CHAPTER 31_HEX - A Zombie Survival LITRPG

CHAPTER 31

Ray

Ray watched as Jalla snapped off a small fireball, immolating an undead from the barge. It had been hiding in the shade of the building next to the dock. Once he found out his master was leaving the island, he insisted he had to come. At any expense. Why was anyones guess.

Ray marveled at the odd ability to cast spells. He only had one thought at the sight, magic was fucking cool. Even if it wasn’t really magic. Josephine watched with interest as well, wondering if she would ever have such a capability.

When the Draemon had head that he and Grok were off to have some fun getting the core, he had asked to join them. While Ray didn’t fully trust the demon like bastard, he certainly wasn’t going to say no to a willingly helpful hand. Besides, Jalla had asked to help, and everything he knew of their race led him to believe that they would honor the words and, more importantly, the intent behind their words. To the death.

Now they found themselves on the barge, just offshore from where their original ramshackle headquarters was. Unfortunately, it now seemed as if the undead had moved in. In quantity. Ray could see them lurking in the shadows of nearly every damn place that held them. He was sure once the sun came up that most of them would either burn or find crevices to hide in. But for now they only made enticing targets for Jalla.

“So … how does your magic work Jalla?” he asked offhandedly.

The Draemon snapped off another fire ball, grinning as an undead burst into flame and wandered out from its shaded hideaway. Only to collapses as the rising sun added additional damage.

Turning to Ray, he said, “This is considered a somewhat rude question among those who have adapted to the System. As you are uninitiated, I will answer this. Just know going forward many people may attack you over such a question,” he explained.

With Ray’s nod of acceptance he continued, “The word Magic simply describes a process and effect. One that is esoteric and not fully understood. It comes in many different types and is applied in many different ways.”

“That’s fair. Could I get the basics for now?” Ray asked.

The Draemon nodded slowly, “Yes,” he replied simply. Jalla was silent for a moment, probably trying to boil down an incredibly complex concept to a simplistic form that Ray could grasp with a minimum of learning on the subject. “Magic, as you know it, is a distillation of raw energy pulled by the System from a place called the Elemental Sea. The Sea itself is … not understood. We will skip this for now. The energy is converted into three types of magic used by various races. Mana, Aether, and Miasma.”

The barge bumped up to the dock as he spoke. While the Orkin tied off the makeshift vessel and prepared for landfall, Jalla continued his educational spiel.

“Each of the three types of magic are used differently,” he explained, “Mana is purely elemental force. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, these are the magics of creation. Aether is the divine magic, often used and collected over time by more powerful entities. It is used to empower others or create something from nothing. It is a powerful healing magic, and one most Clerics use. Miasma is the magic of the dead. Reanimation, necromancy, chimera, and demon summoning. It is a far more nefarious magic that focuses around blood, death, and suffering.”

“Right. Miasma is the magic of fucking every living thing within reach. Is that why everything died out inside the fort? And why those skeletons and zombies were fine in the daylight?” Ray wondered.

Jalla mused over that for a moment before answering, “Undead usually do not combust in day light. This is a new phenomenon that I am experiencing for the first time on your world. Yes, they do weaken. Yes, they do become slower, stupider. Catch fire and turn to dust? Never before have I seen this.”

Ray nodded, “How about the Lich then?”

“He was a Heroic Level Undead. Sunlight affects him not at all. Not to say that about its minions, he was there to play. Those were not undead but summons. All of them were summons,” Said Jalla slowly. “That thing probably had a second, possibly a third class that allowed it to summon hordes without the need for any bodies. Truly a powerful skill, being able to summon the equivalent of an undead army without the need of any corpses.”

Ray was shocked. He had met some sadistic people in his life, his job was all about ensuring the safety of his passengers after all. But he had never heard of anyone showing up to a place in force to kill others for fun. Even the most sadistic of murder stories he had heard about had the killer in a broken from of mind. Insane and psychotic, not calculatingly sadistic.

“Fuck me. If he was there to play I couldn’t imagine what else he would have done. Why do you think he left so suddenly? And that portal … can we do that?” he said, firing off questions rapidly.

Jalla laughed, his soft tickling voice carrying over the waves. “Let us claim the core and return to the fortress. Once this is complete I will answer more of your questions. You are … amusing for a human,” he said, still laughing softly.

The Draemon walked away and down the gangplank leading to the massive pier that they had floated up to. Ray was left sputtering, questions whirling in his mind. Jalla had said humans like this was far from the first time he had run into them.

“Hang on one second now!” he said, jogging after the horned man with Josephine in tow. As they caught up, they watched Jalla casually toss out a fireball, immolating an undead. He repeated this, targeting undead hiding in the shadows of buildings and shipping crates. Each fireball he snapped off was accompanied by a maniacal burst of soft laughter.

The duo caught up to him quickly, but regardless of the tactic used the Draemon wouldn’t respond to any of Ray’s questions. Other than to laugh at him in that oddly soft manner of his. Jalla was, at every level, an enigma to him. At first, he seemed to want nothing more than to murder the human who had purchased him and his group. Now … now he wasn’t so sure.

“There it is,” said the fiery man, pointing towards a somewhat chipped away block of solid metal.

When they had departed the mainland with their first makeshift headquarters, Ray and Gale had decided to seal the core in a solid vault of metal, debris, and concrete. It was the most secure thing they could do with the materials that they had on hand. Anything else would have cost him his hard earned NEX, or utilized some of the refined materials that they had worked hard to scavenge.

The brick itself wasn’t too far from the end of the dock, and the barge. A couple hundred yards at most. It lay dead center where the headquarters had been. Ray had paid a bit of NEX to collapse and condense it around the core, providing as much protection as they could for as long as they could.

It seemed to have worked. At least so far.

Moving across the open ground quickly, Ray and Josephine marveled at just how much shit the Orkin and Goblins had scavenged during their move. Nearly everything around the brick itself was gone. Some minor scrap piles remained, but for the most part every valuable metal and component had been stripped from the immediate area. Sure, there was literal tons of stuff left to find and use. But that was for a later day.

“The area is clear. I recommend doing this quickly before we bring more attention to ourselves,” muttered Josephine. Jalla nodded in agreement as Ray stepped forward and placed his hand on the brick.

He immediately received an option to deconstruct the condensed block of material. It would only cost him a few hundred NEX to perform the action, so he didn’t hesitate in the slightest. Selecting yes, the entire structure fell apart into neatly packaged bundles. Ray and Josephine marveled at what the System was capable of with a bit of palm greasing. Nothing like bribery to get a job well done without having to resort to sullying your own hands.

As the material sloughed off and was conveniently packaged for transport, the core became visible. The silver ball was slightly orange, and slightly larger, than before. Ray wasn’t sure what that meant, but based on what Kevin had told him about the amount of energy being built up he was positive it wasn’t completely good.

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Stepping forward, he placed his hand on the core:

CORE MODIFICATION

WARNING – REMOVING THE NODE WILL AFFECT THE INTEGRATION PROCESS

RESOURCES REQUIRED

NEX COST: 5,000*HEX CLAIM BEACON: 1

“Hey Jalla, it says its going to affect the integration. Any idea what that means?” Ray asked the Draemon aloud.

The red man shrugged, “No. We may all die. The timer may pause. You could trigger an event. Much is unknown,” he replied cryptically.

Ray shook his head. Jalla and Gale were highly knowledgeable, had lived for centuries, and were both extremely powerful. Their help, in this particular situation, was so limited that it may as well be non-existent. Not even Kevin knew what was going on with the System, he shouldn’t expect his two most knowledgeable people to have all the answers.

He hit yes to accept the changes.

The core popped out and he snagged the large silver orb from the air. At the same time the Hex Claim Beacon vanished from his inventory, and appeared in front of them. It appeared as a solid green cube, more akin to an emerald hue really. Roughly the size and heigh of a dinner table, it was far larger than Ray had imagined it to be.

“I … am not going to say a damn thing. Lets go back to the island,” Ray said turning quickly and walking back to the barge.

Jalla looked mildly confused while Josephine looked to have trouble containing her mirth. “Not a damn word woman!” said Ray vehemently as she slapped her fingers over her lips and sputtered.

“I do not understand,” Jalla said. Turning to Josephine, “Can you explain?”

She nodded and, after taking a moment to calm herself, said, “There are these things in human culture and media called flags. Often within works of fiction. The are triggers for events and major developments within a story, and they are often begun by someone saying some version of, ‘that was too easy’.”

“Ah. I understand. We too have a concept such as this,” Jalla said, his amusement now clearly apparent. “It is called blessing the Draemon. As divine magic can be fatal to us, even in small amounts, this portends something that may happen due to provoking Fate.”

Ray didn’t miss that capital F on Fate, but before he could ask a question a shifting shadow near a stack of containers caught his eye. “We may have company,” he said, drawing his blade.

The trio approached the side of the containers, wary of anything that could pop out or hit them from a distance. Ray had had far too many close encounters with bone spears and acid himself not to be overly cautious.

As they got closer, an all too familiar growling sound came out from between the large containers. Ray paused, listening to audible warning sound before figuring out what it was. He had heard it before, had fed it in fact.

Chuckling, he put his blade away. Josephine and Jalla looked at him oddly, but followed his lead. AS the group relaxed, Ray stepped forward and took out one of his few remaining noodle packets from his inventory and stuffed it in his hoodies pocket. Then he took out a bottle of water and popped the cap off.

“Come here boy, come on,” he coaxed gently. “You remember me. Oh yes you do. I found you a while back, remember? I gave you those tasty treats.”

Jall leaned in towards Josephine and quietly asked, “What is he doing? If there is a hostile creature there, it may very well kill him.”

“There isn’t. Before the apocalypse people kept various animals as pets. The animal here is, I am certain, a dog,” she said, explaining.

Jalla nodded and watched as slowly, very, very slowly, an emaciated dog crawled out from under the container. It was skinny, malnourished, and seemed to be hurt. Its hand leg was bent at an odd angle and its fur matted with dried, caked blood.

“Oh shit boy, something got into you, didn’t it?” Ray muttered, moving closer. As he got closer the growls trailed off. The dogs tail, once curled up under its belly, began to unfurl. Even wagging a bit. “Shh, I got you,” he said quietly, bringing the bottle down next to the dogs face. He poured a bit into his hand and let the thirsty pup drink out of his palm.

Looking up at Jalla he said, “See? Definitely not an undead. Not even a hostile creature.” The Draemon nodded, suitable chastised. “I ran into this guy a while back, after Josephine … uh … kicked the bucket,” he said while glancing at his now scowling bodyguard. “Right. Ran into him in an alleyway between two factories a bit West of here. Fed him, watered him, and then moved on. He didn’t seem to interested in coming with me at that time.”

“You cant possibly be thinking of taking the dog with us,” Josephine asked, quirking an eyebrow. “We hardly have enough food for ourselves, much less an addition. Aside from that, the creature may not live much longer with the state it’s in.”

Ray sighed. She wasn’t wrong. But something was telling him that it would be even more wrong to leave the Shepherd here. “No,” he said, bending down and trying to scoop the pup up into his arm. But Josephine was already ahead of him.

With a deep sigh, she picked up the dog, wrapping her arms under the front and back legs to ensure the wound on its haunch was not disturbed. “We need to get back to the barge. We have what we came for,” she said briskly, walking away from the two men.

Ray and Jalla swapped amused glances with one another and quickly followed the lady. There were something you just didn’t comment on. Both of them realized this was one of them.

The trio arrived back at the barge and got up the gangplank without any problems. As the Orkin withdrew the plank, Ray looked back at the HEX node. The green glow of the Beacon was visible even from where they were.

Turning back to the barge, he wondered if when the integration happened that it would still be there. He hoped it would be. They had sacrificed a lot to keep their beach head here. Well, if it did disappear they would make due. This new world of theirs seemed to care little for emotional attachment to anything. Afterall, the only thing that mattered was that they survived in the end.

Sometimes that was enough.

***

RAYMOND ‘RAY’ FINNEGAN

RACE

HUMAN

CLASS

NONE

NEX

CALCULATING

LEVEL

PHYSICAL STATE

RESTED

MENTAL STATE

CAUTIOUS

ATTRIBUTE

BASE

CURRENT

NEX TO INCREASE

STRENGTH

AGILITY

POWER

100

WISDOM

LUCK

400

JOSEPHINE SANCHEZ