Prologue - Part Two
John woke up from his sleep to the sounds of banging, it was coming from beside him and without even opening his eyes John knew what and who it was, the seats were shaking quite a lot. As he opened his eyes a sight of pure white invaded his vision, it had been snowing through the night, snow was uncommon in Ireland 'we mostly get rain, can't make snowmen out of that, much more boring' John thought to himself. The cabin felt extremely cold even though he was fully clothed and had a blanket wrapped around himself, his icy breath hardly moved with the stillness present in the air, one of his first thoughts was that the blue box is gone, 'maybe it was just my imagination' John truly hoped to himself that it was.
John wanted to just curl up into a ball and cover himself in blankets but sadly his attempts at going back to sleep kept being interrupted by the banging that was so very close to him. It was the woman from last night, when he saw her all those memories flashed back into his mind like a torrent. All those dead faces, the fire of the engines, death on a scale John had never seen in person. Just for a moment John thought to himself that it didn't happen, that it couldn't happen. It was a fleeting thought that soon faded away as the girl kept banging the door. She was pushing her entire body against the door but was getting little to no effect, besides the noise of course. "It's frozen", John said stating the obvious, his words somehow turning the brown haired girl into a statue 'Well that's just great, maybe it was a game and now I have the superpower to make all those who annoy me freeze in position, that would be very useful' John thought while smiling to himself, perhaps conveying the wrong message to the woman who glanced over her shoulder at him.
POV - Eva
Eva heard his voice and it sent chills up her spine, not to say her spine wasn't already chilly. 'Oh god he's smiling, I'm so fucked. Why me God, why me.'
Eva had woken up a short while ago to the winter wonderland in a daze. Eva didn't know where she was, nothing made sense to her at all. It took her a while to trace her past to the present, last she knew the plane she was on had gone dark. Eva was flying to Scotland to work at her new job at a construction company. The attendant had told her to put on the oxygen mask and she had done exactly as she was told, too afraid to question anything. The plane had started to rapidly descend and her head began to feel whoozy from the pressure. 'I suppose I must have passed out, the plane was crashing, everyone was freaking out. Shit, the plane crashed didn't it. But how did I get from a crashed plane to the middle of a road inside of truck'. Eva thought all of this to herself while getting a grip on her surroundings. She was now almost sitting up, pushing herself up the chair with her arm. The road looked empty, no cars. It was morning and there were no cars. It was surreal, like a small glimpse of peace incarnate. Snow fell down on the road, there wasn't much snow or else the wind shield would have been blocked out from the light. There was just enough snow to give the impression that the world was calm, clean. A few crows were flying overhead but very little noise could be heard, not even the wind.
As Eva focused on her hearing she began to pick up the sound of breathing, not her own, someone else's. After turning her head she saw a man, he had pure white skin and dark blonde hair, looked to have an average build for a European. He was sleeping with only the slightest breath escaping his mouth every few seconds. 'He must be the reason I'm here, wait, why am I not in hospital. If I survived a plane crash shouldn't I have gotten injured, they would always bring me to the hospital after an event like that. None of this makes any sense. Who is that man'. Eva was getting progressively distressed as she thought to herself. She shuffled under the blankets, feeling for any tender areas only to find her jeans were around her ankles. Her whole body hurt but there was a large pain in her leg that stood out in comparison to the rest, it wasn't crippling, but it still hurt a lot. Everything seemed to move fine but she still had a pretty serious problem. She was in an unknown man's truck, on a road she didn't know, in a country she didn't know, with her pants down. 'Okay, I think my first option should be to run the hell away and get medical help. Was I somehow drugged? How in the hell did I manage to get kidnapped after getting into a plane crash, am I that unlucky?' Eva closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing mind down.
Eva tried to open the door slowly and quietly but it didn't work. The handle moved but the door was locked in place by ice. There was no way she would be able to open the door without alerting the man but she continued regardless, it was better than not trying.
POV - John
John waited for a while to see if she would respond, he wasn't an idiot, he knew she must have thought he had done something to her. 'I even pulled her pants down, too bad I'm lazy, I maybe could have avoided this. I'd rather not be attacked by a woman who thinks I've kidnapped her, I suppose I have to calm her down.' The cold cabin restricted movement, punishing every nudge with a biting feeling, especially for John who had just been woken up. "I didn't do anything to you besides stop the bleeding in your leg, you shouldn't move around so much though, you're bound to have some internal damage from the crash. How you survived that with only a few scratches and bruises is still beyond me, you should count yourself blessed." John said while still clinging to the blankets in a fetal position, it really was cold and regardless of the situation his natural reaction was to cuddle up to the warm blanket and he didn't feel like it was worth resisting the urge at the moment.
Eva thought she was stuck with a crazy man, only a crazy man would take a crash survivor to their truck instead of getting them to a hospital. "You're crazy, why am I here, Why aren't we even moving?" Eva retorted, she was maintaining a voice of authority, trying to distance herself from John. "I'm not crazy, at least I think I'm not. Well maybe I hope I am after today, none of this should have happened. I was just going to take this freight to the north side docks, park up and sleep. Then I would go to McDonald's in the morning and eat the usual slop and drive back home, but no. My truck brakes down, my phone stops working and planes fall out of the God damned sky. Yeah I hope I'm crazy because fuck the alternative. Just to add to all of this rampant bullshit I am now trapped in a car with a woman who I just saved, who's name I don't know, who's calling me crazy and she doesn't have the awareness to notice there are no cars on the fucking motorway at nine in the morning". John said, almost raving towards the end. He was taking out his anger on the woman. Anyone would be angry if everything they knew just went up in smoke. Planes are not meant to fall out of the sky, motorways are meant to have cars on them during the morning and McDonald's was meant to be waiting for him in the morning. Everything was wrong.
"I already noticed that idiot, maybe it's the snow, I don't know, I don't drive. Wait, what kind of backward country doesn't try to clear motorways of snow, there are no tracks in it at all. What is this?" Eva was starting to see her real situation and she was quickly letting emotion take control like John, but unlike John her emotion manifested in the form of fear and sadness instead of anger. "I don't know, I don't think I know anything right now. I suppose we should try to find some other people, maybe we're just not seeing the whole picture, I hope we're not." John said, he didn't want to tell her about the blue box, that would make him look really crazy.
John pulled out a crowbar he kept under the driver seat and began jamming it into his door crack, he didn't want to break the door, just the ice around it. It took him around twenty minutes but eventually and to both of their delights he gave the door a final kick and with a satisfying crack it opened. The two of them exited the truck and took in much needed breaths of fresh air. The scene on the ground was more vivid without the frosted glass tinting it. It really did look like the world was empty, like they were the only ones left.
They had only taken a few steps when engine of the truck turned back on, they both swung around and John gaped at the nonsense. Eva felt a slight amount of joy at the noise, but also suspicion, an engine shouldn't turn itself on. A few seconds later, almost no time at all to the two who stood in shock, a blue box had appeared in the centre of their vision.
System Update Thanks to all participants, the system beta test is now over! Congratulations to the winner who gained the most levels in the short amount of time available without dying! Normal world functions have been re-enabled until full integration. Good luck!
Unknown to John and Eva, the whole world had just seen this message, even those who couldn't read could understand it but unknown to the world John had just received a second message.
Congratulations! For gaining the most amount of levels in the specified amount of time you have received early access to the system before the system is fully released to everyone world wide! You have also received one S Tier Class Token and one S Tier Sub-Class token. Will you use your power for great good or great evil? It is up to you. You may redeem your tokens by accessing the system window, simply say 'open system window'.
Eva recovered long before John did and spoke first "Did you just see that?" John nodded "I can hear the radio in your truck, someone might know what's going on, I'll go check." Eva climbed back into the truck and began surfing through the radio, she was still suspicious of the man but was starting to understand. Every station on the radio had someone either calling out to listeners to stay where they are or telling them to call in if they had any information. It wasn't for a while until she got to station that had a woman claiming that this is the end times, the apocalypse. The woman said the usual rant, all sinners should repent, quoting various hardly relevant scriptures before repeating herself. "Anyone know what's going on?" John spoke after he eventually walked back to the truck, looking up to the brown haired woman in the driver's seat. "Well, I guess you're not the only one going crazy, they say everything failed for twelve hours, like electricity and even basic things like engines. There was a guy who thought it was aliens, another who was certain the government just tested a new mass EMP weapon and it went wrong and then there were usual religious crazies. I don't think anyone knows and to be real with you, I don't care. I just want to get to a hospital." Eva internally was a wreck, her emotions were so utterly frantic that she had reached some sort of calm, though that was probably the shock. John motioned for Eva to move over as he got into the truck.
John put the truck into gear and started down the motorway, making sure to stay slow as he had no chains on his tires and the snow was thick enough to worry about. What would normally be a fifteen minute journey into town took almost an hour. On the way the two of them had started to see more destruction, cars had crashed into barriers, families were walking in both directions and by the time they actually got into Dublin the quantity of people on the streets grew. Not everyone had the same look on their face, some even looked like nothing had happened as they walked down the street. The vast majority of course looked paranoid, afraid and mostly kept in groups of two or more.
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"I'm Eva by the way, I know it sounds stupid but where are we?" Eva seemed calmer than she should be, maybe seeing so many people had helped. "I'm John, this is Dublin, I suppose you weren't flying here when you crashed? Where were you going?" John replied. "I was flying to Scotland, I'm from the US originally but I've spent a few years in the Netherlands studying, I was going to settle into my new job in Edinburgh before all of this. I didn't factor the world going to shit into my flight plan though. Is there a reason no one has called you since your phone came on?" Eva could speak now without constantly being on edge, perhaps it was Stockholm syndrome but she had warmed up to John, or maybe it was because the air heater worked now. "There's no one to call me, parents are long gone and my siblings are elsewhere with their own lives. Trust me on this, trucking is not the most socially orientated job out there. I'm sure you have people trying to get in touch with you like mad though." John said with a hint of malice, he didn't enjoy having no one who cared about him, it certainly doesn't help when people point it out.
Eva didn't quite catch how annoyed he was at the question but she was sure her family and friends wanted to hear from her. "Can I use your phone? Mine is long gone with my purse I guess." John reached into his pocket and wiggled the phone out while driving with one hand, he gave it to her. Eva quickly began dialling various numbers and spent the rest of the journey calling her parents and everyone else to tell them she was fine, sometimes she left out some details for the sake of the other person but it still took her forever to get across even the basics. Most of her relations were just happy to hear she was alive, they had been rather distraught when her phone didn't answer.
When they finally arrived at St. James hospital Eva didn't even realise where they were before John nudged her out of her current conversation. "We're here, you should go check into A&E I think It's over there by the ambulance bay, I would go quick if I was you, the line will be monstrous." John stated as he watched a hive of activity around the hospital, people were being driven in by car, ambulance, some even taken in by shopping trolley or scooter. In fact to say the hospital was overcrowded would be a severe understatement. No amount of triage management would help them. Eva got out of the truck and looked at John, "Are you not coming?" Eva had actually felt like he was her guide and was a bit lost with the thought he was just dropping her off. "No, I've got to get this truck to the docks, I'm already ten hours late." John said before reaching into his glove compartment and writing down his phone number. "Here call me if you get stuck or need help, I need my phone back though." John said before passing the note and taking the phone from an Eva who obviously didn't want to give it back.
Eva looked like a deer in the headlights as she headed to the hospital. John watched her until she went into the building, at which point he shut the passenger door and pulled out of his parking spot. He had to drive to the docks now. On the way he stopped by a gas station that was somehow open. He went and picked up some bottles of water and some packets of crisps. When he got to the register he asked the man there a question. "Why is this place still open? I would've thought everyone would be staying home right now. Didn't you hear about everything that has been going on?" The man was of Indian decent and looked much less rugged than everyone else John had seen today. "I only heard about all that stuff when I was on my way to work, when I saw that blue thingy after waking up I thought I was dreaming and just pushed it away so I could go back to sleep. I decided I better keep going, you know, just in case all of this turns out to be nothing. Can't afford to lose this job." John understood what the man said, it would have been possible for some people around his timezone to simply sleep though the entire event. It would be another story on the other side of the world though, they would have been awake all through it. John took his food back to the truck before indulging himself, he was a messy eater.
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After eating his fill John decided to investigate the second blue box he had gotten, the one that told him he had won. The message had told him he could get what he won if he said open system window, this seemed far too much like a game or at least the user interface from a game to be a coincidence to John. "Open system window", John said the words and another box appeared in front of him, it was larger than the others and held specific information, unlike the other messages. It made John sure that the world had gone crazy. 'If everyone and thing is insane and the world has gone crazy then I suppose the most effective mode of surival is fitting in with the new world.'
TITLE : N/A NAME John Mulligan GENDER Male CLASS N/A CLASS LEVEL N/A SUB-CLASS N/A SUB-CLASS LEVEL N/A ----------------------------------------------------- STATUS HEALTH 12 MANA 12 INTELLIGENCE 5 STRENGTH 6 WISDOM 6 AGILITY 4 LUCK 8 DEXTERITY 4 CHARISMA 3 ENDURANCE 6 ----------------------------------------------------- MAGICAL AFFINITY FIRE 0% WATER 0% EARTH 0% AIR 0% LIGHT 0% DARKNESS 0% ----------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL
Status Points : 3 S Tier Class Token S Tier Sub-Class Token
STATUS EFFECTS
N/A
When John saw the page he knew exactly what it was, a character sheet or character statistic page. The System window seemed to have basic information about John and some things he didn't quite understand, magical affinity could mean a lot of different things. At first John tried speaking the words out loud to get more information of the headings, like how he had opened the window in the first place, but he got no response at all. It wasn't until John tried to touch the heading that he started to gain information.
When John touched the heading regarding his status he received another small window that popped up giving him an explanation of the various statistics. It would seem that the numbers directly correlated with his ability in the specific statistic and as the numbers increased the power increased. John also found out that the values themselves, although seeming low, were actually quite good. An attribute score of five was the average in that skill, so a five in strength would be the strength of an average human. The attribute score of ten was the highest any human had ever gotten with that specific attribute, so someone with a strength score of ten would be the strongest human ever to have lived. This also worked backwards meaning a strength score of one would be the weakest human to have ever lived. After the score of ten in an attribute a character would become more powerful in a linear fashion, to avoid a man with fifteen strength being able to lift a skyscraper.
Health and Mana were calculated from endurance and wisdom respectively, it also said that they received additional modifiers from classes. The standard formula was the attribute multiplied by two, meaning an endurance of six gave twelve health. This also meant the average health and mana was ten.
John was confused when he tapped the heading for magical affinities as a box appeared that told him he did not have the requirements to access that page. As Johns eyes scrolled down he eventually found the tokens he had received and also three attribute points, whether or not he gained these when he levelled up was hard to tell as both of the level indicators at the top of the window said his level was unavailable. John tapped the box with the class token in it and was greeted by another pop up.
Do you wish to use "S Tier Class Token"? Doing so will destroy the item. Yes No
John was slightly hesitant to use the item but did so anyway, there was no reason to hold the item that he could think of but more importantly he really wanted to try out magic, he had always played magic based classes in tabletop RPGs and MMORPGs, the idea of being some sort of wizard really excited John 'with all the absurd bullshit that has happen in the last day, maybe magic isn't so far out' John thought to himself. The problem was the amount of options that had appeared before John. A massive new menu had popped up, on the top it there were five tabs labelled; "D", "C", "B", "A" and "S".
When John clicked the "D" tab a list of hundred of classes appeared before him, scrolling down he saw various mundane things like "Brute", "Bowman" and so on, all varied forms of weak combatant, nothing special at all in the bunch. Under the C tab he began to see slightly specialised classes like "Long Bowman" and "Halbardier". The B tab was where John started to see the first classes that seemed to use magic, "Mage" or "Wizard" seemed to be here along with more powerful sounding physical combatants, this tab had slightly less classes than the last two. The A tab was where things got really interesting because John saw special types of magic users and extremely powerful physical fighters, the likes of "Necromancer" and "Blood Drinking Beserker" were there, there were far less classes here than the other tabs, maybe only thirty or forty.
The S tab, the one John had been saving for last, was astonishing. The classes here seemed to be rule breaking. Just to name a few John saw "Ancient Sage", "Time Swordmage", "Elder Lich Necromancer", "Godly Blademaster" and the one John thought simply broke every rule "Arch Creation Wizard." The idea itself could mean a few things but John really wanted that class. After double checking the lists for anything he missed john pressed the box to select "Arch Creation Wizard". He was prompted with yet another pop up.
Do you wish to learn the class "Arch Creation Wizard"? Doing so will grant you the powers of the most rare field of magic. An Arch Creation Wizard is capable of negating most physical laws to create almost anything from mana. A master of this class is only a stones throw away from the realm of deities. Yes No
John nearly died on the spot from excitement, his entire body trembled at the thought of what this class was capable of. Not only in utility, if this class could create anything from mana isn't that just a total cheat? You could create a nuke and just put it in the middle of a city on a timer. 'Not that I'd do that, I'm not some kind of monster' John thought to himself, the possibility might be real though, which in of itself was frightening. John pressed yes and as he did so he passed out from the huge amount of information that was pumped into his mind.