They had been driving toward Pittsburgh for a few hours now. Travis was behind the wheel, cruising along Interstate-76, and they were approaching Bedford.
Clyde had introduced Travis to a new phrase along the way and was badgering him about it. The phrase was ‘power gamer’. Clyde didn't like ‘min-max’ because he believed you didn't have to sacrifice stats.
Clyde was in his element. Picture talking about your favorite topic in the realm of entertainment, and now, imagine that it was the most important thing on Earth. Your knowledge of this topic could save lives. Not only that someone you respect has to rely on your understanding of how the thing works. For someone bookish like Clyde is a dream scenario.
Travis understood its importance, but it didn't pique his interest that much. Though that wasn't entirely fair; he was curious and eager to learn as much as he could. However, Travis was more of a "just give me the facts" kind of guy, whereas Clyde focused on abstractions and meta-theories.
The fact that neither of them really knew what some of the skills or attributes did frustrated Travis even more. Clyde seemed to enjoy trying to figure it out.
Take the skill ‘Analytical Mind’. It was at level 1, which meant it could become more powerful, unlike ‘Calm Under Pressure’, which was a passive ability. What did ‘Analytical Mind’ do? How was Travis supposed to use it?
Clyde had asked him a bunch of questions about it, such as whether he felt any insights or if things slowed down when they were dealing with the wolf mage. The problem Travis faced boiled down to a difference in life experience. Whenever he had to make a life-or-death decision or strategize during a firefight, things always seemed to slow down. That's what happened to people who thrived in those situations, or at least that's what Travis always thought. He had never asked anyone, but it had to be. He didn't have any powers before today.
Clive pushed nonetheless. He wasn't annoying Travis; it was just a matter of different philosophies. He wanted to plan for Pittsburgh, as reports indicated more monster sightings and unrest in many cities, while Clive wanted to figure out how to optimize their abilities and attributes.
That was about where they were when they passed over Interstate-99. Travis had won out, and they were talking about Pittsburgh.
"Where in the city do we have to go?" he asked.
"The place is in the Bedford Hill Apartment Complex. It's slightly east of downtown Pittsburgh. We will take a right on Kirkpatrick Street, which will take us almost straight there."
It would be the middle of the night when they arrived, so there shouldn't be any traffic. The radio hadn't mentioned any natural disasters hitting Pittsburgh, although monster sightings were a different matter altogether.
There had already been eyewitness reports disproved; there were hoaxes. Some people had convinced themselves that this was all a government scam, an attempt to take over, though the fact that the government already had control didn't seem to bother them.
In the coming weeks unsavory factions and even cults would become a real problem. Whenever things go to hell certain people look for someone to blame, and/or people to group up with. It gives them comfort in an uncomfortable time. Eventually even though it is cliche, more "good guy" factions would have to be created to combat the cults.
Travis wanted to make contingency plans in case things went awry. They had stopped to fill up the tank, and Travis got more gas cans to fill, but the attendant told them they weren't getting another gas delivery for the foreseeable future. They had gotten lucky to stay ahead of the cataclysm (so they thought), but how much longer would that last.
Things even now were starting to fall apart a bit. The roads were still busy with people heading west. Travis wondered if anyone else had journals and if that's why they were all heading in the same direction as him. Probably not, but he still wondered.
The strangest thing they had heard on the radio were reports that firearms were malfunctioning en masse. A SWAT team in Detroit had been quelling looters, apparently by shooting into the crowd, which Travis didn't think was a good use of time for an advanced tactical unit, morality aside as that was also questionable. At one point though the entire unit had to withdraw as their weapons malfunctioned. It was being called a coincidence by the force, but it was not an isolated incident.
Those teams should be setting up safe zones and then building defenses to fight off whatever threats came to them. That wasn't his problem right now, though, unless the streets were so chaotic that it slowed his progress.
The journal said that within 24 hours, the cataclysm could catch up to him. Did that mean a hurricane would reach this far inland, or was it something else?
Clyde was still looking at the journal when he perked up.
"I think something was added," he said.
"What's that?"
"Did you have a weapon proficiency before?"
"Not that I noticed, no. Why do I have one now?" Travis asked.
"Yes, you do," Clyde replied, pretty pleased with himself for finding it. It was as if his time spent with the book had finally paid off.
"What does it say?"
Clyde double-checked. "It says 'weapon proficiency: handguns' Then underneath it says 'special firearm exemption when using handguns +25% damage when a handgun is your primary weapon.'"
They looked at each other for a moment. Travis smiled and said, "Well?" as if to say, That's good, right? Playing into Clyde's love of explaining these concepts.
Clyde smiled back widely. "That is great. If the exemption means that you can use a gun while everyone else can't, imagine how OP that would be."
Seeing Travis's confused face, he laughed. "I did that on purpose for my own gratification, sorry. 'OP' means overpowered; it's a term used to describe situations when you have a really powerful weapon or skill."
"Guess what?" Travis said.
"What?"
"I was just screwing with you. I knew what that meant. I do go online and read memes." They both laughed.
"Well played, Major. Well played."
It was around 3:30 am when they reached the outskirts of Pittsburgh. There was a loose curfew in most major cities in the US, although no one really knew the exact times as things grew more chaotic.
At one point, they drove by two squad cars that looked like they were supposed to be manning a checkpoint. However, they were in their cars with all the lights off. Travis thought that was a bad sign.
They were approaching Kirkpatrick Street, which meant they were not far from the apartment complex. They had decided to hunker down until morning so they could eat and get at least some sleep. With the 24 hours the journal said they had to get to Columbus, there was plenty of time. It took about 4 hours to get there from here, and they had until 5 PM. If they left the apartment at 9ish, they would get a little sleep and leave with plenty of time.
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That would be if everything went smoothly from now until then, of course. It turned out that for all the time they had spent on the road, Travis and Clyde had gotten pretty lucky to only encounter one monster type.
The radio mentioned witnesses identifying werewolves – okay, yeah, they believed that. There were also large brutish humanoid figures that one "expert" thought were orcs; Clyde agreed based on the description. There were some flying creatures, but no one had gotten a good look at them, and finally, the most worrisome if reports were true, were giant spiders. Not giant as in the size of cars, but giant as in they were usually tiny and now they were the size of cats or even big dogs. One woman said she saw 4 or 5 of them, and at first, they ran like regular spiders would. But then they seemed to realize that running was not necessary anymore. The woman was smart and ghosted out when that happened.
They could potentially be driving into a city filled with more werewolves, orcs, flying monsters of varying degrees, and large spiders. "Fuck" was all Travis could think.
As they drove down Kirkpatrick, a large playground or field was on their right. Clyde said that was Kennard Playground. Travis would never forget the name because that's where the first shot of the night came from. By shot, it's meant in a medieval fantasy sense because the SUV got hit with a pretty large stone. The hit was on the back driver-side door, so it didn't affect the car's ability to drive. Clyde looked out the window but couldn't see anything, except another rock as it approached the car. This one flew over the hood, just missing.
Travis was ready to gun it when he saw two huge brutes about 50 feet in front of them, holding massive clubs. Let me say that again – they were holding massive clubs like cavemen. While that was definitely threatening, Travis was used to fighting brutes with automatic weapons.
When Clyde first saw them, he did not think they were orcs, at least not as traditionally understood. The biggest reason was their skin color. A controversial issue in almost any other situation, but here it was not. These orcs were not green, or Lord of the Rings black either. No, they were pretty much huge white guys that spent too much time at the gym and dressed like it was 14th-century Scotland. That was until you saw them in the light.
While their skin was light, it was not the same color as any human on Earth. It had the impression of skin that had been taken off a person, thrown on a chair, and left sitting there in a dirty garage or something. Then you put it back on these orcs.
While Clyde was pondering things like this, Travis remained calm, but a little worried. He knew the only weapon they had was his handgun. He made a sharp left turn and stopped in the middle of the street.
The window was already on its way down. Travis aimed out of the window and fired three shots at each figure, targeting their upper bodies. He was a good shot but aiming for the head on moving targets in darkness from 50 feet away was no sure thing. The bullets seemed to connect, but the orcs kept coming. That's when another stone flew right past his window. If it was a foot to the left, and he might be dead.
Travis backed out and started to reverse. One orc appeared behind them. It seemed like they had been stalking the car from a certain point and were now trying to box him in. he floored the pedal for a second, then slammed on the brakes and turned the wheel to the left, leaving the orc about 5 feet outside of Clyde's window.
"Get down!" Travis yelled as he fired twice, aiming for the orc's head out of the passenger side window, lucky for them both Clyde ducked. He did not have an unlimited supply of bullets, not even close. So he only fired twice. The orc went down but didn't seem to be dead.
*
Travis was demonstrating why the DM felt he had to make firearms unusable. They made it too easy to kill otherwise tough enemies. The DM knew most video games and even some books gave monsters a certain amount of hit points, so a shot to the head wasn't always an instant killer. He did not like it that way.
On the flip side he loved how his MC handled that primitive, by his standards at least, weapon. It may be an antique on the DMs world, but it was sleek, black and made a great sound when firing its projectiles. He may consider letting Travis keep it.
Regarding headshots and hit points the DM thought realism was more important than a health bar, besides the fact that it would have been very hard to implement. There would eventually be tougher-to-kill enemies, healing, regrowth, and even magical shields. But more often than not, a shot to the head or a sword stroke through the heart would kill something.
*
Travis had been toying with an idea ever since Clyde mentioned something. They were discussing Clyde's attributes and how he might fight when the time came. Clyde said it was possible that, since he had such high intelligence, when he ranked up, he might learn magic. Then he talked about innate magic learning, and that's only for sorcerers or djinn, but Travis had mostly tuned him out at that point.
The possibility that there might be books or scrolls needed to learn spells was attractive, because he desperately wanted Clyde to have some way of contributing to fights early on. More so to help boost Clyde's confidence than because Travis needed help, although he did. Clyde had mentioned more than once that he would be a drag on the party or that he was a liability. Travis knew he needed Clyde, so that type of talk didn't help anyone.
The other orcs that were in the front, each with three bullets in their chests, were coming on, but very slowly. The SUV was blocked from the park by a large tree now, so no stones were being fired, and the orc Travis shot in the head was on the ground gowning, so not dead yet.
"Clyde, remember how you said you might learn magic if you rank up?"
Clyde had a bit of a nervous look on his face, not fully understanding where Travis was going with this. "Yes, I remember," he said a bit skeptically.
"Well, you need experience to get that. How about you finish this orc off?" Not grasping his meaning, Clyde asked, "With what?"
"My gun, man, what do you think?!" Travis snapped. That tone was a mistake, and Travis knew it the moment it came out. But he worried that a quick apology would come off as condescending. He hoped Clyde was made of sterner stuff than the type that would let a little clapback get to him.
Clyde looked at him with a blank expression for a couple of seconds, then finally said, "You want me to execute this orc?"
"Yes, Clyde, they are out here trying to execute us. It's barely holding on; just put one round in its head, and we can get out of here. You are going to have to kill things; we talked about that, right?" His tone was much more coaxing now, and it had the desired effect.
Clyde started walking over to him. "Yeah, you're right. Give me the gun."
Travis handed it over and started to tell him how to use it. Before he could open his mouth, Clyde pointed it at the orc's face and fired twice. Travis's view of Clyde as a gun novice was obviously incorrect. He did think that they were both from Pennsylvania, and even many liberals here owned guns.
What was about to playout in real life was something that happened in many movies—Braveheart is a good example—where someone points a weapon at the main character, usually a supposed friend, and the MC thinks the business end is for them? But the audience knows there is a bad guy approaching from behind them. Travis experienced that here, but in real life and real time, it's much riskier. If he had magic or even another gun, he thought afterward, he would've killed Clyde, thinking Clyde had snapped from killing the Orc in cold blood and was trying to kill him.
What happened was after Clyde shot the orc, he tried so hard to appear like it didn't bother him. But it did, and Travis knew it would. Clyde kind of looked at Travis at first, trying to appear matter of fact, but instead, he had a thousand-yard stare right through Travis.
It turns out it's a blessing that he was staring "through Travis" because the orcs were not the only enemies on the road this night.
Like a blur, as Clyde stared, he saw fast movement behind Travis and to the left. This movement was something green, and before Clyde knew what he was doing, a goblin—yes, a fucking goblin—jumped from behind a bench and was coming down on Travis with a rusty-looking blade.
Clyde lifted the weapon and, using pure muscle memory and instinct, fired two shots.
A few things happened right after that. For one, Travis thought he was dead. In that split second, his brain rushed with thoughts. He believed he was wrong about Clyde, and he couldn't believe his judgment got him killed. He also thought that if he could get another gun and Clyde wasn't shooting at him, they could mow through these monsters with nothing but a couple of handguns.
Then he despaired about not having any children, but we won't get into that; it's too personal.
For the goblin, things happened as well.
The monsters did not know that Travis was the MC; of course, they didn't. They didn't know this was all some game and that they were created just for that. Yet, there was a sense that this man was important. It's why the wolf mage asked him for help; it's why these orcs stalked his car, and it's why the goblin felt so good about getting ready to brain him.
You see, this 'thing' that the monsters felt was not implemented by the DM. It was one of the early unintended consequences that come from seeding a [base world, no abnormalities] with all types of abnormalities. The DM wanted Travis alive, at least long enough to establish a base, but the game he created wanted Travis dead.
None of that mattered to the goblin who was lucky he understood simple commands from his orc betters. What did happen is he thought they would celebrate his actions that night as he came in for the kill. That was when two bullets ripped its head open, and everything went dark.
Travis turned around and saw the goblin. He would never say or give the impression that he thought Clyde was shooting him.
Things were still hectic, so Travis just turned around and said, “Nice fucking shooting, Clyde!” Then he walked over and grabbed the gun. “Let's get in the car and get out of here.” Clyde did not protest.
Clyde told him to back up and take Reed Street to Devilliers, and that would take them almost straight to the apartments. They just hoped this was an isolated area and they would be able to lay low for at least a couple of hours. They were both exhausted, running on pure adrenaline.