Chapter 13

Slate

I limped my way back home without any further incident. Going over to the shed and dropping my gear, I went inside. I took one of my 5 gallon buckets, tied it to some rope and went over to the well. It was the work of a few minutes to get the cover off and then to lower the bucket down. A few moments after hearing the splash I slowly pulled it back up. Viola, Water. It was odd that something so obvious had slipped our minds. Granted water was not the only reason for the first exploratory trip to the neighbors, but it had been significant factor.

The first bucket quenched my thirst and a second was drawn to clean up with. I took off my work boots and discarded my dirty bloody boxers before giving myself a good scrubbing. Without soap or deodorant, my pits still stank, but it felt good to be clean. I did keep both eyes open for anything approaching across the lawn, but the open area around me felt relatively safe. My nightvision was working a lot better in the little natural light of the full moon then it had in the periwinkle. I could see clearly to the edge of the fields, and even past a bit in the grayscale. I kept my head on a swivel while finishing up and pulled up another bucket to take with me inside. Exhausted, I went down stairs headed for bed.

The point spent in Mind must be paying off because prior to lying down I went back up and snagged my gear from outside. I also prepared for the unexpected by loading up my pack with a full canteen of water and a couple of days’ worth of food. Even with the locked and barred doors, the weapons stayed nearby as I slept.

I woke up tired and took care of my morning ablutions. Grabbing a snack, I went upstairs wearing gym shorts and sneakers while carrying my pitchfork. Bright streams of sunlight pushing through cracks in the boarded up windows illuminated the house. Excited, I ran outside to see a sky so big it might as well be in Montana. It was bright blue and there were no clouds in sight. That damned periwinkle was finally gone. If not for the unusual quiet that seemed to be the natural state of the world without the noises of civilization, I might have thought the last two months were only a nightmare. My favorite rocking chair was dragged off the porch and into the sunlight. Pushing back and forth, I luxuriated and simply enjoyed the morning.

I would have liked to close my eyes and taken a nap in the sunshine, but fucking mutant rats could be anywhere. There was still a peace to be found, a balance, between vigilance and relaxation in the yard. Sitting there thinking, I could notice the small changes to my mind. I entered a light trance and continued to heal my injuries using Ki while I did a mental tally of my resources. The bunker was livable as long as the food lasted now that there was such a blatantly obvious source of potable water.

Today was set aside for fun though. I was just going to relax and put the scavenging on hold. It would be a couple weeks before I started feeling the pressure of an emptying supply room anyways.  I only lasted an hour before getting bored and deciding that instead of having a lazy day, I was going to figure out how to jump eight feet into the air again. The Ki had gathered in my legs and propelled me to superhuman heights. I needed to learn to do that intentionally and on demand. It could be the key to defeating my foes or to running away from them.  

Feeling my injuries healing well from the morning of meditation, it was time to try to utilize the energy intentionally for something else. I snagged my fork and took off running around the yard. Yup, cool kids call pitchforks forks when they want to save a syllable. Alternating jogging with sprinting, I tried to force the power to activate with the occasional leap. If I could get badass with a spear and improve my jumping maybe there was some sort of Dragoon class to unlock, if this game had classes anyways. Probably not, classes would require the game to give me information, and that didn’t seem to be happening. Hell I don’t even know if I have the ability to gain more skills.

I came out of my distracting thoughts to notice that my pace was incredibly fast. I must have been doing around 25 mph. The energy could be felt seeping into my legs, making them push harder and thus moving me faster. Like catching something out of the corner of your eye, as soon as I paid attention the feeling vanished and the jog resumed a more normal pace. Well normal for a big guy in absolutely amazing shape. Hell, I was not even breathing that hard. It was as if my body was far more efficient and could go harder than it should be able to. If I could run that fast consistently it would be a huge advantage. More importantly it would allow me to run away from monsters too strong to fight.

I stopped running after thirty more minutes and still felt good. I never recaptured the speed or feeling of Ki moving into my legs, but my mind recognized that it was only a matter of practice makes perfect. I decided to try combining my meditation with some yoga to find an alert state where I could access my energy from. The combination of meditating while exercising could teach me how to access the power. Going through the poses in the front yard, I made an effort to pay attention to my surroundings while focusing on my breathing. I continued for about an hour, never quite accessing my core, but I felt it moving with me, like it was slightly expanding and retracting with each breath.

I went down stairs, made lunch and went back to the rocking chair. After a short mental debate about setting up a target and working on my archery, I decided it wasn’t worth the risk that I might damage any of my few shafts. For all intents and purposes, I needed better and more durable weapons. A better way to carry them would be nice as well. Changing weapons and storing them was never an issue in video games. You simply clicked a button. In the real world, to transition from my bow to my fork I would have to drop the bow and risk damaging it or lose precious seconds setting it down. Then I would have to pick up the dropped fork, or pull it out of whatever kind of sheath I manage to build for it, slowing me down even more.  Just dropping the one I was not going to use was not a viable long term solution. If either was to break I would be unable to replace it.

 Keeping an enemy out of biting range was a huge advantage, so my plan for exploring was to walk around with the bow out and an arrow knocked at all times. The problem was that with an effective range of 30-50 yards I would only get one shot off. If the arrow missed, any reasonable quick opponent would be on me in seconds. It would probably take me the same few moments to drop the bow and start to transition to another weapon. I doubt I could do it in time to have the second weapon ready prior to the monster, or any attacker really, arriving to chew me up.

Following the same concept, a sword of some sort with the respective sheath would make the weapon swap easier. I could probably drop the bow and pull it in time to face a charge. Of course a sword had a whole slew of other issues. With the pitchfork I had been able to just hold it steady and allow the beasts to impale themselves. With a sword I would be swinging something unfamiliar at a moving target, a far more difficult task.

Still feeling energetic after the yoga session, I went through my prison style workout, throwing in some pull ups from one of tree limbs nearby. Even after all the physical activity earlier, I was able to push myself for another hour before feeling exhausted. Though I had only been on lock down for short time in the basement, I doubt any inmate had been this fit. The two points in Body were making all the difference.

Thinking of it, I wondered how I got my bonus points. I was not a genius, but still maintained a 3.5 GPA in high school without even trying. I have never taken an IQ test so did not know where on the bell curve I fell, I always assumed it would be the very top half of normal. Comparatively, I had always been strong prior to the change, but in recent years I had gone soft. Mostly just hard at work, letting the labors of my construction job keep me in decent shape. So If the game gave points based on your starting talents, then Mind should have had at least as many starting points in Body. The point in Ki was the only one that made any sense. Although I was not an expert, I was far above a beginner and I had been using it a lot recently.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

                I am not sure if I’ll ever find out what the starting points meant.  

I had recovered a little and decided to finish my work out with a set of jump squats. The energy wanted to be used, I just could not figure out how to do it. Shortly later my jump squats went from twelve inches to four feet off the ground. After noticing, I was able to repeat the enhanced jumps a few more before losing the feeling. 

The key seems to be focusing on it without intensity. It did not make sense and I would not understand it myself if I did not have the Ki to guide me along. It was like being fully aware of something, without concentrating on it. Like focusing on something in the corner of your eye but never directly looking at it. It was something that I couldn’t quite put into words, but was learning how to do anyways.

My injuries constantly complained while I exercised, but did not cause significant distress. I couldn’t completely ignore them either. My grip failed while doing pull ups and there was a noticeable limp to my stride, but I persevered through the pain. I thought of it as an attempt at mental conditioning. I was hardening myself to the pain, because there were more battle wounds in my future.

I took a break by walking laps around the edge of the yard and looking for any signs of life. The fork was a reassuring weight in my hand and I decided to practice using it. I did not expect myself to be able to wield a pitchfork like a martial artist would a spear, but thought I should be able to at least stab something and keep my balance while doing so. Setting my feet in a bladed stance like taught in the police academy, I tried a few stabs, imaginary blocks. Even with no one watching, my closet nerd cringed at me dancing around with a pretend spear like I was giving a demonstration at a LARP festival. To counter this I started goofing around yelling “Keeyaa!” and the like every once in a while to lighten my mood. 

The fooling around was productive though. I figured out that the bladed stance may be good for reacting to close aggression and even maybe some boxing, but it did not fit stabbing with a spear. I ended up standing with my feet even to my shoulders and my body sideways at my target area. Lunging from this position felt far more natural and a twisted of the torso seemed to add more power to the thrust. It seemed to also allow me to retreat and approach targets in relative balance. I had so much fun with it that I ended up spending most of the afternoon playing with my shaft.

 Speaking of shafts, I had been a long time in male company and with no privacy for most of it. So don’t judge me for being so happy with the world going back to almost normal that I got a little happy with myself later that night. I really hoped some women survived the change. It would be my luck that the only ones that did were mutated into those nasty looking zombies. Of course, that would make it easy to get my dick into their mouths, but getting it back would be a whole another issue.

****

The next day I started out with strict meditation in the sunlit bunker, followed by some peaceful yoga on the lawn. Even though I spent about half of my Ki healing my injured muscles, they looked like they would need another day or two to fully re-grow. Still I felt great. The sun shining above did wonders for my mood. It was another no shirt day. Sun’s out, guns out after all and I was still wearing the shorts and sneakers from yesterday. I checked myself out in a mirror this morning and changes since the game started are tremendous. My barrel shaped torso never tended to have sculpted abs even when I was young and skinny, and my pot belly at the beginning of this had been impressive.

Right now, I was freaking jacked. If I could find a spandex unitard, I could do a fair impression of a comic book superhero. Leaning out had caused the spare tire around my waist to disappear. Curious as to how many pounds had been lost on the apocalypse diet; I walked inside and stood on the scale. Well that doesn’t look right. It said I was still weighing 270 lbs. With the amount of mass lost I should be weighing far less, probably around 240 or so. I knew that fat had five times the volume of muscle, but that was absurd.

After eating some breakfast I decided to spend the next week hanging around the yard. I was due for a nice training montage anyways. I needed to get a handle on Ki and test the limits of my improved Body, so I developed a routine similar to the exercise the day before. I also trained with a sledge hammer and a large pipe, simulating using them as weapons.  I did not intend to bring them with me, but a club would be easy to find anywhere. It would also get me used to swinging an object like a sword. I wanted to be prepared in case I did eventually find one. Mostly though, the work was for the balance, foot work and exercise anyways.

I began working on a tentative plan for the future as well. For my peace of mind, I needed to go to Jessica’s apartment complex to find out if she still alive. I do not think she could have survived in the middle of a population center, like where she lived in Cincinnati, but I had to know for sure. She deserved to be buried at the very least. There were also some possible upgrades for my weapons on the way there. The specialty sword store near the Riverside Center Antique Mall was only a small detour out of the way.

 I had passed it by a few times but never actually gone inside. Hopefully it had some of the functional replica weapons inside because some of those stores just sold display stuff that wouldn’t last in real combat. It was my best bet for obtaining medieval style weapons for this new world though, unless I wanted to try for another crossbow. Thinking of it, it wasn’t a bad idea grab one of those too from a sporting goods store. Maybe restock my arrows as well. Upgrading my melee weapon would be first up though, because I had no confidence in my ability to be a ranged character.

*****

The following week was nothing but more sunshine and clear skies. I even got a bit of a tan. Working out and playing with my Ki was so much fun that time flew by. It was still a bit lonely though. I probably could have gone an entire month without feeling the urge to speak with another human being if the world was still normal. Now that the option was gone, I missed it. Weird right? The week had been productive though. I still haven’t figured out how to get my Ki to work in my arms yet, but I was getting pretty good at using the energy for running and jumping.

The Ki could be drawn at will now. It was still working like a resource in a RPG, but I seem to be increasing the rate at which it refills with practice. I only have a few tricks with it so far. The first is reinforcing my legs to run faster. A slow steady Ki burn allowed me run at extreme speeds for 5 minutes or so. The second trick is I could do some serious powered jumping. I could leap 8-10 feet in the air about two dozen times or so before running out of gas. Although there were not many obstacles to hop over around the yard, I had a feeling I would be a pretty big badass at parkour with a little time and practice in the city. My sense of balance has vastly improved over the week and I have no problems landing from one of my leaps. Both tricks should enable me to escape from most situations and greatly enhanced my survivability.

I had one final trick, a powered lunge. Just like it sounds, I can power my legs to lunge a dozen feet in an instant while jabbing with my spear. This one does not take much energy at all but would be of limited use. My pitchfork was just not sturdy enough to handle me stabbing too many things at that speed. As long as they were small enough, like the rats I should be fine. But I don’t know if the wooden shaft could handle me impacting something much larger.

Refilling the Ki was still a slow process, and it seems to refill itself naturally over the course of about twelve hours. I am getting better at speeding up the refueling process, but forcing it is as much effort as running a marathon. Well, it’s like running a marathon used to be. As I am now, cranking one out should be fairly easy. Sucking in energy from the world completely exhausted me after only an hour or two, but an hour after that my body has recovered from the effort. If I force it, I could recover my Ki over the course of 6 hours and would take two exhausting cycles.

All the practice has widened the pathways in my body as well. The wider the pathways get, the faster I can pull in energy. But widening them is so infinitesimally slow that progress in it seems to be a distant dream.

The training had leaned me down to 260 pounds and I felt powerful. Even on my limited rations my personal energy level is through the roof. It’s going to be tough in the future just lying around, because I now feel like always moving, training, or being physically active. It was also feeling like it was time to move on, to keep advancing and taking small steps towards my goals.

The point in Mind made a difference in my week of training as well. My thought processing speed has sped up and memories seem clearer. My ability to learn, even if it is only learning balance or stabbing with a pitchfork, seems to have improved. The point seemed to have also had an effect on my mental health. I looked back at some of my past mistakes with positive criticism rather throwing the normal pity party. My slightly improved mind did not fix my all mental issues though. My thoughts seemed as all over the place as normal, but it did focus me, like an ADHD kid on Ritalin.

It was time to go back, find John and bury him like he deserves. Hopefully he was not on his own too long and wild animals had gotten to his body, but after near two weeks the corpse has to be in pretty bad shape. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take care of it. While out I would also try to secure some supplies for my base and maybe scavenge a few useful items.

                Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and find some old school porn magazines stashed under someone’s bed. I may be a bit of a dreamer, but hey, it could happen.