Roman twisted his head around to find the source of John’s voice. Nothing that way--just the sparse woods along the edge of the parking lot. Maybe his mind was just twisted from everything that had happened, but that little patch of rural foliage looked a whole lot more sinister than it did before. Almost like a dark forest.
He tore his eyes away from the sight and looked across the parking lot. At least a dozen carrion golems stood scattered across the area. No sign of the official from before who had called his name--the one whose head turned into something terrifying that Roman’s mind shied away from. For a moment he thought he must have hallucinated the voice, then he noticed John’s familiar, lanky figure lounging in one of the chairs at their table some twenty feet away.
Roman definitely hadn’t overlooked him before; the man had just appeared in the blink of an eye. Even stranger, the voice had spoken right next to him, too close and intimate to have drifted over from the distant table. Hardly the strangest thing Roman had experienced that night, but it bode poorly for his friend.
Breathing heavily, he strolled in the direction of their table, trying his best to appear casual. The boost to his Charisma didn’t make the carrion golems’ presence any less disturbing. Blood dripped from his knuckles. His upper arms were relatively quite dry, so he wiped as much of the offal from his face as possible onto them.
As he passed a table, he snagged a stack of napkins and rubbed away at his skin with vigor. A nearby carrion golem stared at him with the one horrible eye that dominated its vestigial head.
“The fuck you looking at?” said Roman. He balled up a saturated napkin and threw it at the abomination, striking it in the eye.
The unblinking golem continued clapping its pincers with enthusiasm.
Maybe he should kill all of these bastards after all.
When he refocused his attention on John, the man was no longer sitting at their table. Instead he stood just a few paces away. Almost as tall as Roman, but much leaner, the kind of guy who didn’t look like he exercised until he took his shirt off. That same pinched, narrow face as always, buried in his thick beard. But there was something almost ethereal about him now. Not like some translucent spirit, but he gave off the impression of hollowness. Moonlight seemed to reflect off his silhouette at awkward angles.
“Well,” said Roman.
A hint of John’s lopsided grin broke through. “I’m to be your guide, old pal. Another reward for you surviving. All of the chosen who make it through the first trial get one.”
Roman looked up at the stars speckling the night sky. The constellations looked subtly wrong, but he sure as hell wasn’t an astronomer. His mind flitted about various superficial distractions, wondering about his node system, his class, what had happened to his family, anything but the question he wanted to ask.
John answered it anyways. “No, I don’t think I’m really John anymore. At least not the one you knew. I wasn’t one of the chosen, but you know, maybe this fate isn’t so bad after all. They’ve shown me worse things that lasted much, much longer than this.”
Roman hated the fact a smile spread across his face. It was an awful defensive mechanism of his whenever he felt incredibly awkward, one that had gotten him into a lot of trouble over the years. “Alright. You’re my cornerman, after all.”
“It feels like a long time since I saw you last, man.” John’s tone remained emotionless, but damn, it made Roman feel sad. “But yeah, I’m here to help you. First order of business, you need to get out of here. The system is giving everyone a five minute grace period after the first trial. Reciprocal malfeasance. Don’t mess with anything, and it won’t mess with you.”
To highlight the point, John pointed farther along the parking lot. A moment later, a shitty old Toyato Corolla peeled backwards out of its space, tires squealing. The tatted biker-wannabe was in the driver’s seat, half-standing as he looked back out of his window. No sign of his wife.
He may have been fine if he just drove off, but he intentionally backed into the closest carrion golem. The entire vehicle shuddered from the collision, fender crumpling inward, but the abomination only had so much mass behind it; it flew some ten feet into the air, flopping bonelessly. It attempted to land on its feet, but unable to support itself, it collapsed into a deformed heap.
Even more incredibly, the driver kicked his door open and emerged with a camouflage bolt-action rifle in hand. He sighted along the scope at the downed carrion golem, and a sharp retort cracked through the air. A fountain of organic matter blew out of its head, painting the asphalt.
The other carrion golems all stopped clapping at once. For a moment they focused on the biker, almost as if shocked, before charging forward in unison. The closest surged past Roman, and he wasn’t sure what to do. John remained silent, just watching the scene.
These abominations used to be people, but that guy was a person--even if he was an asshole. If Roman could become stronger through this system, then he probably could too. Even beyond saving someone else, it made sense to team up with another player.
Before the charging carrion golem completely passed him, Roman reached out and seized it by the shoulder. Its forward momentum and strength almost broke his grip for a moment, then Roman won out and the golem ground to a halt. He launched himself forward, snaking his other hand around its neck. Its tentacle arm lashed at his face, connecting with a force more disgusting than it was painful, but he had enough grip to lift its entire body into the air before slamming it into the ground.
“You can’t win like this,” John’s emotionless voice whispered in his ear. “There’s too many. Pick your level one path--it’ll help a ton.”
“One moment,” Roman grunted, soccer kicking the downed golem in the head.
Its neck snapped, but that wasn’t enough to finish the bastard off. Besides its tentacle arms, this one had had a much more even distribution of flesh than Oscar, giving it an almost normal physique. It fleshy face sported only a mouth like a lamprey’s, a circular cavern ringed with horn-like teeth.
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Disgusted, Roman stomped on its chest, shattering its sternum beneath his heel. The impact was jarring, but his increased endurance made it little more than a numb discomfort up his leg.
Another shot rang out as the tattooed driver fired into the incoming horde.
“Your initial decision isn’t set in stone,” continued John, “but it does influence some choices offered to you in the future. It’s not something you have to mull over for a year or anything. As your guide though, I think out of your options, you should go the Path of the Corrupted Monk.”
Roman seized one of the closest chairs, a cheap aluminum construction. He hefted it, judging its weight for a moment, and stared down at the squirming carrion golem. This one seemed to have no real combat training. Who was it before the transformation? He couldn’t really remember the faces of the audience in this section anymore. It was smaller than some of the others--a younger woman, perhaps?
He pinned it beneath his heel and stared down at its pulsating mouth. “Can they be turned back?”
John tilted his head to the side. “Technically, sure. But even for a stranger, the price would be way more than you can afford. Then, you’d have to pay to have their memories altered, or they’ll probably be insane from their experiences. If it’s someone you really, really want back, the system will take everything you have and more in exchange. There’s an obvious disincentive against just reversing the entire foundation of the Chaos Playground.”
Roman felt a bit nauseated. “Fuck, man.”
“Yeah.” John at least had the decency to sound a bit sad about it.
Roman smashed the chair against the golem with all his might. Again and again, until its aluminum frame crumpled into uselessness.
[ Heather Turner defeated. 350 experience awarded. Harvest organic core? ]
Panting, Roman tossed the chair aside. He tried not to look down at the carrion golem. Bile rose in the back of his throat. The system really was fucking with him, wasn’t it? It named the person behind the monster, something it hadn’t bothered to do with Oscar.
Tears prickled at his eyes, even though he felt curiously numb inside. Still, a bit of rage leaked through. The Watchers were laughing it up about this, weren’t they?
Another shot fired, then a shout. Eight of the carrion golems had almost reached the tattooed driver, who had half-managed to shove himself back into his running vehicle. The remaining three had turned back, focusing on Roman now that the system had deemed him a sufficient threat. Still, the others were more than enough to tear the man apart in the next few seconds.
Path of the Corrupted Monk, huh?
With a thought he pulled up his skills screen and considered the flood of text. He had five options to choose from, each with an individual explanation, but there was no time to carefully analyze them. He chose to trust his guide, even if John may be nothing more than a ghost of the system given a familiar face.
His immediate subconscious understanding of the path was that it focused on pugilist combat---barefist force enhanced with various esoteric techniques. That suited him just fine, for now.
[ Path of the Corrupted Monk selected. Through combat, we are enlightened; through reality, we are corrupted. +2 to all physical attributes. +3 to Will. ]
Four optional skills presented themselves. Roman growled to himself. Across the parking lot, the carrion golems had swarmed the tattooed man and dragged him out of his vehicle.
“[Flash Step],” recommended John’s voice in his ear.
He chose the skill without a second thought. Knowledge of its use flooded his mind within a moment, including imaginary videos of himself using it and its effects. His brain shuddered for a moment, and fresh blood trickled out his nose. Then the information stabilized, and he knew what to do.
He visualized where he wanted to be and activated the skill, taking a step forward that felt as if he was forcing his foot through a viscous barrier of gravity. When his heel touched the ground, the world blurred, and he found himself standing next to the tattooed man.
The full force of the wind resistance he had seemingly teleported through slapped him in the face all at once, hard enough to ripple his cheeks. He’d taken lighter hooks from heavyweights. The unfortunate downside of this ability, worsening the farther he went, but still incredibly useful. He was exactly where he wanted to be.
Unfortunately that meant he was surrounded by carrion golems. Three of them had pinned the tattooed man to the ground. One had what looked like organic scythe blades at the end of its arms, and had retracted one back to eviscerate the man.
Roman pivoted and slammed his fist into the head of the closest carrion golem. Now that he had chosen the Path of the Corrupted Monk, he could feel a strange energy behind his blow. Reality seemed to distort at the impact site for a moment before the sheer strength behind the punch sent the golem flying into the rest of the swarm.
Roman’s fractured forearm protested, but the golem had it far worse. Its head exploded into a cloud of gore, tinged with a sinister bronze energy. The gore shifted into various forms---plant seeds, motes of diamond dust, pebbles, tendrils of confetti--all mingling together and constantly shifting.
[ Jake Barnes defeated. 475 experience awarded. Harvest organic core? ]
The golem’s careening mass threw the others off balance, including the one with the scythe-arms. The tattooed man took advantage of the distraction to seize the bolt-action rifle that had fallen out of his grasp. Still on his back, in one smooth motion he lifted the gun at the scythe-armed golem and blasted a fist-sized hole through its head.
As devastating as Roman’s chaos-infused punch had been, the action had surprisingly drained quite a bit of energy from him, especially following [Flash Step]. His increased Will allowed him to blink away the sudden rush of fatigue, but his exhaustion was building faster than any stat increases could overcome. At least the fight against Oscar had been quick.
Roman shook his head, regaining his focus. The carrion golems had backed away for a second, almost like a crowd of normal folk confronted by a pair of lunatics. Ten of them remained, more than enough to overcome him if they came at once.
The tattooed man seized the opportunity to return to his feet. He shoved his way back into the driver’s seat of his car without a second glance at his savior.
Roman almost felt offended, but he couldn’t blame the man. He activated [Flash Step] once more, his heart thudding in his chest at the thought that it might not work quite how he thought it did. To his relief, he ended up on the other side of the crowd of golems without fusing with any of them or exploding. The slap of air wasn’t too harsh, either.
He had ended up in his intended location: right next to the car’s front passenger door. Before the tattooed man could drive off, Roman flung it open and threw himself into the vehicle.
The tattooed man looked startled at his entrance, reaching back for the rifle in the backseat. Seeing it was only Roman, a flicker of doubt passed across his face. Then the man nodded and slammed on the gas pedal.
The shitty old Corolla’s tires squealed for a moment, and the whole vehicle shook, but it still managed to take off in a cloud of exhaust. It picked up speed surprisingly fast as they shot forward across the bumpy parking lot.
Roman heaved a massive sigh of relief before adjusting himself into the passenger seat properly and slamming the door closed. After a moment of hesitation, he fastened his seatbelt and glanced over at the driver.
The tattooed man, incredulity written across his face, glanced back and forth between Roman and the windshield. Barely slowing, he took a sharp right onto the road, which appeared mercifully empty for a decent stretch. A benefit of being in the middle of bumfuck nowhere.
Finally, the man held out one hand and nodded. “Folk call me Birch.”
Aware that his face was probably still smeared with a foul mask of dried fluid, just like half of his body, Roman forced what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He grasped the hand and shook it firmly. “Roman Miller.”
“If we’re making introductions, I’m John Clark,” said a voice from the backseat. Either Birch didn’t hear, or he pretended not to.