In the half-light of a dream, Clover awoke, confused. Not of his own volition, his body stumbled down the cracked streets of Middleburg. All alone, surrounded by the burnt husks of cars and shattered windows, he panicked, fearing that he had been abducted by some new strange type of monster.
Similar to a ribcage, spikes of bone jutted out of the ground at odd angles, towering over buildings. Ravens - birds of a black feather roosted at the curved peaks of the pillars, intermittently flying between them.
After a moment, his panicked heart stilled, fear falling away in favor of curiosity.
Intellectually, he knew this was all a dream, but unlike what he usually saw while dreaming, a level of detail enwrapped the environment, almost identical to that of the real world, blurring the lines of wakefulness.
A thread of doubt followed him as his body continued to walk down the street.
The ground beneath his feet had a weight to it that he hadn’t felt in many years, and the crisp air of the setting sun kissed his skin.
Part of him wanted the scene to be real. It had been so long since he had been able to move freely under his own power that he was almost willing to throw aside logic and accept the apocalyptic dream as reality. Almost.
He attempted to wake himself, but, of course, his attempts failed. He had never been particularly adept at controlling his dreams. That hadn't changed now.
He continued forward, off to some unknown destination. It felt like he had been placed upon a train rail; in the dream, he had no control - no way of altering his course. With nothing else to do, he waited, observing the buildings as he passed them. He even recognized some of them. Of course, with the coming of the apocalypse, they looked different - their windows had shattered, and some of their brick facades had crumbled.
His body came to a stop in an open plaza, at its end, a tall brick clocktower had been teleported in at an odd angle by the System. The hands of the clock ticked forward, prompting a bell to ring - a distinct chiming noise.
He blinked, and suddenly, the sky had darkened, skipping hours into the future. Taken off guard by the sudden change, he struggled to regain his bearings as his body weaved through the center of a chaotic scene. Monsters - predominantly Bone Rats, though some had mutated so heavily that it was difficult to recognize them as such - warred against a mass of humanity in a brutal and chaotic melee.
To his left, a Golem made of bone tore through a man in a terrible spray of blood. His face was familiar, one he vaguely recognized from the factory.
He didn't have time to dwell on the matter. A hulking beast - a rat that looked like it had ingested an entire city's worth of steroids - charged at him. At Level 20, its movements were swift - hard to track.
The clock tower tolled, and time skipped forward once more.
In the dead of night, the violence continued, too widespread and disconnected to track or make sense of. He backpedaled, stumbling away.
Again, the clock tolled. Again, the scene skipped forward.
Without warning, an intense pain exploded in his chest as a hand covered in pitch-black crystal stabbed through it, piercing his spine and internal organs.
Clover screamed, the action not producing a single sound. Even though it was just a dream, the impact felt real - as painful as any injury he had ever sustained before.
He fell to the ground, unable to see who or what had struck him down. On his back, in a pool of blood, the clock tower consumed the entirety of his vision. A black haze encroached from the corners of his vision, pulling him down a tunnel that only led to death.
An inch from midnight, the hands of the clocktower pointed almost straight upward, jittering back and forth, refusing to tick over to the new day. The bell rang out repeatedly, each deep chiming sound louder than the next, slowly increasing in speed.
Clover’s heart stopped beating.
For a moment, an eternal darkness reigned, completely smothering his perception. Then, out of that still void, sounds and colors - snippets of what he would best describe as memories obscured by static surrounded him on all sides, playing simultaneously.
A gateway wreathed in obsidian. A grave in the forest covered in flowers. A wildfire burning beneath a full moon.
With each distant toll of the clocktower, the snippets increased in speed and intensity, soon flashing from one scene to the next too quickly to follow. It was as if someone had hit the fast-forward button on a TV a hundred, no, a thousand too many times. The speed increased further, quickly transforming into an overwhelming blur of sounds and colors.
Under the constant barrage of stimuli, his brain strained, turning to mush. Just as he thought he might lose his mind, the flashing images stopped, plunging him into darkness.
Only one scene remained, now playing at a more normal speed, though heavily distorted by static. In fact, it was so distorted that he couldn't see it - only hear it.
“Why did you do it?” a background chorus of whispered voices said repeatedly, an unending surge of noise.
From below him, an uncountable number of hands, some human, most of foreign alien designs, reached toward him, trying to pull him down into the darkness.
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A voice different from the rest spoke, "Was this…" Clover screamed as a red-scaled hand grabbed ahold of his leg.
Clover woke up in a cold sweat, a shooting pain lancing down his spine.
“Why did you do it?” Claire asked.
Clover flinched, turning to face her. “What?”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you were awake - you were mumbling something. Anyways, I was asking why you gave Mr. Cat a bowtie.”
Clover took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. The pain in his spine eased. "I thought it'd look cool," Clover said, his attention not on his words but rather the nightmare that he had been trapped in.
He wanted to write it off as just a dream, but he knew better. He had fallen asleep in the midst of a deep meditation; even when he had been awake, the mana around him had already begun to twist strangely.
Perhaps what he had seen had been a vision of the future or a magically induced hallucination. Whatever the case may have been, it deserved consideration.
He gulped. In the vision, he had died - stabbed through the chest. He still remembered the explosion of pain clearly.
He wasn't sure what exactly he had seen, but he knew for certain that if he ever saw a brick clock tower, he'd run in the opposite direction as fast as his chair could take him. And, he'd be doubly on the lookout for anyone with a hand covered in dark crystal.
Maybe once he’d raised [Lesser Golem Creation]’s Level a bit more and unlocked a few more slots, he’d create a suit of Golem armor.
Past that, there wasn’t much he could do other than hope it had been just a dream; knowing his luck, there wasn’t much of a chance of that happening.
Clover blinked his way back to reality, pushing the nightmare to the back of his mind; there was nothing he could do about it now.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Claire shrugged. “Not sure. The sun rose a couple minutes ago.”
Damn. By falling asleep, Clover had lost a lot of valuable time. He glanced at a series of System notifications that hovered in the corner of his eye.
Congratulations! Meditation has reached Level 18. +1 Skill Point.
Congratulations! Meditation has reached Level 19. +1 Skill Point.
Congratulations! Meditation has reached Level 20. +1 Skill Point.
Congratulations! Meditation has reached Level 21. +1 Skill Point.
“Did you hear screaming last night? Did something bad happen while I was asleep? Clover asked.
She nodded. "I didn't hear anything, but I've heard rumors." She gestured vaguely at the factory's occupants. Its population had markedly increased while he had been asleep. Even now, a near-constant stream of people filed into the building. "Apparently, last night, someone in the other Safe Zone lost their mind and attacked everyone while they were sleeping. I don't really know much more than that - it only happened an hour or two ago."
“That’s terrible,” Clover said. He had heard screams last night, but there was no way they were from the other Safe Zone - it was multiple miles away, and the timeline didn’t line up. Maybe, like the dream, it had been a hallucination.
“Good morning," Ron said, walking back to their small corner of the factory with food in hand. He distributed a share of it to Claire and Clover.
Clover nodded. “Thanks. Hopefully, the police can arrest him soon.” He paused. The police weren’t coming - law enforcement didn’t exist anymore. Unless someone decided to take the matter into their own hands, the perpetrator would remain free.
Ron sat down on the floor and took a bite out of his food. "I've asked around about it a bit. It's hard to get a straight answer; everyone's story is a bit different, but from what I've gathered, the guy was relatively normal before the System came around. According to the rumors, he used to be a veterinarian. However, when he hit Level 5 and accepted his upgraded Class - some sort of rare mage variant from the sounds of it - he snapped and started attacking everyone while mumbling madness. As of now, no one knows where he is - he escaped into the dead of night."
"We should be fine as long as we stay away from the other side of the city. There's no point in going over there anyway," Claire said.
"Speaking of the city, while you two were out exploring yesterday, did you happen to see a large brick clock tower?" Clover asked
They both shook their heads.
Clover let out a sigh of relief.
They ate their food, chatting lightly.
“So, when do you guys want to head out?” Ron asked.
"The earlier, the better," Claire said.
“I have a couple Skill Points to spend, but after that, I’ll be ready.“
A couple was quite the understatement when it came to his Skill Point reserve. Currently, he had 32 Skill Points saved up, a ridiculous amount.
First, he put 10 Skill Points into [Bones Break So They Can Mend]. If nothing else, he wanted to complete the Paths relating to his Golems first. He had enough Skill Points to where he didn’t have to agonize for hours of every decision.
In life, it is impossible to move forward without enduring damage. For some, these inevitable cracks and dents, accumulated over time, lead to their downfall, but for those that can adapt, each new challenge and strain only leads to greater strength.
Congratulations, as long as a recognizable piece of a broken Golem remains, it can be remade. Additionally, your Golems, as they strain their abilities and battle, can now absorb a small fraction of the energy released upon the death of a monster or enemy. Upon reaching a threshold of Experience, the Golem can evolve once it has been remade.
Clover grinned. The Path may not have given him a Skill, but it was more than worth the Skill Points he had put into it. Now, he didn’t have to be so overly concerned about his Golems being damaged in battle. As long as some sliver remained, he could rebuild them stronger.
Though, he wondered how big of a change the evolution would truly create and how much "Experience" was required. As usual, the System hadn't seen fit to provide that information.
He couldn’t bring himself to be too upset by the System’s vagueness, the Path, [Bones Break So They Can Mend] had massively expanded his potential.
Next, he excitedly browsed his available Paths for a moment. Last night, before he had fallen asleep, he had fulfilled [Meditation I]’s Quest requirement of going for an hour straight - it had only taken him almost losing his mind in a nightmarish vision of the future to do so.
Before committing to another expensive Path, he decided to invest 5 Points into [Meditation I].
A new screen appeared, prompting him to choose an Aspect.
Available: Durability (Minor), Ignition (Minor).
Recommended: Mana (Minor), Interior (Inferior), Dream (Inferior).
Clover pondered, wondering what Aspect he should select. With so many options - the three provided for free by the System and the two Aspects of his own - the choice wasn't clear.