“What do you want to do first Nate? Get supplies or meet up with some of your friends.”
“Meet up with my friends. More people means more guns; it also means more people to haul back supplies.”
“Makes sense. But we shouldn’t wait too long getting the supplies. The looters are already out in force. Got anyone in particular we are going to start with?”
“There is one guy from my unit that lives in Portland. Then I know some people that were in the service that live around Hillsboro and that area.”
“The area beyond Hillsboro would be a good area to capture zones in. Lots of farmland out there. Farmers too. Would be a sustainable way to feed a large group of people.”
“You know it’s not going to be that easy right? We can’t just knock on farmhouses and be like, ‘Hi I know nothing about farming. Will you teach me everything you know?”’
“Working together with people is the best way for anyone to survive. We can’t do this solo. The tutorial mentioned other “denizens of the universe”. I think that means sentient species are going to come here and compete against us. And probably not like in the Olympics. They will probably try and kill us. Working together will be vital for the survival of our species.”
“My tutorial didn’t say anything about aliens coming to Earth. Why did you get so much more in your tutorial?”
“I got the extended tutorial because my body needed to be fixed.”
“That would have been nice getting the extended tutorial.”
“Yeah all it cost me was having a life-altering disability for a decent portion of my life. If you had asked me I would have rather gotten the trade of a healthy body all my life for a shorter tutorial.”
That brought Nathan up short, “Still would have been nice to have learned more about what is going on.”
Brian just rolled his eyes.
They walked down the road for a few minutes in silence when they spotted in the distance several columns of bodies marching across an intersection. They both immediately ducked behind a car.
“You know guns and cars don’t really mix. All it takes is one stray bullet and boom you and I are toast.”
“That’s a Hollywood myth, now shut up and stay still. We don’t want them seeing or hearing us.
They silently watched as most of the fifty plus humanoid column moved past them. It looked like they were going to be ok. Until a horn pierced the quiet. They turned to their left and there was an individual in leather armor with a sword strapped to his belt blowing on a horn. He was grey skinned, over six feet tall, had two long tusks coming out of his mouth and his black hair tied up in a ponytail in the back.
Nathan responded instantly, snapping his AR-15 over and lacing several bullets into the scout. The leather armor did little to stop the bullets and the scout quickly went down bleeding out. But the damage was done and the columns that had once been marching now were charging at the two. They weren’t sprinters, that was for sure. But with so many of them and only two it might not matter.
There was no time for words, now all that mattered was surviving this attack from a heavily outnumbering foe. Nathan activated his All the Bullets ability. The ability stated, “For every bullet fired a bullet parallel is fired. Special chance for another bullet on the other side to be fired. Thirty second duration. Cooldown five minutes.”
Immediately after it activated he activated his Never Miss ability. “All bullets seek out critical spots on an enemy's body dealing lethal damage. Ten second duration. Cooldown eight minutes.”
With these two abilities active Nathan wasn’t really aiming, he was simply firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. Bodies were dropping like crazy though as at least two bullets were flying out and striking vital organs, if they could get through the armor at least. Most of which was leather so it was much easier.
Brian froze. Most people in his situation would. Even trained soldiers occasionally freeze the first time in combat. Nothing can prepare you for a life and death situation. And fifty plus armed combatants charging you will put anyone’s courage to the test.
Nathan wasn’t having it though. This was why he didn’t want Brian here. He’d seen trained soldiers freeze up in combat, and this was a terrible situation for him to be in. With only a frozen Brian to help him and more enemies than he could deal with before they got to him. Man I could use full auto now. With the Never Miss ability, full auto would be amazing. Stupid politicians.
“Brian this is why you don’t belong. Now start firing for the love of all that is holy or we are dead meat.”
Nathan’s Never Miss ability ran out just before his magazine ran dry on bullets. There were still 15 or so enemies charging at them. Neither of them were counting or would have really cared, but it had taken about 10 seconds for the enemies to traverse most of the distance between them and our duo. And they would be on them in another few seconds or so. Nathan activated his final ability Frag Out. “Up to three military style grenades are thrown; the user chooses style upon activation. Styles are fragmentation, incendiary, gas, high explosive, and flash bang. Cool down two minutes.”
He yelled, “Frag out.” And threw a fragmentation grenade out. Two more spawned from the first one and bounced into the sea of bodies. Upon completion of the ability Nathan felt a weariness like no other and slumped over.
Luckily Brian had seen enough war movies that he knew what Frag out meant. He ducked down, “Oh sure bullets don’t cause cars to blow up, and I suppose grenades don’t either.”
The explosions had disoriented the monsters. Brian popped up and activated Generate explosion quickly tossing it into the last remaining clump of orc-like creatures. He then activated Summon Elemental Gun and a familiar red SMG materialized. He targeted the last few stragglers still standing, finishing them off before they could close the distance between the two.
“Hoo boy, that was a close one.” He looked over and noticed Nate still slumped over., He rushed to his side, “Nate are you ok? Did you get hit? Talk to me Nate.”
“Oww, someone get the name of the truck that just hit me. Ugh, what is happening to me? I can barely move, feels like I did a 12 mile ruck after a long day of PT.”
“I’m not sure what that really means. But I am guessing you are feeling tired. Did you get hit by anything?”
“No. I was fine until I activated that last ability then as soon as I activated it all of a sudden I could barely move.”
“Did you activate any other abilities during that time?”
“Of course I did. I activated all of them.”
“Oh. I wonder …” Brian looked off into the distance in thought.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. You wonder what?”
“If you are feeling some kind of mana burn.”
“What are you talking about? Why can’t you just speak English?”
It’s like this. You use some kind of energy to activate abilities, let’s call that mana. When I activate an ability I feel myself get a little, I don’t know weaker maybe. Well you used all of your abilities. Now presuming there is a set quantity of mana a person can channel. You might have used too much and are now suffering from some sort of debuff as a result. Check your notifications. See if it says anything about this.”
“Yep, Mana Drained. Says I exceeded my total mana and now I will feel weak for the next several minutes. That sucks. What’s the point of giving us abilities if using them only makes us weak?”
“Using abilities doesn’t make us weak. I used two of my abilities in the fight and I am not Mana Drained.”
“So what makes you so special?”
“Well for one I only used two abilities, not three. It also might have something to do with what your abilities are? What do you have?”
“I have All the Bullets; it fires extra bullets for 30 seconds parallel to any bullets I fire. I have Never Miss; it makes all of my shots target vital spots on the body for 10 seconds. And then you saw the last one Frag Out which throws out up to three grenades.”
“Yeah, that's why you have two continuous abilities. They drain your mana pool constantly meaning it can’t recharge especially with two going at once. I’ll bet the more grenades you throw the more mana the ability uses as well. You are going to have to be careful using your abilities in the future. It would be nice if we had a mana bar in a HUD while we fight. It would be nice to have a HUD period.”
“Welcome to the real world.”
“Yeah.” Brian looked out over the dead bodies. He still felt sick seeing their mangled remains, but he wasn’t going to throw up this time. If for no other reason than Nate was here and that would only be one more reason for him to try and make Brian stay behind.
Brian started to shake uncontrollably. “What the.”
Nathan lifted his head and noticed Brian’s predicament. “You’re ok. It's just the adrenaline dump. It happens anytime you have a big enough spike in adrenaline. It will wear off in a few minutes.”
“Ok. That’s good. While we wait, I am going to check something out.”
“What are you going to check out? Keep your head down, there could be more of them out there.”
“I just want to see something. I promise it’s important.” And with that Brian walked over to one of the bodies. He could hear Nate calling to him from behind the car, but he ignored him. Not doing such a great job of listening on this mission. Probably going to be on my own next time. He crouched down next to one of the bodies and looked in his notifications to see if a loot option came up. He had forgotten to check the bodies of the goblin-like creature. No loot option appeared. Only the blinking light that had been there since the end of combat. “Loot. Loot please.” Of course that would be too easy. Well it’s not like we have an inventory to store our loot in any way. Wait, I totally forgot to check if we have an inventory. Idiot. “Inventory.” Nothing. Weak. He walked back to Nate.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“What were you doing over there? And what were you saying to yourself?”
“I was seeing if there was a loot feature, and then I checked if we had an inventory feature as well. No go on either.”
“I am getting real tired of telling you that this ain’t some game. You are going to get yourself killed, you keep thinking like this. Or worse yet you’re going to get me killed.”
“I’m sorry, but it cost us nothing to see. And if it had worked that would have been sweet.”
Brian opened up the blinking light in his notifications.
“Congratulations Generate Explosion has risen in level. It is now Iron level 2. Damage very slightly increased.”
“Congratulations Generate Explosion has risen in level. It is now Iron level 3. Cooldown very slightly decreased.”
“Congratulations Summon Elemental Gun has risen in level. It is now Iron level 3.” Duration very slightly increased.”
“Congratulations Summon Elemental Gun has risen in level. It is now Iron Level 4. Cooldown very slightly decreased.
“Congratulations Convert to Fire Bullets has risen in level. It is now Iron level 2. Mana cost very slightly decreased.”
“Congratulations Convert to Fire Bullets has risen in level. It is now Iron Level 3. Cooldown very slightly decreased.”
Huh I didn’t use Convert to Fire Bullets. Still not enough information to know how they level up, but at least now Convert won’t fall too far behind. Also all kinds of things can change about the properties. I wonder if there is some kind of formula as to when the changes occur.
“Hey Nate. Check your notifications; did your abilities level up?”
“Yeah they are all now Iron level 3. Whatever that means.”
“Did the damage increase or cost decrease?”
“Yeah, Frag Out’s damage “very slightly increased”, and the others' cost “very slightly decreased. How did you know?”
“That’s what mine said. If it does direct damage that must go up when you level and if it doesn’t the cost must go down when you level. Hopefully in a few levels you won’t have to worry about mana drain anymore.”
“That will be nice. All right, daylight's wasting. Time to get this show on the road.”
They continued down the road. Brian pointedly kept his eyes up, never once looking down. The sight still made his stomach churn.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Neither had mentioned Brian’s freeze up. Brian could only hope that he had more than made up with his later actions, but somehow he knew that he and Nate weren’t going to be forming a team any time soon.
A loud crash was heard from off to their left. Both looked over and saw a chain grocery store that dominated a strip mall. There were isolated lights on both sides of the store. The lights winked out after the crash.
Their path had taken them along the route used by the orc-like monsters. As a result all they had seen for the last bit of time was death and destruction. The orcs had been systematic in killing anything they encountered. Humans, monstrous animals, and other monstrous races had all met the same fate.
The lights going out suggested humans, and both were keen to save someone if they could. They both shared a look and headed for the store. They drew closer to the door and pulled up short.
“Remember your trigger discipline Brian. You don’t want to accidentally shoot some random person.”
Brian nodded. Killing an innocent person would likely haunt him for the rest of his life. The electronically opening door was smashed open. Brian and Nathan both leaned their heads in and tried to see into the darkness neither could see very far. Nathan flicked the flashlight on his AR-15 on. Brian rotated his rifle onto his back and pulled out his SIG and flicked the flashlight under the barrel on. Nathan motioned with his head and Brian moved forward and to the right sweeping his gun back and forth. The little flashlight illuminating quite well in front of him. The darkness was oppressive. Anything could be hiding in the darkness ready to strike. Brian had never felt anything this intense before. Even the battles before hadn’t been this bad. He had played games that utilized a flashlight in utter darkness mechanic before. If done well it could be quite tense and even scary, but the worst that would happen is the loss of time associated with a game over. Here a game over was likely death in an all too permanent way.
Nathan swept left. It might have seemed odd having an untrained individual be the first through the door, but Nathan’s rationale was simple. You need to trust that the person behind you has your back and won’t accidentally shoot you. And Nathan didn’t have that trust in Brian. He wondered if splitting up was the right move. Brian had never done anything like this before, and there were too many ways that this could go bad. Ultimately it was too late now and he had to hope Brian could keep it together. He cursed Brian both for his stubbornness in insisting he come with Nathan, and also that Brian was back in his life at this moment. He hadn’t heard from Brian in years, and now here in the apocalypse here he was. Nathan had nothing against Brian, but still it grated on him to have to be responsible for a civilian in this kind of situation. Especially someone he knew. He really should go and cover Brian. This is the perfect time for something bad to happen. As if to prove a point it was at that moment that he heard a loud string of curses. The only good news was that it wasn't followed by gunfire. Giving away your position in a hostile zone was never a good thing, but neither was working with a civilian. “Brian you ok? What happened?”
As Brian moved deeper into the store it seemed the fear and tension kept ratcheting up. You don’t think about these moments when you dream of adventure and the stuff from stories. You don’t think about how scary it actually is; how you wish you were somewhere else. Maybe on a tropical beach with a couple of beauties on each arm (clothing optional). But he wasn’t on a beach somewhere, no that would be a good thing. Here he was in an apocalypse in a pitch black supermarket lit only by a tiny flashlight wondering if he was about to get into a firefight with monsters. Man did he regret wishing for something “cool” to happen in his life. He would take it all back if he could. As he swept his pistol down one of the aisles he caught some movement at the edge of his light. He didn’t think; he should have taken a beat. If he had been trained he would have slowly moved forward to see what was out there. But that’s not what he did. In his fear and excitement he rushed forward trying to catch up to whoever had made the movement. The blood pumped in his ears nearly blocking out all other sounds. Without realizing it his forefinger rested against the trigger breaking trigger discipline.
He turned the corner and leveled his gun; his eyes scanning the edges of the light. To his right he saw something and moved his gun so he could get a better look at it. As he moved his gun his forefinger ever so gently started to squeeze in anticipation of the body being an enemy.
His eyes focused on a young man about mid teens and before tragedy could happen he managed to pull his finger off the trigger and jerk the gun off to the side. He let out a string of curses at what had almost happened. He heard Nathan’s voice distantly as all he could think about was how close he had come to blowing away some kid. He heard a voice cry out and after a moment realized it was his, “I’m fine. Just found some kids; they scared me.”
He moved the flashlight over a little more so he could better see the two kids making sure that the barrel of his gun wasn’t pointed at either of them. They were both huddling on the ground. They looked similar, maybe brothers or cousins. One was older, maybe 15, the other was maybe 13. The older one had his body interposed between Brian and the younger one. They all stared at each other for a moment before out of the darkness another body jumped in front of the kids, a weird orange light rippling in front of it a knife pointed at Brian. “I won’t let you hurt them.”
Nathan relaxed for a moment at hearing Brian was ok before he heard the sound of someone running. Not knowing what it was, but afraid of the possibilities Nathan chased after it. He heard an unknown voice say, “I won’t let you hurt them.” Just before he caught up to everyone and his flashlight showed him the scene in front of him. On the ground were two scared kids and in between them and Brian was a man in his 20s trying to make his body big enough that Brian would only be able to hit him and not the kids, pointing a knife at Brian. “Whoa, it’s ok. No one is going to hurt anyone. Everything is fine. We were just checking out some noises we heard in the store. You guys are looking for food?” Nathan kept his tone light and calm hoping to de-escalate the situation. He also moved his gun so that the barrel wasn’t pointing at anybody.
The man between Brian and the kids responded, “What’s it to you?”
“Everything is ok. Like I said we were just checking out the disturbance in the store. Monsters have been seen out roaming the streets. They have already killed people. We wanted to take them out before they could hurt anyone else. You know you shouldn’t be out here without some real weapons.”
“We’re fine. I got some new powers that make me hard to hurt. One of them even makes me invincible for a little while.”
“Invincibility sweet. So you’re a tank huh?”
“Noooo, I am a person. Are you ok?”
“Tank is a term in video games. It means someone who takes damage and attention from the enemy so that the healers and damage dealers don’t get hit.”
“This isn’t some stupid game Brian.”
“No, but the concepts can still apply.”
“Whatever.” Nathan rolled his eyes and moved away doing a sweep of their surroundings.
“You guys ok?”
“Oh that. We’re fine. He’s right you know just because you can’t get hurt doesn’t mean they can’t. You need to be able to eliminate the monsters if you want to survive out here. I’m Brian by the way, and that’s Nathan.”
“Nicholas, Nick Reynolds, and these two are Jaime and John. And we were doing just fine until you showed up.”
“Easy, I am not knocking you. I have already had a couple of encounters with monsters today. We got attacked by 50 plus of them. And before that they were coming out of a house earlier. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
The boys shared a scared look, “They can get into our homes? That means mom is in danger. We gotta go.”
“Calm down kid. Where do you live? Maybe me and my friend can escort you home?”
“We live about 20 minutes away.”
“All right. Why don’t you finish getting food together and me and Nate will escort you back to your place in a few minutes.”
The boys got behind their shopping cart and continued to look for food for their family. The shelves were pretty bare, with a lot of people having already come through. Brian looked at Nicholas, “You should go with them, keep them safe. If anything attacks you yell out and me and Nate will come running.Also check out the back see what they have in storage. ”
With that Brian turned and walked over to where Nathan was shining his light down one side of the store and back to the other.
“Hey, those kids live 20 minutes away. We should escort them back to their place. And then maybe we bring them and the mom with us to get your friend.”
“That’s going to make things a lot more complicated. You know that right? Letting them tag along with us is only going to make our mission more dangerous.”
“What do you suggest we do then take them home and have them barricade the doors and windows until we get back? They have no one to help them. We have to do something.”
“That’s not a bad idea, we can swing by soon and pick them up. If they keep quiet and hunker down they should be fine.”
“Cool. I was a little worried you were going to say no.”
“Didn’t stop you did it? I want to save people just as much as you do. But dragging a bunch of people around is not a smart idea.”
“Fair enough.”
Nick and the boys came back into sight a few moments later pushing a cart filled with bottled water, boxed and canned goods.
Nathan took the lead and led them out of the store. “We’re going to want to be quiet on our trip. You got it?” The boys and Nick nodded. “Ok where are we headed?”
Jaime told him the directions to their apartment. Brian walked over to Nick, “So you can make yourself invincible for a little while, what else can you do?”
“Didn’t he just tell us we needed to be quiet?”
“So whisper. I can summon a gun and give it special properties, I can turn bullets into fire bullets, and I can summon an explosive grenade type thing.”
Nick looked at Nathan who once again rolled his eyes, sighed, and then started walking forward. “Uhh, I can summon something that attracts monsters to attack it and then after it takes enough damage it blows up. And can make a bunch of blades that block attacks and attack anyone who gets close enough and attacks me.”
“So pure tank. If this were a game I would say you should join us. Me and Nathan need a tank, but with guns that really throws all of the rules out the window. Plus we need a healer if you are going to tank.”
“He’s right you know this isn’t a video game.”
“I know. I know. But we also have these powerful new abilities that function like something out of fiction. It’s not hard to see the similarities. The world has changed. And we have to change with it. The ones who succeed in this new world will be the ones who figure out the new rules and master them. That’s all I am trying to do, figure out the new rules. WWI completely changed the way warfare had been fought for hundreds of years. Now we have some weird mix of modern and ancient. We have guns and all that they represent, but we also have no electricity. The monsters I saw had knives, swords, axes, and spears. Does that mean we are just going to win because we have guns, or do they know something we don’t? Add in the powers we have and …”
“So the monsters you saw weren’t carrying guns, they were carrying swords?”
“Yeah. I don't know what it means yet, but I am sure it means something.” The two lapsed into silence each lost in their own thoughts.
Nathan couldn’t hear what they were talking about. He was just glad the conversation was over. Brian was proving over and over again that he did not belong out here. He was supposed to be keeping his eye out for enemies not talking his head off to someone else. When they got back to his mom’s place, he was going to make sure Brian stayed behind where he belonged.