from his card hand, a bright Magic Missile appearing and smashing into the monkey, arresting its leap and dashing it against the floor.

In his definitely-not-panic, he hadn’t aimed the spell that well. A section of the monkey’s torso was missing now, but the rat-faced bastard crawled to its feet, slowed but not stopped.

Will cheerfully batted its head off.

“Two!” he announced.

He was supposed to be taking this seriously, he knew. Whether he lived or died depended entirely on whether he could get enough power to kill the level 24 Earth Serpent outside, and that deadline was still ticking down.

But damn, beating the shit out of things was cathartic. Years of compounded stress and anxiety bled into every blow he dealt, freeing him from their weight.

Will drew his final card and cast it immediately, spying a monkey jumping from a fallen monitor to the wall. Half of it started to freeze in mid-air, ice crystals forming on its fur, and cold hands failed to find purchase on the wall.

Before Will could finish it off, another monkey came flying out of the blue, soaring over half a dozen cubicles before smashing straight into the frozen one.

His Chill spell had been remarkably effective on the downed monkey, but he didn’t realize just how effective it’d been until the second monkey impacted it and the flesh simply shattered.

Why would they do that to their own brethren? Will looked closer, and he realized that the monkey that’d come flying in was missing most of its head, though it was hard to tell in the gory mess it’d made of what should’ve been his kill.

[You have gained 11 coins!]

Waylan: Three.

Will: You cheeky bastard.

Clearing the floor of the monkeys was pretty simple. Will used most of his mana in the first flurry of blows, so he relied primarily on the baseball bat. He did manage to get enough mana back to use an Inverted Shield, which turned out to be surprisingly powerful, pulping a monkey’s entire body when he managed to force it against a wall after it’d grappled him. The thing’s blood got all over his suit, but he didn’t care.

[Level up!]

[1 skill point received. 500 coins received. Mana refilled.]

[Due to Trial Runner, your stat point has been automatically assigned.]

After about half an hour, they were finished. Thanks to Will’s inability to use spell after spell, he’d gotten the short end of the stick, especially once the monkeys had started hiding. Waylan was able to sniff them out, though, and his creative use of Inventory never failed to at least damage his opponent. It appeared that the objects he stored using that skill retained their momentum, and the crow had enough fast-moving bricks in there to build an extremely lethal building.

Ultimately, Waylan eked out a victory, killing nine monkeys to Will’s six.

“Congratulations,” Will said emptily. Now that the fight was over, he couldn’t be bothered to be invested in the results of a silly game.

“Get shit on,” Waylan replied. “I’m level 4 now. I wonder what I can buy.”

Will looked at his stats. Level 3, just under 1700 coins, and 2 skill points. He had quite the list of opportunities here.

Then he looked at another, more important number.

[Main Event 0 — “Tutorial”]

[Remaining Time: 14 hours, 12 minutes]

He’d used more time than he’d thought. According to his Hidden Event, he’d die in fourteen hours and twelve minutes if he didn’t kill the boss. Joy.

Will needed to get a move on, and he needed to expand his options. Clearly, a simple Magic Missile wasn’t going to cut it against something that big.

“Alright,” he said. “Waylan, does the store have something special for your class? It does for mine.”

“Yup,” the crow replied. “Dimension mage stuff. Jealous?”

“Start buying,” Will said, ignoring the crow’s question. “And then let’s talk about how we’re going to kill that snake.”

The building shook again, though it lasted only a handful of seconds this time. Still, it was enough to ensure that absolutely nothing was in the place it should be. Will was growing increasingly worried about the office’s structural integrity—it looked like they weren’t going to be able to use the full time allotted to them before they started fighting.

He had 1675 coins. Time to make use of some of those.

Will began buying cards.