The New World Order

Before Cade could understand or comprehend what had happened, the voice had disappeared and he found himself falling forward. It looked as if nothing had changed. He caught himself on a streetlight pole nearby, reaching up to rub his eyes. They weren’t dry, even though they had been forcibly open for several minutes. He could hear other people also coming out of their frozen stupor, and the sounds of cars crashing could be heard on the street nearby. People screaming brought his attention back to what had happened. He glanced at the phone in his hands, expecting it to light up familiarly, but no dice. He assumed he had suffered some type of panic attack, that maybe all of that had not been real and had been in his head. That was the best explanation and soothed his quickly beating heart. But his phone did not turn on, even after attempting to hold the power button down. He was stunned, wondering if it had been real after all.

A strange ringing sound, like the sonar ping noise that submarines made in movies, was going off somewhere nearby, and looking around, he remembered his friend. The only person in his immediate vicinity was Brandon, having fallen to his knees, hands palm down flat against the concrete sidewalk. There were other people further down the sidewalk, similarly having fallen or caught themselves from falling. Cade noticed there were people crawling out of cars or untangling themselves from their bikes. The strangest thing of all was the golden retriever just across the street. Its owner had let go of its collar, hands on her face, crying, presumably coming to terms with what had just happened. She was clearly panicked and had forgotten about her dog, but that's not what perturbed Cade. The dog wasn’t moving. It was still frozen, and as Cade looked around he realized that the various other animals nearby were much the same. He spotted several other birds in the air nearby the one that he had been looking at before, as well as a cat perched high up on a wall above a restaurant. None of them were moving, frozen just as Cade had been.

That’s when it hit him, and seemingly everyone else. Loud wails, yelling, and muffled crying could be heard in several directions. Cade looked around, carefully moving over towards Brandon.

Reaching Brandon, he grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him to his feet. Brandon was 6’2, slightly taller than Cade, but was wiry and lean, making it easy for Cade to haul him to his feet. Brandon made a noise that sounded like words, but they came out so muffled Cade couldn’t make them out. “Brandon, what? I didn’t hear you. What the fuck is happening right now?” Cade asked. “Fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds,” Brandon responded louder. “What? Fourteen minutes…?” Cade said, confused. Then he remembered what The One had said. Once they were unfrozen they would have fifteen minutes to choose their weapons. He noticed that the ringing was still steadily going off in the background, and Cade had noticed a small blinking light barely perceptible in the upper left hand of his vision. He tried to reach out to it with his hand, but was unable to reach it, his hand just displayed behind it, with it still in sight.

“I figured it out, you have to mentally reach out to it, it also stopped the ringing, and dude… this is trippy beyond belief. Try it.” Brandon quickly informed Cade.

Cade thought directly at the blinking light and tried to command it to open. Immediately that same blue opaque window appeared, covering most of his field of vision. Displayed at the top was a solid line of text that read, Choose Your Weapon. Below that was a selection of menus that Cade guessed he could mentally command to open.

~ CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON ~

2H Swords

Blunt Weapons

Duel Wield (1H+)

Duel Wield (1H per Weapon)

Shields

Pugilism

Oversized Weaponry

Ranged Weaponry

Cade was fairly familiar with something like this weapon selection. It seemed to be loosely based off of some kind of RPG tabletop selection. He figured starting at the first option would be smart and mentally commanded the first category, the Swords tab, to open. He mentally directed his attention to the Longsword option and a floating blade appeared in front of him, spinning point up in a circle as if it were attached to a pedestal. Cade was getting excited as he realized he was going to get to see every weapon like this. He looked at the edge of his vision and could see Brandon looking off into the air next to him, likely also looking through his weapon options.

Cade moved on from the Longsword, taking a look at the aggressive looking Katana that appeared in front of him. He was familiar with the uses of this blade, but was not interested in a single edged blade. Cade had started spiraling quickly into what the best option for him would be. He quickly looked through the other three options, being unsure of what the third option, the Chinese Miao Dao was. He brought it up in front of him and moved through the others. Ultimately he wasn’t interested in the other single edged options. The Zweihander seemed too large for his frame. Standing at just under six feet tall, he knew that a long blade may not be the ideal weapon typing for him.

~ Swords - 2 Hand ~

Longsword

Traditional two handed blade with cross guard and pommel. Twin edged Blade.

Katana

Japanese style curved blade. Single sided Blade

Miao Dao

Chinese style curved blade. Single sided Blade

Zweihander

German style two handed, Twin edged Blade.

Falchion

European style cleaver sword, Single edged Blade

Cade moved onto the next category, the 1Hand+ options. The description was not excellent for what it was, but he chalked that up to The Guidebook being fairly basic to start. He guessed that many people would likely only glance over the physical images anyway, but made sure to mentally catalog every weapon for later.

~ Swords - 1 Hand + ~

The [1 Hand +] Category will allow the selection of a single choice of the below, and then further choice of any secondary true 1 handed weapon or 1 handed shield to be wielded in your other hand.

Gladius

Roman style, Twin edged Blade.

Rapier

European style, Twin edged Blade.

Falcata

Spanish style, Single edged Blade.

Talwar

Indian style, Single edged Blade

Khopesh

Egyptian style, Single edged Blade

Short Sword

European style, Twin edged Blade

Wakizashi

Japanese style, Single edged Blade.

The 1Hand+ weapons were clearly a better choice for Cade over the previous selections, even though the Longsword was probably the best option from the 2 Handed selections. As he viewed the options for this category, a Gladius appeared in front of him, slowly rotating. He noticed that it was much smaller than the longsword, but had a slight double inward curve in the center of the blade with a twin edge giving it a distinct “gladiator” or Roman soldier look. It had a bronzed hue, with a small square hilt and single hand black grip. Cade favorably filed this one away and continued on down the list. The Rapier was a long thin blade, twin edged, with an ornate hilt and hand guard surrounding a plain looking grip. This selection was much more Cade’s style, but the Gladius still seemed like a better option. Cade skimmed through the other options, not as interested in the single edged Falcata, Talwar, and Khopesh that appeared in front of him. The short sword would also have been a good option, as it was dual edged and would fit his intended style better. Cade noted the timer still present at the top of his menu and saw it was already down below ten minutes. He had to hustle through his options.

Moving onto the Blunt Weapons, he noted that these would likely be brutal and heavy weapons capable of breaking through armor and shattering bones. He didn’t think this style was going to work for him and quickly moved on after viewing each item briefly.

~ Blunt Weapons -2 Hand ~

Morningstar

Blunt Mace with Spiked Protrusions

War Hammer

Massive single faced hammer.

Stave

Long Hardened Wood staff.

Maul

Crude stone or metal club, normally oversized.

The Dual Wield option looked to be what most people would refer to as rogue weaponry, or assassination style blades. Cade had a guess that Brandon would likely pick from this menu, but knew he was not interested in that type of weapon through previous interaction with games and tabletop campaigns. It just wasn’t his style. They sure did look cool though, Cade thought.

~ Dual Wield (1H per Weapon) ~

*Note - you may equip any weapon listed here in dual wield (1 weapon per hand.) Both hands will equip the same weapon.

Ka-Bar

American style, twin edged short Blade.

Axe/Hatchet

Longer reach, basic design. Single Blade

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Baselard

European style, twin sided Blade

Stiletto

European style, stabbing/thrusting Blade.

Push Dagger

Very small, pointed edged Blade.

Seax

Norwegian Single edged Heavy Blade.

Hudie Dao

Chinese style Single edged Heavy Blade

Eight minutes remained on the timer, and Cade was excited to check out the next option. The oversized weaponry tab was back to being two handed, but Cade was looking forward to seeing what options would be presented to him. He mentally tasked the Spear to appear in front of him. Longer than he was tall, with a plain long flat spearhead on the tip of one end, a matching metal cap about six inches in length on the opposite end. Cade knew this could be a very versatile weapon, but it still didn’t land above the one handed swords he previously viewed. The next option was the Slayer Sword, which floated where the spear just was. It was massive, at least a foot in width on the blade, nearly six feet long, not counting another two foot hilt and crossguard. This thing was massive, but there was no way Cade would be able to lift such a monstrosity. He moved on, pulling up the Glaive but not really giving it much thought. The Great Axe was another massively oversized weapon, nearly equivalent in size to the Slayer Sword, but with two axe heads, one either side of the wide wooden haft. The Lance appeared in front of him, a long pointed blade like what could be seen in medieval jousting competition. Cade was unsure of why this weapon would be so specialized, but filed that away for later. It was absolutely massive, but looked as if it were only usable for piercing.

The Trident was much simpler, resembling a giant fork, but with a very aggressive design, all three tips affixed with a razor sharp barb. Cade liked this option, but the idea of using a long spear just didn’t catch his attention as much as a sword did. Moving on to the final option, one Cade wasn’t even sure he could pronounce, he mentally opened the Macuahuitl and was taken aback by how crude and brutal this weapon looked. It was absolutely massive, with what looked like black serrated spikes protruding from a cricket bat. It had ornamental depictions up and down the wooden middle section, and looked to be over four feet long. Again, Cade realized this weapon would be way too large for him to utilize.

~ Oversized Weaponry - 2 Hand ~

Spear

Old world style, twin edged point on end of wooden shaft.

Slayer Sword

Oversized Greatsword. 6 ft. long blade.

Glaive

European style, Single edged long polearm.

Great Axe

Oversized axe, Two edged face on medium length wooden staff.

Lance

European Style, mid range pointed weapon made for Piercing.

Trident

Triple pointed spear, mid range.

Macuahuitl

Aztec style, many edged, massive club.

With four minutes remaining, Cade moved into the shield category. He had guessed that being able to also pick a small shield would be possible, but seeing that he could wield a shield and a 1Hand+ weapon cemented in his mind what he wanted to choose. He knew he should view the other options though, and quickly pulled up each shield to spin around in front of him. The buckler was one he was very familiar with. Single hand use, small round shield face, this was likely a good option for Cade. The Heater Shield appeared in front of Cade and he unintentionally said woahhhhh out loud. This was definitely top of the list for him, even more so than the buckler.

The Obstruction Shield was next, and it appeared in front of Cade, making him flinch back slightly as it followed its name to a tee. It obstructed almost the entirety of his vision. This thing was massive, clearly intended to be deployed as some type of wall or blocking surface. The Riot Shield was very familiar to Cade, but he knew as a two handed shield it likely wouldn’t be in his future. The final choice, the Bladed Kite Shield was really cool. Cade hadn’t seen this option before in any of his games, but could easily see how enticing an option it could be and guessed he would probably see several of them chosen by others. It allowed you to not only take big hits, being made of thick metal, but was nearly four feet at its widest near the top, with a taper as it moved downwards, ending in a vicious point clearly able to be used as a weapon. The thing was also nearly six feet front top to tip, giving it a crazy look for what it was.

~ Shields ~

*Note - A one handed shield may be used with a 1Hand+ weapon. A two handed shield may not be chosen with any other weapon at this time.

Buckler

Small Shield, heavily adaptable. Usable with 1H+ Weapons.

Heater Shield

One handed Kite shield, heavily adaptable. Usable with 1H+ Weapons.

Obstruction Shield

Massive two handed shield used to temporarily deploy a wall.

Riot Shield

Metal Shield two handed shield capable of stopping spells and blasts.

Bladed Kite Shield

Metal two handed Kite Shield, usable for attacking as well as defending.

~ Ranged Weapons ~

Crossbow

Medium range. Usable with a variety of bolts.

Longbow

Long Range. Usable with a variety of arrow types.

Shortbow

Short range. Usable with a variety of arrow types.

~ Pugilism ~

Gauntlets

Thin metal coverings protecting hands. Equipped to both hands.

Brass Knuckles

Brass formed hand weapons. Equipped to both hands.

Bare Fist

No weapon equipped. Utilize current body.

Cade noticed that there was only a minute left on the timer, so he quickly scanned the Ranged and Pugilism tabs, noting the weapons and types. He returned to the 1Hand+ tab and picked the Gladius, before moving down to the Shield tab to select the Heater Shield. Cade still didn’t quite understand why they were selecting weapons, but the warning of receiving a randomized weapon did not seem like something he wanted to risk.

Cade's selections were highlighted as the timer ticked down, and upon hitting zero, the window in front of him disappeared and he was suddenly holding a sword in his right hand, and had a shield on his right forearm. Looking at his friend next to him, he noticed that Brandon had chosen one of the Dual Wield options. “What did you choose, man? Those look pretty deadly.” Cade asked. “I chose the Seaxes. They kinda remind me of small shaped butcher knives but they feel good and aren’t too heavy,” he responded. “Okay, so what happens now?” Cade continued. He was unsure of what they were supposed to do now, but that unsuredness quickly disappeared as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a guttural growl emanating from somewhere. Cade looked around, scanning the area for whatever had made that noise, when his eyes stopped on a monstrous moving form. Where the golden retriever had been frozen before, the thing had turned a sickly black color and its form was rapidly moving and changing. It was starting to grow and expand, and he could see the head starting to form, larger than normal teeth appearing on a slightly larger than normal head.

“Brandon…” Cade motioned his friend to check out what was happening. “Uhhh… is that dog transforming? We need to get out of here fast.” Brandon commented. “Go go go, we need to get home before this shit show starts.” Cade and Brandon took off in the direction of their apartment. In the background they heard a loud deep noise, similar to a bark but different enough that they did not want to turn to look. Screaming soon started echoing in all directions, and it sounded like collective panic had set in as other people noticed animals changing and becoming twisted versions of their old selves. “Cade, we need to stay away from the animals, I think all of them are changing like that guy said they would.” Cade shook his head as he ran, struggling to run with a sword and shield in his hands. He was constantly making sure to keep the sharp edge of his sword from running into objects, or himself.

Brandon reached out and pushed against Cade as they rounded a corner, pointing towards the alley nearby their apartment.

“We should go in the back way, hopefully we won’t run into anyone or any animals.” Brandon quietly said. “ Does this mean every pet is also going to be transformed?” Cade found himself shaking his head back and forth as he considered what his friend was asking, before responding with a simple, “I don’t know. I guess we need to be careful from here on out.”

Cade and Brandon walked into an entrance on the south side of their building. They knew that their building had a limit on pet size, but they also knew that people didn’t always listen to that, or just had a litany of other animals that lived with them. As they turned up the stairs, they climbed up to the second story, carefully peering around the top of the stairway and seeing nothing, they turned to go up the next flight. Turning the landing of the next set of stairs, they found themselves face to face with a massive spider. Cade jumped backwards, raising his shield and sword, knocking Brandon over behind him. As he went to react, the world flashed around them and suddenly they were in a much larger version of the hallway their apartment was set off of.

Looking around, Cade could see Brandon picking himself off the floor to stand behind Cade, and down the enlarged hallway he could see the spider, or what was once a spider, looking at them. It was like they had been teleported from the small stairway before, and been taken to a much more open space, but one that was heavily reminiscent of where they were taken from. Above the spider's head was a dark red bar, and the spider itself was a shade of the darkest black Cade had ever seen. Text appeared above the monstrous form, it read “Twisted Spiderling.”

“This must be what happens when we come across an animal. What’s the plan Cade?” Brandon asked. Cade shrugged but added, “We need to figure that this thing is going to have some type of new power or ability. Better to be safe than risk dying. Let’s approach and see if we can carefully go about this.” As Cade and Brandon moved closer, Cade upfront with his shield raised in front of him, Brandon a step behind with his knives ready, they took in the Spiderlings form. It was nearly the size of a small dog, but looked as if it had been given a thicker set of limbs and had just as many eyes as before. The Spiderling did not wait for them to approach, and caught the approaching duo off guard as it scurried rapidly towards the wall to their left, finding easy purchase as it ran up the wall and onto the ceiling, peering down at them with too many eyes to count. Cade could hear the clicking of its mandibles as it started moving towards them, only stopping 15 or so feet away to aim its abdomen at them. As it did, a fluid shot out, moving quickly towards Cade. He raised his shield, and was surprised to find that the shield countered the attack for the most part. His surprise quickly turned to fear as he saw the fluid-like substance fall from the face of his shield to hit the carpeting of the hallway, burning a hole through it as he watched. He quickly looked down at his shield face, relieved to see that no damage had been done to it. Without turning, he shakily motioned for Brandon to look down at the ground, “Holy shit, let's avoid getting hit by that please. This one is going to be your fight, shield man.” Brandon said.

Cade nodded, and without looking away from the Spiderling this time, told Brandon to drop back and try to sneak around as he got near. The hallway had been expanded to what looked like nearly 40 feet wide, and had hopefully given them ample room to flank the Spiderling. The roof hadn’t been expanded by quite as much, being only a foot or so taller than it previously had been. Brandon acknowledged Cade quietly and backed away, carefully trying not to draw the attention of the spider. Cade took slow steps forward, trying to get near enough so he could utilize his sword. He had selected the Roman style Gladius, so his reach was sub par in this situation. He had to get close enough to catch the Spiderling off guard, and quickly. He didn’t want to risk him or his friend getting hurt.

As Cade approached the enemy, the Spiderling lunged from the ceiling towards Cade, dropping with much more force than Cade had expected. It crashed into his upraised shield, pushing against him with enough strength to knock him down. Cade cried out as he hit the ground hard, sword clattering away as he dropped it. He cursed his mistake, but grabbed ahold of his shield with both hands now, trying to keep the spider from crushing his arm. He managed to get his right hand underneath his left arm and shoved hard enough that the Spiderling was dislodged, falling a few feet backwards away from Cade. Scrambling to reach his sword, he heard a dull thud and turned to see that Brandon had managed to swing one of his blades at the Spiderling. The thing reacted by screeching louder than should have been possible before jumping away. The red bar above it had reduced slightly, but Cade noticed that it hadn’t taken much from the total.

“Cade, you good? Brandon called out, already retreating back towards Cade. “Yeah, just caught me by surprise with that jump. I’m all good.” Brandon nodded as he settled in next to Cade. “Looks like I was unable to damage it with these blades, it’s hard, like really hard. I think you’re going to have to get it with your sword. Mine aren’t heavy enough.”

“I’m thinking I'm going to try with my shield. See if you can get it to focus on you. I’m going to try to crush it.” Cade said as he moved towards the right side of the expanded hallway. Brandon raised his blades and smacked the flat sides together whilst yelling obscenities at the Spiderling, running towards the left most wall. It quickly turned towards him and started moving quickly towards his position. Cade quietly lined himself up perpendicular to Brandon, and seeing that the Spiderling was charging his friend, he started running shield first to intercept. He got close and a loud yell left his throat as he collided with the Spiderling, crushing it against the wall. He felt it give way, and felt liquid splash his shield as it was pancaked between his shield and the wall. He recovered and stepped back, panting. “You alright, man?” He asked Brandon. He looked over to see Brandon spitting and wiping black goo off of his face, obviously having received a large portion of the monster's insides in his direction. Cade couldn’t help but laugh seeing this, and moved to help his friend. As he started moving towards him, the world around them flashed and they appeared back at the edge of the stairway of their apartment building.

The strange pinging noise had started up again and Cade mentally brought up his menu again, seeing that a notification light was illuminated. He selected the notification and another menu appeared. Underneath his name was listed, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Durability, and Mana Generation. Next to each listed category was a single letter. Every one of them showed as F Rank, except for his Strength. It was highlighted in bright letters, but Cade wasn’t sure if anything had changed, without any prior information or benchmarks to build off of. He turned and asked Brandon, “Hey, you get a notification to check your stats? One of mine is highlighted but it still shows F Rank.” Brandon was nodding along, saying that his was much the same, but it was his Dexterity that had been highlighted. “Cade, look at the other notification, I got 5 Void Coins and a Spider Carcass.”

“Oh yeah, looks like I also got 5 of those coins, but I also got an Acid Sac as well. Must be for hitting the finishing blow? I guess monsters will drop things based on their bodies?”

“I guess so? Can’t be sure till we can see the results of more fights, but I think that the highlighted stat we got must mean we did something to raise that stat?” Cade pondered.

“We should get inside, see if we can barricade the door for now and really look into these menus.” Brandon answered. “Yeah, we definitely should. I’ll lead the way, keep an eye on our back?” Cade responded. Brandon nodded affirmatively. They were lucky to have gotten away without injury in their first fight, even scoring some loot, but Cade was left wondering how the rest of his friends were faring. He hoped that some of them had escaped to relative safety.