Cade woke up to early morning light streaming through the window of the great room. Brandon must have dosed off some time into the night and not woken him up. He didn’t blame him, and knew they both felt at least a little easier with King now. He was able to take in the room now, recoiling from the visceral scene the ceiling held. Somehow the rat had made its home in the rafters of the vaulted ceiling above. He shivered and looked away, turning to see Brandon awake, elbows on his knees, hands clasped together in front of him. Cade guessed he was doing something within his menus and figured he would leave him be for now. King was still asleep, but that made sense with the injury he had sustained.

Pulling up the Void Market, he purchased two of the Filtered Elixirs for 300 coins, and 5 more each of the water and food rations. He decided to dig into some of the other items, hoping he could afford some with the measly 1475 coins he had. Opening the Consumable tab further, he noticed that there were options for Stat boosts, but they only provided a boost for 30 seconds a piece and were insanely expensive. Even the E to D rank boosts were 500 Coins, but he knew they probably could be worth it given the difference in abilities from one rank to another. He also saw that there were Status Nullifiers, which would be extremely useful for getting rid of status effects during fights, as well as resistance options he could take to chance resisting any possible status effects by 50%. Maybe they could take those ahead of known fights to mitigate risks? He’d have to test that later on. Buying one of the Status Nullifiers, and one of the Resist Effect items, he was pleased to find they came in an ingestible pill form. That set him back 700 coins in total, so he pushed his menu away and opened up his Guidebook.

He was happy to see his previous attempts at categorization had helped him turn the book into a much more manageable display. He knew he had given simple layouts to his display but it seemed like he could change it around if he wanted to.

Guidebook:

* Fight Advice

* Item Advice

* General Information

* World Updates

* Unhelpful Chatter

He opened up the Fight Advice tab and started skimming through. It looked like it was mostly people discussing the instance and what they were guessing was happening. Seemed like the consensus was that they were pulled out of their time and place to a pocket domain that was completely unaffected by the outside world. Another group of people postured that there must be a way to leave, but they had yet to figure out what that could be. Maybe an item or ability could take them out forcefully without having to fight the monster? One of the specifics he had been hoping to read about was how he had taken the spike with him through the end of the instance, the one that had impaled King. Other people had reported that teeth, claws, and even bigger parts of the beasts that were either put into their inventory or were embedded in the instance fighters could be brought out. This gave Cade ideas about if some of the animal's meat could be retrieved, but taking that whilst the monsters were alive would be very tough.

The Item Advice tab was much more chaotic. People were breaking down the shop into what was helpful and what wasn’t, much of the item discussions being about the weapons and elixirs, as well as the recently usable stat modifiers, and resistance items. Most people that were commenting had clearly been trying to push the envelope for fighting and developing their skills, instead of laying down to accept the new world order. It gave Cade hope, and really enforced that he would need to start to contribute if he could. General information was much of what could be found in the two tabs he had already read, but with more wide information, such as cooking and how the Home Stone’s worked, but nobody was absolutely sure at this point. There was a lot of discussion here about individual monsters people had fought and how they had beaten them, so Cade promised himself that he would read from this section more to glean as much information as he could.

The Unhelpful Chatter tab, as brutal as the name he had given it was, was just people who were entering their thoughts that had nothing to do with helping others in the new world. Many of them were spent cursing The One, or wallowing in grief over the loss of loved ones. Cade could commiserate and understand this need to vocalize their grief, but he knew it wouldn’t do him any good for now. He exited the Guidebook and opened up The One’s section. He nodded his head in appreciation of the numbers in front of him. Three of the fifteen Divine Protectors had been located, and a total of five of the Dark Scions had been defeated. That was honestly pretty good considering how little people covered the planet now. Cade wondered how people were faring numbers wise, as he knew a huge portion of the populace would be having a hard time with fighting and surviving, which was a sad but true reality.

Closing out of his menus and sitting up to stretch and yawn, he noticed that Brandon was looking at him, patiently waiting for him to finish.

“How’d you fare from that fight, anything new?” Brandon asked seriously. Cade remembered the new armored vest he had received and pushed a mental command to equip it. Like magic, it appeared over the sweatshirt he wore. It was brown and a gnarled almost furry surface covered much of it. Brandon whistled softly as he saw it. “It has an effect on it that lets it regenerate itself so long as it isn’t in my inventory. Also gives me a bonus to my durability which is pretty sweet. Should be able to take a lot more of a hit with this thing on, although I’d still rather not.” Brandon nodded along, a look of appreciation on his face as Cade explained his new item. “I also bought some more Filtered Elixirs, as well as a Stat Nullifier pill and a Resist Status pill. Seemed like a good idea. I got an upgrade to my durability as well”

“Yeah, I did much the same. Got myself a couple elixirs and two of the Nullifier pills. I keep getting hit by shit cause I'm always up close, so it's probably good to have the things ready to go for when I do get hit. I did get a Durability upgrade as well, which is good considering what I just said. I don’t like breaking bones, even if we can heal faster and fully.”

“Have you looked at the Guidebook yet today?” Cade told him about the updates to the Divine Protectors and Dark Scions, and as he finished getting through it they both noticed that King had sat up, listening intently to what they were discussing.

“King, good to see you looking not dead. Good job in that fight man, next time don’t get stabbed, yeah?” Cade joked, hoping to release the tension he knew they were all still feeling this morning. “Ha, Ha - Yeah that was not fun. I don’t even remember getting shanked, just the pain and then the removal. Thanks for using that Elixir on me. I owe ya one.” King stood up and pulled his shirt up slightly, checking the entry wound. It had completely healed without so much as a scar to show he had been literally impaled just the night before. “Never going to get used to that. Wish my parents could see this kind of healing, they would be blown away.”

Cade was equally amazed, and snapped his fingers at King, remembering he had a surprise for him. “Hey I managed to save you something from that last fight, here!” He materialized the spike that had impaled him and handed it over to King. “It was at least 8 inches into you man, and when I removed it after we came back from the instance, it just let me keep it. I don’t want it, so it’s all yours!”

King turned it over in his hands before putting it away into his inventory. “Thanks, I guess? Maybe I can sell the thing, not sure what use it’s going to be. I did get a stat increase from that fight, to my strength of all things. System must have liked me using that ability to cut it in two? Either way, I can't wait to test it. Oh, and I got this gauntlet.” King stretched out his right arm, and a matte brown gauntlet appeared, covering his fingers and hand all the way up to his elbow. It looked much like the leather that Cade’s new vest was made out of. “It says I can wear it as a weapon with my shield, but I’m unsure of what it does yet.” He pulled his shield from his inventory and wielded both. “Next fight maybe I’ll try to see what it can do?”

“Yeah, we can try to deliver a chance to get in a strike if we can.” Cade commented. “Make sure you buy some potions and rations if you haven’t, as well as maybe a Status Null pill or two.” King nodded back.

“Hey, King. Thanks for saving me last night. Cade says you flew by him with that ability of yours and cut the things head in two. I appreciate that, especially considering how hurt you ended up. I owe you.” Brandon said appreciatively. King nodded once in return and added, “Anytime. Please return the favor if I’m ever in need. So, what’s the plan? Where do you guys want to head? I’m along for the ride.”

Cade thought carefully before speaking, “I think we should head south out of the city, which was our original plan, but I don’t think we had planned much more beyond that. Brandon, any ideas?” He looked over to Brandon, hoping he had something to add.

“South is fine, I think getting out of the city, maybe finding somewhere to train a little easier, somewhere more open or at least less convoluted with buildings?”

King and Cade both agreed with Brandon, and after a short break for a meal of water and a dense nutrient bar, they cautiously left the house. The early sunrise cast long shadows as they moved between houses, trying to stay out of potential areas that could house animals or groups like the crows they had seen previously.

“So what do you guys think is actually happening?” King quietly asked as they walked. “I have no idea myself and I can’t imagine anyone ACTUALLY knows, but what the hell is happening, ya know?”

Brandon spoke up before Cade could, “Couldn’t tell you. I just know that my life went back to having to fight and survive and i’m not a huge fan. Thought I was done with that after the AI took over post war.”

“Yeah, I have no clue. I guess aliens are real and they are bastards.” Cade said dryly.

“Surely this “game” The One gave us is some kind of test or entertainment, as he said, but I don’t understand why it chose our planet, are we like the only ones or does it just choose at random and ours was the one getting the shaft this time? Who knows.” Cade shook his head, just plain annoyed and frustrated with what was happening.

“So many people are dead. He straight up merced all of the religious nuts, not that I hate that, but there were so many good people that practiced religion, it doesn’t seem fair that he just erased them. King, I know your parents were religious, but they seemed like the absolute best of humankind. Clearly this thing doesn’t have any value for human life, so it really must just be a game to it.” Cade realized he had brought up King’s parents out of nowhere and stopped, looking at him. “Sorry man, I didn’t mean to bring that up. My bad. That was insensitive.”

“You’re fine, you aren’t wrong there; they really were amazing people. It sucks that they are gone, and I miss them. But if that void fuck thinks I’m not going to come for it, along with millions of others also definitely gunning for it, it has no clue what it has done.” King had a certainty to his voice that Cade was glad to hear. He agreed with King and felt the exact same. Humanity was mighty, especially when people were looked down and pushed into the dirt like trash. The past had shown that people would rise up and depose it’s tyrants eventually, and Cade hoped that would extend to a multidimensional giant that could change the entire planet, but who knows. He could only push forward and fight, and that’s exactly what he was planning to do.

As they moved down around a bend in the road, Brandon raised his hand up, stopping them from turning the corner.

“Something ahead, looks like a bird, but extremely warped. It’s got it’s head in a garbage can, so I can’t tell what it is. Gonna go stealth and get a hit on it. You guys get closer and get ready for the instance.” Brandon started to melt into the background, his silhouette the only thing visible to Cade and King. They waited a few seconds before stepping out from behind the concrete wall to turn the corner. They crept up towards it, about 50 feet from it now. They assumed this was probably enough distance to not set off the instance, and they walked forward towards it a little bit as they watched Brandon’s silhouette move in behind it.

“YAH, hey birdie, look here!” King yelled and slammed his shields point into the ground in front of them. Cade had also summoned his weapons and started slamming his sword into his shield as well. It didn’t take more than a couple seconds for the beast to pull its head from the trash can. The neck of the monster was over 6 feet in length, ending in a too-small-for-its-body head. The problem with it was that its mouth had warped from the goose it had been pre-freeze, to look more like the mouth of a lamprey. Teeth lined every inch of its circular mouth as it turned and honked our direction. Not more than a second after it turned and saw us did Brandon land a Paralyzing Strike to it. It spat out another awful honk before the world flashed and they were pulled into the instance. Brandon appeared about 15 feet from them, Cade and King still next to each other. The bird was about 50 feet or so from them, its name appearing above it’s grotesque head. Twisted Gander (1) and a lifebar that was already nearly halfway down showed that Brandon had landed a good shot. It still hadn’t moved as the instance had started, paralyzed from the initial strike, which was excellent. What wasn’t excellent was the honking cacophony that started up as soon as the instance had started. Wait, why does it say (1) next to it’s name? Cade noticed and realized it would probably be a good idea to voice it to his companions.

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“Guys, it says (1) next to its name and the honking isn’t coming from it, is it?” Cade started looking around, realizing with a groan that there were other enemies appearing around them.

“I count four other Twisted Gander’s so far. We need to group up and be careful. I did a lot of damage with that one strike, but I'm not sure if that was some kind of critical hit or if they just have low durability.” Brandon had run back towards them, knives disappearing as he closed in on them. Cade approved as he watched Kaia’s bow materialize for the first time in his hands. Brandon nocked an arrow and stood behind them.

“I think it’s time to back up and make sure we don’t get attacked from all sides guys.” King spoke softly but they all agreed and started backing up, hoping to find the edge of the instance or a wall that they put at their backs. The goose monsters hadn’t stopped their honking noises and they were either hopping towards them slowly or had started opening their wings, flapping in place as they yelled at them. The goose that Brandon had preemptively hit had started to move, but it was losing a visible amount of health as it kept bleeding from the strike. An arrow zipped by Cade’s head as they backed off, taking the damaged goose in the chest; another chunk of its health disappearing. It fell down onto its belly, head hitting the ground as its life petered out. The body remained though, its health bar greyed out. Cade took note of that and decided if they had the time he might try to loot that body and take it into his storage.

“Nice shot Crow, I’ll give you a bulwark and you just keep fighting. Cade, gonna rely on youtube watch that side, that okay?” King voiced a plan and Cade agreed, falling into a shielded stance next to him, angled 90* away from him towards the other monsters. Brandon shot another arrow off as several of the things charged them, one of arrow pierced a wing but didn’t do much damage. Cade pulled his sword back over his shoulder, careful not to hit his friends, and swung it overhead, calling Chain Flare to life as it separated into its linked form. His sword wrapped around the head of one of the geese and he pulled. He almost didn’t believe it when it took the things head completely clean off. The body fell and its health greyed out, Cade’s mouth open in surprise.

“Okay, yeah these things are not durable whatsoever. I don’t like the look of those teeth, and I’m going to assume through tabletop logic that they may be glass cannons. Don’t get hit, but expect them to go down fast. Three left to go.” Cade pulled his sword back into its normal form as he spoke. Brandon had turned one of them into a pincushion at the same time. It hadn’t been enough to down the bird as none of the shots were critical, mostly hitting its wings and sides. It made sense as this was the first fight Brandon had pulled out the bow. It didn’t matter though as King stepped forward and ran a few steps before rearing back with his shield, cleaving sideways at the damaged goose. His sweep took the goose through its chest, the blade digging in up to the edge of the shield. Blood followed the strike, flinging sideways over King's shield as he followed through. The strike took the goose down, health greying out.

“Two more, I’m going back to the knives.” Brandon yelled out. Cade took this to mean he was going to go back into stealth, but instead he ran directly at one of the goose monsters left. The things head reared back and attempted to strike out at him as he closed in, but Brandon weaved around it and stabbed it in the side of the neck. It crooned a honk of pain and anguish before Brandon took his other blade and planted it firmly into the soft tissue underneath the head. It fell lifeless next to Brandon and he turned towards the final one.

“Who wants it. Cade, you want to practice with your shield? I think you need it.” Brandon smirked and generously pointed out that Cade had barely used his shield up till now.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Cade moved forward with a purpose towards the goose. The head reared back and shot forward, aimed at Cade’s head. He raised his shield and blocked it, turning it to the side as it hit to dissipate some of the force. Striking downward with his blade, he tried to decapitate it but it moved its head out of the way. Cade was moved off of his feet as the bird swung its head at him like a hammer, barreling into his shield arm as he tried to block it. The air was mostly driven from his lungs as he took the hit, landing on one knee with a leg bent at the knee, catching himself from a bad landing. Man I’m sure that would have sent me flying just a couple days ago. These ranked stats are making us way stronger.

Cade stood and charged the goose, lowering his head as it struck out at him from above again, but this time Cade let the head skate off of his shield as he skid underneath the strike, sword stabbing upwards as he started to slide beneath the body of the goose. The sword cut much deeper into the soft tissue of its body, dumping the contents onto Cade’s shield and sword, narrowly avoiding a trash bath as he rolled away. The world flashed and they appeared back where they had been standing before, Brandon moving towards them from where he had initially stabbed the goose near the trashcan.

“Nice, that was a fairly easy one. I didn’t get any stat upgrades from it, but those are probably better for us for now than harder fights would be.” King had stowed his shield and reached a fist out to each of them, bumping in acknowledgement.

“I agree, Crow was right, I need to get some practice with my shield too if I’m going to get any good with this thing.” Cade admitted as he stretched out, shield and sword sent back to his inventory. “Looks like I got some coins and “Good Down” but nothing crazy good. Not even a Void Heart.”

“Same here. Maybe because it was such an easy fight?” King guessed aloud. “Maybe there is some kind of internal measurement of our skills and rank versus the strength of the monsters we fight? I guess we just need to fight more to - AH what the fuck?” King fell over forwards, rolling as he hit the ground. A 12 inch bolt had skewered him through the side of the thigh. “Someone fuckin shot me, damn that hurts.”

Brandon reached down, a potion appearing in his hand as he pulled the bolt out point first from King's leg. “Get up man, I think we need that shield of yours. That was definitely a crossbow bolt. Someone just tried to kill you.”

King stood with Brandon’s help, his shield appearing as he drank the elixir offered to him. He stood on his good leg, blood still coming from the wound. “Who shot me, come out and face us you fuckin cowards.” King shouted out into the area around them.

“Are we going to get sucked into an instance when they come out?” Cade voiced, his shield and sword raised as he scanned their surroundings. Another bolt flashed through the air at them, but Cade saw it coming and deftly blocked it with his shield. “The sniper is over there, that building.” Cade pointed with his sword towards a three story building about 40 feet away.

I got it, was all Cade heard as Brandon stealthed out, leaving King standing on his own next to Cade. Cade saw the silhouette move across the street and start to scale the building. Before he could get his bearings, someone shouted out from behind them. Cade had managed to turn his head slightly, just enough to see a massive hammer bearing down on his head.

“DASH.” Cade heard King shout out, the hammer ringing as it met with King’s shield. Cade stepped around him and slashed towards their attacker, managing to deliver a hit straight down on the man's right forearm. His sword cut straight through, the limb severing completely. Blood gushed out of the wound as the man dropped his hammer, stepping back as he clutched at his new stump. Cade didn’t stop there and stabbed forward with his blade, taking the man straight through the chest. His screaming stopped as Cade pulled his sword from his chest.

“What the fuck, that guy didn’t even try to dodge. I just killed him like he was weaker than those geese.” Cade knew he would likely have had to kill, but that was so much easier than he had imagined. Now was not the time to worry about it though.

“Cade, there are two more coming at us.” King shouted at him and Cade turned as he saw two more coming at them. A man and a woman, the man holding a katana in one hand, the woman holding a one handed sword with a strange shape. Cade didn’t have time to give it further thought as he and King turned and braced for a fight. The two coming towards them slowed a dozen or so feet away and the man spoke, “You killed our friend, I’m going to kill you and cut your limbs off, then eat them.” Lovely, Cade thought to himself. The lady had just nodded her head and smiled as the man proclaimed his want to cannibalize them.

“What is your rank, dumbass?” King shouted over his shield. A shout echoed out from the direction of the sniper, Cade looking over with his eyes to see Brandon giving a thumbs up out of the window the sniper had been in.

The man brought his attention back to them, “Was that Barrett? Did you just kill Barrett? How fuckin dare you, he was my brother!”

“Again, what is your rank, Forrest Gump?” King shouted at him louder this time.

“Rank? I don’t know what you mean by rank, but you killed my brother and my friend.” The man pulled his katana up above him, his fat belly showing underneath his shirt as he ran towards them.

“King, step back. I got this, no reason for you to kill someone today too.” Cade moved slowly forward, pulling his sword below his shield as the man waddled their way. He swung the katana downwards, Cade bracing for the hit with his legs. The blow came and Cade barely registered it; it hadn’t even moved his arms in the slightest. Cade realized then that this man was still F rank. He pushed his shield aside, knocking the katana front he man’s hands, and mentally built up the necessary barrier before swinging his blade from right to left, the attackers head separating from his shoulders as easily as the goose’s head had. The body fell to the ground, this time Cade noticing the blue light that had appeared above Kaia, also appeared over the man he had just killed.

“You… you cut his head off. You monster, how are you this strong? He was the strongest person in our group.” The woman dropped her khopesh, the name of the blade coming to Cade’s mind as it clanged to the ground beside her. Before anyone else could say anything, Brandon appeared behind her; a knife flashing in and out in rapid succession from the back of her head. She crumpled to the ground, Brandon reaching down to clean his blade with her clothing. He stopped momentarily to reach for the blue orb, dropping whatever she had into his inventory.

“Was that necessary?” King asked him as Brandon walked towards them.

“Yes, it was. You are hurt, she was a part of the group that hurt you, and there could be another group waiting to ambush us. That was the correct choice. I don’t like killing people either, but I’ll kill anyone who tries to harm you or Cade without hesitation.” Brandon said this while looking King directly in his face. Cade could tell that he was wholly serious, but sighed as he realized he might need to speak with him later.

“King, he’s right. This needed to happen. I’m sorry, and I will do my best to make sure you don’t have to take someone's life, but I’m starting to think this may become a regular occurrence unfortunately. Crow, just… take a breath and let’s get out of here. Did you loot the sniper?” Brandon nodded.

“Alright. King, how’s the leg? That elixir should be enough to heal you, but it might not be immediate.” King looked down at his blood soaked pant leg.

“Yeah, I think I’m fine.” He returned glumly, clearly unhappy with the violence he had just seen.

“Cade, they were F ranked for sure. They had almost nothing except a few coins and their weapons on them.” Brandon pointed out what Cade had already guessed.

“Yeah, I was able to block a readied strike like it was nothing. Seems like the difference in a couple ranks is wildly huge. We got their weapons though, and some combat experience, so the entire thing wasn’t totally worthless. Was that crossbow recoverable? Could be extremely useful for us to have some more ranged options in the future.” Cade knew every advantage they could get would be good to have.

“Yep, got it here. 40 or so bolts too.” A crossbow appeared in his right hand. It resembled a 21st century model, all black with a sight built in.

“Good, you want that, or the longbow? Either King or I can take the other.” Cade figured it would be a good option for one more of them to have some long distance. “Actually, give it to King. I have Chain Flare for mid range, and he has no long range. King, are you good with that?” He turned to King as Brandon offered up the crossbow to him.

“I’ll use Kaia’s bow for now.” He said as King took the crossbow, stowing it into his inventory before accepting a bundle of bolts from Brandon to stow as well.

“Let’s get back at it I guess.” Brandon started walking, the other two following after him as he turned at the end of the road. Cade noticed a new notification appear, and opened it to find a message from Brandon.

[I used that ability on the sniper. I got a new skill from it. It’s rare too. How are we going to explain this one to King?]

[Shit. That is not great. Good about the skill though, what is it?]

[Its voice appeared in my head after I used the skill. It spoke directly to me, used my first name and everything. The skill appeared in my inventory as a Skill Orb, and when I pulled it out it added the skill automatically. Blood Covenant. When I injure something, a portion of my health is returned to me. I don’t understand what that means, but when I slew that woman it activated and told me I could not heal any further.]

[Okay, is it something you can hide for now? We just need to obfuscate anytime you are hurt and need to heal. Maybe some of the weaker potions?]

[Yeah, for now. We might need to tell him about it eventually though.] Brandon turned and looked Cade in the eyes as he read his message. Cade nodded at him, understanding they would need to approach this at a later time.