I woke up to Bunny sleeping on the pile of kinda soft things near me. She looked peaceful so I slowly got myself up to not disturb her and find something to eat. A quick question led me to loosely combined tables for eating. There weren't many chairs so I just stood as I munched on a can of beans. It didn’t taste great. However, my knowledge of things that I have tasted was at 2 so I didn’t have much to base off of. It was better than the bars.
As I was eating a new pop-up appeared in my vision. It was the first since after waking up.
Locational Event: Supply Drop
Find the supply crate before it disappears. Race to find it.
I just knew what it meant by locational event. It meant that it was nearby and only those nearby when the event started got the message. Or if they got into the radius before it went away. He also had a small tug like the one pulling him to the flag. It was however very vague. That of which was going to fade in the next half day or so.
I think I only slept for 6 hours as I asked the others eating. I calculated that we have been here for likely 13 hours or so. That was confirmed by someone who had an ability to perfectly do math, tell time, and tell direction at all times. It was a weirdly specific ability that I would never have taken but they apparently had that or a bottle with endless air. I would have taken the air. We had been here for apparently 15 hours 13 minutes and 23, 24, 25 seconds. Once they started counting it was hard to get them to stop.
After seeing the event I heard the loud voice of Mason yelling into a megaphone that was found. It was glitchy and not every word was clearly heard. But I got the gist. She wanted people to gather up to find the supplies before it got worse out there. Heard people talking about how the rain was now basically shards of glass falling from the sky slicing those who go out. I ran up to a very tired-looking Mason. “I don’t care how dangerous it is out there. We need those supplies. I have more information and I know that the event will end in 3 hours before the compasses pull thing will disappear and the crate would be lost.”
Fist was already awake and was the one she was talking to. “Gotta say girly. Even I can’t deal with that ‘rain. I’m surprised it ain't raining cats and dogs at this point.”
"Don't you mean swords and daggers?" One chimed in and a few nodded in agreement.
“We can make umbrellas of sorts. And Dirt has already proven that his ability can block it.” She seemed frazzled and irritable. I kinda just wanted to walk away. It was too late.
“We can’t just go out there. And yes Dirt can but only for a short while. He would be drained way before we got to the thing. Rod back me up on this.” I was midstep needing to spin around.
Mason looked at me not angry per se but just a bit upset. “I’m kinda with Mason on this one. If things we find around are trash then those supplies might be more of what we got in the white room. Or,” I said before Fist could interject,” It could be more canned beans. We don’t know. It's a risk-reward situation.” I thought what I said might appease both as it was kinda in the middle.
Mason was next to speak, ”Trust me we need the crate. With the information I’m given I know that it is good stuff. I will admit I don’t know how good. It says ‘Quality Good’. If I’m assuming quality then that seems well…good.”
“Fine, I’ll go. I have a rain jacket. Don’t know if it can protect against what I hear is raining out there but it is good protection.” I offered.
“About that a new kid came in half-bloodied from the rain-”
“Are they ok?” I interrupted.
“Yeah yeah, they healed up with Angel's help. Her ability works even if she is sleeping. That's not the point. The new kid is named Fy. His ability is that he can appraise things. Tell what they can do. It apparently is taxing and he can only do about 10 things every few hours. But you should see if he is awake or resting and see if any of your things are as we are going to call them Texted. Just means they have text to describe them. Like a can of spinach or a chair doesn’t have text. However, things we got from the white room do.”
“Why not call them White items or something else? I don’t think Texted is a good way to differentiate them.” I truly hated the name but wasn’t going to say that with how volatile Mason might be right now.
“I agree with Rod. Texted is really stupid.” Fist apparently didn’t care. “White is also dumb but less so.” Fist added after a thought.
“What they are called doesn’t matter. Now get a group ready to go. We are leaving soon.” Mason said, irritated.
“We? Girly you ain’t coming with us. You need sleep. Heard of it?” Fist said pointedly.
“You don’t-”
“Don’t get to what.” Fist visibly calmed himself. “Gir- Mason, you need sleep. Spring and others got it handled. Just take a quick nap. Also, eat I’ve asked around and no one has seen you eat. Or I could just knock you out if you want. Don’t think anyone would argue.”
Mason growled quietly. “Fine but if everything goes to shit then it's on you.”
“I already told Spring to set up a room for you in the back.” Smiled Fist.
Mason didn’t say anything more before leaving them alone. “You got some balls for saying that. I haven’t known her for long but she seems like the person to shank you in your sleep.”
Fist shrugged. “We were the first ones here. Was just me and her for the first hour. Got to know her more than others.” I could tell though that through the facade he seemed if not scared then weary of her.
“So are we going for that supply crate?” I asked hesitantly. I was willing but didn’t want to.
“Hell no we shouldn’t.” Fist said walking towards the exit. “But hell yes we are. Get the group together. I'm going to see what things we can do to protect us.”
“Sure thing boss,” I murmured. Finding everyone wasn’t hard. They were either still sleeping or eating. First, though I went and found Fy. Fy turned out to be a very large and tall dark brown-haired dude. I think he is the oldest here putting him at 21 at least. He had a thick beard of black making him seem even older. His frame was well built with broad shoulders. When he stood up you could tell he was tall. Probably played basketball. Whatever basketball was. It was a fleeting memory that I couldn’t quite grasp. I just shook my head of it. “You must be Fy. I’m Rod. Mason said you could look at something of mine.
His voice was deep and bassy, ”Sure thing. Least I could do for you guys. But I gotta warn you, I can't keep doing it at the rate you all want.”
“It's fine if you can’t. I don’t think my jacket is special anyw- Specials that's what we should call them. Way better than Texted.”
“Yeah, I wanted to tell her it was dumb. But saving my life and all it sounded rude to say. Special sounds better.” Fy agreed. “Anyway, hand it over, it'll take a moment. It took a minute of him just staring at it. I thought it was a bit weird. A glow sparked in his eye near the end and he handed it back to me.
“Nope ain’t Special.”
“That's fine, I didn't expect so. We did get two of them and if they were Special then the items we all got would seem less special. Thanks though. And if you see Mason, tell her the better name.” I quickly left to gather up the rest of Fist’s crew.
Wasn’t hard. Angel was right next to Fy in the medical area. She was sleeping but duty called. Both Mud and Dirt were sleeping in the rest area and Ratchet was at a table shoving tools together. “What are you doing man?” Mud asked as we walked up.
“If you are trying to make them kiss I don’t think they are alive.” Added Angel.
“They could be alive for all we know.” Dirt said with a tinge of fear.
Ratchet of course didn’t say anything. And kept going. “Seriously man Fist wants us to group up for something we-” What stopped him was a flash of light and a screwdriver that Ratchet was shoving into a hammer disappeared melting into it. Ratchet calmly picked up the hammer and shook it, changing it into the screwdriver. Again he did so changing it back into a hammer, and then into his ratchet. Ratchet smiled holding it out like a child that found a bug and was showing it to their parents with glee.
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“I have to say that is cool,” I said to him, his smile only grew. “Well as Mud was saying we got to get going. Fist is waiting. You saw the message about the supply crate. Mason wants someone to go snatch it and that happens to be us. No complaining till we get to Fist.” I added the last part since that was all Dirt was doing while trying to find Ratchet.
Fist was equipped with one of the few packs. It had some basic supplies like food, bandages(which I didn’t see the point of with Angel around), rope, and a battery-powered lantern. Someone had an electrical ability and managed to charge some things. It still only had a small amount of juice but would be useful nonetheless. “Good you did find them, thought you just might have went back to sleep.” Fist stated looking us over. “All ready. We have had these bad boys quickly made. Ok are still being made really. He pointed over to where a few people were hurriedly putting together a large piece of metal to make a sort of shield from the rain and its dangerous ice-like effect.
It was weird to think of it as ice for it wasn’t really even cold out. Just wet. The sheets of metal were much heavier than they looked. I was already starting to regret it as we walked outside.
The noise of the ice was the worst part. If Angel wasn’t slowly healing our ears then we all would have gone deaf in the first few minutes. “Do we have anything to block out the noise?” I think Dirt said.
“What?” mouthed Mud
“The noise. It's loud.” Repeated Dirt
I could see a smile on Mud’s face as he mocked Dirt. “I can’t hear you, the noise is too loud.”
Dirt caught on though, “Shut up.”
“Wouldn’t have been able to hear me if I didn’t.”
We all laughed light-heartedly at this. We just endured and pushed on. We didn’t talk much. Even with joking about it the noise was loud and concentrated on making sure we didn’t get attacked. If that happened we would need to find something to get under. We agreed early fighting under this thing was going to end in failure. Especially with the fact we all were so different in height making it hard to control.
The direction we were heading into was further into the town. We thought about not doing so and giving up on the supplies. But all agreed that upsetting Mason was not worth it. The dead city was very dead. Buildings caved it, bodies and skeletons strewn about. We stayed clear as we thought they were probably faking it. They seemed to pay more attention to sound when laying down so it was easy to just walk past them due to the rain covering any noises we made.
Anytime we saw a moving undead we would stop. And crouch. They were quite dumb. Visibility of the things was also hindered by the sheets of rain falling down. If you stand still long enough they will just walk on past. Once Ratchet slipped and got the attention of a fleshy undead. I quickly took it out with a precise strike in the head. But it wasn't because of skill but because the undead were so easy to kill. It was like the walls of the wooden building I first found. Easy to break compared to the trees that I didn't even mark. This made me concerned for the future.
The rest of the trip was much easier. Took us an hour and a half to make it so close that our sense pulling us to it was freaking out. It was basically screaming at us, "yoooo idiots it's here. Yuhoooo."
What we saw was a massive building. Most ones we saw only went 2 stories tall. This one was reaching on 10 stories with a large antenna toppled over. It looked like it would fall over any minute. We hoped that it would just be at the bottom. Just sitting there, nothing hostile around. Waiting to be taken. As Fist stated, “Shit out of luck.” Shit out of luck indeed it was called an airdrop.
It was probably at the very top and we could see that it was filled with creeps. Fist has slowly convinced everyone to call them creeps on our trip. I think he calls anything he doesn’t like creeps but giving in just so he would shut up about its name was something I truly didn’t care enough about. “What's our plan?” I asked, having no clue on what to do.
An answer was immediate, “Head back?” both Dirt and Mud said hope in their eyes.
“We didn’t come all this way just to go back. We still have a good 1 hour left, we can find something.” Fist reprimanded the two with a slap to the back of the head. They groaned but didn’t argue.
“Could we just climb up?” Angel asked a bit nervously.
“Maybe. But Spring isn’t here and I know I can’t fall that height without breaking every bone in my body.”
“I agree with Fist. We can’t just climb up. The rain makes all the handholds slippery and being pelted would make it even more difficult if not impossible.” I said annoyed with the situation. I thought for a moment. “What if we get them out of there?”
“What do you mean by that?” Asked all but Ratchet. However, they did know and dreaded the answer.
“A distraction of course,” I said beaming with the idea.
Our plan took longer to get in place than I hoped. The rain didn’t seem to be getting worse since halfway through getting here. I swore it was lessening really. If it was as slow of change when it was getting worse then betting on it getting better wasn’t worth waiting for. The plan was simple. Me and Fist would climb the building, from the inside, while the rest got the attention of the horde and would hunker down in a nearby building we already cleared out. We moved around tables and other large objects to block off the doors.
The plan was that Dirt with his shield, making a loud cacophony, would bring the horde to the house. This would hopefully make the entire population inside and outside. While the group defended the house and hid in the second story. Me and Fist would go up and take the supplies.
“Ok Dirt you’re up.” Fist motioned towards the partially broken down door.
“Yeah yeah.” Dirt mumbled something but I wasn’t able to hear it. Dirt raised his hand and the rain wasn’t able to touch him. Quickly he went up to the door and started banging on the wall with his pipe and yelling at the top of his lungs. It must have done the trick for he sprinted away, almost slipping. His hand moved forward and an invisible barrier stopped his downward movement. This did let the rain pelt him cuts starting to show and red splotches forming. Rebalanced, he fixed his barrier and started moving again. The undead weren’t faring any better. The rain itself didn’t bother them but their inability to coordinate movement caused them to continuously slip and shamble. That is why I assumed most encounters were them just lying down waiting for something to get close enough to attack. A double edge blade the rain was.
Dirt made sure that they were following and didn’t lose interest as he went and disappeared around a corner. There were way more in there than previously calculated. They just kept coming out. “This is way too many for them to handle.” I said in Fist’s ear.”
“You think!” he replied a bit too loudly. Luckily nothing noticed. “What should we do? No way we can fend off all of them.”
“They will figure it out. I doubt they will be able to breach the building that quickly. We should just grab the supplies and stick with the plan.” And so we did. After what I counted as at least 40 shambling creeps left the building we slowly crouched our way in. “Remember we have no idea what else is in here. Could be some upstairs as well.”
“Yeah yeah let's get moving.” The bottom floor was completely clear of anything we could see. We used the light sparingly. We had to use it to get here in the first place and didn’t believe it had a lot of juice left. Only being able to see in flashes of light felt like a horror movie. Whatever a horror movie was. Heading up the stairs we saw scattered bits of rubble. The building seemed to have collapsed and we had to climb up just to get to the next floor. That is when we hit the next snag.
There were indeed creeps inside. Not many, only a handful and we dealt with them easily. The true problem was that the 3rd floor had caved in. It was too far of a gap to jump to the other side. It was weird that the entire floor basically just fell to the next. On top of that the stairs were on opposite sides each time. Whoever built this place didn’t follow fire safety. We could try and get around the edges but there was only inches of space and I didn’t trust myself to do it. “How in hell are we going to be able to get across then?” Growled Fist.
“Well," I paused, "I have an idea.” I did. It wasn’t amazing. Or that thought out. Or good. But it was an idea. “We just got to jump”
“Thought we decided on not jumping?” He replied still looking over the edge.
“With aid with this,” I said, holding out my staff. “We going for a ride.” This was an idea I had a bit ago while thinking. I had no idea if it would work but was going to try. “Hang on tight. With hesitation, Fist did as asked and both of us got launched across the room as I extended the rod into a wall propelling us the opposite way. It was jolting but the worst part was slamming into the other side. I had miscalculated and we slammed into the wall next to the doorway. Luckily there was enough space to grab onto. As in Fist saved me from falling back down. I retracted and used it to then push me up again. Which was my main idea in the first place. I could just kinda pog stick around or vault with it. Will take testing when the rain is over with.
When we got to the next set of stairs Fist punched me in the shoulder really hard. It hurt more than hitting the wall. “Don’t do that again.”
“Fine. But it did work.” I gave him a winning smile. The rest of the place wasn’t so bad. Only a few undead were left. Just netting us more coins really. Still didn’t know where to spend them but still collected them. The top is where our prize was. It was in the middle of the room. It had lights on it casting the room in flashes of red and blue.
We looked around carefully not- Ok I looked around for a few seconds while Fist just barged forward. He didn’t see it coming as a hulking form slammed into him from the side. I couldn’t react fast enough. Even if I could, what could I do to help? The thing was huge. The figure wrecking balled Fist into the wall making a crater in it. I was stunned and didn’t do anything for a moment. It then looked my way after I gave a yelp of alarm. The flashing red and blue gave it a horrifying visage. It looked like pure muscle with blood giving it a shine. Blood that came from Fist. Though he did look not like a pancake made of flesh as I thought he should be.
With a burst of speed, it rushed towards me. I reacted on instinct. I backed up, setting the rod against the wall and extending it towards the beast. As it went straight for me at high speeds it slammed into the rod. What I didn’t expect was that the stick would just pierce through it. That was until it hit the spin or ribs. Then my rod broke the wall. Getting pushed through it. I quickly retracted and with the time given dodged out of the way.
The muscled thing again slammed into a wall. This time it was weakened as it broke through. Unlucky for us it didn’t fall outside, falling a few stories to its death. It was stopped by its size. For now, it seemed stuck so I ran to Fist making sure he was ok. His bloodied form didn’t give much hope. Relief flooded through me when he coughed out even more blood. “Are you ok man?”
“I’m good. Just a scratch.” He didn’t look so but I wasn’t about to tell him that. “What happened?”
“That thing,” I said pointing towards the- it was barreling towards us. So I did what I was asked to not do and extended the rod again, launching us clear. I didn’t fare as well as Fist as I was grabbed by the leg. I had to let go or have my arm yanked out. I shrunk it as I did so having Fist safe. Weaponless I couldn’t stop what came next. The creature swung me like a whip and I fell unconscious as I was thrown into a wall.
I was awoken by shaking. Every bone in my body hurt and being shaken didn’t help. “Stop…please.”
“Hell man you scared me. Thought you went and died on me.” He looked panicked for mere moments before his usual cocky smile came back.
“Where is it?” I asked, panicking. The memory of the hulk coming back. Adrenaline pumped through me again as I looked around in a frenzy.”
Fist reassured me, holding up his hands, “I killed it. Dropped these gloves.” They were spiked. Now that I looked at him I could see that he was even more bruised and scratched than before. He must have fought it alone…and won. “If killing these brutes drops loot then I want to find more.” His smile was infectious.
“Anything for me?” I asked since I think I did a lot that fight.
He just smiled and pointed to the crate still sitting there. “Now how are we going to get that out of here?”