He first noticed large scratches in her leather coverings, extending rather deep into her skin. Her breathing was ragged and raspy. Text started to appear in his mind again as he examined her.

Name: ???, Race: Human, Class: Fighter, Health 34%, Rage 0%, and two symbols that he did not recognize. Deciding to help, he roughly pushed out his hand forward while commanding loudly, "Cure." Nothing happened. A breeze ruffled one of his long sleeves as he held his hand in the air. He recalled the list of skills again, and before the memory played out in his mind text appeared again. It was a list of his skills, floating in his imagination. This was as vivid as the dream he had less than twenty minutes ago.It was certainly there. Cure level 0. A small image next to it of green sparks moved slightly in a repeating pattern.

How do I use it though.

As if in response, more words appeared next to the skill after a hyphen. Repair targets physical form while restoring small amounts of health, channel.

That does technically answer the question. I suppose I should be more specific.

How do I start the skill being actively utilized?

Casting spells and using skills is intuitive. See and feel it happening, and then will it to be. It is magic.

The responses felt so rigid and cold. Foreign. This was not an inner contemplation, but felt more like actual answers into his brain. The more he considered it, the more invasive it seemed. Worry could be addressed at this matter later, someone was dying. Aiden had never seen wounds deep like this. The blood fell from some scratches in a pulsing rate of waves, probably related to the beating of her heart. He imagined them closing up, and her feeling strength return which he visualized as a big smile and her eating broccoli. He felt the skill beginning to draw on his spirit, and saw faint glows of cool colors around the injuries. It looked more like a thick liquid than layers of skin, growing and melting back together. Small flashes of brighter golden light shined as each scratched finished healing, and then her entire body looked a bit like when you held a small flashlight under your hand in the dark. The dim glow moved around as her health percentage started returning, like a swarm of fireflies. He laughed a little, and then felt nauseous. His hand pressed his stomach, and massaged it slowly. He felt more hungry than the times he had gone days without food. The woman was not waking up, so he checked himself again. Name: Aiden, Race:..

Not that, why am I so hungry. Am I losing health? I ate dinner.

Health: 100%, Spirit: 1% ... 2%

The word spirit next to a pool of liquid shocked him. Hoping this wasn't a more literal form of selling his soul, he was at least relieved that it was recovering. It was slow, but it seemed the old rules applied still as well. He ran into the unconscious woman's home, and rummaged the shelves for something to eat. A package of lunch meat, a cold can of beans, and a box of cheese crackers later his stomach felt better. The normal bulge from a binge like that was absent strangely. Checking himself showed that his spirit was still taking it's time to recover, and checking the unconscious women started an edge of frustration to burn in him. She was slowly losing health still even though everything was repaired. He disregarded a small amount of modesty and checked more closely. Nothing observable was wrong. A plan to get to the urgent care formed in his mind reflexively.

Aiden cradled and then rolled her body into the bed of a nearby pickup. The keys were nowhere in the vehicle, but just inside the open front door he noticed them on a hook. Sliding onto the seat, the ignition turned silently. Not even clicking. No noise at all.

The useless keys sailed through the passenger window as he started hunting for a wheelbarrow, and thankfully instead found a wagon. That would work much better. The woman's legs and arms hung over the edges slightly, but comfort was not much of a priority. Vigilance and awareness lit the slow travel just a few blocks away to the medical offices. Every corner he expected to see some new horror, but instead was greeted with stillness and the occasional stain on the ground of misfortune. Windows and doors were broken. A few more shaped pieces of wood littered the ground here and there, mighty weapons of the fallen. His mace was left on the lawn, replaced by a peice of rebar he had seen in the truck bed.

The urgent care's lobby was empty. Aiden held his breath listening more closely. He could hear a crunching of some sort just around the corner, in a hall behind the main desk. Leaving the wagon, he crept as quietly as possible towards the noise. Grasping his rebar a bit more firmly the top of his head poked out from the edge of the corner. He was expecting something to be making a meal of someone, but instead his eyes landed on a grayish-blue thin person with horns and pointy ears. Rather tall, and gleaming silver eyes. The man's boot stomped over and over on what was left of a large and more scary version of a wild pig.

"Not a single," he said with a stomp. "Solitary survivor," followed by a crunch, "of the connection in this whole area."

Before his foot fell again his head snapped up, and he locked eyes with the small floating portion of Aiden's exposed face. A brightness filled his demeanor, followed by an excited smile. Aiden's questioning internally was answered in what seemed to now be the new normal for him, floating thought text.

Race: Nature Elf, Class: Archer

As the elf carefully took small steps forward, Aiden simply sat down and crossed his legs.

"Nope," he said in a flat defeated tone.

"Nope?"

"No more, nu uh, not happening, I'm done, nope," Aiden replied louder.

The elf sighed sympathetically. "You've just begun, you can't be done."

The sitting melted into lying flat on the ground in the hallway. Sprawled, looking up through the ceiling into the universe beyond, Aiden took his first big breath in what seemed like days.

"Very few make it through a harvest like this. You are in an area with much life. It can be overwhelming, but you need to get up. There may be more to do, and this is no place for rest," The elf said offering his hand as support. "I am Traestin. Nice to meet you."

The words sunk in faster than was expected, and ignoring the hand, Aiden leapt up to his feet. "We need a doctor," he said over his shoulder rushing to lead the elf to the lobby.

"I do not know what is wrong with her. Her wounds were healed. I even restored much of her health, but the percentage keeps going down. We have to get her to help."

Aiden pointed at the limp form in his borrowed wagon.

The elf looked worried briefly, then laughed.

"If the situation was any different she would certainly be lost, but I think you are forgetting you ARE the doctor," Traestin said.

"I already tried curing her, it didn't fix anything. She still hasn't move at all," he replied.

"Do you know how to see information from the network," the elf asked while pulling the woman onto the floor.

Aiden took out his cell phone, and checked. No service, no access to the internet, no WiFi available. "There is no network, I'm surprised my phone even works. It seems like electronics all took a large surge a while ago," he said turning his screen to prove it to the elf.

"The network is connected to your mind through all the current infrastructure of this planet. That was the surge you mentioned, and also the reason for many electric based devices here not working anymore. I can't explain much further than that unfortunately. I do not speak your tongue, and the translation keeps many secrets safe. There are those that try and learn to communicate without it to share sensitive information. At the moment I would suggest learning to use it to see information. You have many secondary skills, and your observation should start out high enough to be able to see the problem at hand. Both myself, and your companion are very lucky to have encountered you on this night," Traestin explained.

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The system must be far beyond anything humans had. The elf was being translated in real time so seamlessly that Aiden hadn't even noticed the sounds not matching his moving lips. If it could alter sound, and kept information from being shared during translation, then why would it allow that information to be told in a shared language. It could just change or take away the words. He was a quick study in most situations. Improvisation helped him a lot moving around as much as he did, but this wasn't making much sense.

Hello? I would like to observe the state lady on the floor, can I get so more information?

Conversation is inefficient. Look for what you seek.

Feeling a bit slighted by the impatient new imaginary friend forced into his brain, Aiden tried looking at the woman while holding concern for her. Focusing on the need to see more information, rather than thinking in words.

Health: 22%, followed by the same symbols from earlier.

This must be the key. What were they, though.

Minor Poisoning: Target is losing health slowly as poison from a goblin bite spreads through the body. Unconscious: Target has fallen due to falling below 10% health.

That would have been useful to know earlier. Without buttons this is harder to do than he would have expected from technology this advanced. He held up his phone having an idea, and trying to feel it activate with the system. It popped slightly as the screen broke.

Seems to be the way things are going, there should be a simple key to all this. Technology is created to make things easier not more difficult usually.

Intuition.

That makes even less sense the second time.

All Aiden new of intuition was from the tarot card reader on the end of his block. She would always tell him, "you already know. Don't overthink, and trust your intuition buddy." Never made sense then. Still doesn't. How do you do something without thinking about it?

I am cleansing the poison with my super holy powers that I have now, which makes perfect sense of course.

He thought mocking the entirety of his existence in this moment, and even added a little bit of a dance like wiggle. The draining feeling was immediate as a cool wind that smelled like the tree from his backyard when he was a very young child. His hand went to his stomach again, which had no business pretending there was more room left inside to eat. One cast of this skill left his spirit almost empty again, but he couldn't be sure he had even fully recovered from earlier.

"That will become less troublesome. It is just new for your form," The elf said offering a glass bottle. Through the open top, Aiden smelled a sweet almost sour scent of some fruit or berry he wasn't able to recognize. Taking it closer he smelled again, and then tasted a small drop on his tongue. It didn't seem to have anything toxic to his body inside. He drank a mouthful and felt better, like watermelon on a hot day after working.

Pulling on what little spirit he had left at the moment, he used cure to restore some of the lost health again.

"We'd better head to a nearby safe spot. I know a camp by the river south east of here," The elf slumped the now resting patient onto the wagon again. Motioning to follow with a waved hand, Traestin walked out the door. "Aiden by the way," the cleric said stepping out with him, "Nice to meet you too."

He held his spirit pool total in the edge of his mind and watch it recover slowly. As far as alien apocalypses go, this wasn't too bad. His new friend seemed to be motivated to help us even. While walking and wondering how to tell friend from enemy, another monstrous pig ran out from behind a nearby bus bench. One way to tell was the things trying to kill him were probably enemies, which happened more slowly in the old world. He held his rebar in both hands, standing behind a fire hydrant to block the line of charge from the opponent. Ready to bludgeon the beast, Aiden watched as it flew sideways mid run. An arrow stuck out from it's upper neck. Stat point available.

"I got a stat point," he told Traestin as more of a question.

" Carry the boar, we are almost there. See the light?"

Aiden lifted the boar onto his shoulders, and followed the pointing finger. There was a patch of space by the river, off the side of a small road, lit up with a camp fire. There seemed to be some tents, and a table towards the center. Next to them a large pole sat with a horn on top. When they arrived two others greeted them both by grasping a shoulder, and then nodding. One of them was covered in scales, and the other looked a bit like the dog statues from Egyptian culture documentaries.

"Cleanse the boar so we can cook it my friend," Traestin said while taking the corpse from his shoulders, and slapping it on the table. He then carried the sleeping fighter to a bedroll inside a tent near the fire.

Aiden tried casting his skill the same as last time, but instead of wind a translucent flame swept through the boar. A trail of shiny white dust flowed into the air, spiraling out of sight.

"A cleric," shouted the dog excitedly. Jackal.

What?

Name: ??, Race: Jackal, Class: Boxer, Health: 45%, Momentum: 0

That explain two things. He didn't have much spirit left, but what he had was channeled into restoring the boxer and his friend slightly. Cure level 1.Their health would also return with the meal and sleep. He was told they would now be fully healed by morning ready for adventure.

"Should I take first watch," Aiden offered, thinking that he could at least alert them of danger while they rested.

"We are protected," Traestin said pointing up at the horn, "That is a tiny paragon relic, it's presence keeps darkness out."

It did not give of any visible light, so he must have meant the new hostile guests.

"Larger relics have more protected area, and sometimes many are placed together for larger outposts or reclamation projects. Whatever is done inside the protected area benefits the paragon, and owner of the relic."

Aiden rested his forehead on the table and sighed, "even in this fever dream I imagine myself having to pay taxes."

"Not taxes. You are allowed in this way to thank your hosts. Sometimes a part of currency from trades, a little energy from this meal, the light from the cleansed boar spirit. It is not required. The protection is given. Some choose to do certain things just over the edge, which is just as safe. Paragons are not infected with greed. Native hosts have been known to be a nuisance, though. You should advance your wisdom," the elf explained.

"How would I learn these things without someone telling me?"

"Not that, your wisdom stat."

He remembered the available point. Strength: 2, Stamina: 3, Agility: 2, Intellect: 4, Wisdom: 4, Charisma: 3, Luck: 2.

Deciding to just take the advice this time, he visualized the wisdom as a five. It changed, and text followed. It explained that certain skills would be easier to gain experience for, and he had more available spirit which could recover a little faster now. After most of the boar was eaten, a hand inched out from the fighters tent. It was followed by a groan. "I smell food," came a soft high voice in almost a grunt. Everyone exchanged glances. "Food," the fighter growled again, a little more demanding.