“So, Vincent,” Carlos said, breaking the momentary silence. “What’s up with the suit?”
I looked down at the muted gray-and-blue suit I had been wearing ever since we looted the clothes store several hours before. It was a bit warm for the present temperature, but the sun was low in the sky, and it would be twilight in a matter of minutes.
“You know how it is,” I said, taking a swig of vodka. Yep, it was still just as terrible as I remembered. “I want to look good for my many loyal subjects.”
Next to the RV, Carlos had put a wide selection of alcoholic drinks on top of a table that extended out from the RV itself. Claire stood over by the table, perusing the bottles of hard liquor and mixers.
“Uh huh,” Carlos responded. There was a moment of awkward silence. I suspected that my earlier statement on the negotiation with the monsters of the [Fifth Greater Dungeon] was still remembered vividly by the others. “You know, I’ve been wondering something.” Carlos pulled his laser pistol from its holster. “Why is it called a ‘laser’ pistol when it obviously doesn’t fire lasers?”
“Huh?” Liz asked, tilting her head.
“I mean, we can see the beams, right?” Carlos asked rhetorically. “That means they’re moving way slower than the speed of light. You made the damn things, Vincent. Do you know how they work?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “I just press a button and - poof - a ‘laser gun’ appears. I just assume the beams fired by the laser pistols are particles of some kind. There’s recoil when you fire, so the beams must have mass.”
“Speaking of physical inconsistencies,” Liz began to speak, peering at her hand with a worried look, “aren’t our bodies strange? We’ve become one hundred times more durable, but our weight hasn’t increased at all.”
“Maybe it’s just magic,” Claire said, stifling a laugh.
“A hundred times stronger, but it still wasn’t enough to save Officer Fulton,” Liz muttered, her eyes locked on the horizon. Her vision snapped back to the present, and she quickly said, “S-sorry.”
“No, don’t be sorry,” Carlos said, and it sounded more like a command than a platitude. “We’re here to work through the shit we’re feeling.”
With my arms crossed, I nodded and said, “Sitting around the campfire is the time to talk about such things. It’s tradition.”
“Exactly,” Carlos said, pointing to me in agreement. “It’s tradition.”
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“Okay. Thanks, guys,” Liz said with a sad smile. She took a deep swig of her margarita before continuing to speak. “Both of my parents died today. Most of my living family is probably dead by now, I don’t even know. I didn’t have time to check on all of them before the phones stopped working. Everything is just gone! A thousand years of human advancement, wiped out in a day!”
By the time she was done talking, tears were streaming freely from Liz’s eyes. The collapse of society had clearly upset her, and I tried to understand her perspective. Modern society made things a lot more convenient, and it provided safety to those who would otherwise be endangered. It made sense that Liz would be attached to that grand facade. Personally, I wasn’t a fan. I felt much more comfortable in this new world where the institutions and expectations were much more malleable. Ultimately, my opinion was probably in the minority.
“Everything’s gone,” Claire said, mirroring Liz’s earlier statement. “It’s very possible that everyone we’ve ever known is dead, and the only survivors left in this state are either scattered in small caravans or located here in Fort Bragg. But, maybe, we can build something better.”
Better for the world? I seriously doubted it. Better for us? I suspected that was very possible.
In a somber tone of voice, I said, “You make an excellent point, Claire. In memory of those who’ve died, we have an obligation to continue living and build a new society in the image of the old world. Their grand project will continue through our labor.”
“I’ll drink to that!” Carlos said with a laugh once I was done speaking, and I couldn’t help but smile.
We drank looted liquor and ate looted food. I ate some jerky and, when Luigi sat next to me and looked up to me with pleading eyes, I let him eat as many strips of jerky as he wanted. It was a party, after all.
Around the time I finished my glass of vodka, I was struck by a strange sense of foreboding. The sensation was similar to nausea but much more muted. I felt as if I had consumed something I shouldn’t have consumed. The sensation was uncomfortable in a way that I couldn’t place.
Eventually, Carlos looked down at his drink with a frown and said, “Does anybody else feel anything?”
“Nothing yet,” Liz said with a shrug.
“Vincent? Surely, that much vodka should have done something by now,” Carlos said to me.
He had a point. I had consumed the equivalent of eight shots of vodka by that point. Even with my high alcohol tolerance, I should have felt something by that point. It had always taken me quite a bit to get drunk, which was likely a result of my naturally high [Fortitude] score.
[Fortitude]? Oh, I suddenly felt like an idiot for not figuring out the truth sooner.
The annoyance of unexpected sobriety filled my voice as I said, “[Draconic Integration] alters our [Fortitude]. We’re a hundred times more resistant to all forms of damage.”
“Shit,” Carlos swore, understanding my meaning. “The System probably recognizes alcohol as a form of poison.”
“So we can’t get drunk?” Liz said, looking over at the mountain of liquor arranged on a nearby table and laughing.
“Theoretically, we could just drink a hundred times as much,” Carlos muttered, though he was clearly not convinced by the idea. His eyes turned to the alcohol we had looted hours before, and an idea occurred to him. “Well, we shouldn’t let it all go to waste.” He looked over to some of the nearby campsites, each filled with frightened civilians. “Let’s share it with them.”