It takes Emily a while to gather herself, but all things considered, it's not that long. She’s either very strong willed, or the sadder option, she’s used to bottling her feelings fast and moving on.
The second option seems more likely after what I’ve just witnessed.
“So…do you know the guy?” I ask tentatively.
She nods.
“Boyfriend?”
“Ex,” she mutters.
I take a long, deep breath to calm down. A warning would’ve been nice. Heads up, Jack, I have this psycho ex boyfriend that might try to fucking kill us. But I don’t say any of it, of course. At least for now, I keep any complaints to myself.
I'm not even close to done healing by the time she wipes away her tears with her sleeves. She gets up, and we don't talk about what just happened. There might be a time and a place for that, but right here, right now, isn't it. We already wasted too much time, the horde might hit any moment.
“Still up for it?” I ask.
Emily pulls the hood a little lower on her face, and she mumbles, “yeah.”
We get moving, both knowing our parts. She takes the houses on the left of the main street, I take the ones on the right. I'm not as fast as I wish I'd be, but I can't help it. While the system's healing capabilities are downright amazing, they work slowly, in layers.
First, it attempts to stop any bleeding. Priority number one is to stop imminent death. I can feel my veins and arteries, moving like worms under my skin as they mend and reroute blood flow. Next up it tackles any broken bones, popping some back into place, straightening others out. Each one comes with more pain, but in a few minutes, I can stand straight again. The muscles follow, and the skin is left for last, almost like an afterthought.
I have to contend with all of that as I move from one house to the next, looking for gas stoves, propane tanks, and canisters of gasoline. My mobility returns in increments, but I still look like a burnt piece of toast by the time we meet back up on the other side of the safe zone.
I look back on our handiwork and see gasoline pouring out from under most of the doors.
“What do you say? Will it work?” I ask.
Emily nods.
“Okay, get into position.”
----------------------------------------
What we’d done was to turn the whole neighborhood into a giant fire bomb. Turning gas stoves on, releasing the valves on any propane tanks we came across. Seeing as the apocalypse started at 11 in the night, when most people were snug in their beds, every garage held at least one car. We poked holes in their gas tanks, and we took any canisters of reserve gasoline to spread their contents throughout the houses.
I would’ve liked to give it a little more time for the gasses to spread and the gasoline to soak, but we don’t have that luxury. The horde of monsters hits just as Emily and I reach our spot on a nearby hill.
“Give me the bow.” Emily looks at me with uncertainty. “If I miss, you’ll take the second shot.”
She hands me her bow, mumbling “experience hog” as I take it. I let out a short laugh.
“Don’t worry, you’ll set off the next trap,” I assure her.
That seems to placate her somewhat. I take out another firework arrow I’d prepared earlier, and as I nock it, Emily lights the fuse.
With no defenders holding them back, the monsters quickly enter the safe zone. The streets fill up with them in moments. Some are going to town on the doors and windows, trying to enter the houses. I send the arrow flying, and it lands right in their midst.
“Please don’t be a dud, please don’t be a dud,” I pray, crossing my fingers.
A few agonizingly slow seconds later, the firework blows. Sparks fly everywhere, the lights and loud bang attracting even more monsters to the location. One of the sparks catches a trail of gasoline on fire.
“Now run,” I say, handing the bow back to Emily.
She looks at me with a touch of confusion. Then, the house blows up.
That sends both of us scrambling real good. I look over my shoulder as Emily overtakes me to find the flames already spreading, entering some of the other houses. The monsters that caught on fire help with that, taking it everywhere they go as they run away blindly.
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Experience comes flooding in for a while as more and more of the monsters die off. It comes in steady trickles punctured by huge leaps whenever another one of the houses explodes. I finally, finally hit level 2, and I feel that same electrifying sensation as when my interface first came on.
That’s the experience — the mana — changing my body. Enhancing it. The set points get distributed automatically, and the boost to my attributes is near instantaneous. I'm already running as fast as I can, but I suddenly speed up, going fast enough to almost overtake Emily.
We stop close to a house for our next stamina break. It’s the only structure around for what feels like miles, and it has a huge oak tree out back, a tire swing hanging from a low branch.
We sit under it, and I tell Emily about my level-up. She makes a face like she just bit into a lemon.
“Yeah, yeah,” I grumble. “I know, only level 2. But I have an expert class and it grows very slowly.”
Emily waves me off, then she goes to climb the tree. She's nimble, darting from branch to branch with ease. Scaling things seems almost like second nature to her.
She finds a branch near the top of the tree and sits on it, pulling out her binoculars to look around.
I go into my interface to distribute the free points as well. No reason to hold onto them. But when I open my attributes tab, I pause. Even though none of the set points went into constitution, my health is higher than before.
Jack Harrington - Level 2.
Race: Human, Male.
Titles: Power Hungry.
Class: Wavebreaker (expert).
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Class Stage: Basic.
Experience to next level: 14956/39634.
Health: 100/100.
Mana: 20/20.
Stamina: 95/95.
Attributes
Attribute points available: 8.
Action required: Please distribute any available attribute points.
Constitution: 7.
Strength: 9.
Agility: 6.
Perception: 5.
Charisma: 4.
Essence: 2.
Spirit: 2.
“Emily!” I call for her and look up.
She puts the binoculars away and looks down at me, worried for a moment. When she sees everything is okay, she’s puzzled. I take a quick look at her entry in the party, and I see she’s up to level 10.
“When’d you get to level 10?!” I explode.
She doesn’t answer, just fidgets uncomfortably on the branch.
“Doesn’t matter, that’s not what I wanted to ask. Do any other attributes besides constitution give health?”
“Agility.”
God, she really hates talking. Does she not like the sound of her own voice or something? I could really use a more detailed answer, seeing as the system just dropped this turd in my lap with little in the way of explanations. I’m about to pursue the matter further, but then I think better about it.
I regrettably don’t know much about the subject, but she clearly has some severe anxiety issues. Not to mention whatever she has going on with Morris.
“Thanks,” I say instead, returning my attention to the interface.
The first point I spend goes into constitution, I want to see how that attribute grows. My health jumps up to 110, and my stamina gets a small boost as well, going up to 100. The next point goes into agility, bringing my health up to 115 and my stamina up to 110. There’s definitely some interplay between the attributes, but I don’t want to waste my remaining points on mapping all of that out.
I contemplate the other 6 points for a while. The temptation to just drop them all into constitution is big, I could use the added survivability. I'd already been too low on health a few times, and now I have the chance to raise it considerably. But I also know that I need to balance myself out, otherwise I'll end up with lopsided attributes.
In the end, I put three more points into strength, two into agility, and the last one into perception. I’m hoping to be able to move fast enough and hit hard enough that my health won’t matter. The point in perception will hopefully help with that, since it affects both the speed at which my mind can process information and helps me spot details I might miss otherwise.
Next up, I go into my class skills tab. I only have one skill point to spend, but the choice is easy.
Skill: Battle Frenzy.
Description: Battle Frenzy channels your aggression into raw power. As you engage in combat, each successful attack fuels your frenzy, incrementally boosting your attributes. Perfect for sustained skirmishes. This is a passive skill that unlocks the Frenzy meter.
Frenzy Generation: Each successful attack against an enemy increases Frenzy by 1%. Killing an enemy increases Frenzy by 10%.
Frenzy Decay: Your Frenzy meter naturally decays at a rate of 1% every 5 seconds. Receiving hits from enemies will deplete 25% of your accumulated Frenzy.
Effects: Receive a 1% temporary boost in all attributes for every 10% of accumulated Frenzy.
Cost: N/A.
Do you wish to spend 1 skill point to unlock Battle Frenzy?
I give a mental yes. The skill unlocks, and the new bar appears under the health and mana bars. It's completely empty, I'll have to get my hands dirty to test it out.
“Any monsters nearby?” I yell up to Emily.
She looks around, then she points at the house.
“Cool, thanks. I'll go test out my new skill on them.”
She gives me a thumbs up, so I take off. I go around the house, keeping close to it for cover. Once I get to the other side, I spot the monsters. They're about two hundred feet away, roaming through the tall grass.
I can't get the drop on them, but oh well. I whistle to get their attention, and then I take off. One of them spots me, lets out a howl, and they charge towards me as well.
Half of them are insects, with a handful of beetles, wasps, and a couple of mantises. The other half are mammals, though they've mutated so much that I can't tell what they used to be at a glance. They’re big and burly, little more than mounds of fur and claws.
I pull out the sledgehammer in one hand and the crowbar in the other. Even with just one level-up, the weapons feel as light as feathers in my hands. I meet the first monster, one of the beetles, swinging. The sledgehammer plows into the side of its head, exploding it into a shower of gore and chitin. The two jaws, now the size of swords, go flying off into the grass.
“Holy shit!”
I didn't expect that. I thought I'd have to pull the earlier maneuver of toppling the monster and prying it open, but it dies instantly. The frenzy meter goes up by 10%, filling with this electric orange color.
I quickly pull the sledgehammer back and swing again, just in time to meet the next monster. It's one of the mammals, which the system marks as a level 3 mutated boar. I swing down, missing the head but hitting the monster between the shoulder blades. Its spine shatters and its front legs crumple.
It collapses in front of me, nearly bowling me over.
To my surprise, it's not dead yet. But it's also not going anywhere, so I finish it off quickly. I jab the chisel end of the crowbar between its eyes, splitting the skull down the middle and scrambling its brain.
The frenzy meter goes up another 10%. That’s only a 2% boost to my attributes, barely enough for me to feel a difference, but there’s something else there. This…bloodlust, this hunger for battle. For killing.
One of the mantises lunges, flying over the other incoming monsters. I leave the crowbar behind as I dodge, and the mantis slices the corpse of the boar into three clean pieces with its leap attack.
Those claws are no joke.
I backpedal as the mantis lunges again, but I find it hard to control my own legs. My agility more than doubled, so now I’m running backwards almost as fast as I used to sprint before. The twin claws miss me by a wide margin, making whoosh sounds as they cleave through the air.
Its own attack staggers the mantis for a heartbeat, and I use the distraction. I pull out a hammer and throw it at the monster as hard as I can. It lifts its head, mirror images of me reflected a hundred times over in its compound eyes. The hammer hits it right in the face. A powerful crack fills the air, and the mantis lurches back.
I rush in, swinging the sledgehammer in a wide, upwards arc. It catches the mantis in the groin — if bugs have groins — and keeps going, splitting its abdomen wide open. It’s an ugly, jagged wound, not the clean cut that a blade would make.
The mantis falls, barely clinging to life as its innards become outwards. I stomp its head to kill it and gain another 10% of frenzy.
The bloodlust grows. My hands tremble with the adrenaline of the fight, but my mind is clear. Clearer than it's been all night. I run up to the dead boar, grabbing the crowbar and flinging the head away. It hits one of the wasps, which is now about the size of an average dog, and I make it my next target. As it rubs its face in that way flies do when they spot a steaming pile of shit, trying to clean boar blood out of its eyes, I bring my boots to bear.
A couple of stomps, and the thing is dead. The frenzy shoots up another 10%. Two more of the monsters, a now flightless bat and a chipmunk, come at me from different sides. I swipe the crowbar at the bat, clipping its long, spindly fingers. As my own momentum spins me around, I bring up the sledgehammer and hit the chipmunk as well. That one goes flying for a good ten feet, squealing in pain.
I kick the downed bat hard enough to snap its neck, then I pounce on the chipmunk. Another swing with the crowbar tears a chunk out of the monster’s thick neck and it bleeds out in seconds.
The frenzy rises, but I don’t even look at it anymore. The blood in my veins boils, and my whole body thrums with energy. A stray thought crosses my mind, telling me that this is dangerous. Addictive. I shut it out and keep going.
This right here? The power, the thrill? This is exactly what I wanted when I saw that first system message. I grin and launch myself at the remaining monsters.