It was a good thing I’d bought that metal shaping spell, or we’d have spent the rest of the day struggling with balky fasteners and rusted screws. As it was I burned through mana a lot faster than I liked, and ended up investing another couple of points in mana regeneration to keep up.

But we got the job done.

Beth somehow came up with another dozen guys willing to help with the work, which gave us plenty of shooters to keep watch. By the time they showed up the Dragonslayers had swept the junkyard, disposing of a nest of giant wasps and a patch of carnivorous grass in the process. Although it was their report on the office area that disturbed me.

“There was some kind of ritual setup in the basement,” Jason, their lightning mage, explained. “The floor was soaked in blood, and there was a cocoon surrounded by half-eaten bodies.”

“I’m glad we got to that before it hatched,” Dale added. “It was full of little centipede monsters.”

“So this nutcase was trying to breed the things? That’s just great,” I grumbled. “Any idea how he was controlling it?”

Jason shrugged. “I’ve found all kinds of skills for stuff like magical theory and rituals, but I haven’t had the points to buy any of them yet. Monsters don’t seem to drop mental points. Plus, it seems like there are knowledge skills for every kind of mythology humans ever made up, so it’s hard to tell what’s real. I’m not sure if the Demonology skill lets you call up real demons, or just makes you an expert on mythology about them.”

“That would be a problem,” I conceded. “So we don’t know if he was controlling a normal monster, or creating his own minions somehow, or if the System has an option for summoning monsters.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Dale agreed. “Judging from the amount of blood I’m pretty sure he fed his dogs to that thing, and then his employees and maybe some customers too. That must be how it got so tough. But there aren’t any bodies, except for the ones he left for the cocoon.”

“That would fit. Bodies give points,” I said.

“You know that for sure?” Sheryl broke in. “We thought they might, but we haven’t seen proof.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the numbers. Shasa shared her status screen with me, and she ate a couple of murder squirrels this morning. It looked like the bodies were worth about as much as the mist balls.”

“Sounds like plan eat the monsters is a go,” Dale mused.

“Will trade ammo for food,” Sheryl joked. “The going rate is one round of 7.62 for a half ton of monster beef.”

“Wait till tomorrow, I’m sure they’ll get bigger,” I said. “Alright, I need to get going on this project or I won’t have a secure place to sleep tonight. Thanks for the assist, we owe you one.”

Dale shrugged. “We’re happy to help, Tom. Points are points, and we all need to stick together if we don’t want to get eaten. Good luck with the fortress building.”

“Good hunting,” I replied.

Then I got to spend hours pulling body panels off of old vans, trucks and the occasional car, and wrestling them onto the pickup trucks. I was glad of the boost I’d gotten to my engineering skills. That made it trivial to figure out which models had actual metal panels instead of the newer plastic and composite stuff, and how they were attached. But more often than not I had to cut them off, which would have taken forever without magic.

While I was at it I kept an eye out for other things we needed. A bunch of old pipes we could use to brace the smaller sections of paneling. Some loose beams and pieces of vehicle framing we could use for the larger ones. A busted generator I could get running again, in case the hotel lost power. A punctured storage tank that would hold several hundred gallons of either water or fuel for the generator, once I fixed it up.

Project creep is a problem at the best of times, and these were more like the worst. So once I was sure we had enough metal for our current needs I cut the treasure hunt short, and went back to the hotel to assemble it all.

Which meant I ended up spending all afternoon working outdoors in the heat, with the summer sun beating down on me while I struggled with heavy masses of hot metal. Like any project there were countless little problems that slowed everything down. How to strip the paint off the window frames so I could join the metal together. How to get different alloys of steel to bond together securely. How to brace the bigger sections so they’d be strong enough to stop a large animal. All with the constant worry that another monster would suddenly try to kill me.

At least I had the girls watching my back, and a crew of helpers and guards around me. My magic was a lot faster than power tools, too. By the time it started to get dark I had a basic level of fortification done, although there were a lot of upgrades I’d like to make when I had the time.

A barricade of steel panels five feet tall protected the lobby’s glass walls, with a patchwork bracing strong enough to stop a charging bull. That would keep out most large predators, while still letting the guards see out so they could spot incoming threats. All three of the hotel’s doors were similarly covered by steel panels, which I’d cut vision slits into so you could check the other side before opening one. I also sunk some lengths of pipe into the concrete floor just inside each door, so if something tried to smash the door off its hinges the posts would hold it in place. It wasn’t perfect, but hopefully it would be enough.

The hotel also had a lot of windows on the ground floor, but they were relatively small and mounted in metal frames. The panels I had weren’t the same size, of course, and I didn’t have time to carefully trim and join them to make perfect window covers. But I managed to arrange things so each window was at least mostly protected, and a big animal couldn’t just break the glass and climb in.

There was a lot more I wanted to do. Thicker barriers. More bracing. Strategically located spikes. For that matter, it might be a good idea to tear out all the decorative bushes along the sides of the hotel before one of them turned into a plant monster. But doing outdoors work after dark struck me as a really bad idea, especially since we didn’t know what was going to happen. Maybe the monster attacks would just switch to nocturnal species, and things would go on like they had during the day. Or maybe the System would take advantage of our increased vulnerability, and try to swamp us with nocturnal predators.

After the day I’d just been through I wasn’t going to volunteer to be the canary in that coal mine. When the light started to fade I had the men stack what remained of our building supplies where they wouldn’t be in the way, and got ready to call it a day.

“Tom?”

I looked up to find Sara poking her head out the lobby door, unwilling to actually step outside the building. Which was probably smart of her, since as far as I knew she was still completely defenseless.

“Yes? What’s up, Sara?”

“The others were wondering if you’re up for a group meeting over dinner? There’s a pizza place just across the street that’s still open, and the manager said they don’t mind if we all have guns.”

“I suppose we do have things talk about,” I said. “Alright, just give us a few minutes to get cleaned up first. Does that mean Earl got you a gun?”

She nodded. “His new girl had a pistol that’s small enough for me. But I don’t know how to use it yet, so I’m still relying on you guys for now. I am so glad I’m not on my own.”

“I can imagine. We’ll take care of you until you can stand on your own, Sara.”

She flashed me a brilliant smile. “Thank you so much, sir. I don’t know that I’ll ever be like Jenny, but I’ll find some way to pull my weight. Meet you in the lobby in, say, twenty minutes?”

“That will work.”

Sara vanished into the hotel, and Jenny groaned. “I’m not going anywhere without a shower. Maybe we should go together to save time.”

I chuckled. “You know perfectly well that if we get naked together we’re going to be late. Come on, if we use both suites we can make this quick. Have you figured out how to duplicate Shasa’s dodge tanking?”

The girls fell in on either side of me as I entered the hotel, and Jenny nodded.

“Yeah, it took some digging but I figured it out. If you put your status screen in easy mode there’s a stat called Agility that covers the kind of dodging around she was doing. She’s also got extra running speed, which probably helps, and a point in something called Pack Tactics. I had the Agility covered already, but I bought up my running speed to match hers. I think you should do the same.”

I thought about that for a moment as we piled into the elevator. “That’s a good plan. It sounds a lot more efficient than putting the same points into toughness, and I can think of a lot of circumstances where being able to run away quickly could save our lives.”

“No kidding. Oh! I also figured out how to keep from getting splattered with gross stuff every time we fight something. It turns out Defense Aura has a lot of options and skills and stuff, and one of the things you can do is make it act like an actual force field. So as long as it doesn’t get broken, the blood spray doesn’t touch you.”

“Uh huh. How much does this cost?”

“You have to have at least four points worth of aura, and then there’s an aura control skill you can buy. One point is enough for basic adjustments, like whether your aura spends energy to stop that kind of thing.”

“She’s so smart,” Shasa said. “I never would have figured that out.”

“She is,” I agreed. “Hmm. The power gamer in me thinks this is a frivolous waste of points. But my engineering side points out that we won’t have hot showers with unlimited water forever. Besides, that sounds like a path to being able to no-sell a lot of exotic attacks. It doesn’t matter how deadly the acid spray is if it just bounces off your Aura.”

“Right, yeah, that’s totally why I bought it. It has nothing to do with not wanting to be completely gross after every fight.”

“Of course not. Hey, how are you holding up?”

“Surprisingly well. I thought I was going to lose it after the centipede fight. But winning and getting all these points distracted me from freaking out, and then we managed to go the rest of the afternoon without getting attacked. That really helped. I think I’m kind of edging towards the limit of how long I can keep up action girl mode, but I’m good for now.”

“Glad to hear it. After this meeting is over we’ll hole up in our room and let you de-stress for as long as we can.”

I considered my build a little more as I showered and changed for the third time today. Everything Jenny had proposed could be bought with physical points, which were turning out to be the easiest kind to get by a wide margin. That profane power from the centipede had converted to universal points, which were a lot more valuable. So I was reluctant to blow so many of them on this, when I could just wait for another burst of physical points from more normal monsters. My gaming instincts said it would be better to reserve my universal points for mental or magical purchases, since those points were a lot harder to come by.

On the other hand, this wasn’t a game. If I died with unspent points I wouldn’t get to respawn and try again. In the end I decided to spend the physical points I’d gotten from the centipede on running speed and a point of agility, in case things went bad tonight. The rest of Jenny’s suggestions I’d put off until tomorrow, in hopes of getting more physical points to buy them with.

That left me with eight universal points in reserve, which I could use to buy a solution to any emergency that came up. There was also a stray mental point, but after a moment of reflection I put that into leadership. The next few days were liable to be bad ones, and keeping a survival group together was essential.

Finding clothes for Shasa was an unexpected problem, although in retrospect I should have thought about it. Jenny came up with a skirt she could fit into, although it was basically a miniskirt on the much taller dog girl. My shirts fit her fine, but she didn’t have a bra or underwear and the battered old sneakers she’d come with were a size too big for her. With her complete lack of modesty she ended up looking trashy enough to draw suspicion from the vice squad, if the cops weren’t too busy to worry about prostitutes.

Well, the mace would likely deter anyone from trying to pick her up her tonight, especially since she was with a group. But tomorrow we needed to get our hands on a few changes of clothes for her. Not to mention ourselves, at the rate they were getting torn up. Or maybe someone could take a clothing repair skill?

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Even at a glance, the group we met up with in the lobby was noticeably different from the scared vacationers who had left that rental house this morning. Beth had gotten a pistol from somewhere, and added it and a couple of spare magazines to her amazon dominatrix getup. Bob had changed from a tubby blob to a beefy muscle man, and could barely fit into his clothes. With all the points she was dumping in physical buffs Jenny looked like a little amazon warrior now, and even Earl had put on a few pounds of muscle.

In contrast, Sara and Amanda had clearly spent their initial points on looks and then hadn’t gotten any more during the day. They looked more like a couple of party girls headed out for a night of clubbing than competent survivalists. Sara was carrying a suspiciously heavy purse that obviously held the pistol she’d mentioned, but I couldn’t imagine where Amanda would hide a weapon.

“Is pizza really the best we can do?” Amanda complained as we set out.

“I’d prefer not to walk any further than we must,” Beth replied. “It will be dark by the time we’re finished, and not all of the streets are well lit. Our alternatives are a sports bar and a barbecue place.”

“I’m vegan! Ugh. I guess vegetarian pizza will have to do. Please, someone tell me we can get away from these mouth-breathing Bible-thumpers soon.”

“The FAA says all flights will be grounded for at least a month,” Sara said, smirking at Amanda’s distress. “They have to fit all the jet engines with screens to keep out bomb birds. Unless you think daddy can get you a ride on an Air Force plane?”

“How come they don’t have the same problem?” Bob asked.

“I’m not sure. Something about troops protecting the runways?”

Earl chuckled. “That would do it. No need for a high-tech solution, just get some duck hunters to keep birds off the runways. It’s not like they can catch you once you’re at altitude.”

We chatted aimlessly as we walked, the more competent members of the group keeping most of our attention on our surroundings. The pizza place was actually about a block from the hotel, past an empty parking lot and a couple of stores that had closed up early. The area was well enough lit that I wasn’t worried about being surprised, but there were an awful lot of corners an enemy could use against us. I found myself carefully examining every sign of movement in the gathering gloom, and mentally analyzing every sound.

The pizza parlor was still open and intact, thankfully, and it didn’t take long to find a table and place our order. We all settled into place with our drinks, and after draining half a glass in one go I was glad the place had free refills.

“Here’s hoping this isn’t our last pizza ever,” Earl said, as he accepted a pitcher of beer from the waitress.

“That’s as good an opener as any,” Beth replied. “We have much to discuss. You didn’t want to bring this new girl of yours?”

“She had some things to do before she can move in with me and Sara,” Earl replied. “Besides, I figured we might have some frank talk when it comes to planning, and she’s not quite ready for the full disclosure.”

“What, you haven’t turned her into a mindless baby factory yet?” Amanda snarked.

“That’s not my thing. Besides, it’d be pretty dumb to recruit a nurse who put all her points into medical skills, and then make it so she can’t use them. I’m thinking she could be a dedicated healer for the team, so the rest of us don’t have to spend too many points there.”

“That would be really useful,” I agreed. “Shasa here is a good tank and frontline fighter. She’s also a dog, so she’s a complete innocent and doesn’t have most of the prejudices a normie would come with. I explained hypnosis to her earlier.”

“That was fun,” Shasa said guilelessly.

“It seems we’ve all been busy,” Beth said. “But perhaps we should start with an update on the state of the world? I know Sara has been trying to keep an eye on the news.”

Sara glanced at Earl, and smiled at his nod of approval. “Yes! There’s so much happening it’s hard to keep up, but I’ve been doing my best. I’m just glad I brought my tablet, so I can multitask. Um, where to start? Okay, obviously the government is calling up everyone who ever had anything to do with the military. They’re sending troops to protect important sites, like airports and power plants, and of course government buildings. But there aren’t enough of them to guard everything, and it’s going to take days to get them all moved around. The government keeps making announcements telling everyone to stay calm, but I don’t think they know what to do.”

“Of course they don’t,” Earl said. “Even the zombie preppers didn’t see this one coming. The president’s too senile to make decisions, and whatever cabal of bureaucrats is really running things is going to be in meetings forever trying to figure something out. If we get any help it’s not coming from Washington. But I think I heard some talk about an Alabama militia?”

“Yes, sir. The governor made a speech saying local sheriffs and police departments should deputize people they trust, and organize groups to defend their towns. He’s working with the military to set up convoys on the highways, too. But it sounds like that’s going to take a few days. Until then everyone is supposed to stay off the highways, because it’s really dangerous out there.”

“How bad could it be?” Amanda asked skeptically. “They’re just animals.”

“You didn’t see the demon,” Bob said. “A car isn’t going to save you from a monster like that.”

Sara nodded. “There are a lot of places where smaller roads are completely blocked by wrecked cars, and the monsters ambush people when they stop. Some people say there have been organized attacks, too. Most of the monsters are just animals, but there might be some that are smarter than that.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in Europe right now,” Earl said. “No armies to speak of, hardly anyone owns a gun, and there’s still plenty of farmland and wilderness to spawn monsters.”

“The news from there doesn’t sound much different from ours, but it might just be too soon to tell,” Sara said. “Japan is a lot worse off. There were some stories about whole villages getting massacred by monsters, and then they suddenly started censoring the news. A lot of places in South America are getting swamped by monsters, and I saw some people saying the Amazon jungle is a giant hive mind now. But even that’s not as bad as Africa. There are whole countries that have just fallen apart, like one of those zombie movies.”

“What about water travel?” I asked.

“A whole lot of small boats are getting attacked, but I haven’t seen any disaster stories involving big ships. I think the biggest monsters anyone has seen are some giant squids in the Caribbean, and even they aren’t big enough to attack ships.”

We spent a few more minutes on the subject, but it was more of the same. Countries with a big military, minimal wilderness and an armed population were struggling, but mostly holding their own. Places that lacked one or more of those advantages were a lot worse off, and the most vulnerable societies were already collapsing. The world’s governments were trying to hold things together, but they’d been caught completely off guard by a threat no one had ever dreamed of. In some places communities were pulling together to try to survive, while in others panicked mobs rampaged through the streets. Sara had seen more than one shot of roads clogged with refugees trying to flee rural areas, which basically turned the highways into monster buffets.

“All this, and the monsters aren’t even at full strength yet,” Earl observed. “We’re coming up on hour sixteen of this thing, and the adventure zones take forty-eight hours to hit their full threat level.”

“Yeah, and there’s some other bad news,” I said. “It turns out people give points just like monsters, and you also get points from eating bodies. So any place where a lot of people die, the monsters will be stronger than usual.”

There was cursing all around the table as I explained our discoveries in more detail.

“We’re going to get super-monsters anywhere a town goes under,” Bob pointed out. “Then they’ll just keep killing more and more people, and rack up the points until they’re unstoppable.”

“People can do the same thing,” I pointed out. “Besides, System abilities seem to be really bad at protecting you from modern weapons. You could drop thousands of points into a defense aura and still be chopped to pieces by heavy machine guns or autocannons, let alone an air strike. I’m more worried about the fact that there’s such an incredible variety of abilities the System can provide. It seems like we’re going to end up with hundreds of different kinds of monster in any given place, each with its own special abilities. I don’t know how we can protect civilians against every crazy power any monster could have.”

“Is there any way for people to get points without being involved in the fighting?” Beth asked.

“Sure. Feed them monster meat,” Earl said.

“But I’m a vegan,” Amanda protested.

“The System doesn’t care,” I pointed out. “But there are other options. There are plant monsters, although none of them have been edible yet. It also occurs to me that you don’t have to be part of the fighting to use an XP ball, you just have to be close enough to join the group when they harvest the points. So a hunting team could carry someone and level them up, and if the hotel gets attacked we could bring people out to harvest points after the shooting stops.”

“I’m not crazy about that idea,” Jenny objected. “I mean, if someone is joining the team, sure, we can help them get up to speed. But if someone wants to benefit from my kills they should be out there helping me get them, not hiding somewhere safe.”

“Suppose it’s the medical team?” Earl drawled.

“Okay, that’s different,” Jenny conceded. “They’re already making a huge contribution, and we don’t want them in danger.”

“The same goes for crafters,” I pointed out. “Some people will have kids, too. But at the same time, we can’t afford to give away too many points. If our combat team doesn’t stay ahead of the curve everyone dies. So we’ll need to think carefully about who gets carried, and how much.”

“I, uh, think I might have a way to make XP potions,” Bob offered. “Out of monster bodies, that is. I was looking into stuff to do with my cooking skill, and it looks like there’s an alchemy system.”

“Oh, excellent,” Beth said, putting her hand on Bob’s arm. “You’ve been a busy boy today, haven’t you?”

“Just trying to help out, uh, mistress,” Bob said, his gaze fixed on Beth’s cleavage.

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Get a room, you two. No freaking out the normies.”

“Yes, yes, we all know you’re jealous,” Beth replied airily. “Perhaps you should have been more thoughtful in spending your points.”

“Speaking of which, we should really coordinate our plans,” I put in, before Amanda could formulate a suitably scathing retort. “Beth, good job on getting things organized at the hotel. How is that going?”

“Acceptable, and gradually improving. The staff were panicked sheep just looking for someone to tell them what to do, so it was a simple matter to put myself in charge. The guests are more of a mixed bag, but your militia idea has been a very effective way to get them organized. We’ve had plenty of volunteers, and one is a retired army sergeant. I’ve put him in charge for now, but I haven’t had a chance to get him alone.”

“I hope you’re not overstretching your gimmick,” Earl said.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Beth said piously.

Jenny scoffed. “Come on, guys. No one is going to admit they bought a mind control power? I bet half the group took something, and we all know which half. How are we going to make plans if no one knows what anyone else can do?”

“Huh. You’re making me wonder who really wears the pants in your relationship, girlie,” Earl commented, sounding amused.

“Oh, master is definitely in charge of me,” Jenny replied with an impish grin. “I just get kind of feisty when I’m in action girl mode.”

“She’s not just a pretty face,” I said. “And she does have a point. Anyone else willing to confess?”

The others hesitated for a moment, considering. From the way Beth was eying Earl she obviously wanted to know what kind of power he was using, but didn’t want to show her own cards. Earl just smiled at her, projecting that air of amused mastery he fell back on when dealing with women.

“Fair’s fair,” Earl said. “You first, though.”

He was looking at Beth when he said it, but there was obviously no way she’d go for that. So I decided to give my own answer, hoping to defuse the tension.

“I went with classic hypnosis. As an imported skill it works more like movie hypnosis than the real thing, but it still takes some time to do an induction and implant suggestions. So it’s a useful influence skill, but only one-on-one in a private setting. Beth, you’ve obviously got something more crowd oriented.”

“Hypnotic gaze,” she admitted. “If they look into my eyes they quickly become compliant, and I don’t have to say anything that would give things away to bystanders. But the effect isn’t very strong, and it needs to be renewed periodically. Earl?”

“That hypnosis business does so much of the work it takes all the fun out of things,” Earl drawled. “I just got a little knack for giving orders that have to be obeyed. Just one word at a time, and it wears off in a few minutes. It don’t take more than that, if you’re just after some fun with your girls.”

Sara blushed cutely, and looked down at her hands.

Jenny giggled at her reaction. “Guess not. Well, obviously Bob blew all his points on bulging muscles and a porn star dick. Let me guess, it makes girls orgasm a billion times even if you don’t know what to do with it?”

Bob folded his arms, and pouted. “Shut up.”

“That sounds like a yes. What about you, Amanda?”

“What? I didn’t have the points for anything like that.”

“Bullshit. You were awake and all prettied up when the giant possum attacked. That means you woke up in time to spend your bonus points. So a couple of points on health, a couple more for looks, and that leaves eleven universal points for whatever you want to buy. Not to mention the magic points, which had to go somewhere.”

Amanda threw up her arms in exasperation. “I didn’t get the chance, okay? I was still trying to figure out that stupid interface when the timer ran out. I feel like an idiot for losing most of my points like that, and I didn’t want to talk about it. Now can we please just drop it?”

“Oh. Sorry,” Jenny said, chastened. “I wasn’t trying to be a bitch.”

“Well, you were. Weren’t you guys going to make a plan for protecting the hotel?”

“More than that,” I said, stepping in again to try to keep things on track. “I think we have three objectives we need to work on. The first is obviously to defend the hotel, and try to use it as a secure base for as long as possible. The second is to put together a monster hunting team that can farm points, and handle any major threat that arises. The third is to prepare a bugout plan, just in case everything falls apart and the town goes under.”

“That seems reasonable,” Beth said. “Perhaps we should each take charge of an item? Obviously I’m working on the hotel, and you’ve been gathering a hunting team. Earl, I assume you know a bit about trucks and convoys and so on?”

“A boat might be a better bet,” Earl said. “There’s a marina down by the river, with all kinds of options.”

I considered that. “Better find something with a steel hull. Fiberglass is too easy for water monsters to damage. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to split our efforts that much, because one thing I’ve learned today is that three people is not enough for a hunting party. We need at least six people with solid point totals, preferably more, and some rugged vehicles to get around in.”

Earl scratched his chin. “So you want to group up until we find more people? I can see the logic, but that means we can only do one thing at a time. Maybe we can fill out our teams with militia guys?”

“We only have twenty-six volunteers, and some of them don’t seem very useful,” Beth objected. “If we send half of them off to run errands that leaves the hotel vulnerable.”

“Yeah, and I don’t want something to happen to you if I’m off hunting points,” Bob put in.

It was a tricky problem, and one that kept the conversation going for the rest of the meal. We really needed more people, and especially people who had more going for them than a hunting rifle and basic marksmanship skills. Unfortunately it seemed that most people had either slept through the initial System announcements, or flailed around uselessly until their bonus points were lost. None of the rare exceptions had joined the militia, and while Beth had noticed a few volunteers who seemed promising we’d have to farm a lot of points to get them up to par.

Which meant hunting missions. Which also meant chances to meet exceptional people in town, and maybe recruit them. But Earl eventually conceded that with the monsters getting worse it was a bad idea to split up too much, so we’d have to join forces and prioritize our missions carefully.

Not that any plan was likely to survive the barrage of surprises the System kept throwing at us. I was still half-expecting a massive monster attack in the middle of the night, and so was everyone else. So once we’d come to a tentative agreement we paid the check, and ventured back out into the darkness while there were still people moving around.