Shadowbeasts were roaming the streets of the campus freely. A dozen turned to look at me as I left the building, which was troubling. Kay hadn’t left that long ago, had she? I’d never actually tried to save as many people as possible when playing the game. People died, and it was easy to be callous when it wasn’t real. I had no idea how many monsters there would be right now.
I didn’t stop to think, and threw as large of a Dream as I could. It created a hundred-and-twenty foot square, with holes where it slid around the buildings.(1) As the dream landed, the finer details faded away. The concrete beneath my feet was still recognizably concrete, but the grains and unevenness in the texture had vanished.
I cast [Blood of the Sacrificed].
Thin red mist filled the air, and blood surged from the ground. Almost immediately, I was two-inches deep in blood. (2) I was distracted from my minor discomfort by the realization that I could sense every Shadowbeast within the skill’s radius. I couldn’t tell what kind they were, but I could tell where all fifteen were. I could also tell they were all running towards me.
Before any of them reached me, the blood had killed all but one of them. I grabbed the last one with [Beast in the Blood]. It went under with a splash. I didn’t see what dragged it under, but it died in an instant. The dream faded away, and I burst into motion, sprinting for another spot to cast from.
I was grateful for the improvements Physique had provided. I wasn’t actually twice as fast, despite doubling the stat, but the improvement were still tangible.(3) Once I’d run a dream’s length, I threw out another Dream, and counted twenty shadowbeasts this time.
I cast [Blood of the Sacrificed], and felt the blood lapping at my feet again. This time the Shadowbeasts were closer, because I had run . Each looked like solid shadow had been shaped into a crude facsimile of an animal. (4) However, they looked like a shadow at noonday, faint, almost insubstantial darkness. I almost expected to be able to see through the bull that was charging at me.
I grabbed it with [Beast in the Blood], and watched the others with a stone in my hand. The squirrel Shadowbeasts all dissolved in seconds, but the fox shadowbeast was more durable. It charged me, and I threw the rock at it. That didn’t kill it, but it slowed it down for the instant it took for [Beast in the Blood] to finish eating a hole in its skin.
I ran another thirty feet, and repeated the process. Twenty-five Shadowbeasts died. The shadowbeasts were weaker than normal animals at this point. They didn’t have flashy abilities, none of them could fly, and they were even more fragile than a normal animal. On top of that, any wound that would eventually kill an animal would immediately kill their shadowbeast equivalents.
That was the only reason this was working. Without something as powerful as [Blood of the Sacrificed], I’d be in serious danger of getting swarmed and overwhelmed. With it, the Shadowbeasts melted like sugar cubes in water. The rare outliers were easy to take out with Beast. Having a wide-area, zero-cooldown targeted attack was always useful, but it was even better on day one.
The next repetition brought down thirty Shadowbeasts.
I wasn’t certain whether I should be grateful that the effects of the Dream wore off when I left or not. On the one hand, it was really nice that I didn’t have to run in bloodsoaked socks, but on the other, I had to suffer my socks getting resoaked every time I entered the dream.
The next repetition brought down thirty-four Shadowbeasts.
I pointedly continued my rant about how unpleasant soaking my socks in Eris’ blood was, rather than thinking about how I had just run past a shattered window. I didn’t want to start thinking about the death tolls in numbers or percentages until later. (5)
The next repetition brought down thirty-one Shadowbeasts. The one after that brought down thirty-three.
It was easier if I pretended it was just grinding in a game. Grinding faster was fun, but there was no urgency to a grind. If you did it wrong, you just wound up wasting time. No one’s life was on the line, and no one would suffer for your failures but you.
The next three repetitions each brought down thirty-two Shadowbeasts, and brought me to a crossroads, and I picked a direction at random.
I wished my powers worked across thresholds, but they didn’t. I could kill the Shadowbeasts before they broke in, and lure them away to attack me instead, but I couldn’t do anything about the ones in buildings. Outside was where I was most effective, trying to hunt down the ones indoors would be ineffective. It still would’ve been nice to not need to chose.
The next two repetitions brought down twenty-eight and twenty-four Shadowbeasts, respectively.
I realized that I could speed up the process by investing in my stats in the middle of the “fights”. I probably could afford the split attention; it wasn’t like my abilities required active attention. At least, it was the best of two bad options.
{You have spent 1525 Potential to raise your Physique from 20 to 40. You have 1235 Potential remaining.}
{You have spent 1035 Potential to raise your Dream Borders from 30 to 40. You have 200 Potential remaining.}
That was when I ran out of time and sprinted to deal with the next twenty-one Shadowbeasts. The improvement to Dream Borders let me make the next square 140 square feet, and the Physique improvement was still significant. The main delaying factor at this point was my ability to run between fights. I was getting a few seconds of breathing time in Dreams, but it took me longer to run from one fight to the next than to actually kill all the monsters.
Every monster I killed was one that wouldn’t break into another building. The Shadowbeasts might have been less durable than a real animal, but a thousand rampaging against the unprepared would rack up a considerable death toll. Given that they tended to cluster, it wouldn’t be fair fights, it would be forty or more bursting into a building in rapid succession.
I brought down another dozen monsters, and realized there had been another person in my Dream. They hadn’t been attacked by my skill, but I was slightly embarrassed to realize I accidentally stole a kill from them. (7)
I kept running, and cast again. This time I got ten monsters. I really needed to get more exercise, I hadn’t even run a mile yet and I was already gasping for breath.
When I slipped out of the Dream, a white frog of slime was waiting for me. To be clear, it was more like an approximation of a frog, and it was the size of a human. The legs were disproportionately long, the body was unusually small, and every inch of it was colored white.
“Nice trick.” The frog asked, speaking without moving its mouth, “What’s the catch?”
I took off running, and they shapeshifted into a horse-like abomination, apparently unbothered. After I cast the next Dream, I answered them.
“Besides the range limit? It can’t cross doors, it cuts me off from reinforcements, and it doesn’t kill the monsters instantly.” I answered.
“Why aren’t you using a vehicle?” They asked, as the Dream faded away.
I took off running again, and cast another Dream. I managed to wheeze out, “Cars act as thresholds, I don’t have a truck, and the blood’s real enough that I’d crash a bike.”
“Great!” They said, “I’m Mimic, She/Her. You’ve been drafted for the duration of this crisis!”
She transformed into a disc of slime, before rising up underneath me in the horse-like abomination form. I was trapped on their back, which wasn’t a terrible place to be. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as slime implies. It felt like metal when it wasn’t moving, and like water when it was.
I feel I should explain what I meant by “Horse Abomination Form” here. The first, and most obvious, issue with Mimic’s horse form was that she almost completely lacked a head. Someone must have criticized her for this, because where her head should’ve been, a pair of bicycle handlebars stuck up from the upper body of the form.
Similarly, the "horse's" body was proportioned bizarrely. It was maybe three inches from top to bottom, and roughly eleven feet long. The legs were at least five feet long, which looked even more wrong when they were attached to a three-inch tall torso.
There were a thousand other flaws, but they were all insignificant in the face of those two. It worked, and it was practical. It still looked more like a horror monster than a horse, and I could see the shape of it because of my powers.
Mimic took off running, and reached the edge of the previous Dream in two seconds. I tossed out new a Dream immediately.
“Tell me where to turn.” Mimic said.
“I don’t know exactly where to cover.” I said, “I was just running down this street, doing what I could. As long as you don’t run back down it in the other direction, anywhere should be good.”
{You have spent 538 Potential to boost Dream Potency from 29 to 35. You have 92 potential remaining}
“Gotcha.” Mimic said, “If you’re okay with it, I’ll navigate.”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Sure.” I said, slapping down another dream. I didn’t let the conversation distract me from clearing out Shadowbeasts.
“I’ve gotta say, you’re taking this more calmly than most.” Mimic said, “You haven’t even complained that I didn’t ask your name yet.”
“I’m Ashlyn.” I said, “She/her as well. Do you get into these kinds of situations a lot?”
“I’ve been volunteering for rescue work during Calamities since I was legally an adult.” Mimic said, “Let me tell you, no one appreciates no-name administrators, or mildly unsettling shapeshifters. I get shot a lot.”
So, she was a veteran cape? I thought I recognized her from previous runs. Was she the same person as the NPC in the game, the “Traveling Amalgamation”? (6) I paused, trying to decide whether to ask about her grievances with work.
I asked, “Is this worse than a normal Calamity?”
“Maybe!” Mimic said, “If it’s actually worldwide, it definitely is. But if it isn’t worldwide, this is much better than a Esoterican Invasion.”
“Do you think it is worldwide?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.” Mimic said, “There are more things in heaven and earth, y’know? Earth finds new problems every year. I wouldn’t bet on it either way. Why’dya ask?”
“I think I have spoilers.” I said, “If you don’t mind, I’m gonna test it out.”
“Whatcha gonna do?” Mimic asked.
“Tell me when I get something wrong.” I said, before spewing a bunch of trivial-but-private information about her. None of it was significant, except that I wanted to verify my vision was correct. “You’re the Brownie Prince’s work, made while he was impaired by a Union-sponsored Cape’s would-be mind-control. You ran into a scheme involving her fairly recently, and she mind controlled your inventor teammate. Your esper teammate ripped her out of your teammate’s mind, but you don’t know if the cape is dead or escaped.”
“None of that’s public, but it’s all stuff you could've gotten from a file.” Mimic said, “It’s a lot of trouble for a prank, but it still could be one.”
“You have a crush on your esper teammate.” I answered.
Mimic sighed, “All correct, yes. Something about the way you asked makes me suspect the source is crazy.”
“Good instincts.” I said, “I mean, it might’ve been made by a seer rather than whoever’s to blame for this, but.”
“Tell me it wasn’t an anime?” Mimic complained.
“It was a video game, if that’s any better.” I said.
“That’s even worse!” Mimic snarled, “Fucking tasteless bastards. Bad enough that they’re ending the world, they have to do tacky things like that too?”
“You think the game’s creator’s to blame?” I asked.
“A seer would’ve used their visions more productively. If I’m not a main character, a cape couldn’t possibly get that kind of detail consistently.” Mimic paused, “I’m not the main character, am I?”
“You’re pretty useful, but no.” I said, “There’s hundreds of useful folks in the game.”
“Yeah, see?” Mimic said, “Guilty until proven innocent. You’d need to be an impossibly powerful seer to pull this off, otherwise.”
“There aren’t any capes like that, are there?” I asked, “Or if they are, they're really good at keeping a low profile.”
“Not as seers.” Mimic said, “A few supervillains have been, but they tended to have more destructive powers. A lot of extraplanar factions have someone, but none of those would come here. I guess Langwidere might be, as mad science goes?”
“Is that the name of the Brownie Prince?” I asked.
“Indeed.” Mimic said, “And he made me when he was barely functioning, so I think he’s pretty good at what he does.”
“Doesn’t Ev have like four lab accident deaths a month?” I asked.
“Langwidere is good at what he does.” Mimic said, “He’s not the one responsible for keeping all the other scientists, inventors, and madmen in check. Even so, considering the density, our rates of deathzones are impressively low!”
“Once a year is impressive?” I said, “Nations fifty times Ev’s size manage better than that.”
“Yeah, because they outsource anything that might blow up for longer than a few hours to us!” Mimic said, “It’s what Ev’s known for, inventing, researching and experimenting!”
“I thought they were known for being a dangerously high concentration of tinkers, super-geniuses, and lunatics in a single place.” I said.
“That too!” Mimic said, “They know what they’re doing! We have fewer lab accident deaths than car accidents!”
“You have car accidents in Ev?” I asked, “I thought you only used that portal network thing.”
“Boats are a type of car.” Mimic said.
That was blatantly absurd. I charged into the argument, which became increasingly incoherent as Mimic made a mockery of all taxonomy. According to her, wagons, airplanes, golf carts and bicycles were all types of cars - but trucks and motorcycles were not.
I had almost managed to pin down a place where her absurd classification contradicted itself when the sky went dim, for a second. I looked up, and a massive dome covered the sky, glowing brightly. Over the course of a few seconds, it slowly lost its shine. Once it dimmed completely, it was just a thin, glass-like dome between us and the sky.
“Wow.” Mimic said, “Kay’s really impressive.”
“I’m glad she managed to get it done so soon.” I said.
“Why is it necessary?” Mimic asked.
A rock hit the barrier with a quiet thunk, and bounced off.
“The monsters fall from the sky in meteorites.” I said, “If the rocks don’t land inside, they won’t hatch inside.”
“Gotcha.” Mimic said, “Anything else I should know about?”
“Off the top of my head?” I asked, “We won’t need to find every monster. Once we beat a certain portion of the ones remaining, the rest will be kicked out, and a safezone will be established.”
“What will that do?” Mimic asked.
“Kay, as its creator and sustainer, will be able to make laws to remain within the barrier.” I said, “It’ll open some functionality, including the ability to buy food and water at fixed prices in Quanta, and other supplies. I should send you and Kay a guide with information on the game, and links to the wiki.”
“Please.” Mimic said.
We continued our patrol of the campus streets, until eventually, we had covered just about everywhere once.
[90% of monsters within the barrier have been slain!]
[Safe Zone established!]
[All remaining monsters within the Safe Zone will be relocated outside the safe zone.]
[Safe Zone Tutorial:
A Safe Zone is safe from invaders, monsters, and exiles.
A Safe Zone is not permanent - when an invader, monster, or exile physically breaks into a Safe Zone, the Safe Zone will collapse. Everyone who is sleeping naturally will be woken by a system-generated alarm, and everyone will receive a notification of the Safe Zone collapse.
The entity responsible for the creation of the Safe Zone will have rights to create laws, and share this right. Violation of these laws, while within the Safe Zone, will result in temporary or permanent exile. The entity responsible for the Safe Zone can end exile at will.
K Mandatory is actively maintaining this Safe Zone. If she dies, or drops the ability, the Safe Zone will vanish.
In addition, the following features can only be used within Safe Zones or equivalent locations: Public Marketplace, Player Store, Public Auction House, Direct Messaging (sending)*.
As a courtesy, Wifi will work within Safe Zones, and the internet will function as it did before the Shutdown began, regardless of damage to the physical network.
* Direct Messages will be received by those outside the Safe Zone, but they will be unable to reply.** If a person is permanently removed from this world, whether by irrevocable death or successful escape, the system will communicate this to you.
** Terms and conditions apply. In some places Direct Messages will not be received, but the message will be transferred when they leave. If the person is unconscious or otherwise unaware, the message will not be delivered until they regain consciousness.
](8)
“Done!” I said, grinning.
Mimic dropped to the ground abruptly, but let me dismount gently. Then she collapsed into a dome of goo as I stepped away.
“I’m just going to rest for a bit.” She said.
I nodded, and walked to the nearest bench. Then I sat down. I had stuff to do, and I didn’t have time to collapse. First, I spent my Potential.
[You have slaughtered 3,432 Shadowbeasts! +34320 Potential, +3432 Net Quanta! You now have 31222 Potential and 3432 Quanta!]
[You have spent 29,410 Potential to boost Dream Potency from 35 to 100]
[You have spent 490 Potential to boost Dream Durability from 20 to 30. You have 1,322 Potential remaining]
{You have spent 490 Potential to raise your Dream Manipulation from 20 to 30. You have 832 Potential remaining.}
{You have spent 664 Potential to raise your Dream Borders from 40 to 44. You have 168 Potential Remaining}
---
(1) The threshold effect meant that my powers couldn’t cross doors, windows, or otherwise enter or exit truly enclosed spaces. The explanation in the game’s lore didn’t make complete sense - something about liminal spaces and doors with more than two sides. Still, the rule applied consistently for all Dreamers, it wasn’t a limitation specific to me.
(2) I'd guess it felt like any other blood, but I'd never really stepped in a river of blood before. It felt sticky and unpleasant. For me, it was harmless but unpleasant. I was sure the Shadowbeasts were having a much worse time.
(3) According to the lore in “No Savior Needed”, doubling your physique stat would double how good at being a human body your body was. Rather than doubling every capability, it would improve all of them by maybe twenty or thirty percent.
(4) Every Shadowbeast looked identical to a real species of animal. Eventually, this might include ones that didn’t exist here on earth, but for now, it was exclusively terrestrial mammals.
(5) That was a lie! I didn’t want to think about death tolls at all! As much as I didn’t like the idea of dying, the idea of other people dying because I didn’t save them was scarier!
(6) Then I was embarrassed at myself for being embarrassed - this was life or death, kill stealing didn’t matter!
(7) The NPC survivors, like the Travelling Amalgamation and the Mirror Princess, were real people, at least in the context of the game. Because they had powers before the beginning of the game, they were consistent in a way the other survivors weren’t.
(8) K Mandatory? Apparently Kay's name wasn't Kay, it was "K". I wondered why that was.