“Everyone get ready to go!” Emily shouted to the room. “We are headed to the Pillar now!”

Not everyone had access to their senses yet, so they would just have to trust hers. The twenty people in the room scrambled into action. They picked up weapons and large bags filled with supplies.

“Eduardo grab Jessica!” She shouted and pointed to the sleeping woman. The man did an abrupt U-turn and picked up the woman in a fireman's carry. Eduardo didn’t have abilities yet so he would be the perfect candidate to have holding another person they needed to protect. Although he may be one of the weakest people here due to the lack of stats…oh well, they’d figure something out on the way.

Emily ran out the glass door and got her first look at the abomination. The walking tree looked slightly humanoid. Its trunk had split into two distinct legs and it had grown a nightmarish face just below the first of many branches. The branches swayed unnaturally as the monster took another thumping step toward her.

How the hell are we supposed to fight a walking tree? She thought to herself.

“Your arrows probably won't be as effective against that thing,” Strai’Ze added unhelpfully.

Maybe they could knock it down somehow, but that would take getting far too close for comfort. It moved slow enough that they could probably outpace it. Getting to the Pillar would be their best bet. Hopefully that would also give them strength in numbers if it kept chasing after them.

“What’s going on?” One of the soldier’s demanded from the doorway. Officer McLaughlin was technically the man in charge at the moment. Emily had helped save him earlier that day. He had seen the worst of the first hours. By the time Emily and Eduardo had arrived at their HQ he had locked himself in the bathroom and was trapped by a soldier turned monster.

Emily’s high level and level headedness had caused the younger man to look to her for answers to most situations. That was okay with her, things needed to get done and she had the abilities to do them.

“We have a tree monster headed our way!” She shouted loud enough for everyone inside to hear. “Get everyone out and move to the Pillar. Outrunning it is our best bet for now.”

Officer McLaughlin glanced the way she pointed and his willingness to resist died away. “Move, move, move!” he called out and began ushering everyone out. The building cleared quickly. Luckily, everyone was already hyper aware and taking the situation seriously. “Everyone who can help fight a tree stays near the rear of the group. Move to the front if you're injured or helping someone who’s injured. If monsters attack the front then drop the injured and fight. Those protecting in the rear will have to be ready to help the injured if that happens.”

Emily was glad that the man was a quick thinker. She wouldn’t have thought that through nearly as well as he had. Her job, as the highest leveled and strongest person would be to fight the big, root footed tree monster.

“Woo hoo for you!” Strai’Ze said sarcastically.

She joined the group at the rear and watched as the hulking monster stepped right on her blue SUV with a loud crunch.

“Oh come on!” Emily shouted at it.

She hadn’t thought about using the car since the Myst arrived, but still, it was sad to see it get crumpled.

I wonder if our car insurance would cover that, she thought as she kept up with the group. It was technically crushed by a falling tree limb. Oh wait, insurance doesn’t cover the end of the world. And money isn’t useful anymore.

The crumbled vehicle was parked right next to the office building. The tree took another lumbering step and it moved five meters closer. She turned and noticed the group had moved quite a bit faster than that. They had escaped fast enough.

The front of their twenty-one person group had already reached the next closest apartment building and the rear was quickly catching up. The tree was still moving straight toward them. They should be able to outpace it so long as they move at the same pace.

“Remember to spread out your senses,” Emily called out the reminder. “Call out any monster you see or feel.”

“That’s right,” McLaughlin took over. “We need to kill anything we face as fast as possible. We can only do that if we stay aware and are communicating.”

Emily watched as the tree's next step landed right on the fire hydrant outside the office building. Water spurted up into the roots of the monster's stumpy foot. It reeled back and let out a strange shriek. The noise was surprisingly high pitched and shrill.

The delay helped the group create more distance. Within a couple minutes they had made their way out of the apartment complex and onto the road leading to the Pillar. Only three blocks left. It didn’t seem like much, but a five minute walk through monster infested anything brought anxiety levels pretty high. The worst part was all the foliage that covered the sides of the street.

The apartment complex was much more barren of life than here. It wasn’t quite like being in a forest, but there were weed filled ditches on one side and tree filled yards on the other.

Does every blade of grass have a chance of becoming a monster? She wondered.

“Yes, technically,” Strai’Ze answered. “Each blade of grass gained a spore, but that doesn’t mean they have the energy to turn into what you would call a monster. If it doesn’t crawl out of the ground and start chasing you would you really classify it as a monster? What if it just gains the ability to grow three times as fast. Or if it can just better fight the rest of the grass to get water and sunlight. Even if it changes to the point you wouldn’t call it grass, doesn’t mean you would immediately call it a monster.

“The System also wouldn’t call them a monster, so you generally don’t have to worry about things like that. Otherwise we would have to worry about every single-celled organism that got a spore and every one of the bacteria in your mouth.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

That thought stopped Emily in her tracks for a moment, she hadn’t though about all living things getting a spore. Would all the algae in the ocean suddenly change its behavior?

“The main thing is that spores connect to the spirit of a creature. The spirit has to be sufficiently strong to really do much. It’s true that every organism could suddenly start acting differently, but not so differently that they stop being what they are. At least not the majority of th–”

“Monsters on the left!”

The warning brought Emily out of her internal dialogue–which had a whole new meaning now–and she spread her sense out looking for the monsters.

Suddenly a window on the house at the end of the block burst open. A figure that was clearly once human ran toward the group. Gunshots rang out and the monster fell before it even reached the street. The monster began to dissolve and move in a stream toward Corporal Watkins. Even with one leg the man was quick to act. That was good. He needed to level up to have a chance to survive.

Emily glanced back and saw the tree had just exited the complex. They were not out of the woods yet.

“When were you in the woods?” Strai’Ze said, “I’m still trying to understand some of your idioms. Was that just a tree pun? Or do you really think these few trees in the yard count as ‘the woods’?”

“Now is really not the time, Strai’Ze.” She said aloud, causing several of the group to turn toward her.

Seeing someone talk to themselves still raised red flags even if everyone knew that they all literally had an extra voice in their head now. Her appearance didn’t help things either. A few of the others had made some changes, but nothing quite as extensive as hers. Glowing freckles and a ghostly tail was definitely the most bizarre change among the non-monster humans–apart from the still unconscious Jessica.

Of course most of their group still had little or no access to the mystical side of the System. That was part of the reason making it to the Pillar was so necessary. She didn't know what to expect the system pillar to do for them, but having help at least seemed helpful.

A loud yapping sound drew her attention to a side street. A golden retriever was running toward their group.

Emily reached out with her senses to see–

A loud gunshot sounded. There was a spark on the pavement right behind the golden retriever and the dog faltered in its steps.

"Stop!" Yelled Emily. "It's not a monster! Reach out with your senses. It feels normal."

Officer McLaughlin kept his gun trained on the poor dog, ready for anything. Emily looked back toward the tree to see how much time they had. It was a little over a block away. They should have time to help the dog.

"Come here, pup," Emily called to the dog. The dog hesitated for a moment. It seemed intelligent enough to recognize it had been attacked. A moment later the confusion left its eyes and it quickly bounded toward her.

The crowd spoke up with some of the happiest voices she had heard from them yet.

"Good puppy!"

"Aw what a sweet boy!"

"Come here, it's okay!"

The depth of emotional relief in the voices nearly brought tears to her eyes. This was a glimmer of hope in an awful situation.

"Keep moving," called out the officer as the dog drew near. "We can move and save pups all at the same time."

A loud thump from the tree monster behind them accentuating his point.

The group started moving and Emily kept her senses focused on the dog. She felt for its spirit as it ran up and interwove itself between the group's legs. It received a plethora of head pats and back rubs.

Something felt slightly off about the dogs spirit, but she definitely didn't feel like it was a threat of any sort. It just seemed more there than the spirits of the trees and grass around her.

Eventually the golden pup made its way back to her and she scratched it behind its ears. "Glad to have you with us," she said. “What’s your name? What the–”

To Emily’s surprise a character screen popped into her vision.

Name: Maverick Eopu

Titles: Good Boy

Renown: Tier 0

Merit Points: 0

Myst Connections:

Protect Low Mastery

Abilities:

Healing Lick Low Mastery

Stats: Level 3

Body: Tier 1

Strength: 2

Dexterity: 2

Vitality: 2

Mind Tier 1

Cognition: 3

Processing: 2

Imagination: 1

Spirit Tier 1

Might: 1

Sense: 3

*Depth: 2

Available Points: 0

“I was able to request Maverick’s character screen from Eopu,” Strai’Ze informed her. “It looks like he was fused with a sapient spore as well.”

“Wait, does that mean he can understand me?” She looked down at Maverick looking for any signs of recognition.

“Not necessarily. Based on your memory about dogs I don’t think they know your language enough to fully understand. He probably knows some basic words he already built recognition for, but he still will need to learn the language first.”

“Huh,” Emily guessed that made sense, at least as much as everything else did right now.

A loud crash sounded from behind them as the tree stepped on a sedan. Luckily, they had already arrived at the Pillar.