Back at the reservoir, Dr. Redmond finishes cleaning off his hands as he hears a familiar voice come from the flap of the medical tent. It was Tommy speaking to one of Skipper’s men outside. Redmond dried off his hands and turns toward the entrance. He’s been meaning to speak with Tommy about CJ’s disappearance. Once outside of the tent, he notices Skipper’s men are all wearing the same outfits. They look more official now than a random collection of militia men. Upon closer inspection Redmond realizes these are the padded shirts his wife Cynthia has been commissioned to make. As the security forces move on Redmond grabs Tommy’s arm and pulls him to the side.
“Tommy, where have you been? Did you know Jerry came back injured last night without CJ?” asked Redmond in a half whisper.
“No. What happened? Shit. How long has he been out there? We haven’t talked much in weeks, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to him. He saved my ass on several different occasions. What are we gonna do? I can’t go back out their man. I’m not cut out for all that fighting. You know what? I’ll ask Skipper to send out a search party. Crap, he doesn’t come to the meetings anymore. Alright I’ll go to Jerry and see if I can convince him to send some guys out,” rambled Tommy.
“I’ve got bad news for you. Jerry said CJ got scared and ran off. He doesn’t have any interest in finding him,” commented Redmond now that they were both back in the medical tent.
“That doesn’t sound like CJ. He was first to fight when we didn’t have any guns. Always had some kind of stage magic contraption to get us out of a jam. Something’s off. Let me do some digging inside the compound. Maybe you didn’t get the whole story. Shit! I forgot about Monty. Where has he been?” asked Tommy.
“You mean CJ’s pet rabbit. Haven’t seen him since the car explosion. I figured it scampered off somewhere,” said Redmond.
“You don’t get it. Monty’s not an ordinary rabbit. You know what, that’s not my tea to spill. Let me poke around. I’ll meet you back here tomorrow to let you know what I’ve found out,” said Tommy as he turned to leave but Redmond grabbed his arm again.
“There’s something else, Tommy. I didn’t want to mention it until, I was sure. People are going missing. Right now, it’s just a few strays on the outskirts of the camp. Tents have been removed and there is empty space not being filled in. Even with all the no phone refugees. Something sinister is happening and I don’t like it,” spoke a concerned Redmond.
“I overheard the guards talking about missing people. When I was shoring up the eastern wall. I assumed it was the damn bugs flying over the wall like Jerry says. But if it isn’t, we better have an escape plan ready. Man, I feel like a jerk. Last thing I said to CJ was he was jealous cause I had real magic powers. I don’t know what I was thinking that day. Chronic foot in mouth disease. Time to step up. Keep your family safe Redmond. I’ll figure out what’s going on and meet you back here tomorrow. I’m supposed to be working on the northern palisade today so if you need to find me that’s where I’ll be,” said Tommy nodding at Redmond before exiting the tent.
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CJ just stood there looking at the mess of mannequin parts strewn about the unstable roof. Up here the sun was warming his bald head as he absentmindedly heard the others encouraging him to jump over to them. In CJ’s head, the image of the creature being sliced cleaning in half horizontally kept playing over and over. The tar fumes from the rooftop snapped CJ out of his stupor. He looked around and caught a glimpse of something shiny roll out of what was left of the monster. He walked over to the now motionless parts to find a small transparent ball no larger than a softball. It had swirling green and purple energy inside of it.
“Cabron! Jump across already. The bugs. Hurry man,” yelled Elena.
“Gimme a second,” CJ shot back as he stored the ball up his right sleeve.
Turning, CJ sprinted to the edge of the building launching himself between the two buildings. He landed safely on the opposite roof with a stutter step before gaining his balance. Now the sounds of groaning metal could be heard from the damaged roof. It wasn’t long before a full collapse began. Monty walked over to CJ slow clapping his front paws together.
“You finally used the big spell huh? How much mana do you have left?” asked Monty.
“Looks like forty points. Hang on. I have some notifications from my slate,” noticed CJ before his eyes unfocused to read them.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
New Title: Who’s the boss? - While this title is equipped you do 10% more damage to boss monsters.
Warning- You may only equip one title at a time.
New Item: Boss Monster Concentrate- This sphere represents the concentrated corrupted mana of a boss monster. Boss monsters are most often guardians of high quality items and gear. This concentrate can be used to upgrade a skill to the next level or evolve an existing ability. Once consumed the corrupted mana will be purified.
That last message answered some questions and opened up a libraries worth more. Did it mean most monsters are the results of corrupted mana? Or would you only get boss monsters from corrupted mana? These questions fired all of CJ’s neurons at once. He hadn’t had any real time to consider the realities of his new world while running back and forth on the highway dodging that night’s dinner. Was there just something fundamentally wrong with the mana that now permeates every inch of the planet. CJ had more questions now than ever before. He needed to talk to Wukong again. Maybe after he’s cleared the five dungeons he could delve deeper into this mystery.
“There’s an exterior ladder over here. I need help with the latch. It might be locked,” Rubio called out.
CJ made his way over noting that going down to the street from that side of the building puts them even closer to the park. He was also wiling to bet they were on the roof of the building the van crashed into. This building had several store fronts under one roof. The world always looked different when you were up on the rooftops.
“What did you find in the corpse?” asked Monty softly.
“Boss Concentrate. Not sure I should mention it yet. I assume you already knew what it was?” questioned CJ.
“I had a hunch. Keep it under your hat for now. They may leave us now that their chances for survival have increased. Strange classes they chose. I’m guessing you don’t have another slice and dice in you. Normally your mana would regenerate on its own when not in combat. It’s slow but it happens. Something is wrong with this integration. For now, it seems you’ll have to be in the shit to get your mana back,” explained Monty as they made their way over to the Trinchars.
“Are you telling me I need to be attacked to regenerate my mana? That’s insane,” asked CJ.
“How much mana did you get when I kicked you yesterday?” queried Monty.
“I don’t know about five. That was a double kick so I’m not really sure if I should be dividing it. It’s a whole thing,” answered CJ.
“Well, you better figure it out. Once you run out of mana, you’ll only have your bag of tricks left. You may have confused that cicada for a second with that fifty two pick up gag, but If I weren’t there, you’d be bug poop now. Seems like here and now is better than on the street with God knows what waiting for us. Hey Elena, I need you to punch CJ right in the face. Hard as you can,” said Monty before gesturing to CJ.
“Wait. Hang on. I didn’t agree to this,” CJ said in protest.
For Elena’s part she just looked down at Monty to gauge if he was serious or not. Then looked back at a pleading CJ. Then back to Monty who just urged her to get on with it. Then Rubio punched CJ in the face. Only the punch didn’t quite land with the force Rubio expected. The fist snapped out crossing the distance in an eye blink, but the momentum died right before it hit CJ’s face with an almost imperceptible shimmer.
“How much was that worth?” asked Monty.
CJ looked at his status screen to see he’d earned another five points of mana. He racked his brains trying to figure out the formula. The bullet definitely had more kinetic energy than Rubio’s fist, but the values were the same. Then he remembered that the bullet took him off his feet. Would he have gotten more if he absorbed all of the force? How could he even test it? Maybe now wasn’t the best time to think about this since Rubio was staring wide eyed at CJ.
“Is this how you survived the bullet? Some magic trick. I should have floored you with that. I felt my hand brush up against something. Hey, my stamina has dropped below one hundred. Does this thing keep track of how tired I am?” asked Rubio all but forgetting the emergency ladder behind him.
“Yes. Your stamina will determine how long you can endure strenuous activity. I don’t recommend fighting with your stamina at zero points,” explained Monty.
“What about these attributes? We didn’t get into a conversation about them last night, but I think they’re important,” inquired Elena.
“That’s correct. The more points you put in an attribute the faster, stronger, smarter you get. I would recommend keeping a balance across all of them. Quirks start to rear their ugly heads once you are too far out of balance. For now, I’d only increase the attributes that have direct impact on your ability sets. For example, CJ is heavily invested in Intelligence but he’s as weak as a kitten. Baseline humans should be around ten points in everything,” answered Monty.
“I’ve got a twelve in strength and agility,” preened Elena.
“I’ve got a fifteen in strength. Everything else is a ten,” commented Rubio now that they were both looking at their slates.
“CJ, want to tell them your stats?” asked Monty with a grin.
“I’m good. We were getting out of here, right?” CJ asked rhetorically as he made his way over to the ladder and picked the lock on the mechanism.
“Why don’t you want to tell us?” asked Elena.
“Because one of you was really quick to punch me in the face,” sulked CJ.
“The rabbit said to do it, and Elena wasn’t going to. I was eager to get this bus rolling. Are you gonna pout about it or man up. Why did you want us to punch him anyway?” asked Rubio.
“So, he could learn a lesson,” answered Monty as the sound of the metal ladder cah-chunked.
“What lesson?” asked Elena confused.
“That physical abuse gives me power. Let’s go people,” said CJ as he began to climb down.