[Available skill options:]

[1. Silver Chalice I] [Con +1]

[Have you seen those candy colored frogs? The ones that they tell you, no, you can’t eat those? With this skill, you can! Offers immunity to low-level poisons, and delays the damage caused by higher-level ones. Warning: This also increases resistance to ‘beneficial’ poisons! Decrease constitution to counteract.]

[2. Sleep like the dead I] [Con +1]

[You know when your dad said he just needed a nap to recover a second wind? This is a bit like that, but real! Doubles all regenerations while sleeping! Warning: This also doubles negative effects! Increase constitution to counteract.]

[3. Dead God’s Dream I] [Wil +1]

[While resting, you are free of hunger and thirst, and poisons will not progress. Warning: This skill diminishes regeneration while sleeping. Warning: The more injuries the user has accumulated, the harder it will be for the user to rouse themselves. Increase Willpower to counteract.]

[HAIL THE CATALOG]

“What the fuck?” I whispered, staring over the skill descriptions. I read them all fine until the last line. It felt like someone shoved a bomb inside my head and set it off. My blood pounded against my skull, leaving me reeling.

It looked like it did the same thing to Russ. He stepped backwards.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Steve asked.

“I… I think I’m poisoned.” I said.

“I think I’m going crazy.” Russo said. “After I killed that fucking thing, those boxes won’t stop popping up. It’s offering me some insane sounding… skills?”

“Like a video game?” Steve asked.

I looked over the rest of my status.

[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Feral Blood Thrall, Lesser) 2:34 remaining until death.]

At least leveling up had healed me, restoring my health to ‘10,’ whatever that meant. I didn’t like that a bite on my arm had brought me down to 3. Losing an arm shouldn’t kill me. There wasn’t enough blood loss from a bite, right? I paled at the thought of that thing sucking the blood out of me.

“I’m going to pick one.” I said to Russo. Then, to Steve, “I think you don’t have any skills available because you didn’t help kill the monster.”

“And you did? All you did was…” Steve cut himself off, eyes flicking to my arm. “It’s not important. You said you’re poisoned?”

“Yes. That thing infected me with something and the wound closed before we could heal it.” I said. I hesitated for only one more second before grabbing Silver Chalice.

Then I screamed. My consciousness blinked out, blinking back in to Russo shaking me. His eyes were glowing green. I pushed him back, standing. My body — no, my blood itself seemed to burn. I could feel it in new way. It felt wrong, like something I wasn’t supposed to be aware of. It set alight every delicate blood vessel with burning pain.

I wiped sweat off my forehead, opening my status.

[Silver Chalice I has leveled to Silver Chalice II!]

[Status: (Poisoned) has been refined.]

[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Blood Thrall, Lesser) 3:31 remaining until death.]

I panted, leaning over the car and groaning.

Russo looked down at me.

“I uh, got night vision. What the hell was that?” He asked.

“Your eyes are glowing.” I said, not lifting my head fully off the car. I groaned.

“Whoa.” Steve said. “They really are. Alright. I change my mind. Let’s kill every last one of these bastards and see how much power we can squeeze out of them.”

Steve looked toward the nursing building.

“We might need it.” I said, groaning over the car still. I finally stood with a stretch.

“Maybe they’ll have something for your poison, too.” Steve said.

“Let’s go.” Russo replied, leading us forward, shotgun in hand. I followed in the middle. Steve stood behind me.

Our school’s nursing program was chronically over-funded; it was one of the main degree paths that attracted students to our college, since it could offer competitive wages in a stalling economy.

That meant that the building built specifically for the nurse program was a modern design; towering edifice of glass and steel and totally unprepared for a vampire-zombie-litrpg apocalypse.

And most of the windows along the bottom floor were now broken.

The entire outer bottom floor used to be surrounded by sprawling floor to ceiling glass windows that let people stare into the open lobbies and study rooms built around the building. Now, though, the floor was a mess of blood and glass shards.

Having a brand new building at the end of the world wasn’t the worst thing; it meant all the emergency lighting was brand new and top of the line, battery powered lights illuminating the floor to prevent tripping hazards. It afforded a perfect view of a horror scene inside.

On four limbs, a hairy, brown, bat-like monster tore into a body, not drinking blood through fangs but scraping and licking, chewing chunks of meat just to spit them out.

I vomited at the smell of viscera and offal. The monster turned at the sound.

Steve loosed a shot from almost fifty yards, the noise ringing out in the dark.

“Steve, what the fuck man! Get in the building! Go go go!” Russo shouted.

Screams echoed around us in the dark. The noise of the gunshot had told every last monster in this cave where we were.

“I didn’t…” Steve said. He looked green in his face, like the sight had offended him too.

Russo grabbed me and dragged me forward, Steve following not far behind.

The revolver must have been a huge caliber. The monster was missing most of it’s head. I almost threw up a second time as Russo rushed us by, running us into a hallway. We almost tripped over the dead blood thrall in the hallway. Blood trailed from its claws.

Wooden splinters were all that remained of more than half the doors. Russo led us through, sweeping each one. Several featured bodies. There were many more students than there were blood-thralls.

I knew that the nursing program had night classes, but I almost never actually saw any of them. I didn’t even know their names. And so many of them were dead.

Russo pushed open a door, the hinges creaking. Steve stayed in the hall.

From left to right, Russo swept the barrel of a shotgun. A book flew across the room.

Russo whipped over and shot. The noise was deafening inside; first, the sound of the primer exploding, then the glass behind as buck shot exploded against the wall. A book hit the wall by Russo before falling down. A man with long hair gaped at us.

“I’m fucking saved.” He said, looking us up and down. “Wait, aren’t you the fucking janitor?”

“I don’t think there’s janitors anymore.” I said.

This man’s eyes were glowing green too.

“You got the night-eye skill too?” Russo asked.

“Yes — fuck, are you guys getting out of here? I’m coming with you. I’m Jason, by the way.” He ran across the room, grabbing his backpack, before pausing and dumping the books out. He swept a pile of food from a corner of the room inside. There was a little sign with prices and a box to leave payment.

He took the box too.

“I don’t think the money is going to be any good.” Russo said.

A sudden swell overwhelmed me. I leaned against the wall, ice crawling through my veins.

“You alright?” Jason asked me, looking concerned. “Those things get you?”

“A little.” I said, pulling myself off the wall. Nothing in my status sheet had changed. “I — ”

Jason had crossed the room, and, ignoring any respect for my personal space, stuck two fingers to my neck. I flinched.

“Your pulse is slow. And your skin is pallid. We need to… we need to…” Jason looked back around the room. “Fuck. We need to check your oxygen and… the equipment is upstairs.”

“That’s where we’re going.” Russo said.

We all flinched at the gunshot in the hallway. Steve swore, then shot again.

I rushed out, grabbing Jason’s thrown book on the way as I dashed into the hall.

Steve stood over two cooling corpses at the other end of the hall, having entered the building from the earlier shot.

“Cover me.” Steve said to Russo, opening the cylinder and dropping new bullets in.

I dropped Jason’s book.

Steve closed his eyes, blinking for a second. They glowed green now too.

“Did everyone get offered the night vision skill but me?”

“I got two skills.” Steve said. He extended an arm down the hall. A floating crosshair appeared, moving with his rifle. “It said it would let me bend bullets, eventually.”

“Shit.” I said. That was impressive.

“We need to keep moving.” Russo said, staring uncomfortably at the bodies. “Do you have anything you can fight with?” He asked Jason.

“No. Just [Night Eye] and a skill to hide — [Shadow Step.]”

Russo nodded.

“Can you scout ahead for us?”

Jason paled even further. Jason was already pale, too. Paler than me, even. He looked back at me, then at Russo, then nodded, seeming to come to a decision.

“Yeah. I’ll help.”

“Then up we go.”

Russo waved forward.

Jason nodded. Then he fucking disappeared.

----------------------------------------

“He was not kidding about the hiding skill.” Steve said.

We walked upward, taking the stairs. The elevator hung half open, light flickering inside and doors bent. I didn’t know if it would even work on emergency power.

As we rounded the next staircase, Jason reappeared. Russo twitched, leveling the shotgun with him. He held up his hands in a placating gesture.

Russo lowered the gun. He was stressed, despite how he well he kept it together.

“There’s one up ahead.” Jason said. “Third door on the left.”

We swept the next few hallways, clearing out the monsters.

“We need to find a way to get you contribution.” Steve said to me after Jason leveled again. “I’m not going through the fucking apocalypse alone.”

“I don’t want to get bit again.” I replied.

“He makes a great point.” Russo said.

By this point, we probably should have been deaf. My ears would ring, then the ringing sound would slowly go away. Not in a natural way; it felt the same as the bite wound that had closed up, like the system was healing the wound.

Russo used his keys to open a supply closet, digging around in piles of supplies.

“Oh, come on. This is a brand new closet and its already a disorganized mess.” Russo complained, fetching out a few cardboard boxes. He ripped the top of one open, handing it to me.

I inspected the contents. It was a pack of unused box cutters.

“Throw them at them.” Russo explained.

It was better than nothing.

The next monster Jason spotted was only another hallway forward. This time I went first, unsheathing one of the box cutters and throwing it.

It stuck into the monster, which let out a piercing howl.

Russo painted the wall with its blood a second later.

[You have slain one Feral Blood Thrall.]

Jason came back progressively more tired each time. The stealth seemed to take a lot out of him. He was sweating and leaning on the wall as he returned.

“We’re almost there. Just up ahead.” He said after he caught his breath. He seemed deathly pale. “The supplies for the poison are in the same room they’re barricaded in. The monsters are trying to slam through the door — ”

We were interrupted by screaming. Dozens of people screaming at once.

We charged the stairs. I flinched back at the top, throwing a knife. Steve’s aiming point appeared — he fired in rapid succession, killing two of the monsters while Russo killed a third.

[You have slain three Feral Blood Thralls.]

[Level up! Point available!]

[Silver Chalice II has leveled to Silver Chalice III!]

I keeled over again, leaning against the wall. The screaming hadn’t stopped. Russo kicked at the door, trying to open it.

“We’re here to help!” Steve shouted.

The screaming was already dying down. We weren’t the cause. There was sobbing coming from the door.

Russo slammed into it with his full body, furniture sliding out of the way. He panted as he ran inside.

A woman turned to him, standing over another one of those monsters. One wearing human clothes. It was on its back, a pencil jammed into its eye. It had a radio looped onto a belt around its waist.

People were still sobbing and screaming.

“Aw fuck. Was that Jean?” Russo asked, stepping over the ruined furniture and wooden splinters and into the room.

“Hold up. Who are you?” The lady standing over the corpse asked, holding up a pencil threateningly. Her eyes were not glowing green.

I didn’t know what skill let her kill a monster with a god damn pencil and I had no intention of finding out.

“We’re students! And a janitor…” I said, looking at Russo. He was kneeling near Jean.

“Fuck.” He whispered. “What the hell happened?”

“Those things bit her.” She said. Then she looked up sharply. “Jason. You’re alive.”

“I told you I’d find help, Amber!” Jason said.

Amber folded her arms, lowering the pencil.

“And did you get bitten?”

Jason paused for too long of a moment. Amber squinted.

“You think I’d survive something like that?” He laughed. “But Eli here is poisoned.”

“How long ago?” Amber said, eyes landing on me in a heartbeat. There was a dark intensity to it. Most of the room stared hollow-eyed at our conversation.

“Not more than an hour.” I said, biting my lip. “I got a poison resistance skill. Do you have — ”

“Sit down.” She said, grabbing a chair and scraping it across the tile.

I looked to Steve and Russo. Steve’s eyes glazed over as he interacted with his system. I sat.

Then she started going over my vitals, taking my temperature, measuring my heartbeat. After a moment, another girl came up to help her. She had puffy eyes from crying and sniffled all the while but still worked to help.

“Pale skin. Slowed heart beat.” Amber said. “God this is so fucked. Have you experienced seizures yet?”

“Seizures?” I asked.

“Look up for me.” She said, shining a flashlight into my eye. She made a thoughtful noise, then dropped her hand. “Seizures don’t have to be full body. Loss of memory or temporary consciousness or awareness, sudden repetitive motions, something like that?”

“I… yes.” I said, remembering falling against the wall.

“Levetiracetam.” Amber said, not looking away from me. The girl behind her sniffed, rubbed her nose and nodded, walking across the room and digging through a cabinet before coming back.

Amber spun a pill bottle open and dropped two in my hand.

“500mg, twice a day.” She said. Then she turned to Russo. “If he starts to show signs of turning, kill him.”

“I’m not fucking killing the kid.” Russo said.

“Then someone else will die.” Amber said, waving at the monster on the floor.

I felt myself pale further.

“It will be fine. I just need to…”

I opened the skill menu again.

[Available skill options:]

[1. Sleep like the Dead I]

[You know this one!]

[2. Snake Tongue I] [+1 Int]

[Oh, you naughty little liar. Snake Tongue will help facilitate acts of deceit, offering you lies others are more likely to accept. Great for people who need to hide the fact that they’re turning into a monster! Or was the real monster inside you all along? Warning: Mages will be able to detect you pulling on the Network to manipulate them.]

[3. Sanguine I] [+1 Wil]

[Bleed less. Or more! Its all up to you and your willpower. Grants foundational elemental mastery of blood. A high enough level will even allow you to filter out poisons! Warning: you can seriously mess yourself up with this skill. Your brain needs blood too! Stop trying to make blood swords!]

[HAIL THE CATALOG]

I winced at the final line again, selecting Sanguine. I didn’t know what the hell the Network was. It sounded like it was something like weave or aether since mages could sense it. Did that mean it could read minds? Creepy.

I selected [Sanguine.] Immediately, I could feel my blood, the same way I had when I selected [Silver Chalice.] The feeling of blood at every turn in my body made me gasp, the sudden awareness overwhelming for a split moment before it fell away to a blur like images in my peripheral vision. I could still sense every vein and capillary, but only when I focused on them.

Amber stood over me with a pencil in hand.

“I’m okay.” I said.

Inside of my blood, I sensed a monster. I recoiled at the very perception of it, infecting my veins and intruding, less like a poison and more like a virus. It seemed to be slowly growing and spreading.

This was real. Really happening. I had magic to sense the monster in my blood. I leaned back in the chair and tried to squeeze, wringing the black shadow lurking in me with my blood, applying pressure to it. My muscle cramped. I made a choked noise, feeling tears welling in my eyes.

A huge chunk of the thing was crushed. Then it recoiled away like it was fucking alive, ducking and diving around my body.

[Triumph! You’ve found a new use for your skill!]

[Sanguine I has leveled to Sanguine II!]

The poison inside me wasn’t completely gone. It spread out, becoming diffuse, hiding itself in the nooks and shadows of my veins. I chased it with my perception, occasionally gasping as I caught and destroyed parts of it.

“Eli!” Steve shouted.

I recoiled.

[Sanguine II has leveled to Sanguine III!]

He waved a hand in front of me.

“What fucking pills did you give him?” He turned to Amber and asked.

“Just anti seizure medicine. This isn’t from that.” She said, worried.

“We’re leaving.” Steve said. “You’ve been sitting in that chair spasming for thirty minutes. The hell is going on with you?”

“I’m alright.” I said, clutching my stomach where my muscles had cramped the most. I leaned forward in the chair. “I got a new skill. I’m trying to destroy the poison. It’s hard.”

The class had packed up bags full of medicine. Several of them were clinging to chairs or holding them. I stared curiously.

“We’re going to the roof, kid. Hopefully, we will get out of this fucking cave.” Russo said.

He was smoking indoors, earning several admonishing looks from the nursing students. At least from the ones that weren’t still crying. Jason had clearly joined them at some point — his face was now puffy as well as he wrung his hands behind Russo.

Russo never let go of the shotgun.

“Let’s go.” I said, pulling up my poison status.

[Status: Poisoned. Seek immediate help. Affliction: Hemophagoviridae Strigis (Blood Thrall) 3:02 remaining until death.]