Day 2
I woke, waving my hand at the side of my bed in a vain attempt to turn off my alarm.
As Mind Sight settled back into my conscious mind, I shot up.
Mark was sitting at the bottom of my bed, holding my alarm clock in his hands.
“So, after you crashed out, me and Billy got the townsfolk situated in the outer barns and sheds, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable for them, but they’ve got plenty of supplies. Billy took us to a buried bunker full of clothes that he said your dad left there”
“I know it, Bunker 2C, out by the old cow field”
“That’s the one. Anyway, the girls said they wanted to go over our Character Sheets and see if we can find anything about how to use our powers better. Synergy and all that. Lisa found a way of sharing them”
“Yeah, that’s great! Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll be down”
“Raz, bud, you’re already dressed”, Mark laughed, still leaving my room, dropping my alarm clock on the dresser by the door.
My body ached as I slowly levered myself up into a sitting position, sitting at the side of my bed with my head in my hands.
Yesterday had taken a lot out of me. Out of all of us. My dad’s words echoed back to me, I’ll see you once you, and then nothing. What word had he used at the end?
And why did he mention the Language?
We’d not spoken it out of the house for years.
I sat, thinking for several minutes, occasionally muttering to myself, until there was a banging on my door. Viv let herself in even before she had stopped banging.
“Come on, slowpoke, we’ve not got all day”, she growled, evidently just as angry as always. I stood up and took two quick steps to her, grabbing her hands and looking her dead in the eyes.
Pulling every ounce of Mana from my core that I could, I threw it along the pathway to the Mind Gate, slamming it into myself as I spoke.
“Lasu vian menson esti libera”, as almost all of my Mana sprayed out of me, I saw a clarity come to Viv’s eyes that had been missing before, “I tried saying it yesterday. This System is messing with our minds. I don’t know how long this will last, but we’ve got to make sure we survive for whatever is coming”
“Whatever is coming? How do we know anything is coming?” she asked, visibly shaking as the previous day's horror came crashing in on her.
“There’s always something more in stories like this Viv. Hopefully, it’s nothing too bad, but I doubt it”
“You’ve got to do this for the others”, she started, but the sheen from before was already working its way back over her eyes.
She seemed lost in thought for a moment before something settled over her and she just walked off, throwing a quick “Come on”, over her shoulders.
Not fully understanding what had just happened, I started following her, wondering why my mind seemed clear from whatever this influence was.
Until I noticed that the pathway between my Mind Gate and my core now seemed to be much more solid and permanent, instead of the flickering line it had been before.
Thankful for the respite from having my mind tampered with, I descended the stairs as quickly as I could, soon coming to sit across from the others as Viv and Mark bickered between themselves about who would share their Character Sheets first.
“We’ll all just do it together. Think Party at the System instead of Character Sheet and the option will show up. Just hurry up about it”, Lisa berated the other two, “It’ll only take a second”
Following her instructions, I pushed Party at the System and was a little shocked when a full-blown party interface flashed into view at the bottom of my vision, not impeding it in any way but adding vital information to it.
There were icons for each of my friends inside circular marks and lines for Mana and Health around the outside of them.
As well as a small piece of text in the bottom corner that merely stated,
+10% experience awarded when in a Party
Mentally prodding at the symbol for Lisa, information flowed out of it.
Lisa Dunn - Level 3 (95%)
Species: Amorakian
Class: Bloodweaver
Deities
Leto, God of the Moon
Stats
Mind - 33 Mana
Body - 26 Health
Spirit
Intelligence: 11
Strength: 7
Charisma: 4
Wisdom: 11
Agility: 10
Willpower: 13
Perception: 11
Endurance: 9
Luck: 2
Skills
Skill
Description
Level
Cost
Mana Bolt
Fire a bolt of Mana at your target, causing force damage on impact. Can be cast every three seconds.
Curved Shot: for slightly increased Mana Cost, alter the trajectory of the Bolt as it is launched
Beginner - 4
1x Mana per 1x Damage, where x is Level
Curved Shot: +1 Mana to Mana Cost
Abilities
Ability
Description
Level
Effect
Amorak Physiology
Due to your Amorakian heritage, you have increased physical stats.
N/A
Increased physical stats
I quickly prodded the others in quick succession and their Character Sheets also flew out.
Mark Rowland - Level 4 (5%)
Species: Homo Magus
Class: Monk of the Apostate
Titles
Abbot of the Diocese of Old Terra (Gaea) [Third in line]
Deities
Warrior Spirit Connection.
Stats
Mind - 24 Mana
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Body - 39 Health
Spirit
Intelligence: 8
Strength: 12
Charisma: 5
Wisdom: 8
Agility: 12
Willpower: 20
Perception: 8
Endurance: 15
Luck: 1
Skills
Skill
Description
Level
Cost
Imbue
Imbue your fists with your Mana, allowing you to increase your Damage output
Beginner - 9
2 Damage per 2/x Mana where x is Skill Level
Break the Charge
When grappling with an enemy, or have one, or many, charging at you, imbue your entire body with Mana, enabling you to perform feats of superhuman strength
Beginner - 3
ALL remaining Mana
Abilities
Ability
Description
Level
Effect
Enhanced Combat
Perform at peak performance when in combat
Beginner - 9
When in combat, you will constantly perform at your peak physical performance, irrespective of almost all injuries and exhaustion
Vivian Williams - Level 4 (0%)
Species: Arach
Class: Hereditary Magister of the Arach Empire
Titles
Hereditary Magister
Deities
Uttu, Goddess of Fate and Shadows
Lugh, God of Truth and Justice
Stats
Mind - 40 Mana
Body - 17 Health
Spirit
Intelligence: 14
Strength: 6
Charisma: 6
Wisdom: 12
Agility: 6
Willpower: 9
Perception: 14
Endurance: 5
Luck: 3
Skills
Skill
Description
Level
Cost
Mana Bolt
Fire a bolt of Mana at your target, causing force damage on impact. Can be cast every three seconds.
Curved Shot: for slightly increased Mana Cost, alter the trajectory of the Bolt as it is launched
Beginner - 4
1x Mana per 1x Damage, where x is Level
Curved Shot: +1 Mana to Mana Cost
Abilities
Ability
Description
Level
Effect
Arach Physiology
Due to your Arachian heritage, you regenerate Mana at an increased rate. Other benefits to this physiology will come with time.
N/A
2x Mana Regeneration at night, 1.5x normal in the day.
Committing them to memory, I thought I had a better idea of how some of these powers would fit together.
“I noticed that we have the option to alter the people in the Party, but we have a 10% experience boost when we’re in a Party so I don’t think we should do it. We’ve just got to make sure to not get separated”
“We can’t get separated. We lost five people to that second set of Jackals last night just because they wandered too far from the group. None of us are ever going to do that, are we?” Lisa glared at us all, her age-old protective instincts kicking in.
It was not wise to come between her and what she thought was best for looking after us. We’d all found that out the hard way at some point in our lives.
“No, we’re not”, Viv agreed, while I and Mark just looked at each other, both knowing that we probably wouldn’t be able to stick to that if this Integration was anything like the games and books about similar things.
“Billy did say he was going to get started on having those who came with us start building shelters using some of the stashed building supplies. Your dad was a proper prepper wasn’t he Raz”, Lisa laughed, immediately stopping when she noticed the look on my face.
Pushing thoughts of my dad out of my mind, I refocused on the task at hand.
“We’ve got to get some Levelling done. If we don’t do that, we’re going to be struck blind by whatever ends up coming for us for building a settlement. It always happens in the stories”
“So let’s crack to it”, Mark grinned, yet again, delight at this new world being the only emotion he seemed to feel.
In answer to his words, I merely stood up from the table and started walking back outside, Mark dragging Lisa ahead of us as we went.
Just before we got outside, I felt Viv’s hand grab hold of my arm, pulling me back with a surprising amount of strength.
“We’re in this together Raz”, she started, “Whatever’s got you worrying, we’ll get through it together. Just like we always have”
“I know Viv. We just have to be careful, balance getting stronger with actually surviving. Rushing headlong into danger will just get us killed. By monsters for sure, but maybe by other people as well, not everyone is going to adjust to this new way of living”
“We don’t have to worry about everyone else though, just us four”
“I wish it were that simple”, I shrugged, pulling away from her and marching after the others.
********************************
Mark’s idea of cracking to it consisted of wandering for over an hour before turning to us, raising one leg on the short wall next to him, fist in the air and proclaiming that there must be no beasts left.
Once his proclamation was over, he sat down and just waited.
Lisa quickly took charge, marching us back in an actual direction.
We walked down old footpaths and across a few small streams until we came to a point about halfway between the town and my house and then Lisa sat down.
“We’ll rest here for half an hour and then loop back around the old church and back to the house. That way, we’ll have covered quite a distance and it will be the afternoon when we get back, we can then check up on what nearly a hundred people have managed to get done in less than half a day”, she said before laying back into the grass and staring resolutely at the sky.
I picked up the stone that Mark had kicked from the stream to here and started walking back towards it, knowing it would only take me ten minutes to get there.
I saw as I started walking around the trees that Viv had begun following me and without turning my head, I waved over my shoulder at her, watching in my mind as she smirked and just kept following me, barely making a sound I could hear as she did so.
As we got closer and closer to the stream, a sense of foreboding came over me.
As though some menacing being was watching me, I felt the hairs on my arms rise almost vertically before a great clap of sound made me jump backwards, almost crashing into Viv as I shoved her back behind a tree.
A shiver-inducing, clacking sound reverberated in the air around us as the being I had sensed appeared just at the edge of my Mind Sight, its eight legs scuttling across the floor as it lifted its body.
A Giant Spider, on its own and clearly looking for food as globules of saliva dropped from its mouth. It clicked and clacked at the air with its mandibles as it seemed to taste our scent across the air.
Looking around at Viv, I mouthed ‘Mana Bolt’ at her, just before stepping out from behind the tree and locking eyes with the monstrous spider.
Trying my luck while Viv readied her Mana Bolt, I pushed Mana at my Fae Charm Skill while maintaining eye contact with the spider.
Fae Charm - non-humanoid race bonus - for the next five seconds, Charisma is effective 20 - Mana Cost: 18
Just as my Mana rushed out of me, the spider appeared to be transfixed, locking its eyes with mine and merely waiting, not moving even as Viv’s Mana Bolt slammed into it.
Waiting with bated breath, I watched as just before the second Mana Bolt hit it, a clarity came over its eyes and it reared up into the air, the Bolt sliding under its body harmlessly.
Without thinking, and now under the effects of my dilated battle time, I drew an arrow and knocked it as quickly as I could, drawing back and firing in the space of a single breath.
It felt like minutes ticked by as my first arrow sailed through the air, hitting it solidly in one of its eyes as it fell back down, bits of grey flesh clinging to the arrow as it poked out the side of its head.
Quickly knocking another arrow and firing at one of its leg joints, I almost laughed in satisfaction as it seemed to knock it off-balance just enough for a third Mana Bolt to slam into it.
The creature stuttered on its legs for a second before slipping forwards, flat onto its face as it curled up, looking like nothing more than a massively overgrown spider.
Spinning around, I could see more of the spiders coming down from the trees and across the ground.
So I did the only sensible thing and ran like I was possessed, grabbing ahold of Viv and almost picking her up with each of my steps as I moved.
Hollering for Mark and Lisa the moment I thought they would be able to hear us, we burst into the clearing they were in at the speed of a running man.
Avoiding hitting them at the last moment, it only took a second before they saw the spiders too and started running just behind us.
Even as we ran further and further away from the trees, I could still see the spiders periodically gaining on us as more and more of them came into full view of my Mind Sight.
Without really thinking, I started steering us around to face where the old church should be, its decrepit walls hopefully offering us some shelter and a way of funnelling the spiders into tighter confines where we could take potshots at them as we did the Jackals.