The road they used entered Paarl from the side of town, there was a signpost on the ground. 'Welcome to Groenheuwel.' The neighborhood looked bad, not one house was undamaged but it looked a lot greener than it was before the pulse.
They came across a ruin of a big house or small hotel. From the size of the ruins, it looked like it had been a big house that had been turned into a guesthouse or B & B. Going through the broken remains they had found a buried pantry with some surviving canned foodstuff but the biggest plus was a couple of street maps meant for tourists that came in quite handy.
The maps gave them a rough idea of where they were in town but they also indicated a couple of worrying tourist attractions. Like the fact that there should be a cheetah reserve to the east of town. He remembered the encounter they had with the giant leopard on their way to Worcester, cheetahs aren't ambush predators like leopards but they are fast and he shuddered to think what they can evolve into thanks to the system.
Louie had stopped with the road-building just outside the neighborhood till they could establish a base and then link the road. They decided to stay at the ruined B&B and wait for Shadow to return before moving further into town.
Louie had cleared the yard and raised a wall but done nothing else, trusting in the tent for comfort and the spiders to warn them of intruders as well as keeping them safe.
They used this time to harvest most of the termite bodies as well as some of the bodies gathered on their march through the mountain, all the leftover waste Louie would just dump inside his Dungeon ring, not wanting to attract the attention of any of the packs of wild changed feral pets that they had caught glimpses of since he had some ideas for their use later.
Everywhere they looked, trees grew out of the ruins of houses, vines and bushes grew through cracked asphalt, mana had given nature the power to reclaim what they as humans had taken from it.
It was the morning of the second day that Shadow returned. They all sat around the fire listening to what she had found out about the town.
"There is no single ruler like in Starter Town, instead there are nine 'camps', most are more like fortified buildings, and each is a separate entity, the strongest camp is a 'safe zone' that is walled with stacked motorcars that wrap about four city blocks, but the biggest is a shantytown that has a militia patrolling it."
She shook her head, "it's bad in the shantytown. People are struggling. I saw one place running a soup kitchen, feeding the starving. There is a militia that is struggling to keep the people safe since there are no walls around the shantytown and the militia is mostly made up of ex-police, soldiers, and a group that was known as preppers in the Prepulse."
Louie knew that most people had called the preppers crazy. But somebody had once said that 'When the world goes crazy, you need a little bit of crazy on your side to survive.' So he had no problem working with preppers. What worried him the most is the way that she had emphasized 'Safe Zone'.
"How about levels and what's the Safe Zone?" He asked.
She rolled her eyes. "Yea, the 'Safe zone' is run by a gang, I couldn't find out much, since it looks like people were afraid to talk about them and I didn't want to come off as being too nosy, but from what I heard it's called Camelot and they are not liked by the residents of the Shantytown. The 'Safe zone' isn't a System Safe zone either and there is a six-story apartment block in there where the gang lives, but what I did find out was that they are not very tolerant of 'Others'. Two corpses are swinging from the side of the apartment block, in full view of everyone passing by." Shadow gave Sher and Shira a look. "And levels, fives or sixes I saw one level seven. Nothing worrying as far as I could see."
There were some Gasps when she mentioned the bodies.
"You saw others?" Sher asked softly.
Shadow nodded, "Yea, people who are different, of which there are quite a few. I saw a guy with horns, curled like a goat, well I think I saw a guy with horns, it might just have been a helmet, and there were quite a lot of small people, they were mostly disguised as young children but they moved differently, like grownups. Everybody tries to keep their face hidden when possible, and I didn't want to be seen as too curious."
Louie nodded, "We can use that." He rooted through his inventory and removed the togbag and gave Sher and Shira two of the toy glasses.
He shared the BB with them.
Groucho glasses (Disguise/Toy) (uncommon)
Groucho glasses were also known as nose glasses or the beaglepuss and are a humorous novelty disguise that functions as a caricature of the stage makeup used by the comedian Groucho Marx in his movies and vaudeville performances. They typically consist of black frames (either round or horn-rimmed) with attached features including bushy eyebrows, a large plastic nose, bushy mustache, these glasses are invisible to anybody but the wearer once equipped and will either make the wearer more likable or less noticeable depending on the observer's disposition towards the wearer.
"Use this, but keep your hoods up and your faces hidden till we can find out more about what's happening. We will have brunch and then move out."
Sher took the classes with a frown. "I can just wear my mask, I want to see one of them tell me to take it off."
Louie smiled. "Let's not start anything until we know more about the political situation in the camps."
They equipped the glasses, and Louie noticed a slight shimmer around them as the glasses disappeared from view. There were no visible changes, but maybe it was because they knew about the glasses.
They moved out of the yard keeping their heads on a swivel, searching for any sign of the packs of feral pets they knew were around, but they were more than ready to face any attacks before they started down the street.
Derek, clutching his Warhammer, came up to Leon.
"Shouldn't we be looking to see if there are people trapped in the ruins that need help?"
Louie heard and shook his head as he spoke up. "It's been over three weeks since the pulse, if there were people trapped under the rubble, then it's far too late to help them now. Keep your eyes open for any movements."
The Berg River flows through Paarl, and like anything else in the PostPulse South Africa, the Mana, the pulse or Gaea, he wasn't sure which, also changed the slowly sleepy river into a wide slumbering giant. The river was now over 500m wide and it flowed deep and strong, luckily the bridge was still up, or a bridge was up, not being sure if it was the original or one made by Mana after the changes done to the river, but people were crossing even though there were chunks of it missing.
As they crossed they saw that it looked like something had used it as a chew toy, but it still seemed safe.
People were crossing the bridge but they scurried away or hid behind the wrecks as soon as they saw them and especially the golems. Leon wanted to stop and talk to them but Louie indicated that they should move on and see if they could reach the center of the town before it got too dark.
They had just crossed the bridge when Louie saw Sher sniffing the air, then Dan stopped and said he smelled fresh blood.
Though BOB was a dog his sense of smell was shit, but if you take into account that he isn't a real dog but a golem then it's understandable.
She said that the smell was fresh and human, human blood.
Sher looked across the street at the nearest house, it looked a bit different than the others, a bit better, but not much. The windows were boarded up and the front door looked new and sturdy but it stood open.
"Somebody died in there within the last thirty minutes, the blood smell is fresh, very fresh."
Dan stood next to Sher, he shook his head as he took a whiff. "No monster smell. Just humans and fresh blood."
Louie was still curious about what kind of class Dan has, he had first thought it was a kind of barbarian, but lately, he had started showing more and more animal traits, like his keen sense of smell.
He had thought of using analyse on him but he respected Dan's privacy, except if he had thought that Dan was a danger to the company or meant them harm, then he would use
They moved closer to the house as Louie equipped all his armor and walked up to the door.
He stood in the doorway and gave himself a moment to look through the room, there was fresh blood visible, still dripping from the walls.
Louie equipped his bowie, if somebody was still in the house then he would need the smaller blade since this would be close-quarter work.
The sun was going down but thanks to his
Just inside the door to the hallway, he found the first body or what was left of the body, it was fast deteriorating, as far as he knew that only happens when you loot a body, it was a male and his head was crushed, in the pool of blood he saw the first indication of what kind of a monster had struck the group and breached the house's defenses.
It was one of the worst kinds of monsters around.
The boot print was clearly visible in the still-wet blood, standing there the scene brought up all the anger and hate he’d tried to suppress after he lost his family.
He tried to use
He bent and concentrated on the print and saved the image to his journal, then he slowly turned around and saved as many images to his journal as possible.
He concentrated, activating his
Investigation: (active)
This skill grants a +40% chance in gathering information, researching topics, analyzing data, and piecing together clues. Skill percentage can be improved through practice.
Tracking: (active)
Tracking is the ability to gather information from the tracks left by animals in the wild. This includes things like, the approximate direction traveled and approximate location of a calling animal. As the tracker gains more experience more specific information can be gathered such as gender, weight, and the age of the track.
Tracks will glow with a faint light indicating the danger level of the prey.
Intuition: (passive)
That feeling in your gut when you instinctively know that something you are doing is right or wrong. Or it's that moment when you sense kindness, or fear, in another's face. You don't know why you feel that way; it's just a hunch, the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning.
Senses: (passive)
Senses encompass the skills such as vision, touch, smell, taste, hearing. Sensory skills are responsible for receiving information from the environment and from the body, higher levels in these skills will help you in processing more information from your environment.
Current level, 10% improvement of all the senses to help in combat, increase by 1%per tier.
Quick Study: (passive)
This ability grants +50% ability to learn new skills and improve old ones. He/She always learns new skills as if He/She had a teacher (even if He/She doesn’t), and He/She can improve skills He/She already knows at a cost of -50% stamina while this skill are active. This Ability work very well with the youth.
Information started to stream into his mind as he looked at the murder scene, he looked at the boot print and knew it was a size thirteen, which is a bit bigger than the average size for South African males which is size ten or eleven, the average distance between several bootprints indicated that the suspect was just under 2 meters tall and walked with a slight limp in his right leg which was due to a worn-down tread on his right boot.
Due to the hole where the murderer had missed his target and hit the wall, it looked like he was using a big hammer or mace as a weapon, there was also a strong smell of tobacco in the air, not cigarettes but cigar or pipe, but he doubted that the guy would stop and light a pipe in the middle of killing people, there were at least 3 others from the marks and some other indistinct bootprints.
There were more bodies,
The first bedroom was the same, it looked like they had forced her over the back of the daybed that was in the middle of the room, using then killing her, as indicated by the discarded torn female clothes next to what was left of the body.
Louie heard a sniff behind him and as he turned around he saw Sher and Dan together with Micheal looking at the carnage in the front room.
Dan sniffed the air like a dog and the hairs on the back of Louie's neck stood up straight, but he saw the rage and glow in Dan's eyes like he was struggling to hold something in. They nodded at each other as if saying 'we will get these fuckers'.
Before he could stop her, Sher had pushed the door of the room across from him open and she gasped.
Pushing past her he saw that the room was the worst of the lot.
He pushed her out and closed the door behind him, trying to forget the small mutilated bodies inside.
Louie forced them outside before activating
He turned around and looked at the stricken faces of his companion as they tried to comfort Sher as she cried.
Louie searched for Shadow and nodded at her and Michael. "Track them, find them, then come and find us."
They nodded and Micheal circled the house looking for any sign of the murderers before he and Shadow together with Rover and Selina disappeared between the ruins.
They moved one road down and chose a ruined building with a couple of walls still standing and after they had made sure there were no survivors or monsters in the surrounding buildings, Louie created a small half dome just big enough to erect the tent under and space for four people around a firepit, they stood outside their camp and watched the house burn.
They took turns standing guard with the spiders outside, the rest were inside the tent practicing their crafting while they waited for word from Shadow and Michael.
As Louie sat, restoring clothes and armor he started thinking about his
'Maybe the same would work on my
He got everybody's attention. "I've been thinking. ." There were a couple of groans and some sniggers. "Yea Yea, laugh it up, " but he smiled. "As I said, I have been thinking about skills and classes. Why do we accept the first suitable class when the system offers it to us? Like you Derek, you accepted Blacksmith because you work with metal, but you don't only work with metal, if you make a sword, don't you also use leather and wood to make a scabbard and handles or hilt for your sword? The other day I saw you imbue a piece of red hot metal while you were beating it into shape, that doesn't fall under blacksmithing, and neither does engravings if you do it on your swords?"
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He saw Derek nodding. "I have been experimenting with my mana, and I don't do engravings, not yet, but I see where you are going with this, I might want to do engraving or enchanting in the future on weapons or other items that I create."
Everybody was thinking about his words.
"Exactly, if we advise people to hold off on picking a class when it becomes available, then they might get a better class later. Like I'm sure Weaponsmith or something like Manasmith is a better class than just a blacksmith."
They sat around for a while discussing what variation of classes might have been available later if they weren't so eager to pick the ones they had and if it might be possible for their classes to evolve like some spells they knew off.
It was two hours later that Shadow was back, "we found them, or we found where they went. We followed the spoor to the big safe zone 'Camelot'. Micheal stayed behind to watch the gate, he said he will expect us tomorrow morning and if he isn't there then he will contact you."
The next morning they asked the golem to try and search out a place where they could stay for a day or two till they had established a base and they could move there. They didn't think that the sight of twenty giant spiders would endear the people of Paarl towards them. Just after Ansi and the spiders faded into the surroundings they left the dome and Louie sealed it up, before moving to where Micheal was supposed to be waiting for them.
'Micheal, where are you? We are here where Shadow left you last night. Louie'
'Louie, coming, Micheal'
The rest of them huddled a couple of hundred meters away from the alley, or what used to be an alley, now it was a narrow path between two collapsed buildings while Louie and Shadow went to meet Micheal.
The mouth of the alley was facing the wall of stacked motorcars, and slightly to the left of the gate.
The gate was just an opening that was blocked with a bus that was moved in place to block the entrance when needed. The wall surrounded what looked like four city blocks, and in one corner, there was a six-story highrise building from which Louie could see two bodies swinging.
Through the open gate, they could see guards with burning torches walking around inside the enclosed space.
'Idiots, they have no night vision with the torches shining in their eyes.'
The sky started to lighten as a string of people accompanied by some armed enforcer-type individuals came out of the gate, most of the people were armed with spades and picks.
"They looked like slave labor." Said Shadow.
"They are."
Louie started, he hadn't even heard Michael approaching.
"You sure?"
"Not real slaves, but I heard one of the guards sneering at a worker last night. He said that if they want to be fed they should work harder."
"Shit." Louie shook his head as he looked away from the string of what looked like an old-time chaingang, without the chain.
"Where were you now?"
He indicated the direction of the marching group.
"A group came out earlier, I recognized the smell of the rollies they were smoking and the leader had a limp and was sporting a sledge in a shoulder harness as if he wanted people to see it instead of carrying it in his inventory. I'm about ninety percent sure they are the ones you are looking for. I followed them to a shebeen on the edge of the shantytown."
There was a group of People approaching the gate.
From what Louie could make out they were trying to enter the safe zone but were blocked by a couple of guards in patched together armor. There was one guy who touched each person and after some heated words were exchanged they were chased away from the opening by the laughing guards. Micheal pointed at the guy that touched the people.
"See that guy? I heard that he has a skill or a spell that allows him to see what you have in your inventory. I heard he was a former tax collector and is now using that skill, or whatever it is, to help the gang that operates the 'safe zone'."
Micheal explained to Louie what he found out during the night as they stood in the alley watching the front gate and the guards of the compound
"According to my source, the safe zone is the headquarters of a local gang. From what I could find out, that building, with the macabre hangings, belonged to a recluse that stayed on the top floor and after the quakes, it was the only apartment block that was still standing, the gang went up and somehow got hold of the building and started recruiting people. It was more like 'work for us or we will give your apartment to somebody that wants to work for us' they used cars to build the wall and now they patrol the inside of the 'safe zone' but it's not a system recognized safe zone so people still die from a monster spawning under the bed. I heard that people are still queuing up during the day to buy themselves entry into the 'Safe Zone'. You have to pay 50% of what's in your inventory to get in, and then they get to choose what they want. I also heard that you are lucky if they only take fifty percent."
Louie shook his head. "Fucking parasites." Then he clicked onto something Micheal said. "Source? What source?"
He looked slightly embarrassed. "There is a group of kids setting traps to catch the smaller monsters. I caught one watching a trap in the rubble behind us. He is really good at sneaking. We talked through the night, he gave me info and I gave him a couple of kilos of termite meat."
Louie nodded, "Let's get back to the others. And go see what's happening at this shebeen."
It wasn't far before they saw the slapped together shanty town consisting of those people that couldn't afford the entry fee to the 'safe zone' or other camps.
Louie looked at an open space as they walked past.
It was a mall parking lot that was loaded with cars, all of them in poor shape by this point. Louie could tell from the variety of fluids that had leaked out onto the slowly crumbling pavement. The engines were starting to deteriorate quickly, asphalt deteriorated more slowly. The asphalt in the parking lot was in better shape than the roads though, it would only need a bit of liquefaction to level the space.
'This would do nicely for a place to set up.'
The ruined shopping mall was crawling with workers digging through the rubble while guards were standing around chatting.
"Well now we know where they are all working, are they clearing the rubble or what?"
At that moment one group of workers moved a slab of concrete and shouted, hearing the commotion the guards moved in and started arguing about who gets the canned groceries that were exposed. Soon a fight developed between the guards while the workers moved away from the spot.
Louie shook his head as they joined the rest of their group.
"Why are all these people living here in squalor in shacks? Why aren't they grinding their skills and spells?" Dan shook his head while looking at the poverty around them.
Leon answered. "People are not used to thinking for themselves. Before the pulse, modern man has fallen into a rut, gets up in the morning, go to work, get home, eat and goes to sleep, then repeats. It will take time to adjust, but most of them don't want to or can't adjust, they need somebody to tell them what to do or show them the way, that's where we come in." He slapped Dan on the shoulder. "Your Boy Scout skills will come in very handy here my friend. Think you can start classes and teach the masses? Hey, that rhymed." Leon laughed as Dan and Danny smiled, shaking his head he looked around, "Yea, I think we can do this."
"Good, once we have things up and running, talk to Louie and we can see if we can somehow get your team incorporated into STC."
"Thanks, Leon. I will talk to the team and then go talk to Louie."
As the morning brightened, more and more people were seen in the streets, the mood all around was bad, Louie had seen fleeing refugees living in better conditions in camps in wartorn Angola and Zimbabwe during his army days.
They garnered a lot of scrutiny, since they were the best-dressed people out of all those around, not to mention the only ones not wearing patched together or homemade armor.
They came to a halt as Sher stopped on a corner in front of a bunch of hungry-looking kids, she removed a sapling from her inventory, made a small hole in the ground, and planted the tree. The kids looked on listlessly as she reached out and touched the tree.
She channeled more and more mana into the spell as the tree grew over fifteen meters tall and blossoms started falling before apples appeared all over the branches. The children and some grownups stood and looked with slack-jawed wonder before they rushed at the tree.
Sher repeated the spell with ten more fruit saplings, all along the road as they walked before she ran out of mana.
Louie walked next to her, supporting her as she tiredly leaned against him.
"You shouldn't have done that now, you should have waited till we could set up a place, you know the gangs will just come and take it from them." He told her softly.
She nodded as she looked back at the trees that were being swarmed, hungry-looking people. "I will come back again later, I will not allow the gangs to claim these trees."
Shadow nudged his other shoulder as they reached a crossroads.
They stopped to watch a group of teens, boys, and girls, walking by in orderly rows with a man dressed in prepulse army fatigues screaming directions at them. They 'marched' up the street towards a collapsed church and turned around to come back again. The way that they were falling over their feet and the instructor screaming at them, told Louie that they still had a long way to go before they were ready to face any monsters.
"The militia," Shadow whispered next to him.
Most of those training were in their late teens and looked like they would rather be sitting in front of their PCs playing games. They looked hungry, one or two looked downright skeletal.
All the future soldiers were marching with long sticks that they treated as spears.
"There are a lot of orphaned children here," Shadow remarked.
"Well I think the spear is the best weapon in training a militia, but they still have a long way to go. We should find out who the drill sergeant is, look like he is the only one trying to help the kids."
Leon nodded at Louie's suggestion and looked around and saw that the scrawny kid was not the only one who was in that state.
"They look half-starved."
"There is a rumor about a shebeen up ahead that feeds the hungry, maybe we can help contribute." Replied Shadow.
They drew a lot of attention from the squatters as their group moved along the edge of the shantytown towards the shebeen.
"That's the place where I followed them," Micheal said as Shadow spoke up. "That is the place that I told you guys about, the soup kitchen that is feeding these people."
Caravan members
* Lewis (Louie) Poren: Leader: Darkness: pet (BOB)
* Leon Koen: Metal(2IC) pet (Seera: Black Widow)
* Sheralee Van de Merve: Life(Healer) pet (Ansi: Queen spider)
* Mainey Fish: Light(Medic, indentured) pet (Stitch: Orb Weaver spider)
* Celia Malan: Life (Merchant) pet (Jon: Goliath birdeater)
* Naomi Malan: (underage) pet (Blue: small jumping spider)
* Trish and David: (Orphans)
* Diedre Viljoen: water (Tailor, indentured) pet (Sisy: Weaver spider)
* Francine Viljoen: Air(Jeweller, indentured) pet (Bling: fantasy Crystal spider)
* Micheal Nasser: Nature(Leathersmith)pet (Rover: Huntsman spider)
* Derek Samuels: Fire(Novice Blacksmith) pet (Ember: fantasy fire spider)
* Kotche: Earth (Soldier) pet (Stomp, brown widow spider)
* Counsellor: Air (Wedge, spear)pet (Wolfie: wolf spider )
* Christian Else: Water(Water mage) pet (Rob: blue Tarantula)
* Shadow: Fire(Scout) pet (Selina: Assassin spider)
* Jackson Pollok: Air (Warrior) pet (Zephyr: Wolf spider)
* Debbie Poerstamper: Earth (Warrior) pet (Bar: big Spiny Orb-weaver)
* Witney: Air (Warrior, guard,) pet (Ula: Tarantula)
* Sean: Air (Air mage, guard,) pet (Sweep: Tarantula)
* Barry: Fire(Warrior, guard,) pet (Papi: Tarantula)
* Garth: Water(Ranger, guard,) pet (Eeak: Weaver)
Scouts:
Dan: Barberian?
Jenna: Firebrand
Danny: Chemist
Jack: underage rogue (system locked)
Apollo:?
Artimus:?
Status
Name:
Lewis (Louie) Poren
Race:
Human (Male) Lvl 12 " 450,660/819,200" = Lvl 13
Class:
Seeker (5) (25%).
Sub-classes:
(exterminator) (3%)
Titles:
* Jack Black Brodifacoum,
* Trailblazer,
* Liberator.
* OFS (One Finger Salute)
* Dungeon pioneer
* David
* Selfish
* ?????
Affinity:
Darkness 0.001%
Affiliation:
N/A
Statistics
Health points (HP):
540
strength + constitution times level
Mana Points (MP):
504
Intelligence + willpower times level
Stamina (SP):
660
agility + constitution + willpower times level
Critical Hit Chance:
4%
Attributes
Strength:
23
Agility:
18
Constitution:
22
Perception:
21
Intelligence:
27
Willpower:
15
Charisma:
7
Luck:
5
Free attribute points:
0
Skills
Skill
Level
Progression
Wu shu:
5
95/100
Improvised weaponry:
T1: 2
05/100
Glacial Rage:
6
30/100
Meditation:
6
35/100
Regeneration:
T1: 0
25/100
Mana Manipulation:
9
80/100
Survival:
9
85/100
Cooking:
0
25/100
Restoration:
T1: 1
95/100
Social Sharing
1
55/100
Harvesting:
9
75/100
Herb Lore:
2
55/100
Whittling:
0
00/100
Pain resistance:
T1: 0
00/100
Poison resistance:
3
42/100
Cat`s eye:
7
55/100
Senses:
5
65/100
Armourer:
5
95/100
System Minimap:
5
85/100
Cartography:
3
95/100
Public speaking:
5
25/100
Spell Transformation: *
2
10/100
Backstab:
0
00/100
Skewer:
0
00/100
Scholer:
0
00/100
Learning:
#
#
Quick study:
#
#
Know-how:
#
#
Class Skill Proficiencies
Skill
Level
Progression
Investigation:
6
65/100
Tracking:
4
65/100
Intuition:
T1: 2
75/100
Analyse:
T1: 7
80/100
Lore:
2
10/100
Monster Expert:
4
25/100
?????
0
00/100
Spells
Spell
Level
Progression
Activation
Improvise:
T1: 1
35/100
Touch
Mana Construction:
T3: 3
55/100
Cast
Structural Modification
0
00/100
Touch
Liquefaction:
T1: 5
20/100
Cast
Earth Sense:
T1: 4
35/100
Touch
Weapon Schematics:
T1: 2
80/100
Touch
Vampiric:
0
00/100
Cast
Darkorb
0
00/100
Cast
Transfusion:
0
00/100
Touch
Electrocute:
0
30/100
Cast
Suffocate:
0
15/100
Cast
Waterboard:
1
85/100
Cast
Cauterise:
4
65/100
Touch
Shadow Step:
0
15/100
Cast
Fear:
0
20/100
Cast
Concussion Blast:
0
00/100
Cast
????
0
00/100