When I came to I noticed someone had thrown a jacket over me and used a wadded up t-shirt as a makeshift pillow. Glancing around the room I found it odd that no one was in it with me.
I started to panic until I could hear laughter towards the front of the store. Getting up I felt every muscle of my body protest under my weight. Well of course I am going to be sore, I haven’t done anything that strenuous in a long time. Once I fully stood up I couldn’t help but let out a little moan.
Suddenly the laughing stopped and could hear many footsteps coming towards my direction. The first one to walk into the room was Patrick with a slightly worried look on his face until he saw what made the noise and his face broke into a grin.
“Well, if it isn’t mister skydiver himself.” He then started walking towards me and immediately wrapped me in a bear hug. Considering the difference in strength he quite literally squeezed the air out of my lungs. “Thought you were dead with the way you sleep, luckily your sister here told us not even God himself could ever wake you. Glad to see you’re okay.” Once released I gasped for air for awhile in order to catch my breath. Once I could breathe normally again I was immediately tackled to the ground by something. That something started sobbing and I realized who it was.
“YOU IDIOT I THOUGHT YOU DIED!” Suddenly I was tackled for the second time today though the strength of the bear hug wasn’t nearly as strong as the previous one. Knowing who is currently on top of me I couldn’t help but smile, happy with the small amount of relief knowing my sister is still alive. After she stopped sobbing she suddenly switched gears and jumped up with an ecstatic smile. Spreading her arms out she began to talk.
“Thankfully I was in my shop when the world turned and we all were transported, I was given the class mage but I chose one of my starting skills as enchanting which allows me to create wards around places and runes on equipment.. One of them is the [Ward of Sanctuary] which takes away a little bit of my total mana pool until I release it but the effects are amazing. As long as we stay out of view from the monsters, they won’t try to break in here. Isn’t your sister amazing? The others were in my shop too since you all were supposed to meet up here that morning. Luckily they had someone like me around or who knows what could’ve happened.” Claire finishes her speech with a swipe of her finger and a pop-up opens up in front of me.
[Claire Pendragon Requests to be added to your Friends List]
[yes/no]
Grinning, I click yes and then another pop-up informs me of something I didn’t realize yet.
[Congratulation on unlocking the Friends List!]
[This list allows you to do various things such as communicate with you friends over long distances and can even work with some other spells to allow for teleportation to friends.]
Knowing this could be very useful I put the thought of trying to exploit it in the back of my mind for now and focus onto my other friends. Gary, with his worn out blue jeans and t-shirt, his dirty-blonde hair and his easy going smile fills me with happiness to know he’s okay. Sam, the silent guardian, with his jet-black hair and tan skin, his crystal blue eyes and his gentle smile calms the raging storm of anger flowing through me. For some reason he seems to be the very embodiment of serenity.
“I’m glad you’re okay Clyde, you gave us all quite a scare collapsing like that. Don’t worry though, if you ever fall down again I can just cast heal on you.” Gary gives me a big grin while helping me up.
Grinning back I was taken back a moment before saying something out loud.
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“Wait, so you're telling me you are a healer?”
“Well, I am technically a mage but I found out I had a high affinity for light magic which is the school for healing and combating the undead so right now just call me HealBot.” Puffing his chest out and throwing out a mock salute I grin and salute back to him. Turning to Sam I could already guess what he might be. He gives a small nod before explaining himself.
“Yes, Clyde you already know that I will be going the Knight route since it is one of the classes you can acquire from the shop. I most likely spent the most time out of any of us talking to god and have acquired some very interesting tidbits that will help ensure our survivability. For instance the integration of mana into this world has been going on for generations and the reason for the apocalypse to happen now is simply because it reached critical mass and exploded. The stories about all of those with supernatural powers though are actually people who have unlocked certain abilities from manipulating the small amount of mana in the air. My ancestry for example gave me an ability called [Material] Which allows me to duplicate materials that I have seen before or heard of. The cost depends based on my knowledge about the material, the amount I want to create, and if I have any of its raw materials on hand. I tried to create mythril since I knew it would be a high level metal but the system gave me an error sign and said I would have used too much mana and killed myself on accident. The problem was though is that I was trying to only make one molecule of mythril and it gave me that notice. This means two things. One creating exotic materials with this ability requires vast amounts of mana and two, the game will stop me before I accidentally kill myself. I have already thought of some ways to bend the rules a bit so I can glean some numerical data from it. I have also located a nearby shop due to its strange appearance. We should check it out so I can see how to purchase my class.” Sam states calmly. His analytical skills sure are something else.
“Good work Sam, I expect a full report on the amount of items you can create with this almost cheat like ability. We should look into finding mana potions or a battery so you can start to store more mana in order to create more materials for us to use. I agree with you, our next step should be scouting out this store and seeing if it can help us in any way.”Turning to Gary.
“You said you are able to kill undead easily?”
“Yeah! When I found out I had a high light affinity by asking the old man to do me a solid, the skill tree of healing and smiting were unlocked to be purchased. I have the basic heal that I can only use three times for now since the high mana cost. It does however heal for twenty for each pop. Then I have the basic smite skill which allows me to either directly attack an undead using the ability resulting in the skill doing a flat base of ten with a one plus modifier that scales with my level in the skill. Or I can cast the skill on a weapon and use the weapon to deal an extra two hundred percent increase in damage against undead.” Gary cheerfully states.
“That’s great Gary, now that we have a healbot in the making I can rest assured a zombie won't kill me when I take a couple of scratches.” I then turn to Patrick and his party.
“So what now? Are you going to go with us or do you have something else in mind?”
Patrick looking solemnly”Well lad, it has been fun but I still need to hunt down my sister. She definitely is alive knowing her but finding her will be difficult so I would like to search as soon as possible.”
“I understand, but before you go let me add you to my friends list.” Fiddling around with my status I finally figure out how to add patrick and once he confirmed that we are now friends, him and his group headed out the door. We promised to meet up after two weeks at this shop if he still hasn’t found his sister and by then we will probably be ready to take on anything moderately dangerous. Smiling for the first time in what feels like years, I finally feel like things are going up for me now that my friends are here. Hopefully I didn’t just trip a red flag.
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(Somewhere in NY)
Located inside a small room that seems to have been overgrown by black roots, a large skeleton was currently controlling his thousands of minions from afar, utilizing his unlimited mental stamina, the Arch lich always calculating his next move. For the next step, the souls of my undead are needed. For the particular ritual the Lich is trying to perform, an abundance of souls is required. The only reason he cannot kill the minions himself is simply because part of the ritual called for souls that the lich had to collect from fallen creatures. The ritual specifically states however that if the creatures were his own undead, then he cannot be the one to kill the minions and must have someone else to. This is why the streets are roaming with packs of zombies. The amount of soul each individual had is based upon its level as well which is also why he isn’t just letting the creatures blindly shuffle to their deaths. For what he has planned this was the only solution.
Suddenly his eyes snap open after hours of controlling his minions. His eyes then locate the giant opaque crystal sitting on top of a large pedestal right in front of his face. He carefully caresses the crystal while feeding some mana into it. Suddenly an image is formed within the crystal and the image of a particular man in a shop surrounded by his two best friends and what appears based on their mana signature and similar traits as his sister. Realizing he recognizes that mana signature he smiles. He will finally have his revenge. Speaking out loud for the first time in millenia, finally breaking his promise he made to himself that day, his voice bounces around the room. The voice sounds someone just opened an old door that hasn't been oiled in a long time.
“Arthur, I have finally found your children. Now watch as I break them.”