T + 2 hours
Karl decided to head down Walnut Street first, where he had seen...what was his name? Timmy. That's right.
It would be over five minutes before he would get to his first neighbor. Normally everyone drove, with houses spread out so far. The road passed through a lot of woods, twisting and turning to avoid hills and depressions. Some houses were above street level, some well below. Karl wondered what would attack him on the way, and hoped it was something small. The trees were still eerily quiet. Otherwise, it was an oddly beautiful spring day.
At one point there came a crashing sound as something tore through the woods, coming his way. Karl made his chopper appear and braced himself. After a few moments in which the sound got louder and louder, a young buck burst from the foliage and bounded across the road, diving into the brush on the far side. A moment later, a large wolf followed. For just an instant it turned to look at Karl, and he could see that it had short horns and glowing red eyes, while a notification popped up with its name. Then the Horned Wolf turned and charged off in renewed pursuit of the deer.
Karl stood still for a few moments as the crashing sounds of the underbrush faded. Then he swallowed, and resumed walking. I probably wouldn't have been able to beat that one, he guessed. Things are going from bad to worse.
Eventually he reached his nearest neighbor's property, a small white house surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn. As it came into view, Karl turned to go up the walk and hesitated. There was a dark puddle on the paving stones. He looked and listened. There was faint noise coming from inside the house, so he hurried up, sidestepping the puddle, and tried to ring the doorbell.
Silence fell.
Karl waited, then called out, “Hello? Is anyone in there?” He thought he could hear noises pick up again faintly, like pots and pans clattering in a kitchen. He pounded on the door. “Hello?” He tried the knob, but it was locked. Frowning, he stepped off the walk and between some decorative hedges so that he could peek inside a window. From there, he could see a goblin, currently tearing apart the couch. Eyes sweeping the room, Karl spotted the body of a woman, mercifully mostly blocked from view, and a reddish brown stain on the carpet.
Hissing to himself, Karl proceeded to work his way around the house, trying to see if there were any humans alive inside. On a thought, he scanned the back yard for toys, and didn't find any. So probably no children, thank God.
Should I break in and kill them? Or leave them be since they are stuck inside? Karl remembered how close he had come to dying when facing five of them, and did his best to count. He could see at least three, by peering through windows. He was considering smashing a window when he barely caught sight of three more down a hallway. Too many.
He shook his head. Come back with reinforcements. He hoped he would find some, at any rate. Grimly, Karl resumed walking.
The next house was over a hundred yards away and larger, with blue paint and two stories. Karl listened closely. The woods were silent. What happened to all the birds? he wondered. He couldn't hear anything from inside either. Mentally crossing his fingers, he pressed the doorbell, and when nothing happened, he knocked on the door. Immediately he heard banging and hissing start up inside. He started to search for an accessible window until he heard a noise above.
“HELLLLP!” A young voice bellowed from somewhere overhead. “Up here! Please!”
Karl ran back several steps and looked up. A high window on the second story was open, and a teenager was leaning out. She held what looked like a cheerleader's baton with red stains on the end of it, and brandished it warily in all directions. Her eyes looked a bit wild. “HEELLLLP!” Then she spotted him on the lawn.
“HELLO!” he shouted up to her. “What are you fighting?”
“Minor Imps! I killed one and shut myself in my room, but now I'm trapped!”
“Are there more people inside?”
“Not right now! Can you help me?!”
“I'm going to try! Hang on!” Karl looked around. “Do you have a ladder in the garage?”
“Just a stepladder! I don't think it will reach!”
“Can you let them in one at a time and kill them?”
“It's not just imps, there are these scary big snake things too and they are waiting right outside my door.” He could hear the shudder of revulsion in her voice.
“Can you...?” Karl stopped and thought. “Can you make a rope out of your bedsheets?”
The teenager paused. “...Maybe? But I don't have anything to tie it to! Nothing's close to the window!” She looked around again, scanning the sky and the woods. “Do you think maybe you can beat the monsters in the house?”
“I could probably beat four at once, but no more than that! How many are there?”
“Way more than four!”
Karl grimaced. Come on, Karl, you're supposed to be smart. Use that “nine intelligence” and come up with something...Think smarter. Think outside the box. What doesn't look like a solution but could be? Let them in her room one at a time? They might all get in at once: too risky. Jump? No, she'd break her...wait.
“HEY! I think I have an idea! What's your name?”
“Terry!”
“Hi Terry, I'm Karl! Terry, how many health do you have?”
“What?”
“Say 'show health'!”
She mumbled unintelligibly. “...WHOA!”
“What's it say?”
“Forty two out of forty two! Is that good?”
“Are you level two?”
There was a pause. “It says level one!”
Karl raised an eyebrow. Ah, to be young and have good Body stats, he mused.
“Okay! Terry, I think this will work! You need to climb out the window and jump down!”
“WHAT?!? Are you crazy?!?”
“I have healing powers!”
“You what?”
“I just got healing powers! So long as you don't die, I can heal you after you jump! So don't worry about spraining an ankle or breaking a leg, I'll fix it!” At least I really hope that's how this works!
Terry was clearly speechless, looking back and forth at him, at the door to her room, at her baton, and back to him. “You promise?”
“I can't swear to it but I really think it will work! I do promise I will help you as much as I can!”
She hesitated. “Can you get me somewhere safe?”
“I'm certainly going to try! I already killed everything in my house!”
“...I don't think I have any better options. You'd better come through, old man!”
Karl put his hands on his hips. “Young lady, I am a man of my word.”
Terry disappeared from the window. Half a minute later, a large messenger bag came flying out and landed on the lawn. The baton followed. Then one leg, sporting black legging and a gray sneaker, and after considerable squirming, the other leg. “OW! God damn it!” Her butt rocked back and forth a few times. “Whoa! Whoa...! YEAAGGGHHHEEEE!” She gave a powerful high pitched scream, bumped a couple of times as she slid out, and fell towards the lawn, landing first on her feet at a wide angle, then hard on her butt, and finally slammed her whole upper body into the lawn with a loud whump.
Karl dashed towards her, but she was already starting to sit up.
“Ow.” She stared off into space, then her eyes widened. “Wait, what?”
“How badly are you hurt?”
It took her a moment more of staring forward before she turned to him. “It says thirty six out of forty two.”
Karl's eyebrows went up. “Wow. I was pretty sure it wouldn't hurt you too badly, but that's better than I had hoped. Are you in pain?”
She raised a hand gingerly to her face. “I bashed my jaw pretty good on the way out the window. Thought I was gonna knock myself out.”
“Your legs okay? Can you walk?”
“Uh...I think so.”
“Okay then, hold still. I'm not totally sure how this works." Karl reached out towards her jaw and Terry recoiled. “It's okay, I'm just...you know what? Let's try the top of your head, see if that works. Or your elbow if you want. I think I just have to lay hands on you.”
Terry stared at him suspiciously for a few seconds, then abruptly shoved her hand out and held it towards him. “Use my hand.”
“Okay.” Karl reached out, hesitated, and then put his palm against the back of her hand. He turned his thoughts inward, and tried to 'activate' his power. There was an odd sensation, and a golden glow seemed to surround all of Terry for a second. He suddenly felt a bit tired, but not. He didn't really have words for it. Terry did.
“Holy shit.”
Karl had to grin. “Apparently it is.” She reached up and felt her jaw, then turned sharply to look at him. Curious, he asked, “Did that raise your health?”
She stared into space for a moment. “Yeah, I'm...back to full. How did you do that?”
Karl shrugged. “Either God or the System. Either way, as of an hour ago...I'm apparently a paladin.”
“No fucking way.”
“Yes—.” Karl spotted movement in the trees and lowered his voice. “Damn. Incoming. Get your stuff.”
Terry scrambled up into a crouch, then ran a few steps to grab her bag and baton. “Where?” she hissed. Karl pointed.
“Do you have a house key?”
“Yeah, in my bag, why?”
“Because we might be better off fighting whatever's in your house than whatever that is.”
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“Oh shit.”
“I concur. Watch the other direction, make sure nothing's sneaking up on us.”
Terry turned, then blanched. “Good call.” She tapped on his shoulder vigorously and pointed.
He turned to spot a wolf slowly approaching them. Inhaling through his nose, Karl gestured and his chopper was suddenly in his right hand, his trash can lid in his left. The wolf flinched. Karl kept his eyes locked with the wolf's as they continued talking.
“HOW THE F—is that a trash can lid?” Terry interrupted herself in a quick quiet undertone.
“Sorry, I didn't come prepared for a RenFaire. You got any skills yet?”
“I can hit things with a baton.”
“Let's hope that's good enough. Where's the other one?”
“I don't see it.”
“Then let's hope the other one wasn't also a wolf.” Karl peered at it. “You know... this is actually just a regular wolf. If he's alone, I think I can take him.” Karl wasn't as sure as he implied, but sounding confident seemed like one of those charisma things that he was going to have to start learning. “All right, stay a few feet away from me, I'm going to be swinging this around and I'm not exactly Lancelot yet.”
“Should I move towards the house?”
“Good idea.”
As Terry moved slowly towards the front door, reaching into her bag, Karl advanced on the wolf slightly and moved to keep himself between it and the teenager. “You've got better things to do today,” he growled at the wolf, projecting as much menace as he could. “Find a softer target. Scram.”
Suddenly there was a loud roar from the woods behind the house. The wolf took off like a shot in the other direction, and after a second, Karl moved over to stand next to Terry.
“What was that?” Terry asked in a low voice that tried very hard to sound calm.
“The devil we don't know.”
“Is it coming?”
“Be quiet and listen.”
They both held still. Terry held her house key in her hand but didn't put it in the lock. A few minutes ticked past in what felt like an eternity. Then they heard the roar again—and it was more distant this time. Whatever it was, was moving away. They both quietly exhaled.
She edged away from him warily, then cleared her throat. “Thanks, by the way.”
“Happy to help. Where are your parents?”
Terry's face got tight. “I wish I knew. They left this morning on a supply run. I told them not to go.”
Karl nodded in sympathy. “Siblings?” She shook her head. Then he looked around again. “Okay, as I see it, we've got a few options,” he began. “We go in and clear your house, we go look for other survivors, or we retreat back to my place.”
“Where's your place?”
“About half a mile away. 84 Sycamore St.”
“Who else is there?”
Karl shook his head. “It's just me, so right now it's empty. We might have to kill things again by the time we get back. I don't know if monsters come back again, but it should be doable, and I've got some supplies. I'd rather find more people first, though. It'll be easier with a team.”
Terry nodded. “Let's do that. I don't want to leave other people trapped. It sucks.”
“Sounds like a plan. Do you want to leave a note for your parents?”
Terry nodded, and fished supplies out of her bag. They stuck the note over a small nail sticking out of the front door, inside the storm door. It warned about the monsters inside, told of her escape, and which way they were headed. Then, looking all over, they slowly set out down the road. After a minute they settled on Karl looking left, Terry looking right.
“I feel like such an idiot,” Terry said abruptly.
“Why?”
“I've played games. I should be good at this.”
“So why aren't you?”
“Because whoever wrote the UI is a fucking idiot who doesn't know English and couldn't sort files if their life depended on it! Also, I have barely been able to text any of my friends since the first message so we haven't been able to help each other out very much.”
“I expect young and healthy people will have an advantage in survival these days.”
“How did you figure it out?”
Karl shrugged. “Mostly dumb luck, fighting things too hard for me, and almost getting killed repeatedly.”
“How did you become a paladin? Is that your, uh, class?”
“Yes. I got offered four choices after I fought some goblins. I fought like a crazy old man, almost died, grabbed a staff of healing at the last possible second and prayed for deliverance.”
“Where did you get a staff of healing?!”
“One of the goblins was healing the others; he was a shaman. He had it.”
“Goblins?” She stared at him, then frowned. “Do you still have it?”
“Yes, it's in my inventory.” Karl checked behind them for the twentieth time, then swept his eyes forward. “If you want to be a Healer class, I'll give it to you. But if not, I'll hang onto it for someone who wants the class.”
“Can I carry it for now? For emergencies? I'll give it back.”
“Sure, makes sense.” He willed his chopper into his inventory for a moment, then willed the staff out of inventory and handed it to her. She watched him wide eyed. “Watch the road.” She nodded and did.
“That is so freaking awesome.”
“Isn't it? Practice willing things into and out of inventory for a minute. It's really handy.”
There was a pause. Karl eyed a cluster of bushes near the road, trying to see if anything was lurking in them.
“Huh,” Terry grunted after a minute. “It's so weird. The System makes some things so much easier and better, but keeps sending monsters to kill us all. It's like it's schizo.”
“I agree. It's like the help files. Almost totally useless, but if you actually do something, then it admits to you that it knows things.”
“What classes do you know of? I haven't even been able to find a list of the options!”
“Um, it was Warrior...Martial Artist I think...Healer...and Paladin. Those were my choices.”
“You do martial arts?”
“No, I think I just used about five different weapons in one fight. Plus punching and kicking. I was completely winging it and got lucky.”
“Do you think we can find something easy for me to kill?”
“That's a good idea, but I suspect we'll get into plenty of fights without looking for more. I had to fight land crabs and minor imps in my house, and goblins in the garage. On the way here I saw a wolf that was already bigger than normal and changing. It was chasing a deer so I let it. Not sure I could have beaten it. Like I said, I've been lucky.”
“Help wolf,” Terry called. Then she stopped talking, apparently reading.
“You can look up specific creatures?”
“Sometimes it works. And sometimes it's useless information. Like, I already know what a wolf is, thanks, and with better grammar. Let's check out this house and...you know what? Can I scout ahead? I want to try something.”
Karl had misgivings but kept them to himself. “Yell if you find trouble. I'll watch for danger on the road and driveway.”
“Thanks.”
Karl watched her head down the slope from the road. Terry ran up to the mailbox and then crouched down behind it. Then she ran over to a tree and pressed herself against it. She pulled something small out of her bag and held it to one side. Then she ran to another tree, and Karl almost lost sight of her. A few moments later she ran again, and Karl did lose track of her. My eyes are playing tricks on me. Or else it's a System thing. He pulled out his birding binoculars, only to find the lenses were getting a bit blurry. He put them away again. Why is everything eroding or breaking down?
He kept looking back and forth. Now I know what 'head on a swivel' refers to. Being in a war zone is exhausting.
“Kaaaaarrrrrrlll!”
He spun around and charged down the slope looking for Terry. He couldn't spot her, but he did see four light green creatures come around from behind the house as if chasing something. Terry appeared out of nowhere, very close. She skidded to a halt near him and he did likewise, preparing for the onslaught.
“I got one of them, but when I tried to get another one I missed and they spotted me. I'm gonna try again.” With that she ran out of his field of view.
“Watch out for my backswing,” he warned.
“Will do!” her voice came from somewhere behind him.
The System told him that the approaching creatures were Marsh Warriors. Three appeared to have clubs, and the other stayed well behind the rest. Karl aimed for the center one of three as they got close, then sprinted forward a couple of steps at the last second to throw off their aim. He got a solid hit, but these were bigger than goblins and he couldn't just shove one back; he was hard pressed not to be pushed back himself. The benefit was that more damage was done by his strike. He used the trash can lid like half of a pair of cymbals with the left warrior's head as the other half. Then he got a brief notification from the System.
You have learned the skill Shield Bash (1). Learning is best done by doing.
That left the one on the right free to clobber him, but got Karl's back instead of his head. He thought about his health.
Health 34/48
That was from one hit. Not good. Karl realized that speed was everything here. He had to take at least one down fast or he'd never survive this. With that in mind he did his best to twist the chopper which had dug into the center Marsh Warrior. He bashed the left warrior again, then dropped his shield, gripped the chopper two handed and shoved as hard as he could.
Critical strike. Damage X3
The center warrior dropped, and now Karl needed to disentangle the chopper and didn't have time. He dropped it, produced the kitchen knife with a thought, dodged a blow successfully and stabbed at the left one, causing him to momentarily back up a step, which gave Karl time to duck under a club swing from the right and snatch up his makeshift shield.
There was a noise behind him. He didn't have time to check what it was. He attempted to use his shield bash ability again and again. Sometimes he connected, sometimes not. He wondered why he wasn't taking hits from the one behind him but was grateful. He wasn't able to block all the damage he was taking from the one he was facing. He got in a lucky stab with the knife, but it snapped in half when he tried to amplify the damage by twisting it. The trash can lid was getting more and more dented and less and less effective, but he switched it to his right hand and used it more like a metal fist, punching the warrior.
He took another hit from the club, clutched at his side and prayed for healing. There was a golden glow and he felt a bit better. Apparently he could cast healing hands on himself, too. Glad that worked.
Finally he tackled the warrior to the ground and punched him repeatedly with the remains of his shield. The warrior stilled at last.
“Little help here?” Terry called.
He jumped up and turned, to find that Terry had engaged the warrior on the right and was fighting baton vs club, which mostly consisted of her ducking or dodging the club, then getting in one quick smack that didn't seem to do much damage before having to dodge again. More worrisome was the sight of two arrows sticking out of her—one on her left thigh and one in her left shoulder. The farther creature was apparently a Marsh Archer. Karl ran up behind Terry, slapped her right shoulder and cast healing hands. Terry glowed for a moment, then blocked with a grunt, unable to dodge the club this time. It actually knocked her over, and Karl stepped into her place, still weaponless.
He dove at the last warrior, tackling him to make his club useless. Then he felt a stab of pain in his left side as he was hit with an arrow. He took a moment to cast healing hands on himself again, which left him feeling tired. Then the warrior tried to bite him in the neck, and Karl barely shifted it to his shoulder instead. The bite seemed to take back all the health he had just gained. With a sudden surge, the warrior tripped Karl and shoved himself on top, pinning him. Not bothering with the club, the warrior clasped his hands together over his head to deliver a killing blow.
Then there was a loud crack, and the warrior bonelessly fell on top of him. Shielded for a moment by the corpse on top of him, Karl glanced at his health:
Health 6/80
He struggled to breathe. There was still the archer to deal with, and Terry looked like a pincushion last he saw. Speaking of whom, Terry hit the ground right next to him and grabbed his hand. “Heal me?” she rasped. Karl tried to activate healing hands.
It didn't work. He didn't have enough...of something...to do it. He took a deep breath, tried to calm himself, and prayed. Then he willed it to work, and this time it did, but it left him feeling totally...depleted. He got a bad headache. He didn't understand it and didn't have time to. He started pushing on the warrior corpse, propping it up as a shield against arrows. He needed a weapon too. Abruptly the staff of healing landed next to him.
“Don't say I never gave you nothin,” Terry said with a grin, and next pulled out...another trash can lid, which she crouched behind. Clever girl. There was a clang as an arrow promptly hit the lid. “Ow!” she added mildly, scratched and bleeding on the forehead by the arrowhead that had penetrated the lid, but only just.
Karl grinned, grasped the staff, and shook it, willing it to heal him. The green glow enveloped him. Then he shook it at Terry. Green enveloped her as well...and the staff crumbled into kindling. Oops.
“Sheesh. If you can't take care of your toys...Don't you dare break this one!” she demanded, dropping her baton into his hand. Karl grabbed it. “I'll draw his fire!” She dropped the perforated shield as well, and proceeded to leap sideways into a somersault which rolled right into a sprint as an arrow zipped past her by inches.
The baton was surprisingly solid and heavy, despite its small size. It felt very sturdy. Karl paused to pluck arrows out of himself, because fighting with them in would be disastrous. He had no idea how Terry had survived somersaulting with two of them in her. He gritted his teeth, then rolled to a crouch. No time.
Health 10/80
Too damned close. He jumped up and charged downhill at the archer with shield and baton at the ready. Another arrow perforated the lid, scoring a gash on his arm, and then he was there, slamming the baton down on the archer's head with every last bit of his strength and momentum.
Critical Strike. Damage X4
The archer fell.
They'd won.