"Oh shit, of course, a slime spawns right next to me," I muttered. Well, it doesn't look like the slime on my chair is going to attack me. It's just kinda staring at me. Wait if slimes don't have eyes, can they stair? Wait, shit it's jiggling. That's never a good sign in enemies. I wonder if that means that it's going to attack? As I came from my musings, my mind reacted faster than I thought possible, and information I've never known before flowed into my mind. I flung my hand out and shouted: "create stone block!" to my amazement, A 1*1*1 meter stone block appeared with a small pop above my desk and chair crushing them and the blob. "Well, that worked, I guess, but, wait, shouldn't there be like a notification?"
90 mana used.
Base mana slime killed. Gained 5xp.
The screaming stopped, is Mr. Drew safe? I looked over and didn't even see his body, let alone the blue slime that plopped down onto him. Wait there's something wrong up there. There was what looked like fruit punch scattered across the whiteboard and the jock who got the desk hammer was standing at the front heaving quickly, the jock was also splattered with fruit punch. Then it hit me like a stone block crushing a desk Laying just left of the desk was the headless body of Mr. Drew. Then the jock spoke with a heart-wrenching tone "Hell yeah the system said I got 15xp... Mr. Drew are you ok? Mr. Drew? Mr. Drew, I got that blob, I got em good didn't I sir? You're ok now ain't you get up then. Oh dear god..." after that he curled up onto the floor and began sobbing to himself. Still, in shock, I looked around the room and saw the other students were crying to themselves, staring off into the distance, a few seemed to be manipulating the screen they'd been given, and one was even maniacally laughing as he exited the room. Judging the class to be safe I uttered "menu" because what else would pull up the interface in this situation?
Name: Riley Johnstone
Race: Human
Class: TBD
Level: 1
Stats: Human Average 10
Base: 1-20
Item bonus:
Total:
Strength:
6
6
Agility
7
7
Charisma:
10
10
Wisdom:
17
3
20
Intellect:
18
2
20
Luck:
2
2
Undistributed Stat Points:
5
Current Exp:
5/25
HP:
160/160
HP Regen:
1 per minute
Mana:
200/200
Mana Regen:
2.0 per minute
Stamina:
60/60
Stamina Regen:
.7 per minute
Skills:
Level:
% to Next LVL:
Undistributed Skill Points:
Speed Reading
7
57%
0
Base Education Skills:
7
58%
Game System Knowledge
8/10
99%
Creation Magic
1
93%
Ritual magic
1
100%
Claim Bonuses for class discovery? Y/N
Well, I don't have time right now to review the nuances of a new class or to distribute the points I gain from it, I'll do it later, then. Right now, I need to get out of the school. I have the feeling something is about to go down. I should find a way to get to Aaron's house and from there we can geek out about this and figure out our plan of action. I should bring Linsday with me, safety in numbers. I walked over to Linsday and had to snap a few times to get her attention "Uh, what, this can't be true, right? This is some weird-ass dream? Riley, I need you to tell me this is a weird ass dream." Linsday asked, on the verge of tears.
"I'm sorry, I wish I could tell you so, Linsday, but we can't focus on that right now, we need to get out of the school"
"I don't understand Riley, there are none of those terrible blobs in here anymore why can't we stay where its safe?" She seemed to be fully in shock now. "Linsday, look at me, right now, there are monsters spawning all over the world, we might be safe right now, but that message told us that we needed to run from schools and such. So we need to go now." I spoke with as gentle of a tone as I could even though I was panicking inside.
"You just said that those monsters are everywhere, where will we go?"
"I don't know Lins, but we need to go find Aaron, after that, I don't know, but we can find somewhere to carve out a safe haven." I was getting close to breaking now. "Ok, let's go then." she stood up and wiped her tears away. Right now we just need to get out of the school without dying. Still, that laughing kid worries me, I don't remember his name but I do remember he hates me, something like I humiliated him in front of the school at an assembly or something.
----------------------------------------
The Laughing Kid’s Point of View
Name: Catalyn Mazmorra
Race: Human
Class: TBD
Level: 1
Stats: Human Average 10
Base: 1-20
Item bonus:
Total:
Strength:
7
Agility
15
Charisma:
3
Wisdom:
8
Intellect:
9
Luck:
18
Undistributed Stat Points:
0
Current Exp:
0/25
HP:
160/160
HP Regen:
1 per minute
Mana:
90/90
Mana Regen:
.8 per minute
Stamina:
70/70
Stamina Regen:
1.5 per minute
Skills:
Level:
% to Next LVL:
Undistributed Skill Points:
Speed Reading
6
11%
0
Basic Education
6
4%
Marksman
18
75%
Firearm Knowledge
13
27%
Hand-to-Hand Combat
8
53%
What the hell’s going on? You know what, I don’t even care! This is amazing! A message originating from an unknown source told us that we basically get to reshape ourselves and create a weapon out of whatever we next touch. Well, what we touch with our right hand.
So, if I touch my desk, like that jock kid did, I can make a hammer. If I touch my math book like that asshole Riley did, I can get a… whatever that became. My guess is a spellbook of some sort? Does this mean the weapons are based on the physical attributes of the item, or the qualities of the person who touches them? I think I’m gonna wait a bit before I touch anything with my right hand. A thought popped into my head, I feel bad for some people...
And then I burst into uncontrollable, maniacal laughter. Thinking about how many ways I can swing this situation just made me laugh harder and harder, and then that jock took off Mr. Drew’s head and I was in fucking tears. People were definitely looking at me like I was crazy, but who the hell cares? I’m gonna own this world!
Hmmm… as far as we know everyone has received these mysterious ethereal messages. That means other people have, at least, a general idea of what’s going on. If I don’t act fast, I won’t gain the upper hand. For this exact reason, once I was done with my little psychotic episode, I ran out of the room and directed myself straight to my locker. I opened it and grabbed my prized possession, something I’ve been waiting to use for a long time now.
----------------------------------------
“EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND AND SHUT UP!” I look down at the disassembled group of kids. I just happened to be standing on a cafeteria table and, just for emphasis, I shot a few bullets from my MP-28 into the air. A few ceiling tiles came down, narrowly missing a couple kids. Damn, almost got them.
Now, if you hadn’t guessed already, the MP-28 is my prized possession. It’s amazing. It’s a submachine gun that has burst capabilities. It’s fairly old, being the very first submachine gun to ever perform in combat, introduced in 1918 by the German army in WWI. I won’t go too in depth on how I obtained this masterpiece; let’s just say I have some contacts. In any case, to abstain from placing my right hand on the weapon, I fired a burst of bullets with just my left hand. Ouch.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“I said, everybody, GET DOW-”
“That guy’s got a gun!” Wow. A bit late to the punch, buddy. Fucking jocks. They are complete idiots. Honestly, if you’re in a lunchroom in a high school and nobody’s talking, you should probably assume something’s up. And then, if you see a fellow senior standing up on a table with a gun, barrel smoking, what would you do? I, for one, would not draw attention to myself.
So, to teach a lesson to my dumbass peers, I leveled the weapon directly at the jock’s chest. But, of course, in my haste to teach this idiot a lesson, I completely forgot about the soul binding… thing that has been implemented into everybody’s right hand. Just as I remembered this key factor, the MP-28 started to transform. It actually looked really cool.
The stock of the weapon suddenly turned into a kind of liquid alloy and enveloped my arm. The gelatinous compound that now covered my hand, arm, shoulder and some of my back and chest started the second stage. I could feel tendrils of the substance burrow into my skin and then further into my body. While this did frighten me for a couple of seconds, I soon began to feel healthier, more powerful, better than I ever had before. The sensation was… addictive.
Oddly enough, the barrel of the gun still looked about the same, even though the mag (jutting out from the side of the barrel) was now transparent and softly glowing a green light. So, as to not stray from the objective I had before the weapon transformed, I lowered the barrel at the jock and… realized there wasn’t a trigger anymore. Shit.
I didn’t know what to do. My gun had just kinda been seriously modified by an unknown source. Am I supposed to automatically know how to alter to this world? Then I remembered that when Riley created his book, he had stated an “action” command, and so I uttered “Fire.”
The effect was… surprising. A burst of three bullets fired out of the gun heading right for the center of the guy’s chest. I had apparently used way more projectiles than I needed. The first bullet that was sent toward him blew him apart. And by blown apart, I mean he practically exploded. You could see blood, guts, bone, sinew, brain, and whatever else you find in a human just go flying. ‘Twas a piece of art.
Almost immediately after the first bullet blew the idiot to smithereens, the second bullet burrowed its way into the person directly behind him. That bullet blasted the next guy straight into heaven, or hell, or wherever we go when we die. Pittsburg?
The third projectile rammed itself into a girl’s right hand, but she took no damage. Instead, when the bullet burrowed into her appendage, the hole started to knit itself back together. As it did so, her arm started to glow, and the glow soon spread throughout her whole body. A couple of intense seconds later, the light recentered on the palm of her hand and molded itself into a form. She was now holding a glowing red broadhead arrow that was about a foot in length. She stared down at it, very confused.
After contemplating this spectacle, everyone froze. It was like I was in a museum and the students were all wax statues. I jumped off the table I was standing on and stood directly in front of the first person I saw. I waved my arm in front of his face. No reaction. I tried flicking him in the forehead, and nothing happened. My finger just went through his head, like it was a hologram or something.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Catalyn!?” a booming male voice sounded. “These are my experiments! While your mental status and reaction to this situation are very intriguing, these people are meant to be studied! Not to mention the fact that you have absolutely no idea how to use that gun of yours. Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
I tried my best to respond in a comprehensible way, “Ummmmmm... What?”
I heard a sigh from behind me and turned around. I attempted to comprehend the very odd image that stood before me. The first thing I saw was a bright little red orb. The sphere was located in the center of the chest of a human figure. The figure’s whole body was stark white with no creases, imperfections, or characteristics whatsoever. It was a completely blank slate. As I examined this oddity, the voice started up again, but it seemed to come from the white model; “Look, I’ve stopped time temporarily and will soon bring you somewhere similar to a safe house. You will have five hours to assess your menu, weapon, your new physical attributes, and your course of action for when I place you back into your time stream. I STRONGLY,” he over-emphasized this word, “suggest you don’t kill your comrades. They will serve a great purpose to you, but if you kill them, I may have to deal out a punishment… such as taking away your physical body. Capiche?”
“Wha… um… sure?”
“Good.” The white body snapped its fingers, and a flash of light burned my irises.
I could feel my stomach flip inside out as I was transported to another location. I opened my eyes to look around, but it still hurt to look at anything and I was starting to feel sick. I sat for a good five minutes before I tried opening my eyes again. This time, I thought I was blind because all I saw was gray. Nothing else. I frantically looked to the left and right worried that something had really happened to my eyesight. But when I looked down, I could see my arms and legs just fine. A wave of relief washed over me when I realized I was not, in fact, blind, just in a featureless location. This must’ve been what he meant by a safe house.
I decided to take the orb-thing’s advice and opened up my menu for the first time since I equipped my transformed gun:
Name: Catalyn Mazmorra
Race: Human
Class: TBD
Level: 1
Stats: Human Average 10
Base: 1-20
Item bonus:
Total:
Strength:
7
10
17
Agility
15
10
25
Charisma:
3
6
9
Wisdom:
8
6
14
Intellect:
9
6
15
Luck:
18
2
20
Undistributed Stat Points:
0
Current Exp:
10/25
HP:
200/200
HP Regen:
1 per minute
Mana:
150/150
Mana Regen:
1.4 per minute
Stamina:
170/170
Stamina Regen:
2.5 per minute
Skills:
Level:
% to Next LVL:
Undistributed Skill Points:
Speed Reading
3
11%
0
Basic Education
6
4%
Marksman
18
75%
Firearm Knowledge
13
27%
Hand-to-Hand Combat
8
53%
Mana Manipulation
2
98%
Haggling
14
63%
Damn! Seems like the new-and-improved MP-48 significantly increases my stats. Is a count of 18 stat points placed in Luck considered high? It must be because I should not have gotten a soulbound power this strong. Then again, who knows? I’m not exactly one of those geeks who sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons in my free time. Though I now half-wish I pursued those kinds of activities. They might help me in this situation.
I took a good hard look at my menu. After studying it for about a minute, I learned that HP (health points?) was equivalent to the ultimate number of stat points I have obtained plus 100, and HP regen I’m assuming is whatever level I am because nothing else on the sheet corresponds. Well, unless you take the ultimate number of stat points and divide it by one hundred, but doesn’t that seem a little repetitive, though? Mana looks like it could be intellect times ten, while mana regen concludes to be based on my wisdom divided by ten. Does this mean intellect and wisdom only affect mana or do they also affect my actual mental health? And then my stamina and stamina regen seems to be the same as mana, except based on the variables strength and agility, respectively. Now that I’ve got that sorted out, let’s look at my skills.
So, in all my life, the only skills I’ve acquired are speed-reading, base education, marksman, firearm knowledge, hand-to-hand combat, mana manipulation, and haggling. While my intelligence-based scores seem to be a little embarrassing (excluding haggling), I have oddly high-leveled skills based on combat. Makes sense.
Wait a second, don’t you generally have a hub or something in video games? Maybe, with the recent changes to Earth, we might have something similar.
I closed my menu and inspected my view. I noticed a green bar at the top-center of my vision reading 200/200, a yellow bar in the top left of my vision reading 170/170, and a blue bar in the top right reading 150/150. I assumed these three readings represented health, stamina, and mana, respectively.
I also noticed this little, blinking red dot to the right of my blue mana bar. I thought about interacting with it and another transparent screen appeared with a number two above it, reading:
Weapon Acquired
Name:
Bergmann Weapon o’ Mass Destruction
Rarity:
Legendary
Effect:
Fire high-powered projectiles for a cost of 5 mana. Immune to magic damage, extremely dense. Can shape to any form, within allowed density. +10 to both physical stats, +6 to all mental stats, and +2 bonus to Luck.
Oh. Wait, LEGENDARY!?!?!? Isn’t that a bit much at level one? Not that I’m complaining, but whatever god decided to fuck with our world created a horrible weapon system. I mean, this thing is O.P.! The only downfall to this the Bergmann Weapon o’ Mass Destruction is that each individual bullet costs five mana. Seems a little steep, because that means I can only fire thirty bullets every… move the decimal, subtract 14, multiply by seven… 107 minutes, which is how long it takes to recharge my mana after completely depleting it. Then again, those bullets are really powerful. Maybe it won’t affect me as much as I think? Eh, I’ll figure it out later.
I opened up the second notification;
15 mana used.
2 level one humans killed. Gained 10xp.
Wait a second… level one humans are only worth five experience? That. Is. Bullshit. I realize we’re not that great of a species, but only five xp? Give me a break.
Anyways, I should probably start working with my the Bergmeister. I began by learning how to create a wall in the grayscape. Apparently, it was pretty easy. All you had to do was think about a wall appearing and it appeared. The more detailed you thought about the wall, the more detailed the wall physically became.
Once I had that situated, I began firing bullets at the wall. I didn’t know what the wall was made of, but it seemed as though it was really dense because my projectiles didn’t even make a dent. I created another wall, specifically made out of titanium, and tried again. When the little balls of mana contacted with the titanium wall, it shattered. It just fell to pieces. Considering it was one of the strongest metals known to man, I may just have the strongest weapon unknown to man. A lot of people are going to die very, very soon.
Once I finished with this little experiment, I checked my mana bar. To my surprise, it had not dropped even one point! It must be the “safe house” that was allowing me to expend mana-based ammunition without actually wasting mana. Maybe this place is a kind of training grounds, perhaps?
I continued with my study by taking a stab at modifying the Bergler itself. I first tried making it compact itself into a fist that was an extension of my own. I succeeded, to an extent. It switched back into its gelatin form and moved down to my hand, making something that resembled a wrecking ball. While not perfect, it wasn’t bad for my first try. I spent the next half an hour perfecting the fist and then moved on to more strenuous designs, such as large animals, or models of buildings.
After I became fairly proficient with this aspect of my weapon, I tried changing the shape of its ammunition. I created a very large and dense titanium wall and fired a single bullet. As I thought about firing the bullet, I pictured what I wanted it to look like as it shot out of the Weapon o’ Mass Destruction. I wanted it to look like a boomerang, but right as the tip surfaced from the barrel, the mana shape exploded, sending me flying.
“Son of a bitch, that hurt! Goddamnit. Let’s try this shit one more time.” I raised my barrel a little to the left of the titanium target but stopped myself right when I was about to fire. “I’m a fucking idiot,” I muttered. I focused on the barrel of the gun and changed it so that its shape could easily accommodate the boomerang-like collection of mana. The problem with my first attempt was that the mana shot into the barrel of the weapon, exploding inside of the Bergmeister. This time, my plan worked perfectly. The projectile launched itself from the Berglar. After flying for a bit, it looped back around, hitting the dead center of the wall.
“BOOM! That’s what I’m talking about!” I yelled, doing a little jig.
A couple of seconds later, I stopped as I heard faint laughter. I realized that the wax douche was watching me. “Can I get no privacy?” I muttered.
In a whispery voice that seemed like it came from right next to my ear, I heard “Nope.”
I practically jumped ten feet in the air and I may have screamed a little. “Stop it! C’mon, that’s just fucking creepy!” When no reply came, I decided to get back to my experiments.
----------------------------------------
Before I knew it, my five hours was up and the entity showed up to take me back to my school. But, I had checked my mana control skill when I was done and realized it had grown to level 15! I don’t know, I thought it was pretty cool. Anyways, with another flash of light, I was standing in the same spot as before, looking down on the group of frightened and horrified faces. I tried to remember what I was doing standing on a cafeteria table. Oh, that’s right! I was creating a Dictatorship! I completely forgot about my plan to take advantage of the world’s vulnerability and confusion.
I decided to lay some ground rules. “All right, let’s get started! As you can see, I may have the most powerful weapon in the world at my command.” For dramatic effect, I made the solid metal coating of my arm transform back into the liquid gelatin substance and swirl around my body in random patterns
I concentrated a little more, and the swirling alloy retreated back into a slightly more solidified form and wrapped around my body. A large snakehead slowly rose above my left shoulder and gave a very loud and threatening hiss. Not something to mess with. For good measure, I decided to fire a couple of bullets into the back wall, blowing most of it apart. I practically hit myself when I realized I had just wasted ten mana.
“Right! First things first. We’re gonna make this school into a fortress. This is going to be the most badass high school in the world! Though, word to the wise, those of you who decide to rebel against my… command… well, let’s just say you’ve only gotten a taste of what I can do. Di-,” suddenly an arrow (The same one I had accidentally let that girl create earlier with her soulbind power right before I was whisked away to the safehouse) came flying directly toward my face. I saw it just in time and moved ever so slightly, causing the projectile to narrowly miss me.
The bolt shot through the wall behind me, leaving behind a neat little hole, almost a foot above my head. What I didn’t expect was for it to come right back through the wall, now aiming at my chest. All I could think to do was move out of the way (even though I had no time), but my weapon had other ideas. The snake I had created earlier snatched the arrow out of the air with its mouth. I had it point and refire the arrow towards the girl, and then let it shift back into its original shape. She saw her own soulbound weapon directed at her, so she brought her arms up to shield her face.
Instead of ripping through her, as we both expected, it popped like a water balloon on contact with her arm and a copy of it formed in her hand. I was actually pretty impressed, but that was nothing compared to her reaction. She looked down at her hand and her eyes shined. She looked up at me and I could tell she was about to start something big.
“Alright, dickwad. Let me get this straight. You decide to kill a couple of us, attempt to kill more, and then assume that we’re just going to… follow you? Are you insane?” I could see from the look in her eyes she wasn’t as righteous as she seemed. She was planning something. “Now look, there is one of you and a lot of us. If we all decided to, oh, I don’t know, create our own weapons right now,” some of the people around her got the memo as several of them began touching the most dangerous object they could find with their right hand, “then we could beat you.”
All I could do was laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Even as someone in the front row launched at me with a four and a half foot claymore (I saw them grab the rod under one of the cafeteria tables) I just kept laughing. I, of course, saw them coming, so when they took a swing, I took action. Their blow should have slashed me across the stomach, but instead, I moved my right arm over and forced the Bergmann Weapon o’ Mass Destruction to solidify itself. The guy’s attack just kinda bounced off and I decided to test something. I brought my arm back and punched the guy in the face with the Berglar. His face splattered and his body went and flew into the ceiling, leaving his head stuck.
Idjit.
And then chaos ensued. People started charging at me, even the ones who hadn’t gotten weapons yet just grabbed anything they could get their hands on. I mean, one kid must’ve somehow gotten his hands on a toaster because he actually shot a piece of toast at me. I was a little envious. I wanted to try magic toast!
Throughout all this pandemonium, I just kept on fighting and laughing. When I first saw everyone come at me, I grew the end of the Bergmeister horizontally and launched a rolling spiked cylinder, very similar to the pulverizer attachments that can be implemented onto tractors. It was far more effective than I expected. It alone must’ve killed around thirty teens and injured a little over thirty more that weren’t paying attention and didn’t jump over it. I mean, it was only about a foot high. A little effort would have allowed you to live. The pulverizer kept traveling until it hit the ruins of the wall where I then let it dissipate.
Because I could never see the amount of mana other bullets took up during my five our training, I checked my reservoir and saw I only had fifteen mana left. Jesus, that thing took a lot more effort than I thought it would.
As people kept charging at me, I resorted to melee fighting that became more effective with the change of the Berglar’s shape. I must’ve tried out a dozen different weapons, including a wrecking ball, a giant fist, a mace, a giant-ass sword, the snake I had created earlier, and I even fully enveloped one girl in the berg’s liquid state, crushed her, and used her face as a scare tactic. I let it rise to the outside of my giant black fist and let it hover in front of another student, which made them flip out. It was pretty funny.
After I had killed roughly 25 students, excluding the ones I killed with the pulverizer, I heard a booming voice say, “All right, that’s QUITE ENOUGH.”
Wait a second. I recognized that voice. That was the wax guy. I tried moving or turning my head to see where he was and found I couldn’t. In fact, the only body part I could physically move was my eyes. I realized this could not bode well for me, so I surveyed the crowd of high-schoolers and noticed they had all frozen in place as well. I noticed it wasn’t quite the same as before when time had stopped, because I could still see all their eyes moving.
The entity appeared in the back of the cafeteria, sitting on a cage around a clock and slowly drifted down towards me. When he was floating right in front of my face and all I could see was his wax dome of a head, he said calmly, “You do remember what I told you, right? How I strongly suggested you not kill all these students? You can tell I have a nearly unlimited reservoir of power, and you intend to not do what I think is best? I believe you forgot that these people are all my experiment. I don’t want you killing everyone with that over-powered weapon of yours, so I’ve decided to tame your bloodlust.” He turned around and started floating away, but thought better of it, “Oh, and no more help from me. You figure out everything yourself now.” He clapped his hands and another brilliant flash of light surrounded me.
I suddenly felt myself falling, and falling, and falling, and falling. And falling. And falling. And falling. And falling. This trek seemed to take forever. Eventually, I felt myself land with a clink.
As I inspected my surroundings, I saw that I was in a room with a lot of pipes and a lot of gauges. I must be in a boiler room or something, I surmised.
As I was surveying the room, I noticed that my point of view was from a very low position. Unnaturally low. And when I noticed a mirror leaned up against a cabinet, I learned why.
In the mirror, I saw a reflection of myself, but it wasn’t me. What I saw, where my point of view seemed to be originating from, was a little green orb.
Son of a bitch.