Blake took the new card in his hand and examined it.

Card Acquired: Shale Skin!

This card dropped from the Shalefur Wolf (Alpha) your Stone Golem just killed! Congratulations.

Card: Shale Skin

Level: 1

Rarity: Common

Element: Earth

Type: Sustained Ability

Cost: 1 Anima

Duration: 30 minutes

Effects: Infuses the user’s skin with the power of stone, increasing their physical toughness significantly. While affected by Shale Skin, you will be significantly heavier. Your strength will increase to compensate for the added weight, but you will move more slowly.

This card looked very much like the Stone Fists card, except it had an extremely epic portrait of a man covered in stone skin, fending off attacks from multiple swordsmen at once. Stone Fists had looked very similar, but it hadn’t done what it said on the card when Blake activated it.

He wondered whether this would be the same or not. Another notification appeared.

Congratulations! You have received a second card!

When I said you should acquire more cards, I didn’t mean that you should pick a fight with a whole pack of wolves. But I guess it worked out okay in the end!

Now there’s something you should know. You can only have a certain amount of cards bonded to you at any given time, and that limit is 5. That might not sound like a lot, but just remember that you’ve only got 3 anima to spend each day! This limitation will increase with each subsequent rank you gain.

Once you collect three cards and level each of them up to Level 3, you will be eligible to apply for a rank up exam. Well, that’s the easiest way. There are others, of course, but they’re more dangerous. Rank up exams are the only way that you can increase the amount of cards you can bind to yourself, and the only way to increase your anima reserves.

Oh, and by the way, your anima resources will reset at midnight each day. You should ensure that you get at least six hours sleep per night, as you may suffer anima regeneration issues if you go without sleep for too long.

Don't try and game the system, either. It's smart enough to know about human time zones, and if you ever change time zones, just know that you will have to wait a full 24 hours since your last recharge for your anima to replenish.

Blake passed all this information onto Harry, but they both made the decision that they didn't really want to stay here at the lake any longer that night.

The attack had come just before midnight, and Blake wondered if there was an element of strategy in the chosen attack time. Had the wolves known that they would be weakest just before midnight?

No, that wasn't possible. A wolf couldn't have that kind of insight.

Could it?

Both Blake and Harry agreed they didn't want to stay here any longer than they had to. If these wolves had found them in the dark, there was no telling what else might find them.

Midnight wasn't far away so Blake would have all his anima replenished shortly, but if they were going to get back to Cedar Creek later on that day, he had a feeling he would need all of the power he could get.

They got back into the RV, and Harry retired to the bed this time. Blake had a good five hours of sleep already, so he would be good to drive for quite a while. Then he would let Harry finally take the wheel. Maybe.

The fact that Harry had let Blake claim the Shale Skin card for himself had meant the world. It really did go a long way to establishing trust between them.

As they drove, Blake listened to Harry snore in the back of the RV. He thought about using his brand new card to place in sentry position, just in case they were attacked on the road.

His three daily anima had replenished now, but there was one downside about this sentry mechanic. It made it so that the owner of the card wasn't in control of when that card would be played, and by extension, when the anima would be used.

The mechanic could certainly stop someone from being blindsided, but it also had control over how and when one particular card would be activated. Unless Blake was sleeping, he wanted to keep that level of control for himself.

The amount of burned out and destroyed cars sitting on the road made progress difficult. Not only were the roads constrained by the natural geography of this mountainous area, but in the darkness it was hard to see any of the obstructions until they were right on top of them.

It wasn't long before the sun rose again, and the dangers of the darkened roads mostly disappeared. Harry was still snoring in the back when Blake reached the turnoff he'd been waiting for.

He’d just passed the fancy hotel at Bachelor Gulch that he and his parents had never been rich enough to stay at. After he passed the hotel, he headed straight onto the small town of Walcott. From there he turned north and headed along Colorado State Highway 131, which would take him all the way up to Cedar Creek.

The journey would normally only take about an hour and a half after turning onto Highway 131, so Blake figured he might actually get there by mid-morning.

Thankfully, they weren't waylaid by any other traps or surprises along the way. This was in part both a relief and a concern. Blake had expected to see more people on the roads, but instead came upon nothing but an apocalyptic view of empty cars on a dead-quiet road.

The small town of Cedar Creek came into view in the distance, and a surge of happiness flowed through Blake’s chest.

“Hey Harry, it’s time to wake up! We’re almost there!” Blake shouted from the driver’s seat.

Harry’s eyes opened. He wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. “Whoa, it’s morning?”

“Well past dawn, sleepy head. You should have your anima back now, and we didn’t get attacked at all.”

Harry crawled into the passenger seat in the front and blinked bleary eyes. “Yeah, that’s Cedar Creek all right. After yesterday, I kinda can’t believe we made it.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“We made it. Remember what we said, we’re both on the same side now, right?”

“Damn right.”

Blake had to avoid the street that normally headed into town from the south because there was a giant sinkhole that had swallowed both lanes of the road. Some of the houses in town were still burning from some atrocity that was already over.

He knew this little town like the back of his hand, so when one way was blocked, he found another route easily enough. His parents’ house was on Second Street, right in the heart of town.

As he turned down that street, and still didn’t see any signs of life, a quiet trepidation crept upon him.

Blake’s mother and father were well known in Cedar Creek. The corner store that serviced the whole neighborhood was owned and run by them. That was part of the reason why Blake wanted to get out of Cedar Creek, go to school, and do something for himself. He knew that if he stayed in Cedar Creek he would end up taking over the store after his parents died, and he would just live the exact same life that they had.

His mother always wanted to believe the best in people, but his father always liked being prepared. He knew at the first sign of trouble that his mother would want to help everyone they could, but his father would want to enact their contingency plan to ensure their survival.

One of the perks of running your own general store was that you could get supplies delivered directly and buy them in bulk for wholesale prices. Blake’s father didn’t like to be called a doomsday prepper, but it was true that he liked to be more prepared than others.

They ran the general store from the bottom floor of their house and lived in the common areas out in the back and above the store. But many years ago, his father had a concrete bunker constructed into their sizable backyard. He had started squirreling away supplies.

As they headed further down Second Street, Blake’s heart dropped.

His parents’ home was in ruins.

The eastern wall of the house had collapsed in on itself, and the window frames were empty. Debris was scattered everywhere, and the edges of each frame were singed black, like they’d exploded from the inside out.

“It looks like my parents' place has already been ransacked,” Blake said.

“I’m sorry to hear that, man. Do you just want to keep going or do you want to go take a closer look?” Harry asked.

“We’ll take a closer look. My dad always liked to be prepared, and if they had to leave, he probably would have left a message for me. We had plans for things like this.”

Cedar Creek was usually a quiet town, but it was downright eerie now. There was absolutely no one on the streets, no cars driving around, and houses sat abandoned with their doors wide open.

An uneasy feeling grew in Blake’s stomach as they pulled up in front of his parents’ store.

The shelves had been stripped bare of every supply. Picked clean. The front door was pulled off its hinges and sat askew in the door frame. Nothing moved within.

Blake hesitated when he went to turn off the car’s engine. If this was a trap and there were any empowered Challengers left behind, they would need to make a fast escape. If he had to jump back in the RV and turn the engine back on, that would waste valuable seconds. However, if he left the car running and they both went inside, someone else could just drive off with it.

Despite his uncertainty, Blake turned off the engine and closed the RV door behind him. Harry was standing on the street next to him, ready to help out whatever they found.

Blake took his phone out of his pocket to check for a signal and wasn’t surprised when the words NO SERVICE were displayed at the top of his phone. His battery was also running low.

Blake hoped that the echoes of violence would disappear as he headed around the back of the house. His father always left a key for the bunker in a secret place for emergencies. However, even the windows along the side of the house had been blown out by whatever explosive force had destroyed most of the store.

When they reached the back yard Blake let out a long exhaled breath.

There was a massive split in the earth right where his father's bunker was buried.

Someone had used some kind of earth element power card to sunder the ground, which caused the concrete ceiling of the bunker to crumble inward.

Blake marched over to the crack in the earth and peered down. He already knew what he would find there before he looked, but he needed to confirm it. The shelves which had been stocked with nonperishable food and hundreds of bottles of water, cans of propane, and other survival supplies, were picked clean just like the inside of the store.

There was a mess on the ground from where some of the ceiling collapsed in and destroyed the supplies. Thankfully there was no sign of human bodies or dried blood within the bunker.

If his parents had been down here when it had been cracked open like an egg, they probably wouldn’t have survived.

That meant that whoever came here to raid their supplies was probably someone that they knew. Someone that had knowledge of his parents’ bunker, and what they kept inside.

But if his parents weren’t in the bunker, and there was no one in the house, they had to have fled somewhere. But where?

Did they drive north into Wyoming, or maybe west into Utah? They could be anywhere, but Blake decided to head inside to see if his parents had left any messages behind.

They did have a contingency plan for if the worst of worst-case scenarios happened. If there was no message left in the house at all, then he was pretty sure his parents had been captured or killed. They wouldn't have left without leaving some sign for him.

Blake headed in through the back door, which led directly into the kitchen and the dining area. Within he noticed a bookshelf sitting a little further out from the wall than it should be. He rushed over and pushed the bookshelf over to the adjacent wall.

Blake knelt on the floor and pried the secret loose floorboard up, then reached into the hidden compartment.

He pulled the small capsule container out and cracked it open. Within was a rolled up piece of paper inside the capsule, which Blake unfurled. He could hear his father’s exasperated voice in his head as he read the note.

Blake, if you are reading this, we want to let you know that we are safe for now. We’ve lost everything that we prepared over the years, except for the guns we had hidden in the house. We took those with us. We shouldn’t have trusted Frank, but that’s my mistake.

If you’ve got a car, tune your radio into 91.9 FM, and listen to what they’re saying. There is a sanctuary to the north of here, almost at the border, to the east of Steamboat Lake. There’s a brand new city being built to keep everyone safe from what’s happening.

They’re saying that this is just the beginning, and it’s the only place that people will be able to survive the collapse. If you’re left out in the wilds, then you’re on your own.

That’s where we are going. We knew you’d come to us, so just come a little further north. It’s called New Meridia, and we’re all going to be okay now.

Love you,

Dad

Blake rolled the note up and slipped it into his jacket pocket. His blood boiled when he read the words, we shouldn't have trusted Frank.

Everybody in Cedar Creek knew who Frank Collins was. Frank Collins and his partner in crime Joel Kressley were at the root of almost every sinister thing that happened in Cedar Creek. Frank was likable enough, but he was a bit like a pit bull. He was charming and friendly until he turned on you, and Blake's father always gave him the benefit of the doubt.

When the shit well and truly hit the fan, you saw a person's true colors. Frank’s turned out to be as black as people said they were.

Blake sighed to himself and tried to focus on what they needed to do from here.

“My parents are going to a place called New Meridia,” he said.

“I’ve never heard of it, and I've been all over this country,” Harry said. “Where is it?”

“They’re saying it’s up north, near Steamboat Lake. But I know that area. There’s nothing out there. It’s basically pure wilderness. How can there be a city out there?” Then Blake remembered something he discussed with his AI assistant earlier.

The assistant had mentioned something about facility cards that can spawn entire buildings. Maybe someone had found some kind of city card that had the ability to spawn not only a building, but an entire city?

Either way, they needed to listen to what this radio station was saying. His parents had made New Meridia sound like it was a big deal, and if that's where his parents were, then there was no choice in the matter.

He needed to head there as well.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Harry said as he scratched the side of his neck. “So is that the plan then, we’re heading north to find your parents?”

“I don’t really have any other choice. You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to, but I need to try and find them. I just don’t know whether I would be able to live with myself if something happened to them and I wasn’t there to protect them.”

The thought of his parents getting attacked on the road by monsters or people scared the crap out of him. He just wished that he could call his mother or father on the phone, but there was no cell service.

“I understand, man. But don’t worry, I’ve got your back. I’m going to come with you.”

Blake nodded. “Alright then. Let’s scavenge what we can find, then we head north to New Meridia.”

They left the house through the rear door and headed back around to the collapsed side of the shop. As they moved, Blake heard hushed discussion coming from in front of the house.

He raised a hand to stop Harry in his tracks. Harry stopped, wide eyed as he listened as well.

Together they hunkered down and crept along behind the collapsed side of the store as they tried to figure out who was out front of the house. The acrid smell of burned wood stung Blake’s nostrils.

A group of four men stood outside the RV. Blake recognized two of them: Frank Collins and Joel Kressley.

He didn't know who the other two were, but they were absolutely trying to break into the RV.