Michael studied the bloody nub where the pinky toe on his left foot had been. An hour had passed since the battle, and the bleeding had stopped. Although the blood was still sticky, It would be hours or days before it scabbed over. Fortunately or unfortunately, the digit had been amputated cleanly by the bolt. Once it was allowed to heal it would probably not cause him much if any trouble.

“Don’t worry if we ever mention this story to anyone, we will say the damn wolf bit it off,” Kyrie stated dryly, trying not to smile. “And at least you will have all of your toes if you ever make it back to your real body.”

“Your party member is in pain, and here you are joking,” Michael glared at the girl.

“I’m in pain too. Don’t you remember that you shot me in the leg, you saw me have to push the damn thing all the way through and out the other side. At least yours was quick and done, yet you did not hear me complaining.”

“Don’t worry next time, I’ll just let you stand there frozen as a statue, while fido treats you as a gnaw bone,” Michael scowled.

“That reminds me. Do you not have it set up where in battle notifications will be dictated to you? It did not seem you knew about the frightened condition, or bleeding status until you checked your log.”

“What, that's an option?” Michael stared up at her.

“Sure is. You know how the encyclopedia does not offer anything up, apparently there are hidden options like that as well. You just have to ask the right question.”

Michael frowned as he read the encyclopedia entry about it in battle notifications. There were a couple of options. Michael only chose to turn on status effects. He did not want to be notified every time he killed something, instead he opted for the post battle summary. “So what did you get?” Michael asked as he finished.

Michael had given the green drop over after they had dealt with the wounds. The girl had then retreated a bit away to presumptively open it. She had only just recently returned.

“It gave me the option to unlock one of my secondary attributes,” Kyrie said excitedly, pausing with a big smile.

“Welll… which one did you pick?” Michael said frustrated. For his secondary attribute upgrade, he had not gotten to pick. Not to mention it had been his second green drop that finally gave him the opportunity. The girl had gotten it on her first try, whereas he had gotten the item first. He could not complain since the item had saved him once again, but it was still frustrating.

“Well honestly I was thinking either ki or pulse. After watching you use yours I started leaning more that way because it's awesome, but then that dog froze us in place. While I know you still have 9 more toes that you could shoot off to snap us out of it, I figured I would rather not be shot in the leg next time, so I went with spirit,” she said sheepishly. Then she added, “I could not think of another way to resist something like that with our other given stats. I planned to get all three anyways, so I figured I would start with this since it was a weakness for our party, but…”

“Did you get a basic skill with it?” Michael pressed.

“Well yes, it is called control… I just can’t figure out how to use it yet,” Kyrie glanced to the side embarrassed. All this effort to secure the drop, and she could not figure out how to use it. “Do you think there are abilities that are not suited to certain people,” Kyrie asked. There was a hint of worry along with the embarrassment in her tone.

“No, when I got a pulse it was instinctual. I knew how to summon a pulse. I just had to figure out the intricacies myself. What does control do?” Michael asked.

“Um well it's hard to describe, but it’s like I can project a space with my mind. I’m just not sure what I can do with it,” Kyrie stated, giving him a fake smile.

“Okay, that is similar to what I got with a pulse. I just had to learn to shape it, increase intensity, and all on my own,” Michael replied.

“Yeah you're amazing, thanks for bragging,” Kyrie scowled.

“No, I mean you just have to think of different ways to apply the force. Perhaps you create a barrier to prevent mental type attacks like frighten from affecting you or even others in your group. Maybe you send out your own mental attacks. Maybe you can use it to scout to look at what is behind the next corner. Maybe you can set up a telepathic link and we can talk mid battle, although that might not be the best use of it since we can use our DM feature anyways. Point is you just have to figure out what you can do with it. I spent two days recovering in a pantry closet figuring out how to better use mine.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“Oh those are some good ideas,” Kyrie said, her worry visually easing.

“Question is, are you good to continue onto the next drop now?” Michael asked.

“You’re good to move,” Kyrie asked surprised.

“Yeah my ankle was already hurting every step I took anyways, so what if my toe stump is hurting as well. You got your green drop, now we need to go get mine,” Michael studied her face for a moment before looking away. “The difficulty of things is constantly increasing. “Tomorrow is the close of the first week and they also differentiated the day by opening outposts. I would hate for there to be a major difficulty jump before we snag another green drop.”

“You’re right. I would love to spend time figuring out how to use my new control ability, but even if I’m not getting the next drop. I should be able to pick up a few stat points. Save up three and I can give my spirit a little more fire power,” Kyrie said standing up.

“Alright just let me get my shoe back on,” Michael replied. He clumped a bunch of cloth around the stump and shoved his foot into his shoe. He then cinched the laces down tightly. The rest of the day was going to be hell for him.

Kyrie helped him to his feet, and they began their journey to the next green drop. Michael pulled up his interface as they moved. He had three new stat points that he could allocate since the imperial guard hound had dropped a yellow drop on top of the green drop. Michael had not told his companion about it, but then he had been the one to kill the beast anyways. All she had done was fight to keep the beast from savaging her with its teeth, so the drop was rightfully his as far as he was concerned.

The obvious choice was to increase pulse since he had three points at once, so Michael went with that, bringing pulse up to 4. In truth, he would rather increase his primary attributes more at this point, but he did not have three stat points available to allocate often. He knew it would drive him half insane to hold onto stat points while he was waiting to build up to having three of them.

After leaving the dog track, the direct route to the next drop led them through a country club. Michael was able to add some golf clubs to his inventory since some of the country club resident zombies came at them wielding them. He was not sure if they would really be that useful since they were not very durable, but who could say.

It was after facing a bunch of the new zombies that the two of them ran into the first group of people they had seen since teaming up. A group of three men introduced as Dave, Chris, and Luke. They did not talk for long. The three men were what Michael would consider bottom feeders. They had all started in the country club area and never left. While they claimed to be farming daily they also smelled like booze. Two of them had not even hit tier 1 yet, and the one that had made it sound like he had done so recently. Michael and Kyrie added them to their contacts and then left the trio behind.

“Where do you think they got the booze?” Kyrie said with a wicked grin.

“Maybe all of the mansions around here have some or maybe a clubhouse. You’re not going to start drinking and become a deadbeat like them, are you?” Michael said, arching an eyebrow.

“Ha, no, but I did mention that the next thing we will be going up against is plant types right? If you put a flammable material in the opening you can make a fire incendiary,” Kyrie said grinning.

“So how are you going to light it,” Michael asked, causing her to stop.

“Well shoot…maybe the club building will have something for that as well,” Kyrie said continuing on.

“Assuming those guys left anything,” Michael said, chasing after her.

They need not have worried about either issue. The club house had a full wall of alcohol behind the bar. Half of it was emptied due to their most recent acquaintances, but they would have all that they could carry. Their inventory would limit the amount since it was a liquid. They only kept a few bottles of water to get them through another half day. There was a pink drop further on in the garden district that they could visit afterwards.

In addition they found plenty of long fancy napkins that could be stuffed into the top, and thankfully the club had a cigar lounge. There were a couple of over the top large cigar lighting torches. Michael and Kyrie each took a couple. Michael stuffed a bunch of cigars in his inventory as well. He did not smoke, but perhaps they could be used for trade with other contenders.

“By the way, how did you get the machete? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“What?... Oh I found it at the first pink drop I visited. There was also this,” Kyrie said holding out an arrow. Michael looked at her skeptically. “No, this is all I have. Apparently, there had been a box of weapons in the drop, but whoever got there before me had cleared out everything. They missed this machete, and I guess dropped one of the arrows. It was probably one of the bastards who took a shot at me later on. Two reasons for me to want to kick their ass.”

Michael thought about it. He had been to two drop sites. Neither one had weapons, but then he had not been the first to reach one of them. Had some asshole taken a whole box of weapons. If the same thing was happening all over the map it meant that most people would be left with improvised weapons, while others had stuff they would never even use.

Maybe he was not being fair. At the very least he would have taken quite a few spares for whatever weapon he would have taken, but surely he would leave the things that he knew he would not use. Guess in the end it did not matter.

“Okay it's that building up there,” Kyrie said, pointing at a large building overgrown with foliage. It would have looked out of place, if Michael didn't notice that a lot of the buildings beyond it were similarly overgrown. They were approaching the garden district.