Port Arthur TX, 5 miles South of Beaumont. 2 Months after the apocalypse.

We want to move fast to limit our exposure to the leaking radiation from the reactors. So when we come upon a bike shop, we take some mountain bikes, and add luggage panniers behind the seats and handlebar bags, though we don't really need the extra storage right now. But better to have storage and not need it, than to need storage and not have it. We look like something out of an old Monty Python farce as we ride down the road in shiny if unpolished stainless steel armor while riding bikes instead of horses.

Unfortunately, the freeways were packed with cars at rush hour when the shift happened, and there are still lots of zomborgs infesting the parked cars, many of them contaminated with toxic mana. Fighting the toxics is only a bit tougher, but their blows do carry a poisonous lingering energy. Our growing strength mostly protects us, and only the strongest and most contaminated of them require Ellie's healing. Interestingly, I'm noticing that some aspect of my aura or personal magical makeup has shifted since the initiation. Something within me causes a bit of the toxic damage to boil away without harming me. It isn't enough to make a significant difference, but I sense it will get stronger over time.

We take minor side roads to avoid the infested freeways. It is a bit less direct, but worth it so we don't have to fight our way through so many enemies. Stefan remembers that there was another industrial area that was recently built on Smith Point on Galveston Bay, and we think that will be the next contaminated area. We guess that was some five or ten miles from the freeway and from Houston proper though. So hopefully, there won't be much fallout in the area where we are going.

We had planned to go down US route 96 to Texas route 73 until it joins up with the I-10 Interstate freeway. If we'd known about the radiation leak, we'd have taken I-10 all the way from Beaumont. Instead, we cut across on a smaller road that goes due east, while I-10 angles south a bit so they intersect. Street signs call it Hwy 365. It's mile after mile of brand new housing developments and strip malls in what was probably farmland until recently.

The zomborgs seem to gather in larger numbers day by day. Then we encounter a mob of them that is twice as large as any we've ever run into before. They outnumber us by as much as ten to one and move toward us aggressively. As they advance, they spread out in an inward curving line, threatening to surround us. Individually, they aren't much of a threat since they don't use weapons. But they ignore anything short of immediately fatal wounds and try to drag us down under the mob. When the mobs were smaller, it wasn't so bad as long as we kept our defense organized, but the mob that faces us is frightening.

We abandon our bikes and run back to the last gas station. It isn't perfect, but the side walls are cinder block, so the zomborgs will only be able to attack us from the front, and either through the doors or over a knee-high wall if they break the front windows.

Zomborgs rush the front of the gas station. They push open the doors and hurl themselves through the plate-glass windows. I lock shields with Rodgers and Johnson. We hold the open ground between the front counter and the shelves of snacks. Stefan's shotgun roars, again and again, thinning the ranks of the zomborg mob.

Two zomborgs grab my shield and try to wrench it out of my grasp. One is wearing flannel over a t-shirt, and the other is wearing a dress shirt. Both are filthy and torn. My shortspear is too long to reach them so close, so I drop it and pull the wickedly curved machete. I reach over my shield and jam the point into first one neck and then the other, then begin hacking at their heads until they fall. Another immediately rushes me, a blonde wearing a sky-blue blouse that shows considerable cleavage, but I don't let it distract me as I hack at the creature. Anat's hotter anyway.

Anat backs up the line on the side facing the shelves, pivoting between supporting the three of us in the front line by stabbing over our shoulders with her spear, or lunging out to attack zomborgs who circle around between the ends of the shelves and the coolers with drinks on the side of the store.

As more and more zomborgs start pushing around the side, I worry they'll rush Anat though.

"Jayce, take this side!" Anat calls, so I step back from the main front line. Rodgers and Johnson's shields won't be enough to fully block the whole space remaining, but are still a major obstacle, while I rush to reinforce the open flank. I keep the Zombies off her while Anat starts working double-time with her spear. We push the zomborgs coming down that aisle back, then Anat dispatches another that circled further around while I hold the line. That accomplished, Anat backs me up on the open side while Ellie backs up Rodgers and Johnson. Stefan keeps blasting away at the onrushing mob, while Cas looses arrow after arrow.

I'm stronger than I've ever been, thanks to initiating and charging myself with more essence since, but the frenzy of fighting off unthinking fighters attacking with every ounce of their strength is exhausting. Eventually the last zomborg falls and I move to a place that isn't bloody yet, then collapse against the door of the coolers. Looking to my side I see bottles of Gatorade. Everyone else is doing the same as me, finding someplace to sit that isn't too smeared with blood to sit down.

"Gatorade?" I ask.

"Sure. Orange," says Stefan chuckling. I toss him one.

Ellie raises her hand, saying "Strawberry, please, if they have it." I grab a pink one and sure enough, it's strawberry, so I toss it to her.

The others make their requests with Anat picking Blue Raspberry. I toss them their drinks, then relax and enjoy a green one. The flavor has no relevance to anything in the real world, in my opinion, so I prefer to just think of it as green.

As we recover our bikes, Anat notices that in the distance to our southwest is the unmistakable column of distorted space that identifies the location of another rift. Looking back toward Beaumont, the rift there is too far away to be seen, so the new one is significantly closer to us than we are to Beaumont, but without a map we don't know how far that is. We search the gas station for maps, but find nothing. Paper maps have been obsolete for decades, so none of us is really surprised. We head out and search the next gas station we find, and then the one after that. After searching a few more, we hit the jackpot. There is a box with a collection of old maps in the office.

We take one for Texas, another for Louisiana, and a few more for larger cities like Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. There's some for two dozen other states too. Massachusetts catches my eye, as do the maps for Essex, Bristol, and Norfolk counties in that state, which I've never heard of but feel a strange sense of attraction to, and also a map of Boston. It makes no sense so I put them out of my mind. Anat goes through the box and adds a few more cities in Texas, and the Massachusetts maps.

"Why Massachusetts?" I ask her.

"I… don't know. Just had a feeling."

"Weird, me too."

"That's a long way away. But it sounds like we'll be exploring out there eventually." Stefan says.

"Yeah. I think we should too. I feel like something there is calling to me," says Anat.

"What are you talking about?" asks Ellie.

"These," says Anat, holding out the maps. Ellie takes the one for Bristol from her hand.

"Holy shit, we need to go here," she whispers.

"We should take the rest of the maps," says Stefan, "We have space in our panniers, and maps are valuable. We can probably trade any local maps we find, come to think of it. Something to look for as we go from now on." He pours the whole box into the panniers on his bike, and we head out.

Soon we can see the I-10 freeway in the distance, and come upon a town just on our side of the interchange. It actually seems to be a functioning community that must have had a small enough number of borgs to survive relatively intact. As we meet people though, the guarded expressions, the pain written in the lines on every face, and lost looks in so many eyes tell a different story. Still, they are making the best of it, better than anyplace else we've seen. They are modestly well equipped, and everyone seems to wear a shield on their back at all times, and have some form of sidearm like a hatchet or machete on them as well, while spears are kept at easy reach.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

We talk to them about the rift and learn that though they haven't gone to it, flying batlike creatures with stinging tails have attacked the town from that direction, and flew back the way they came after the townsfolk fought them. And there have been numerous cases of strange lizard-like things that climb like dog-sized geckos, spitting poison and jumping on people. And stranger but less aggressive things have been seen as well. Their descriptions sound nothing like any of the creatures we saw, so we wonder if there is some other world or plane of existence that this rift links to. We tell our tale of entering the rift in Beaumont to looks of horror.

Besides trading news of rifts, Ellie teaches what she can of reiki to a doctor, nurse, two paramedics, and a few lay medics who are providing medical care to the community. We teach anyone who wants to learn how we are doing cultivation and initiation, and do some mundane combat training, sharing techniques and tricks for everything from fighting to making armor and weapons. But we take care to emphasize that everyone's method is different and that they should do what works for them, using what we teach as just a starting point.

Then we explain how the story-telling ritual works to augment the essence we gather, and share the tales of our battles of the day over a few bottles of beer. The local tavern has rigged up huge fresnel lenses to heat water, allowing them to make hot stew without electricity or fuel, and we enjoy our first hot meal since the apocalypse. The tavern has a dance hall, and local musicians play guitar, some box-like percussion instrument that sounds like a drum, a harmonica, and what Ellie tells me is a tub base. It's a long stick that has a big rubber band attached to one end while the other end is braced inside the rim of a large round washtub with a metal eye-bolt set in the center that the other end of the rubber band is attached to, with the tone changed by moving the stick to stretch or relax the rubber band.

The music isn't loud but it's a hell of a lot better than nothing, and quite a few people dance. I, on the other hand, find a dark corner where I can people-watch. Anat hooks up with a guy who I don't have to be gay to describe as objectively hot, while Ellie hooks up with a nurse who I'm not sure if they are a short cute man or a tall and handsome woman. Rodgers and Johnson are hitting on a woman who clearly knows she's the most attractive girl in town but is equally clearly intrigued by the prospect of a threesome. Stefan scores with swagger and predatory grace. Cas talks up a homely girl and I can tell he's retelling stories of our battles.

For my part, I have a lot to think about. I can feel the essence I've collected reinforcing my emerging resistance to damage, but can also feel it resisting my use of essence. I worry that it's going to become a seriously troublesome double-edged sword.

The next morning, we approach the rift with apprehension. The rift has formed in the midst of a swamp, and it is clear that the creatures who live within that rift are right at home.

"This is a place of rot," Anat whispers.

"It's disgusting," Ellie aggrees.

"I actually feel it a bit," says Cas. "I feel life, twisted by darkness."

"Yeah," Anat and Ellie agree. For my part, I feel nothing. Maybe my resistance gets in the way of my sensitivity too.

The medics in town warned us that all attacks by the creatures have a necrotic power, but that the venomous spit of the lizards and the stings of the bats have the most pronounced toxic effect. It fits with the aura of rot that the more sensitive of us are feeling.

In the beginning, the swampy terrain is as much an enemy as the infestation of alien fauna. Rodgers, Johnson, and I use our machetes as much to cut through the undergrowth as to fight. The others keep watch for attackers, with Cas trying to pick off tree-clinging lizards, Stephan keeping watch for diving bats, and Anat and Ellie using their spears to skewer or chop anything else that gets too close.

We fight leaping giant gecko lizards sting-tailed bats for an hour. Caught alone, they aren't much of a threat, but the more of them we encounter, the more they work together, and we encounter more and more as we approach the rift. Behind us, a few dozen villagers watch our progress through binoculars. They've learned how deadly these creatures can be, now it's up to us to teach them that it is possible to not merely fight to resist them, but fight to conquer this rift, and others like it. I've taken Anat's words to heart, and am starting to see this as a necessary part of our mission. We can't fight all of the rifts, but if we can teach villages like this to use them to grow strong, maybe Earth and humanity have a chance.

"Peel the onion," says Anat. It's a term she used to describe a tactic for attacking a settlement of creatures that exhibit a degree of cooperation in the RPGs we used to play back when we dated. Driving straight in, eventually more and more of the enemies would be alerted to one's presence and a lethal swarm would attack from all sides. Instead, circling the group and picking off those furthest out works better. It wouldn't work as well with truly intelligent and cooperative enemies, but it's ideal with creatures like this who cooperate to a degree but don't really communicate or plan.

As we work our way inward, the ground gets boggier and we are fighting among the mix of skeletal trees and those still struggling for life found in many half-drowned scrub forests. Around us are ferns and swamp plants. The place is rife with both the lizards and stinging bats. Despite our armor, it is only a matter of time before the law of averages catches up with us. I get stung first. On the shoulder, I feel a numbing ache seeping into my flesh, and sense my tissue beginning to liquify as a rotting reek rises to my nostrils making me retch.

By the accounts of the healers, I should be done for, but I feel my power fighting the necrotic power, slowing its advance. Ellie opens my armor to improve her access to the wound, then channels healing power into my tissue and pushes the rot back. She has me bend forward so that it oozes out of my flesh onto the ground, then continues to heal the gaping sore that is left until fresh pink skin is all that remains. I re-fasten my armor and thank her.

"Of course," she replies, holding out her knuckles for a fist-bump. I return the gesture, and the others who were turned outward to guard us, turn around with relieved looks on their faces. We continue on.

Other alien things lurk about, like some kind of strange sea-animal that looks like an ambulatory plant. We suspect they are scavengers. At least, they are unthreatening. Even when Johnson trips and falls right next to one, and takes long seconds to extract himself from the muck, there is no movement to attack.

On top of the gains we've made through slaughtering zomborgs, the essence from the advance into the infested swamp tops up our ability to take in more essence. It is time to initiate again before we continue to the rift itself. It will also be a good opportunity to teach the villagers about the process of initiation.

Back at the village, we discuss the coming ritual, and answer the questions that the villagers ask as best we can. It is tricky because we are all still feeling our way forward. And because in talking about what we've experienced so far, everyone feels things a bit differently, though there are common features to all our experiences.

"What I feel coming seems different than what we went through last time," says Ellie. "That was a huge step, and the term Initiation we've been using seems to fit."

"This feels like a more incremental step to me too," says Anat. "It sounds like you have a clearer sense of where you are going than I do though. You want to go first?"

"Sure, I will." She sits down and begins to meditate. I sense the way the qi moving through her body makes the mana around her swirl, pulse, ebb, and flow. I feel myself being drawn into her process, as if I'm half way to doing my own ritual, then pull myself out of the trance enough to look around the room and see that many others are feeling similarly caught up in the trance.

Ellie continues, doing gathering movements similar to my own, but softer and smoother in their flow, while the movements I gravitated toward were harder and more martial. She gathers the sphere of essence mixed with qi that surrounds her, pulling from above, below, in front, behind and the sides, compressing it over and over until a subtle burst of power signals the completion of her ritual. I look around the room and see that of the nearly half of the village that gathered to watch, many of them felt what happened too, and some look quite surprised by the strength of the power burst.

I focus on Ellie and Anat's conversation about the ritual Ellie did.

"You are probably feeling less sure of the process because a lot of it was internal. I felt like my aura, meridians, and chakras were all being reinforced. Also my ability to heal and break curses and the like was reinforced as well, but it felt to me like that was more a consequence of the internal strengthening that was happening."

"Yeah, that's still not my strongest suit. I appreciate the heads up though."

"Maybe visualize each of your chakras, your meridians, and the boundaries and flow of your aura during the initial meditation so they feel as real as possible in your mind?" Ellie suggests.

"Thanks, I'll do that."

There isn't much to watch, and the rest of us start meditating on our own. The cultivation ritual this time is more of an incremental advancement instead of the paradigm shift that the initiation was. As I compress essence into my dantian, it spins faster and more powerfully, and exponentially accelerates the growing power within my core. I feel that power coursing ever more strongly through my meridians, humming through my aura, empowering my chakras. I don't yet feel like I can use any of those bodies directly, but they feel more and more real to me, closer and closer to the ability of my will to directly manipulate the power they channel, store, and control. And I feel myself inching closer to some greater stage that stands in my near future, another great shift ahead.

Also, the more essence I compress into my core, the stronger my resistance to supernatural damage becomes. But that resistance is causing some of the essence I try to compress into my core to boil away and be lost to me. And although it is subtle, I can feel that resistance to further cultivation get stronger as the ritual continues and my power grows. It isn't enough yet to really cause me problems. But the trend is obvious and very worrying.