I’d gotten a decent amount of sleep, the nightmares were slowly waning. Only so many incomprehensible things could happen in a short timeframe before gravitas made way for numbness. Today we were leaving early. There was a long day ahead of us, had to make the most of it. The goal was to hit fifteen hours plus travel for seventeen in total. Our capitalist society was well and truly gone, yet somehow the workdays had doubled in length.
These observations and chitchat were what occupied the three of us as we gathered for our morning smoke. We had to pre-empt breakfast, round Bob was rotating out from camp-guard duty to mining-guard duty and thus had his own schedule demands. My nickname for the guy came from the fact he was chubby, had round cheeks and wore a leather cap which exemplified the roundness of his head. It was either that or budget Santa, although his bushy beard hadn’t quite greyed yet.
Once preparations were complete, it was my turn to have a gander at navigation. The explanation seemed simple enough - pick a direction, mind the mental compass, keep a steady pace and use time to gauge distance. It wasn’t perfect but our estimated return coincided with nightfall, while the campfire served as a beacon for the final stretch. My assumption of all responsibility allowed Barry to focus his attention on ‘his craft’, at least until something particularly inventive popped into his head and he refused to keep it there. His hourly quips broke the monotony of scanning the craggy landscape for snakedrop-rocks, so I couldn’t complain too much.
“How ya feel ‘bout bein’ vegan forever?” he said.
“What? We can make burgers.”
“Ain’t from animals though.”
“Damn, you’re right. Well, I had boar a while back.”
“Did ya keep any?”
“Nah, it’s gone.”
“Vegan forever.”
“Well, fuck.” And back to grinding he went.
Grid searching didn’t prove difficult. We stuck to the ‘zone edge’ yesterday, so today we ranged a little deeper in a U-shaped pattern. This way we avoided revisiting cleared areas. Apparently said pattern lined up perfectly with our schedule, in theory. That let us optimally scour the Errant without running into too many unmerged ones – they weren’t hard to kill but the snaketails lashed out with enough force to deter me. However, Barry gave no shits whatsoever, he brazenly walked up and triggered some kind of mini-explosion just as his punches landed on the rock-parts.
“Huh, you just take the hits? How do you know so much about this place anyway? You said this expedition is a trial run.” I’d asked before with regards to scheduling future trips.
“Easy, but I get why ya’d be confused, this here’s where I started after the reboot.”
“No shit? How’d that go?”
“How’d ya think? Wasn’t actually so bad even if I was lost for a while, didn’t take long before I met up with Kristen’s gang. Camp’s the spot where that happened, and why we got back to it now.”
Aside from the ones, we ignored others that didn’t look maxxed out. Barry insisted we ‘let them cook’. I cut the conversation short whenever another rock appeared. We spent the next four days repeating our routine, and then we called it quits at sixty kills plus the four we made on the trial run. The area had been more or less exhausted and the expedition slated to head back after another two days. I’d spent as much of my personal mana as possible in favor of pocketing looted crystal. Barry promised to pay me what he owed once we got back to the village. Any wondering about what to do with my time or grumbling about interest were both pre-empted by another offer from Barry.
“Was gonna have some folks help me out a day in exchange for both my minin’ shifts, but since ya stepped up there’s no need, and I got no need for minin’. Ya care for it as a bonus?”
“I’d gladly take you up on that, only problem is - I don’t have a pickaxe.”
“Don’t ya worry, it’s bein’ shared so everyone can have a go. I’ll let Viktor know to roster ya in.”
And that was that. Barry had two shifts to share since he was a fervent negotiator, just as demanding as he was generous apparently, and those were some of the many terms he’d set for coming out here as the group alchemist. The position hadn’t been popular and the alchemy-tool shortage provided adequate leverage. Something to keep in mind.
Mining turned out to be stressful as fuck. We hiked up the mountain towards the ‘mother lode’ zone. The area suffered from constant, if gentle, snowfall. Something about it bugged me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
At first it only seemed a minor annoyance, but it quickly dawned on me why this was a three man job. The poor visibility required someone, Bob, to scout for the next batch of clumped magisteel ore. My job consisted of hard labor, mining the piles of green veined rocks. Our last man, Viktor, chief organizer and expedition leader, watched my back. The need for his presence and the constant source of stress were one and the same.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
We were under continuous assault, every ten minutes or so, by one armed ice midgets. Those had a singular appendage, essentially a frozen spear, and they were eager to use it. They ambushed us by blindly charging in from the curtain of white. It was incredibly harrowing to just calmly ignore them and keep on pickaxing and I lost my focus several times, which meant starting over for some reason.
After another mound wafted away, Viktor tossed me a quadruplet of magic ice cubes. “Good for drinks! Will need when Barry finish prison wine. Otherwise go-” He mimed retching. “Now back to work, no waste shift.”
Viktor was a cheery fellow, if a bit bossy, and I suspected of Slavic origin. It wasn’t so much the accent or the way he talked, more that he spent a lot of time squatting. The fact he wore trainer pants really completed the stereotype, further accented by his oval face, high cheekbones and overgrown buzz cut. Granted, the squat helped add heft to the throwing, his preferred method of attack with a magic-metal tipped spear - useful against the ice-lancers, as they had reach. I inquired after his class and he motioned holding a gun. It wasn’t hard to piece together while he faked recoil and made throaty pew pew noises.
Not to mention how he laughed heartily after proclaiming ‘Bring gun to fistfight! But no gun’
So he was a sniper. “Can you show me what you can do? I’m very curious.”
He smiled brightly. “Of course Viktor can show. Look!”
He threw the spear at a very high angle after it flashed twice. Instead of following a parabola arc, it redirected down and to the left long before the apex. Instead of hitting the ground, it turned at another sharp angle and landed in the snowy ground right between my feet while my heart skipped a beat.
“Vik… I’m glad your aim is good, but maybe avoid having it land so close to me in the future, yeah?”
“Hah! It make demonstration better! Now pay ten crystal. Is price of showing. Also four for ice.”
Goddamnit. Well, he hadn’t partaken of the repair rush and his clothes weren’t all there anymore.
“How about a free mending for a piece of clothing?” ‘Mending’ came out as a warble, but it didn’t matter, he got the point.
“Also good!” Got it done, his ‘favorite’ hoody was now good as new. “Now work or we too slow.”
I had to finish up before Bob came back with the next location. My stash of green-veined metal had grown quite respectable after two days of nerve wracking labor and mistold jokes. One of the lidless personal storage crates in the mini-warehouse held all my crap. Only one thing eluded me - how the crew intended to carry the accumulated stockpile back to the village, days away.
Vik ‘solved’ the puzzle for me. “No worry, have plan. Also if steal I…” He made more throaty pew pew noises, pantomime aimed at my head. Easy there, cowboy.
“Got it, chief.”
It felt a bit excessive, but I wasn’t in charge. Whoever made the rules was probably well within their rights to upgrade larceny to a capital offense. Society’s tolerance for bullshit had taken a marked nosedive, how long the draconian measures would last was another matter entirely. The latest fruits of my labor joined the rest, neatly packed away. Alas, no tents were available which forced me to spend the night next to the campfire again. I’m too fucking old to be slumming it all the time.
The sun passed its zenith on the morrow and we were ready to head out. For once a post-apocalyptic week had proven productive. My mana supply sat at 93, crystal money stash was a slightly disappointing 210, although Barry owed me 320 on top. Mending cartel profits hadn’t gone into my pick, the excess siphoned off by my own need to repair clothes, but my whole outfit received a once-over at least. Six proper magic metal ingots kept my previously lonely small chunk company. It didn’t take more than a few minutes to fuse the mined slivers together with my portable forge. A couple of dozen smacks got the job done, surprisingly enough.
My stats had gone way the hell up. I leveled like a madman from our killing spree and was deep into superhuman territory now. Bolt didn’t have shit on my sprints, or at least he wouldn’t once I mastered the proper technique. For now my lead on him left something to be desired. At a whopping level 47, my physical power was at 18, my physical speed 115, with a physical endurance of 58 and a magical power of 104, while magical speed remained at 10. When magical endurance passed 100, now at 112, it caused an anomaly. My interface notation of ‘temporary refilling energy reserve’ had been replaced by ‘internal energy reserve’, with a cap of 112.
The System once again forced me to walk back my shit-talk of its design skills. Even if the whole thing seemed very one-and-done so far, at least some thought had been put into it. Still lacking in the user-friendliness department though.
The morning passed with frenzied activity, everyone worked together in harmony. Wasn’t much of a surprise why people tended heavily towards close cooperation - few things were more effective at uniting people than a common enemy and shared misery. This development resulted in shit getting done, but it was also good news for me in particular.
If I understood correctly from my one-man war against the automatic assault corridor, my primary damage output was magical. Because the ‘magical’ traps chipped my swords, it stood to reason that magical endurance mitigated damage of the same type. Incidentally, ME was the only stat under constant training, further pushed along by skill and ability use, and only three classes didn’t get more from leveling. As a result, my effectiveness against the System empowered was likely to dwindle over time, putting me at a disadvantage. Conclusion: make friends or get my teeth kicked in.
The hubbub finally culminated in a clever contraption, soliciting extended gawking from me. Our shared storage shed had been dismantled, and then reassembled into a wagon. The magic metal nails allowed for some very nifty shenanigans, extracting them from the wood caused the holes they left behind to close, leaving the material undamaged and ready for re-use. Incidentally, System-given forge tongs did so with little effort, latching on like a magnet, which sped up the process considerably.
We were only missing wheels, but handles on our crate of loot solved the problem. Everyone, except for me and Vik, helped carry the luggage. I wondered what the village would be like. Apparently there wasn’t much point in asking around, the consensus rang that it would have changed anyway by the time we got back, so the others shared my curiosity.
However, first it was time for another long-ass walk, but at least I had company.