If the witnesses had pointed back to him, they hadn’t caught up by the time he reached Walmart; where his guns drew almost as little notice as the traces of blood on the black shirt; in fact, he only saw four customers who weren’t armed, with even the cashiers packing, something that would’ve been unheard of even in texas.
He had considered stealing what he wanted; after all, he could just shove an entire rack into his dimensional storage space; but decided not to, for now. In the vent the cops weren’t coming after him for murder, he wouldn’t want something as petty as shoplifting attracting attention; and when he left, with a shopping cart full of vitamins, a variety of tools, a generator, several gas cans, an O2 bottle… that itself might attract attention.
The tablet, while the most important thing he bought, was probably the least noteworthy; and when his long walk finally ended at Charlotte’s motel, he stopped at the front desk… and the old woman smiled as he entered.
“Well hello there, young man! I was worried about you, they told me you ended up in the hospital. Everything going alright? That burn looks nasty.”
“Got mugged… had my revolvers stolen, and the mugger burned me up pretty bad. Just now got em back.” He glanced behind him. “I’m worried the thief might have lied to the cops, told em I was a thief myself. It shouldn’t work… a few deputies saw me with the revolver when we killed that dog… but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate a new key… and a warning if the cops come looking.”
She chuckled. “This is probably the first time I’ve heard that from someone a deputy asked me to put up for the night… but not the first time I’ve been asked, by a longshot. If they come asking, I’ll tell em you’re in room 213, and I’ll send your room a wake-up call. If they bug me about it later, I’ll just say it slipped my mind.”
She looked under her desk… and slid out a small plastic card. He was in room 313. “Much appreciated. Got word from the deputy, by the way… Nathan didn’t have any local family, just some folks out in California who we can’t get ahold of, so they were gonna be impounding his car anyway. If you wanted to take the car to his sister’s place, they left an address; and if you could pass on that he passed, and how.”
She handed him another card; this one with an address in California. California was a big state; but if it was in the northern part, it might not be too far from his original destination.
He gave a slow nod. “With the phones being all finicky, and the credit cards going on and off…. How’s the internet?”
“Actually pretty damn good. A few of those Chosen went around and did something to the servers, they been kicking ever since. Password for the wifi is on the table. Cards have been working ever since, too.”
“Ahh. Then I’d like to pay you for the last couple nights… and I’ll probably head west in a few hours.”
“Nah. That fuckin dog killed some of my friends at the RV park. You drive safe. Leave the key in the box if I’m not here.”
***
His only purpose in life at this point might be to kill those fuckers who tried to rob him… but while those particular Chosen were going to die, the others seemed… to have done a decent job.
The news had a link directly to a website one of the Chosen had created; ‘Systempedia’; which detailed what they knew, what they were doing, and how best to deal with things. There was an ETA on their project to ‘Upgrade’ the cell phone towers, and a mark of which ones already had been; with a warning that animals would be attracted to the enchantment, so if you wanted phones to work in your area… best defend the towers.
He saved as much as he could to the tablet, so that he could read it later; there was a database link for exactly that purpose, even android and apple apps… and then headed out to the car he’d be borrowing for the immediate future.
Maybe he’d taken out all the witnesses who saw him. Maybe he got the tapes; but maybe not. He didn’t really care if he had to kill everyone in the town, but doubted he could do it and get out alive; and if he died here, Nightfire wouldn’t be punished.
***
As he drove west, the first chapter of the tablet was playing like an audi-book, plugged into the lighter on the car to charge as it started on the basics.
~Everyone has a certain amount of mana in them; every living thing. Plant, animal, person, whatever. If it dies, things nearby absorb it… and get better at whatever they do. As the planet gets higher level, people start just absorbing it from the air. Not much, at first, when its only level 1. But in a month, the planet will be level 5; and people can just kick back and do nothing for a year and hit level 5, just breathing. After that, different parts of the world will start having higher concentrations, and things can get bad.~
Easy enough. He was already level 3. He’d be 5 soon enough, he was sure. The interstate was pretty dead; but undoubtedly he’d see some monster or the like he could handle, just driving by.
~What’s gonna get nasty fast are collective organisms, like ants, and bees. At first, the ants will kill other bugs; and its gonna make the whole nest bigger. This has happened to other worlds before, and places that didn’t evolve with magic usually end up the same way; in the first few days, they won’t be too big, and they’ll be killing other bugs. Then normal ants will be so big they start taking out livestock and kids… then they start taking out people. We’ll have momentary crisis at first from a rogue wolf, or badger. Maybe a lion, or some serial killer. But the true armageddon we have to deal with is the ants. If you’re hearing this message; kill every ant nest you fine, down to the queen. They’ll be easier to find, because they aren’t used to being so big. Kill them. Fast. They’ll kill each other, too; but that just means the resulting nests will have bigger, meaner, ants.~
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Huh. That was a problem. But potentially useful, if he had infinite ammo, and could just use an elevated position to harvest ants for levels…
~Just remember. You need to be close to what you kill to get mana from it, and level up. Fighter pilots, snipers… no good. We’re going to be using the abilities the magic grants to start rapidly escalating space development, so we can get a survivable population offworld, just in case. But if you do your part, and go crush an ant queen? We can make it through this.~
Thoughtful of them. Didn’t matter, for his purposes. He skipped to the next chapter.
~Your strength is a pretty basic one; it grows more as it goes higher, but think, at about a 4, you can pick up a hundred kilos, and at a ten, a five hundred.It sounds crazy… but its true. By the time you hit 20, you’ll be tossing cars around. If you swap races, The Orcs and the Minoans are the two with the most of it.~
Well. That was nice. He should swap races, just in case. Might help avoid any… entanglements.
~Endurance is how tough you are. Your average level 5 person has about a 15 on the galactic stage; which is enough that small arms won’t break your bones, but will break the skin. 20 will keep most pistol rounds out of you… and once you get past 30, you’ll need high-caliber rounds, or enchanted ones, to hurt them. If you see any level 20 monsters, don’t go after them with anything but enchanted weapons, or a tank. You need big guns~
The Hands of Death should handle that just fine. And he should be at 19 even if he stayed a human when he hit level 5… so bullet-resistant, not bullet-proof.
~Stamina is how long you can keep running, moving, staying in the fight. If you switch races, this is what you need to be careful of; we average about 15. Most people out there, closer to 5. When it comes to a drawn-out fight or a long pursuit, the other species are astounded at what we’re capable of. All of us set records in distance running at the Chosen academy. If you turn into an Orc, you can hit harder… but you’re gonna be out of the fight pretty damn fast by human standards.~
Well. He’d heard that part before. Nice to know humans were good at something.
~Agility and Mind are fairly interlinked. Agility is how well you control movements, and your instincts, while Mind is how fast you think. These two together make up your reflexes; and while they lag behind us in most respects, Elves have us beat in both of these. The Catfolk do, too, but don’t choose that race. It has complications you don’t want.~
So. An Elf would make for an ideal gunslinger. He should find out why the Catfolk were so maligned. Hopefully the database had an entry for that.
~Power is your ability to use mana-based powers and traits. We suck at that, to be simple, because our species didn’t evolve with the system. If you want to be a wielder of magic, swapping races is a good idea; but please.. We do want there to still be a human race. Think it through carefully before you switch.~
So a base of… 3… was what he had for Power. And that sucked? Good to know.
~If you’ve been looking at your Stats while listening, now you’re wondering about Skills, Abilities, Titles, and Boons. We’ll start off with titles. Chosen have been earning titles and the like from our training. Killing a bunch of creatures of a certain race? Title, usually something like Slayer. Actually makes your weapons and powers better at killing them. Come back from the brink of death a few times? Title, makes you harder to kill. Most of them require repeated application; very few are one-offs, and, I’m sorry, but the Committee has deliberately stacked the deck for us Chosen; of the 10,000 ‘First X of the planet’ titles, the overwhelming majority of all of them went to us. They all give a benefit, and there’ll be a guide to collecting them if you want.~
He blinked. Well now. That sounded useful. He bookmarked that spot… and skipped ahead.
~Many things give titles when done ten times. Almost die ten times? Harder to kill. The ‘Slayer’ title ranks up at ten, one hundred, a thousand, a million, and a billion; if you get Slayer V, you do triple damage to members of that species. You also earn credits for titles, though not many. You get similar titles for melee and ranged weapon attacks; though those are a higher threshold.~
He cut it off. Sounded like he needed to kill more humans, to make sure he got the titles, and benefits, for when he dealt with the Chosen. He could also focus on killing plenty of ants, get whatever the ranged weapon titles were; even if he did it from far enough away not to get energy from it, the simple fact that he still got a benefit was worth doing it. If he didn’t kill the queen, he could probably camp out at a nest, kill them for days.
He pulled off on the side of the road, thinking. How exactly would you find an ant nest, or any other monsters, in the deserts of west texas? Was he still in texas?
He stepped out of the car, stretching, and casually grabbed a protein bar out of the dimensional storage, looking around… and then blinked.
He had a whole grocery store delivery in that external storage. He could just grab a case of something he didn’t like… and dump it out as bait. Take out whatever showed up.
That would be just perfect.
***
He knew he could enter his storage space and look around. He also knew that it was the trailer once pulled by a Semi, bound for a grocery store. What he hadn’t remembered… was that it was laying on its side when he’d done it.
When he appeared inside the space, he fell face-first into a giant mess; there was a massive divider near the front of the vehicle, and on one side neatly packaged containers of ice-cream and frozen food were strapped in place; while the rest… piles of boxes all on one side, only with the objects he’d added stacked atop it.
He wondered, for a moment, if he could turn it upright… only for it to do so immediately, and abruptly cover himself with the giant pile of food… and for the moment, just lie there beneath it all. Wasn’t this supposed to be some sort of perfectly organized, magical thing?
He grumbled… and started sorting through it, case by case; most of them were actually fairly intact; and because the dimensional space only existed while he was interacting with it, fresh. The stuff that had been crushed by the flip… and by the re-flip… he simply pushed out, letting it pile up in the hill he had chosen to pile bait on.
By the time he had it organized, he still had a pile of partially crushed containers; and left them be, in case he needed more bait, later. He shook his head, glaring at it. This would’ve been very useful if he’d headed into the wilderness; just grabbing a gallon of orange juice any time he was thirsty, having steak right on hand to grill at a moment’s notice…
Ugh. Still. Could come in handy someday.
He emerged from the dimensional space, letting out a grunt as he slid down the pile of loose food, smacking into a rock at the bottom… and looked up… with a moment of shock.
He’d been hoping for ants. Expecting a monster of some description. What he got… was a raccoon the size of a polar bear… and its friends. They’d been inspecting the pile while he’d been dumping things onto it… and were now all staring at him… and as one, all four of the creatures let out an angry hiss.