Adric grabbed his phone, wondering why his security camera had not updated him on the intruder. His confusion grew when the phone wouldn't turn on. On a hunch, he tried to turn on his TV, but nothing happened. The lights were working, so there was still power. Checking the time, Adric cursed under his breath; his expensive GPS watch was also dead.
“Did the government do something? Or is it this System thing that’s sending the messages?” Adric didn’t know what was happening but was prepared for home invasions regardless of the circumstances, so he went into action when he heard a muffled thump from above.
Grabbing his short pistol grip shotgun loaded with buckshot and two more magazines for his pistol, Adric made for the door, but a nagging thought stopped him. “What if the guns don’t work? That’s what happens in all the books…” Hoping he was wrong but not wanting to take a chance, Adric altered his armament. Placing his weapons within easy reach, he pulled out his light ballistic vest and a pile of leather straps from his safe and started untangling and donning them.
“Note to self: next time, make them more user-friendly,” Adric grumbled, cinching the last strap of the custom harness he had made across his chest. He placed his pistol in the underarm holster, checking its location with a couple of practice cross-body draws; satisfied, he slid five magazines in the opposite strap. The shotgun went into a holster on his lower back, horizontal to his torso. He sheathed a tanto in the friction sheath on his chest. Feeling silly about bringing a bow when he had so many guns, he nevertheless put his short bow in a custom sling on his back and hooked a quiver with ten arrows in one of the belt loops on his left hip.
The thumping and scratching had gotten louder as Adric prepared, and he was getting nervous. It sounded like there were at least five assailants in his home, and if he had anywhere else to go, he would not have even thought about taking them on directly. But he had nowhere else to go, and this was his home. Society was likely about to go down the drain, and he was determined to protect his safe haven; running was not an option.
With his shotgun in hand, barrel pointed forward, Adric crept up the concrete stairs to his main level, mentally prepared to defend his home at any cost. Adric paused with his hand on the doorknob, trying to determine the locations of the people in his house before opening the main level door. “It sounds like all of them are in the kitchen. Maybe it's just some vagrants scavenging. But who would enter a house while the owner was target shooting a hundred yards away?” Pushing his errant thoughts away, Adric took a deep breath and exhaled. He opened the door and walked through his shotgun at the ready, aiming toward the kitchen. Then, he froze only a step into the room. “What the hell?”
***
Hex snorted awake, sucking the drool back in, then she immediately whined in pain as her stiff muscles rebelled against her. She couldn't feel one arm and foot, but after a brief panic, she found them still attached but numb. Leaning back into her pod with a sigh, she started planning her day. Or at least she tried to before the numb limbs turned into the worst agony she had yet to experience in this new life. "What is going on?!" She howled as she tried rubbing her hand to stop the thousands of tiny pains shooting down her nerve endings. Rubbing the hand worsened it, and Hex could only writhe in discomfort until the feeling finally subsided.
Her stiff muscles were forgotten; Hex got gingerly out of her pod, padding to where her clothes were hanging. The pants and shirt were still damp, but it was all she had, so she put them on anyway. She was messing with a pocket turned inside out when her fingers brushed against something rough in the lining. Inspecting the inside of the pocket, Hex found writing stitched into the inner lining. "This is not standard system language." She mumbled, running her fingers over the stitching, "Did I leave myself a message in this planet’s native tongue?" She asked no one. When she read the message, her blood froze; she read the message one more time in disbelief.
Hey Hex, it’s you! You are leaving this message here because you have always wanted pockets, so it will probably be the first thing you check when you wake up in the new body! It’s also here in case the System takes this memory when you download:
Remember! You have set the small node in your bunker to begin initiation early for the human male and yourself! Also, remember the wedge; use it to—.
The message was cut off abruptly at a seam. Hex was frantic now! What wedge? “What have I done, and why do it for the human too?” She worried aloud while scrambling to get into her clothes, then dashed to the worktable and put her combat armor on. She had already checked her other pocket but unfortunately found nothing. Before sliding her newly printed chokuto into its scabbard on her back, Hex checked to confirm she had begun the System initiation early for her and the human above her. She stared as hard as she could at the weapon in her hand for a long minute, trying to take in every feature from the long single-edged blade to the intricate nano wire reel at the base of its hilt. The notification she had been looking for came as she examined the small rune etched into the lower part of the blade.
Chokuto [Common]
Classification: Weapon
Type: One-handed sword
Quality: Poor
Magical: No
Runes: Self-Repair
Description: Basic straight-bladed steel sword that can be wielded single-handed.
Congratulations! You have acquired the skill Examine Tier 1 Level 1 [Locked]. Use a skill point to unlock this skill. You have reached the maximum allowable level in this skill until it is unlocked.
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“No, no, no! Why did I do something like this? What was I planning?” Hex realized the System could only have been active for a few hours at most since her vitality notification had still told her she had to wait until integration. She calmed down a little at the thought and sheathed the sword in the scabbard on her back. She finished arming herself. Hex refrained from examining the small energy pistol and tactical bow she equipped, wanting to unlock her Examine skill before using it again to maximize its leveling potential.
Hex had just holstered her pistol when movement in the hologram in the center of the room caught her eye. A quick look at the display caused her to hiss in frustration. Realizing she was out of time, Hex darted through the long tunnel to the exit.
The door slid open silently when she touched the palm scanner. The unfiltered forest air assaulted her sensitive nostrils as she ran from the hidden entrance to her bunker, but she ignored the dozens of scents vying for her attention. After orienting herself, Hex took off toward Adric's home, hoping she would arrive in time.
The camouflaged door to Hex’s underground bunker slid closed silently in the quiet forest. The mana lights around the hall dimmed until they were no more; the forgotten wedge propped against the wall near the door was soon shrouded in darkness.
***
Adric stared in surprise. He had been trained how to react in virtually every combat situation possible throughout his years as a liquidator, but for some reason, his instructors failed to mention how to respond to a room full of five-foot-tall, wiry, green-skinned goblins with long, pointed ears, dressed in shoddy leather armor and wielding weapons.
Adric’s momentary lapse in judgment nearly cost him his life. Taking advantage of Adric’s lack of reaction, one of the goblins raised a small crossbow and, with a light thrum of the bowstring, sent a bolt speeding toward him.
Pulled from his reverie by the goblin’s motion, Adric dove to the side when he saw the goblin point the weapon at him; he fired his shotgun in midair as he fell. The roar of the gun was like a signal, and all the other creatures burst into action. Three dove over the kitchen island and charged at him with small wooden shields raised, shouting as they did so. Even as the crossbow user was thrown back from Adric’s hasty shot, another goblin took its place armed with a short wooden stick.
Adric landed hard on his left shoulder, feeling something pop inside when he did. A message popped up, obstructing his vision, but with a quick thought, he managed to dismiss the distraction. There was also a sharp pain in his right thigh, but he ignored it all long enough to pump another round in the chamber of his shotgun and blast the feet from under one of the three charging shield bearers. The one he hit yelled as it fell to its stomach, tripping another. Another shot, and the third one was down.
“If I can get upstairs, to the loft, I can attack them from an elevated position,” Adric thought as he scrambled to his feet, only to fall back to the floor when his leg gave out. “The asshole actually hit me,” he thought when he saw the fletching of the bolt protruding from his leg. He didn’t have any more time to think; another bolt fired from a goblin taking cover behind his kitchen island struck him in the chest; thankfully, it hit one of the ceramic plates in his vest and didn’t penetrate. He fired a shot at the second ranged attacker to force it back behind cover as he crawled back toward the door to his basement. He saw the goblin with the stick pointing at him while mumbling something in a foreign language he didn’t recognize but dismissed it out of hand. He couldn’t help but think, “That idiot seriously brought a stick to a gunfight!” That’s when Adric learned a hard lesson that was usually the last for most of the newly initiated species in the multiverse. A thin bolt of electricity flashed from the tip of the stick and struck Adric in his stomach, causing him to drop his shotgun and slide back across the floor from the impact.
Adric groaned and coughed through the smoke of his smoldering clothing. His mind was reeling, “Did that thing just fire lightning from a freaking stick?” Forcing his stiff fingers to move, he drew his pistol, getting off a single shot at what he now assumed was a mage. He thought he had managed to get a headshot. Still, a yellow shimmer enveloped the creature when the bullet struck, sending ripples out from the impact point. It only staggered the mage back, causing it to fall over its downed comrade.
Adric rolled to one side, narrowly avoiding the downward sword slash from the warrior tripped by the one he kneecapped. It had managed to scramble to back up and was looming over him, trying to slice him open with a short, rusty sword. Two quick shots from his prone position sent slugs under the creature's chin, which its small leather helmet didn't protect. It fell dead at his feet, black blood leaking from its destroyed mouth. Adric targeted the mage again as it struggled to its feet, but just as he fired, another crossbow bolt struck him in the chest, throwing off his aim. Adric switched his target, and a lucky shot kicked the crossbow user's head back sharply. Adric had just enough time to see a spray of brain matter behind the creature's head before it slumped behind its cover.
Adric was starting to feel lightheaded from blood loss, the blue of his jeans contrasting sharply with the expanding puddle of red below him. Still, he turned his attention back to the one that had electrocuted him; it was aiming its stick again.
“I guess it’s a wand and not a stick,” Adric thought through the fog of blood loss, “but he or it isn’t aiming at me.” He didn’t have time to wonder at what had the monster’s attention because, about that time, searing pain shot through his calf muscle. One of the warriors he had shot in the legs had crawled to him and drove a nasty serrated dagger deep into his calf muscle. “Dammit! Just die already!” Adric growled at the warrior, and it snarled back at him with putrid black fangs, twisting the blade in his leg. The pistol bucked in his hands twice more, and the goblin fell limp, its snarl now a bloody mess frozen in death.
The yellow shimmer around the mage was constant now; short beams of blue-white energy coming from behind Adric continuously struck the mage’s shield, but they didn't have the same staggering effect his bullet had. The mage sent another bolt of electricity from his wand, the arcing white energy passing over Adric to strike something behind him. There was a high-pitched cry of pain, sounding almost like a wounded animal, but the energy beams kept hitting the mage's yellow barrier.
Adric wanted to check behind him, but the final warrior had crawled on top of him, knocking his pistol to the side with its shield, and was trying to stab a dagger into his chest. As he struggled with his assailant, Adric heard the crackle of the mage’s wand again and felt something thump behind him. In the corner of his rapidly dimming vision, he saw the mage also fall to the floor in a heap.
Adric grunted in pain as the rusty serrated dagger penetrated through his vest, slipping between the ceramic plates to stab an inch into his solar plexus. The vicious green creature was laughing manically, disgusting rancid spittle spraying from its mouth as it thrust down repeatedly, trying to drive the dagger deeper. Adric’s vision was going dark around the edges, and he felt a wave of weakness wash over him, the dagger sliding in another quarter inch as his arms started to give out. Then, the creature's head exploded in a mass of gore and bone, and the pressure on his arms lessened. He felt hands grab him under his armpits and try to pull him back as the goblin collapsed on top of him.
Adric’s mind was operating on pure survival instinct, his training having taken over entirely. So, when the hands grabbed him from behind, his immediate reaction was to pull his tanto from its sheath and stab backward at whatever grabbed him. He felt resistance as his blade penetrated into whatever had ahold of him, and it released him with a cry, yanking his knife from his hand as it fell back. “Was that a human? It sounded like one but more…bestial, maybe?” That was all Adric’s reeling mind could process as his vision finally gave out, and his world went dark.