The first leg of the trip was largely uneventful. We walked through several patches of farm land growing various crops. A fair number of crops, especially crops such as wheat or hay that had already been cut and left to dry, had been devastated by fires. Crops such as corn or milo that were still green on the stock had significantly less damage. With all the fires, the atmosphere was choked with smoke and ash making breathing a bit difficult. However, with the increased constitution, it was easily manageable. Far easier than running in the woods of North Carolina in one-hundred percent humidity while control burns were taking place.
When we came to a back road, we crossed it carefully, looking for anyone or anything traveling the roadway. We gave a wide berth to any farm houses we ran across, whether they were burning or not. We did not want to be shot by panicked farmers with shotguns. And honestly, We wanted to get home to our own families instead of trying to look for survivors. It may have been selfish, but we each had our priorities. Sorry, not sorry. At one point we came across a large irrigation canal and had no choice but to follow it until we found a road that bridged the canal.
While we walked along the canal, Dan noticed something moving in the water. It looked like a fish but was larger than normally found in these canals. Most of these canals hold catfish and striped bass. The biggest striped bass I’ve ever caught out of one of these canals was about twenty-six inches long. As we watched the water, a large striped bass crested the water. The size of which was easily double my largest previously caught fish. This amazed us, as that size of striped bass was only found in the deepest parts of the large reservoir, some sixty miles southwest of here.
“Holly shit did you see that?" I gasped. “I’ve only seen stripers that big in pictures. Do you think that was pushed out of the reservoir and into the canals by the electrical storm?" I asked.
“Who knows?" Dan stated. “I only wish I had my fishing rods with me and we’d have dinner for a week with that one.”
“Yeah, no kidding," Frank agreed.
“Didn’t you have a pole in your truck?" I asked.
"Yeah, but I didn't think about grabbing it. I hadn’t planned on fishing for dinner while walking home. Besides, I have 30 more fishing poles at home if need be,” Dan said laughing, as both Frank and I agreed.
The three of us could open a bait and tackle store with the amount of fishing gear we had combined. That was one thing that always kept things fun while working with this group. When we were a long distance away from home, it was easier to spend a couple of days at the job site rather than coming home every night. We would grab our fishing gear and bring it with us. We would go fishing every night after work if we could. Our fourth co-worker, who wasn’t at work today, went fishing with us too. However, he was more of a drinker and often stayed at the site or hotel room and drank a thirty-pack of beer. I was actually happy he hadn’t come to work today. I didn’t relish the idea of looking after another person going through alcohol withdrawal while trying to get home to my wife and kids.
We walked for three and a half hours. I guessed we had maybe another hour, at the most, before the sun went down and we’d be hiking in the dark. “It’s getting late,” I said. “Do you guys want to keep moving or should we try and find a place to bed down for the night and eat something? If we bed down, we'll have to find a place to make a shelter and possibly find wood for a fire.” Frank, who was looking sickly, stated he would rather find a place to rest. “What’s wrong Frank?" I asked. "You don’t look like you’re feeling too good.”
“I think I’m crashing a bit. Maybe it’s my diabetes,” Frank said. I started to pull mana from my core and into my hands and hit Frank with a heal. “How’s that? Any better?" I asked.
“Yeah, that’s a bit better, but I still don’t feel completely better," Frank replied.
“Maybe my heal spell only heals physical damage and doesn’t heal things related to diseases.” I said. There’s a copse of trees over there. Looks like it's about a mile away. We should stop there for the night. "Frank, do you have any of your meds in your bag?”
“No,” Frank replied.
“Okay,” I said. “While we’re headed to those trees, everyone keep a lookout for any dandelions. If I remember correctly, dandelion tea can help lower blood sugar if we can get enough.”
Fortunately for Frank, we found a decent handful of the plants along the way. We reached the trees and were glad to find they were a mix of trees including a large portion of them being pine trees. This has several benefits. The fallen pine needles would make for great ground cover and provide adequate kindling for a fire. But also, green pine needles are good for boiling in water. This made a tasty pine tea that was an excellent source of vitamin C. This would do well with the dandelions and hopefully help Frank out even more.
“I know we haven’t had a chance to look over our status screens in depth, but does anyone have the alchemy skill?" I asked. Neither of them had that particular skill, nor the herbalism skill. This made sense to me, as I was a survivalist and had taken classes and had some experience with edibles in the wild. When everything started, the prompt stated it was tallying experience and training. It seems the “system” or whatever it was, translated my training into a usable skill. “Okay, no problem ”I stated. “You guys can start cutting down a couple smaller trees for poles to make a lean-to for us to sleep in tonight, and I will work on gathering wood and making a fire pit to simmer the tea for Frank.”
With that, we all got to work. I took out my entrenching tool, known as an E-tool in the military and started digging a hole. It was about a foot wide and a foot and a half deep. I used the claw end of my hammer on some of the harder spots and finished the hole rather quickly. Then I used the hammer and a sharpened stick to dig a vent hole at an angle to the pit for ventilation and air intake. This is commonly known as a Dakota fire pit. It serves two purposes. It focused heat at the top of the hole making cooking faster. It also kept the fire light below ground level, not giving away our position at night. This latter part was especially important in my mind. Who knew what kind of people we’d meet out here or what kind of dangerous animals we’d run into?
I finished the fire pit and set out to make the fire. I gathered dry sticks from around the area. Using my ferrocerium rod and some dried pine needles, I started a small fire and pushed it into the pit. As the fire grew, I added more sticks to build it up. When the fire was ready, I grabbed my pack and pulled out a twenty-ounce stainless steel cooking cup. It had a collapsible handle and lid. I placed the cup on a flat rock I had dug into the edge of the pit. I placed the dandelion leaves and green pine needles in the cup and filled it with water. Once the tea was simmering, I assisted the other two to build the shelter we planned on using for the night.
Using a couple lengths of cut parachute cord, otherwise known as 550 cord, from my ruck, we tied a long straight branch from one tree to another. This created a ridge beam. We tied off one of the canvas drop cloths to the ridge beam; and using improvised wooden stakes, we staked the canvas at a forty-five degree angle from the ridge beam. This created a lean-to in front of the fire pit. We swept up dried pine needles into the shelter and covered them with the other canvas tarp making a somewhat comfy sleeping area. When all was said and done, we sat down by the fire and began to eat our sandwiches and chips from the lunch we failed to eat that day. Within about a half an hour or so, the dandelion pine needle tea looked about ready so I pulled it away from the fire and let it cool a bit. I slowly drained the tea into an empty bottle and gave it to Frank to drink. He drank the tea, which he said wasn’t that terrible. In about another half an hour or so, Frank looked like he felt much better. After making tea for Frank, I noticed that same blinking light at the bottom of my vision. Focusing on it, I brought up the status screen. It read:
“Congratulations: you have created Minor Medicinal Tea. This tea will aid the recovery of minor illnesses and ailments, and will recover 10 points of health. Alchemy increased to beginner 5, Herbalism increased to beginner 5. You now have an 80% chance at creating potions and a 10% critical success chance at creating a draught. minor EXP gained”
"Sweet!" I exclaimed. “I got a couple of skill increases for making that tea and got some experience”. It said I had created a Minor Medicinal Tea. Looks like we may have found a way to combat diabetes and other illnesses. Which is great considering I don’t think it’s going to be very easy getting diabetes meds anymore. Hell, painkillers and antibiotics are going to be out of the question here soon, I imagine.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Yeah, no kidding, Frank said. With everything happening so fast and focusing on just getting home, I didn’t even think of that. It’s good that you were a prepper and a survivalist before this happened.”
“Yeah, I laughed. Everyone wants to make fun of the survivalist until it’s time to do some survivalist shit. I just hope it’s enough to help us all last through whatever this is.”
As we discussed the day’s events, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. As I turned towards the movement, I noticed a large animal in one of the trees a few paces away. “What the hell is that?" I asked. It was difficult to make out in the gloom of dusk as night settled in.
“It looks like a gray squirrel,” Dan stated.
“No way, Frank said. That’s the size of a house cat.”
“Well if it is a squirrel," I said. I think I might be able to trap it. How do you guys feel about squirrel for breakfast?” Both Dan and Frank looked put off by the concept of eating squirrels for any meal. “Hey look, I replied, normally I wouldn’t bother but this is a survival situation. Any source of protein we can gain without digging into our food stores is good by me. And, as a matter of fact, I have the perfect thing for it.”
In my rucksack, among my survival equipment, I always carry two rat traps and a tube of peanut butter from the MRE’s. These weren’t just any rat traps either. I found them in a building in Iraq. They were large metal traps with sharp teeth along the bottom and along the bar that snapped shut when activated. I always joked that they were my “bear rat traps”. It looked like in this situation, that’s exactly what I was going to be trapping. I grabbed the traps out of my ruck and walked closer to the edge of the tree line. I didn’t want to place the traps too close to the camp as it would scare off the squirrels. I had modified these traps by taking apart the springs and giving them an extra turn, making them snap even faster and harder. I drilled a hole in each trap and affixed them with “550 cord.” The cord allowed me to secure them to the branch without losing them. I found two trees that looked perfect and tied the traps to the lower branches. I set each trap and baited them with dabs of peanut butter, knowing squirrels couldn’t resist it. Once they were set, I returned to the camp and sat by the fire.
“You know, this makes me worry a bit,” I said.
“What does?" Frank asked.
“The size of that squirrel," I responded. And the size of that fish earlier. The description of my “tame animal” spell mentioned “canine hybrids.” If that is a squirrel, it's far larger than a squirrel has any right to be. What if all the animals on our planet get bigger? And more importantly, are they going to start mutating? I mean, what does canine hybrid even mean anyway? Is there going to be some kind of crossbreed between a dog and that squirrel suddenly? Are we going to have large dogs that can climb and jump from tree to tree like squirrels can?”
“That’s impossible,” Frank said.
“Is it,” I responded. Before today I would have agreed, but now, who knows?”
“There’s no way a dog can mate with a squirrel,” Dan answered. The size difference alone would make that impossible.”
“Okay, tell me this then,” I continued. How is there a cross breed between a German Shepherd and a Chihuahua? My wife always told me that size didn’t matter. I just thought it was something to make me less self-conscious,” I said, laughing at my own self-deprecating joke.
“Speaking of all these changes, I asked. Do either of you have any spells in your status screens that we can use?” Both answered in the negative.
"I have combat skills, Dan said. Different levels of skills for bladed and blunt weapons, hand to hand fighting, bow staff and staves, things like that. I also have low levels in survival skills. I’m guessing that comes from my time as a firefighter with the Department of Corrections."
"I suppose that makes sense," I replied.
“I also have master level building skills, Dan said. And another skill called battle focus.”
“Well your building skills make sense, I said. You are a professed general contractor with over thirty years' experience. The battle focus however, sounds like it would fit into some kind of "Monk'' category. Maybe that has something to do with your martial arts experience.”
“Wait a sec, Frank stated. I have martial arts experience too. I’m a black belt in two disciplines but I didn’t get a battle focus skill.”
"Well, I said, you aren’t exactly a calm person and you’ve used most of your martial arts skills as a bouncer, am I right? I would probably guess you’d actually gain some skill as a berserker,” I said as I laughed.
“You’re not entirely wrong there I guess.” Frank agreed.
“What about you?” Dan asked.
“I have beginner skills in hand to hand, blunt weapons, sword mastery and daggers. Probably from my time in the military and as a police officer doing defensive tactics. I explained. Sword mastery though, probably comes from the brief time I spent practicing with friends in the military. All my friends owned a Shinai, a bamboo training sword and we fought for years. We even shipped them to Iraq. Some people thought we were crazy, sword fighting in the middle of the desert." I chuckled.
“What’s interesting is, I have bow mastery at apprentice three," I continued. I’ve shot bows since junior high. We even went up in the mountains to one of the state parks. They had a golf course like archery range. We’d hike through the mountains all day shooting trick shots through trees and over ravines. It was pretty awesome, and now it seems to have come in handy for my skills. I also have axe mastery at apprentice three as well. I learned how to use and throw axes and hatchets at a very young age. Right now I even have a large wooden target in my backyard that we use regularly. I’ll just have to get back to the house and grab my throwing hatchet." Frank stated he also had the bow mastery skill at beginner eight, but his sword mastery was at apprentice five. Probably because that was one of his favorite weapons to practice with while taking martial arts classes. Frank even had a katana on a stand in his living room that he had won in a tournament when he was younger. That blade would definitely come in handy in the future.
I decided to look at my status screen and check out the different combat skills. I wanted to check what bonuses, if any, I got at various levels. I started with the two highest skills, Bow Mastery and Axe Mastery.
“Bow Mastery: Apprentice 3, deals 14% more damage with a 28% chance of a critical hit causing 50% more damage and adding a bleed debuff for 5 seconds.”
Interestingly, the Axe Mastery skill had the same damage percentage rating. I wondered if there was mathematical reasoning behind it as both skills were at apprentice 3. Next I checked blunt weapons which were at beginner 8. “Deals 9% more damage with a 16% chance of a critical hit dealing 50% more damage causing a stun debuff for 5 seconds.”
Doing the math, it appeared that at the final grand-master level in any weapon skill you would only cause up to fifty percent more damage. This was ten percent per skill category. However, at that level, you’d have a one hundred percent chance of a critical hit. Critical hits are where you do the most damage as they do fifty percent more damage upon strike. More importantly, it causes the enemy to get a debuff for five seconds. That could be a definite game changer in any battle. I exited my status screen and explained what I had figured out to my two companions.
“You know, I started to explain. I have watched tons of fantasy movies and read a bunch of fantasy books, and I’m kind of disappointed. I always imagined that if something like this ever came true, I would be a battle mage or something. I’m not saying I’m the hero in some book, but it always seems like the most powerful people are battle mages. Here I am with some mundane weapons skills and a couple low level magic skills. Why didn’t we get any fireball or lightning blast spells? Where’s the real magic?”
“Are you crazy?" Frank asked. At least you have a couple of spells to use immediately. We don’t have any spells we can use at all. So jump off the Pity Patrol and be happy with what you have.”
“I’m not angry about that, I said. But you can’t blame a guy for wanting to be a Jedi in some magic-fueled, post-apocalyptic world that has gaming stats as a baseline.” This brought laughter from them all. Just then a loud SNAP was heard followed closely by a loud squealing noise. One of my traps had just been triggered.
I rushed over to my makeshift trap line and saw that another gray squirrel, the size of an overfed house cat had its snout stuck in the trap. The trap was too small compared to the size of the squirrel now. The trap’s teeth were the only thing holding the animal in place. I ran over and used my hammer to finish the job in one blow. I hated animals hurting like that. I prefer my traps to be painless and kill them as quickly as possible. With the size of the animal, the rat trap was too small to deliver a killing blow. I recovered the animal and removed the two traps from the tree. This one squirrel would be enough for breakfast and I didn’t want to hurt more animals during the night.
Taking the squirrel back to the camp, I broke out my skinning knife and got ready to process the animal. “Well, I began. I was going to suggest we bed down for the night. However, it's probably a smart idea to keep a watch throughout the night. Just to watch for predators and people alike. Since I need to process this, I can take the first watch. What do you guys think?”
"That’s a good idea,” Dan replied.
"There are roughly nine hours before sunrise," I said. So that’s about three hours of watch a piece. Who wants the second watch?”
“I’ll take the second watch,” Frank said. With that, Dan and Frank went to lay down while I processed the animal. I also pulled up the status screen again because I had a blinking notification.
-"You defeated a gray squirrel, level 1. minor EXP gained.”
I could feel the EXP was indeed minor. It felt even less than the EXP I gained from making the tea. I wasn’t sure how it all worked. Admittedly, I wasn’t all that happy with the EXP but I surmised a little furry animal that was really no threat probably shouldn’t grant you that much EXP. And in retrospect, I would take anything at this point.