I stare at that notification for a bit longer than I probably should, but the new title and the secret quest are really throwing me off. It reminds me once again just how little I know about all of this, and how desperately I need answers for everything.
But, to be fair to myself, it’s not even been half an hour since the first notification. As I get up and start rummaging through the garage for weapons, I can’t help but wish that I had more time. That the system would’ve given us a bit of a heads up, a short period of even a few hours of safety where we could assess everything and make our choices.
And maybe a God damned tutorial or a guide.
But there’s no way around it. It is what it is, and complaining won’t get me anywhere. I need to roll with the punches and do the best I can under the circumstances.
I fumble through the garage and the attached workshop for a while, going by touch since I can’t see for shit. My tools are all squared away in one of those big tool cabinets on wheels, and I find it pretty easily. A lot of the stuff in it could work as weapons: carpentry hammers, saws, chisels, sledgehammers. As I rummage through it, I also keep exploring the interface for more details.
First, I open up my inventory to check that out. A new window blooms before me, showing a five by six grid of empty slots. The last row isn’t part of the inventory, though, but rather slots for equipment. I focus on them and I get more of that instinctual knowledge, telling me that the slots are for things such as backpacks or pouches that can expand the inventory and add other functionalities.
It’s a bit tight as it stands, but I can work with it. I try to put away one of the hammers, to see if the system will let me, and it does. The hammer vanishes from my hand, turning into cyan mist that gets absorbed into my body. A moment later, the hammer takes up the first slot in the grid.
Item: Carpentry Hammer.
Description: A robust steel hammer with a wooden handle that’s an essential tool for carpentry work, including building, repairing, and crafting wooden structures.
Damage: 3.
Durability: 88/100.
I grab more of the tools, absently noting that they don’t stack as I move my attention onto the other tabs. Now that I have a class, the class skills tab opens as well. It only displays the three starter skills I could preview during the class selection process, and to my dismay, they’re all locked.
It looks like I’ll need to level up a few times to gain access to them, which really fucks me and my plans over.
The skills themselves are grouped into three skill trees: Vanguard’s Might, Crowd Killer, and Art of Blitzing. I bring the skills up one by one.
Vanguard’s Might
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.
Crowd Killer
Skill: Ground Pound.
Description: Unleash a powerful, earth-shaking blow, causing a shockwave that staggers and disrupts nearby enemies but causes minimal harm. This skill scales with the user’s momentum during casting, consuming the momentum in the process.
Area of Effect: 10 feet, centered on the user (increases up to 50 feet through consumed momentum).
Effects: 1-20 damage (dependent on distance from user and consumed momentum), staggers all enemies, 10% chance to inflict a short stun effect.
Cost: 20 mana.
Art of Blitzing
Skill: Dash.
Description: Dash enables rapid movement across the battlefield, making it great for closing the gap between you and your enemies or for swiftly evading incoming attacks.
Range: Up to 30 feet in any direction (requires solid footing).
Effects: +1000% movement speed in any desired direction.
Cost: 15 mana.
Each tree has four more skills, for a total of fifteen across the board. I can’t see what they are, however, as they’re gated both by my level and by the previous skills. If I’m reading it right, the next three skills will unlock at level 10, then 20, then 30, and the final three at level 40.
For tonight I only have these three, and only if I manage to unlock them first.
After I grab all of the tools I can use as weapons, I also take a pair of boots.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Item: Work Boots.
Description: Durable and sturdy, these steel-toed boots provide excellent protection and support for tough work environments. Ideal for ensuring safety and comfort during long hours of manual labor.
Armor: 5.
Durability: 90/120.
I equip them straight from my inventory, and they appear around my feet, laced and ready to go. I also take a work jacket, since it’s thick leather that might offer me some protection, and a hard hat. They make me feel a bit silly as I leave the garage through the side door, but better silly and safe than serious and sorry.
The door spits me into the night outside, and I can’t help but notice how quiet everything is. No people screaming, no monsters howling or growling, no cars speeding around. The sounds of distant gunshots do pierce the night every so often, but they’re little more than faint pops in the far distance.
Hugging the outside of the garage, I sneak to the front yard. I keep my eyes and ears peeled for danger, but nothing approaches me. I see why when I reach the front of the house and get a clear look across the road. There’s a pile of mutated beetles where Barry and Jenna used to be. The little monsters fight over what look like colorful ribbons at first, and I realize it’s the clothes and flesh of the two.
It takes all I have in me to not bend over and vomit my dinner. Then, it takes even more self-control to not rush over there and kill every last one of those chitinous fucks. Barry and Jenna were good people, they deserved better than this. Everyone does, as I’m sure this is a common scene throughout the world right now.
I take a deep breath and calm down. As much as I’d like to, I can’t help everyone. All I can do is to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to me and my family, and the first step is to level up a bit. I take out a crowbar as I go up the porch, and I’m quickly met by more of the beetles.
They’re all focused on entering the house, drawn by the commotion the ones at the inner garage door are making. They don’t notice me coming up from behind at first, and I use the element of surprise to kill a few of them. I stomp them with my boots and crush them with quick swings of the crowbar. They pop, their hard exteriors cracking to leak disgusting bug fluids and guts all over my pristine flooring, but I keep going.
A new bar appears in my interface, centered at the bottom of my vision. It’s white and missing a bit of charge. My stamina, I deduce, seeing yet more of it being consumed as I fight.
I swing and stomp my way back inside, leaving a trail of dead beetles behind. But they start noticing me after about a dozen kills, forcing me to retreat right back outside.
It takes a good five minutes to kill them all, and by the time I’m done, my front lawn is strewn with beetle corpses. I fall back on my ass, panting for breath as my stamina flashes with depletion.
“Okay,” I mumble, “let’s…see…what that…did for me.”
I open the notifications folder, but I don’t have time to go through every last kill notification and add up the experience. Luckily, the system helps me out with a summary at the end.
Battle summary: You have killed 67 mutated beetles.
Rewards: +1072 experience (bonuses apply).
Notice: All experience is banked during a monster siege (this limitation has been temporarily overwritten as part of the First Siege protocol).
Please check your notification history for more details.
No level-up, though. I try to find out why, and I come across the culprit in my attributes tab.
Jack Harrington - Level 1.
Race: Human, Male.
Titles: Power Hungry.
Class: Wavebreaker (expert).
Class Stage: Basic.
Experience to next level: 1072/13840.
HP: 90/90.
Mana: 20/20.
Stamina: 10/75.
Attributes
Constitution: 7.
Strength: 5.
Agility: 4.
Perception: 4.
Charisma: 3.
Essence: 2.
Spirit: 2.
God damn, the system wasn’t kidding when it said these expert classes would be hard to level. All of that killing, and I’m barely a tenth of the way to level 2. A lesser class would’ve gone up one, maybe two levels from this.
“Well, I knew the risks,” I resign myself to my choice.
----------------------------------------
Over the course of the next ten minutes, I search my house for things I think I might need. I get my car keys and try the car, but it won’t start. Nothing on the dashboard even comes on, like the battery is completely dead. After that I try my phone again, but it’s dead as well. Even my emergency flashlights won’t work.
“Everything electronic is dead,” I realize, and a pit of dread forms in my stomach.
I toss the useless flashlight, keys, and phone aside, but I keep digging through the dark house. While I don’t have any guns, and I already have more than enough blunt weapons on me, there’s still some stuff that might prove useful laying around.
I take a full gasoline canister from the garage, figuring that flammable liquids will make short work of any monsters. I’ll just have to be mindful about out-of-control fires. Next up I raid a box of July 4th leftovers, rummaging through it until I find a pack of firecrackers and some fireworks.
Those are illegal here in North Carolina, and Pops would bust my balls if he knew I had them. I had to hop a few state borders just to get them, which at the time seemed like such a hassle. But they'll be incredibly handy now. Besides offering me a remote method to ignite any potential gasoline puddles I might make, they could also work as distractions for the monsters.
That seems like everything, but I do a final check and I find something weird in the living room. A detail that escaped me before. I have a couple of books out on the coffee table, always telling myself that I’ll finish them someday but never actually getting around to it. They all have a subtle glow to them, almost imperceptible even in the darkness.
I pick one up, called Star Crossed Souls, and it vanishes. A moment later, I get a few notifications.
Collectible Added: Book (x1).
Quest Added: Old World Relics.
Check your “quests” tab for more details.
“The hell?”
I didn’t pull it into the inventory myself, so I go digging for it. It’s not among the tools, instead having gone into the collectibles tab. Unlike the inventory, this tab is a drop-down list that seems to go on forever with empty spots. The book is the only entry so far. I focus on pulling it out and the system lets me.
“Weird.”
That tab doesn’t seem to have a holding limit like the inventory, so I throw the book back in there and grab the rest as well. Why not? The quest, on the other hand, can wait. Just from the title alone, it seems like a fetch quest. I can’t be bothered with that right now.
With my inventory three quarters full, I leave the house. I’ve already wasted enough time, I have to go. I leave the door wide open on my way out, and I start down the street on foot.
Stelver, our town, isn't particularly large in terms of population, home to just about sixteen thousand residents. But when it comes to its area, that's a different story. Spanning roughly twenty-five square miles, it's nestled amidst the mountains and forests of North Carolina's Blue Ridge region. A lot of this expanse is open land, making it a veritable pain in the ass to get anywhere without a car.
And while I do have a bike I could use, I don’t feel comfortable doing so. The car would keep me safe from surprise monsters and possibly other people, but a bike would leave me completely exposed.
One moment of inattention, or a monster I didn’t spot in time, and I’d be on the ground, making for an easy kill.
As I walk, I try to decide who to look for first. I live in a dense neighborhood at the periphery of the town, in what used to be Pops’s childhood home. My parents are closer to the downtown area, in a house they bought years ago, while Mike lives a good thirty minutes on foot from me in Mom’s childhood home.
My parents live closer, but I decide to head to Mike’s place first. With Pops' military experience, he has the training and the know-how from his time in active combat zones to keep himself and Mom safe.
Mike might need my help more.
But before any of that, I have to deliver some justice on behalf of Barry and Jenna.