It took the companions about twenty minutes to get to the Trammel Crow Center. The Trammel Crow Center was rebuilt in 2017 to make it more appealing to companies to rent out as an office space. Apparently, the building owners had offered it up as an emergency space for now to help with the crisis that was going on. There were teams of security guards out front that were currently having a standoff with a group of goblins.
"Bet the people of Dallas are wishing they hadn't required people to put so much glass in buildings now. Looks pretty from afar, but fucking stupid at the end of the world." James commented.
"I'm sure goblin attacks were not something they took into account when building the structures," Derek replied.
"No, but what about all those zombie movies? They didn't think to make one building that was mostly concrete just in case?" James asked.
"Look, all of that was pure science fiction until now. No one makes plans for those kinds of eventualities." Derek argued.
"Preppers do," James stated.
"Fine...no one in their right mind prepares for those kinds of eventualities," Derek corrected.
"Not really so out of their minds now are they?" James scoffed.
"Shut up," Derek said back.
"Look, we need to focus. There appear to be a lot of goblins biding their time there at the entrance. I'm pretty sure if I go goblin bowling we can take out most of them, but you guys need to be ready to clean up the rest." Tom said.
"Got it," Derek responded, and James nodded.
Revving the engine got the attention of the goblins standing in a pack around the front of the building. Turning, they saw an easier target than the guards at the doors with guns and began to move toward the trio in their vehicle. Tom let off the brake and drove right toward them. As he did, Derek and James leaned out the windows again, getting ready for battle.
Having already killed over thirty goblins on the drive here, they had become rather proficient at this sport. James began to open fire on the goblins from a distance and just before they were going to ram the goblin frontline, Tom turned the wheel hard to the left, making the car slide into a turn. Derek swung for the fences with his mace taking a couple of goblins out before the broad side of the car struck.
The car began to spin in a circle as James and Derek continued their barrage. The whole scene seemed to slow down for a moment as all three men were letting out war cries of anger and death as they unleashed on the goblins. Tom gripped the wheel tightly, brows knit together and a fierce cry ululating from his throat. James with a manic wide open mouth grin, aimed and fired at the goblins around the car. Derek with a determined look on his face and a battle yell echoing from him as he swung at any goblins that got close to the vehicle.
The vehicle managed to take out ten of the fourteen goblins gathered there, including the ones Derek had bashed. James shot three more of them, and the last one began to run in terrified panic at the three gruesome creatures in a mechanized beast that had attacked them. Opening the car and casually stepping out, James took aim over the door and fired, hitting the creature in the back of the head.
A couple of goblins groaned under the car, but Tom just reversed and then ran them over again until the noises stopped.
"What the hell man?! You guys are ruthless!" One of the security officers yelled over at them. "Are you guys like serial killers?"
"Not until today. But once you see a goblin playing soccer with a man's head or cutting down children on I-75, your sympathy for them goes away." Tom called back as he exited his car, now completely stained in goblin blood.
The security guards looked at each other and kind of shrugged. He had a point there. They shrugged at each other and decided just to be grateful someone came and handled the problem.
"We need to set up a system where people are ready to defend this area. If we don't get this system in place where we kill things that come in, we will get overrun eventually." Derek said.
"And who are you to order us around?" One of the security guards said.
"Fuck buddies if you play your cards right," James said.
Everyone stared at him in disgust for a moment. He said nothing further, letting the moment hang.
"We are the ones who cleared this entrance for you," Derek replied, trying his best to ignore the comment. "And so far I'm the only one with military experience and the balls to do what we need to do here to keep people safe. So unless you feel like you have this whole Grand System thing figured out and can do a better job, I'll handle the orders for now. Got a problem with that?"
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All the security guards shook their heads.
"Good. Now, the next time those ugly fuckers come back here, I want you to shoot to kill." Derek ordered. "You need to gain experience so you can level up. It's the only way to get stronger right now and might is right in this new world. So get over any namby-pamby insecurities you have about killing a monster that would just as soon eat your face off as have tea with you and fuck them up!"
Some of the guards nodded, others saluted, but all jumped into action and found places to take up a guard and were on the lookout.
"Now, who is in charge here?" Derek asked.
"That would be Brian. He's in the conference room on the fifth floor." One of the guards replied.
"Thank you. We will be going to visit him." Derek said.
Tom, James, and Derek all went to the front door and were about to enter when they were stopped by one of the guards.
"Are you just leaving your car here?" The guard asked.
"Not sure if we will need it again. Try not to mess it up too bad." Tom joked.
The guards looked at the vehicle which now had not only blood and viscera on it, but dents, scratchings, and literal pieces of goblin attached to it. They grimaced at the sight. How could someone be so ruthless? They just seemed to kill the creatures without care.
The trio went into the building and found the elevator and took it to the fifth floor. Once there they used the signs on the walls to navigate to the conference rooms which were all clustered on one side of the building. Only one was being used. A man in his mid-thirties was pacing back and forth in the room and seemed to be talking on the conference phone. He waved his hands frantically a couple of times and then leaned over the table as if saying something very serious to the person or people on the other end of the line.
Tom walked up to the glass door and pushed it open.
"...I don't care what you think needs to be done! This is the crisis to end all crises and we need to get supplies here now to help keep people safe!" The man presumed to be Brian said in an Irish brogue before looking up at the three men who had entered. "And who the fuck are you?"
"I'm Batman," James said, making his voice extra gravelly.
"Ignore him," Tom said. "I'm Tom, this is James, and that's Derek. We are here to see how we can help. We have a bit of experience with gaming mechanics and figured we could lend a hand here."
"Great! We need someone with a little more know-how on what the hell is going on here and how we can get through this." The man said. "I'm Brian, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"Damn your voice is sexy," James said. "Like butterscotch for your ears."
Brian looked at James with creeped-out confusion.
"Again, ignore him," Tom said. "Have you all made it through the tutorial yet?"
"I really can't say I have any idea what you are talking about here. I'm sorry if I come off as a complete idiot, but it's everything I can do not to just scream about these strange windows popping up in my vision. I figured out that just yelling close all would remove them, but they kept blinking in my vision. Do you know how to make all of this stop?" Brian asked an air of desperation in his voice.
Tom and Derek looked at each other with sad expressions beginning to show.
"Sorry, Brian, but we are pretty sure nothing is going back to the way it was before. This is going to be the new norm, at least for the long-term foreseeable future. We need to adapt and learn to survive with this new reality." Tom said. "Monsters are real now. You have to level up and get stronger to survive. That means we have to fight. Our society as it was won't work in this world."
Brian's eyes went wide as he slumped down into a chair. Someone on the phone spoke up.
"That doesn't bode well for us. Is there nothing we can do?" The voice asked.
"We can band together and fight to become stronger. When you kill a monster you gain experience points, just like in a video game. When you level up from enough experience points you will get attribute points, which you can allocate to your different attributes to make you stronger, faster, or better at magic. Oh yeah, and magic is a thing now." Tom explained.
"And when you reach level five you will get to pick a class where you can specialize in what kind of fighter you want to be. But the bottom line is fighting is going to be the way of life going forward." Derek added. "There were messages about crafting, so I'm certain some people will be able to focus on that, but fighting is going to be the main method of survival in the beginning. At least until we can sort out a new type of society that can deal with monsters."
"The first thing you need to do is go through the tutorial and try to get as much information from it as you can. Can we get everyone in the building together in one place so we can try to help teach them some of this?" Tom asked.
"Uh...sure. We can use the gym. There is a basketball court there we can gather people into so we can try to talk to as many as possible." Brian said, still kind of staring off into space trying to take it all in.
"Brian, we will be sending people to you as well. Please help them find a place and we will also try to send over any supplies we can get our hands on. No promises, but we will do what we can." The voice on the phone said before hanging up.
"Who was that?" Tom asked.
"Oh? Him? That was the mayor. I happen to be friends with him, so I put in a call to see if I could figure out what's going on. Sounds like you all are the ones with any real answers so far." Brian said.
"Well, that's a scary thought," James interjected. "We barely know what's going on too. We just happen to have a very particular set of skills..."
"Don't start that," Derek said. "Look, we will do whatever we can to help, but the first thing people need to do is get over this sensibility of not killing monsters. They will kill you, they will not feel bad about it, and they will probably play with your corpse if they don't eat it. We have seen some pretty messed up shit today and it's barely nine-thirty. So unless people want to end up dead, we have to suck it up, and start fighting back."
"If you could go ahead and start getting people ready to meet in the gym, we'd like to have a few minutes to look over our character sheets. We had a pretty eventful ride over here and need to see what we can do with our upgrades." Tom said.
"Upgrades?" Brian asked. "You know what...nevermind, I will hear about it in the meeting. Feel free to take this conference room for now and I will head down to start working on getting people arranged."
And with that, Brian stood up and left the room to begin assigning orders to get people to the gym.
"Alright, boys. Let's spend those points!" James said rubbing his hands together.