image [https://64.media.tumblr.com/5c7262feb3425aea043a22b231a3c8b6/0488c95d508e9c3f-c3/s640x960/7c586ceb45d22eb966953e50f6d3885e6dc5f8cd.pnj]

Warg Party Leader: Lila Cooper

Marisol Vega

Class: Tinker Jamal Edwards

Class: Seedwarden Derek Finch

Class: Backbiter Carlo Ruiz

Class: Urban Ranger

"Why isn't it saying what your class is, Lila?" Marisol asked.

The System had automatically formed the party as soon as everyone decided on a leader. Well. Everyone but Derek. I had to add him to the party by saying he was allowed in. Apparently, that's just how that works.

“No idea,” I replied. “maybe it just assumes you already know, considering I’m now the party leader."

“What, like they expect us to know everything about the person we name our leader?” Jamal said in a facetious tone.

“Maybe they just think we're smarter than we actually are, as a species…” Carlo said. “Or maybe, they're trolling us.”

“Oh yeah,” Marisol said. “We’re loads of fun to troll right now. Runnin’ around like chickens with our heads cut off, wondering when we're gonna die because the all powerful weird space things decided we wanted video game monsters in real life.”

“I've just been calling them the Eldritch assholes,” I responded.

“Like Lovecraft?” Carlo asked. “Weren't they so far beyond mortal comprehension that they could melt your brain just by looking at ya?”

“Well, every single letter I've gotten from them has had a little notice at the top about being translated for Mortal understanding,” I reasoned. “I assumed they created the system so that that whole brain melting thing wouldn't happen, on top of the other reasons to create it.”

“Now there's an idea,” Jamal stated with an uptick to his voice. “They said they did this because we wanted it, and we all kind of thought it was a bunch of bull. What if it wasn't?”

That thought appeared to unsettle most everyone. Except Derek who was staying out of the way for now.

“I don't think it matters much,”I told him. “My father used to think beating me was a great idea because his father beat him and told him it was for discipline. Just because they think they're helping, it doesn't mean they are– or that their actions should be excused.”

The other three in the group, aside from Derek who was too far away to hear, stared at me for a moment before Marisol spoke.

“You're damn right,” she said while caressing the hammer on her belt. “Good intentions or good excuses don't mean you should forgive somebody.”

“Anyway,” Carlo hefted one of his axes, looking at it skeptically. I didn't blame him, it was covered in blood and brain matter, how much longer would it last? “That's how many now?”

“Twelve, wasn't it?” Jamal stated. “Aside from the first one, so twelve for me, Marisol and Derek… thirteen for you two.”

Since I'd killed one in the building. Yes, it is a grand total of thirteen… and that makes me antsy. My grandmother always used to say that that number kept showing up every time something bad happened in her life– and lot of weird shit happened to her. No one else had been bit by snakes or struck by lightning or pricked by needles in a haystack like my grandmother.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

“I don't like that number,” I said.

“Me neither,” Marisol agreed with a smile. “Let's go catch a few more.”

We didn't figure out why all of the Wargs were no longer around the area until we turned a corner after killing the fourteenth overall.

It was almost like being in a dream, one of those dreams where you're having fun and suddenly you turn around and there's a wolfman baring its teeth. But usually, when I have non-human creatures in my dreams, they're friends or companions. My nightmares come from machines and people, not monsters.

But that situation was certainly a nightmare.

“Do you think if we stand real still, they won't see us?” Carlo asked.

I’ve never understood the need to ask a stupid question in a crisis. Seems like a waste of energy just to distract everyone away from what they should be doing.

Running.

Only, it felt a bit ridiculous to run when they were as frozen as we were, staring back at us.

But after Carlo broke the silence between us, the Wargs came for us. And there wasn't one or two. It was a herd of at least twenty. That meant the reason they weren't on our street except in small numbers is that the herd spread out.

We ran hard, but I noticed which direction we were running in and quickly diverted them by grabbing Marisol and Carlo’s wrists and dragging them with me down a side-street. “We can't lead them back to the building!” I said as I did so.

They didn't resist, though Derek took off at a sprint in that direction.

“Dumbass!” Jamal huffed and puffed as he ran with us around corner after corner, trying to slow the Wargs down behind us with a tossed handful of seeds, here and there. “As soon as he hits the limit, he's out of the party, he's going to lose all his points cause he's chickenshit.”

Jamal is getting tired and the Wargs are barely getting caught up on the young vines– what few are getting tangled just run on, with the vines wrapping around them, completely free to move even after the vines die and petrify themselves.

But I wasn't very concerned with that. I didn't get out of the house much, for recreational purposes. But I did work, and a fair few different kinds of jobs at that.

There were even a few stints casing places for con artists. They said they liked the fact that I noticed small details nobody else did. Whether or not those details were useful, it seemed to tickle them. As long as they were stealing from a chain and not a mom and pop, I didn't really give a damn as long as I got paid.

And this Bank I recall on this street, just around this corner– wasn't a mark, but it was right next to one.

“Get to the bank!”I told them as we ran, releasing Marisol and Carlo so that I could sprint for the door and heave my entire body weight into it.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The shutters weren't active, so I knew the door locking device was the ordinary kind. Not the emergency kind that the tellers would have activated with the hit of a button. So the door rattled and shook, but with the addition of Marisol and Carlo slamming into it right after me…

It groaned, squealed and broke open.

We rushed inside and I ran for the open door of the tellers area, wondering where the fuck they were and why they didn't use this place to hide when they knew damn well what the security was like?

My hand slammed down– or rather up on that button under the counter, with extreme prejudice.

“Hey,” Marisol gasped and bent in half, clutching her mid-section. “They can’t… get in, yeah? Too big. Why the…uh…”

“It’s for everything else,” I replied.

“Shit, didn't even think of that,” Carlo said. “Wargs are the only things we've seen on the street this whole time.

“There's a Bestiary, but it fills up as you discover beasts,” I said. "I wonder why the System works that way."

The bank was entirely empty of all human life. Not just humans themselves but any trace of them. Like their entire existence was totally erased from this place. The teller’s area was clean. Of anything. Paper, smears of fingers and hands on the teller windows.

“This place was locked, do you think they were going out of business?” Carlo asked.

“No,” I replied. "I was here last week. This is supernatural cleanliness. Or they paid someone to come in and deep clean because of a huge mess. But I highly doubt I wouldn't have heard about it." Something occurred to me, then. "The Banks... we all had bank balances... most of us, anyway. And yet the banks have been cleaned out. And our Coins are representative of our amount before that happened."

"Shit, you think they sent the bankers away somewhere?" Jamal said. "Or... I don't even want to think of the alternatives, honestly."

"We should," Marisol said. "But we need to deal with the problem outside first."

"They'll likely lose interest now that they can't smell or see us," I replied. "I can't even hear them outside, which means this place is effectively sound-proofed as well. They'll linger for a few hours, but they'll go away when it's clear they can't find us here."

I took out my phone and sent a message to Toria.

We're alive and fine, but Derek is likely to come screaming back home in a moment. He abandoned the party and ran off toward home base with a Warg Herd on our tails, so I won't be back until tomorrow, likely. We have to clear out as many on the way home as possible. If you can't watch Sophia for any reason, please ask Mr. Grand or Mrs. Katz. I'll be happy to pay you in coin for your trouble if you like, as well.

And then, to Grand.

Lila Cooper: Derek deserted his party, make sure everyone knows it. Make sure everyone knows we're still alive and doing fine. And Derek is a coward. But make sure to say it in a kindly 'maybe he's just not suited to this' fashion. You'll get less pushback that way. Suggest that he just run security on a higher floor, which essentially means he'll likely never see action again. Or tell him he can leave if he wants to try somewhere else. BlissfulDreams: Jesus, are you serious? Aw hell, he's here. Lila Cooper: It might be best to ask the residents if they want to penalize his actions in some way, to make them feel in control of the outcome. If you were to simply fine him, they would say you are making unilateral decisions. BlissfulDreams: Do I have to? I mean, smearing his name should be bad enough... Lila Cooper: That depends. Do you want this happening again? People speaking badly about you is only one layer of deterrent and it's something only some people care about. Money is something EVERYONE cares not to lose, unless they have a lot of it.

There was a silence for a few minutes, before he finally answered in the affirmative. I don't understand why he'd want to 'go easy' on Derek. He quite literally put the whole Building in danger. People are far too compassionate when they shouldn't be and not at all when they should. The irritation I felt earlier was mostly dealt with in our successive battles with the Wargs.

Just like me, Marisol and Jamal had prepared a handful of goodies beforehand, and then produced more today, before being called to join the party.

And like I thought, six is around the limit for everyone in the F rank. Marisol got eight, because most of the components in her traps were mechanical. Less energy required to power them.

Carlo, though, he could keep going as long as his stamina held out. And that was quite a lot, considering he'd killed each and every single Warg today. We only provided minimal support. I would give him a shield and he'd use it on his Axe to stun the thing, then sprint over and hammer it until its brains were on the pavement. Or Marisol would throw traps and we'd lure it over. Or Jamal would toss seeds when we had a Warg cornered and Carlo would step out in front and yell at it, to make it confused. It would pause for just long enough to get twisted up.

And since we all had access to, let's say five to ten of our tricks, we were easily able to handle the number I'd wanted to go for. Until now.

User Derek has abandoned his Party! He forfeits all points and other rewards!

"Well," I said as the notification popped up in front of me. "The Menu is actually just showing me messages now... do you think the System was waiting for us to acclimate? It's so strangely thoughtful and thoughtless all at once, at times."

"I think that's just party stuff," Marisol observed. "I still can't see messages unless I look at my phone and I still can't see letters and codices unless I look in the menu."

"You play games?" I asked.

"Yeah!" she grinned. "How'd you know?"

"You said 'codex'," I replied. "Toria and Mrs. Katz see a 'journal'. Toria also said her menu looks like her Spacetime account..."

"Mine looks like the site we used to build our characters," she replied. "We play tabletop online where our DM can build maps and shit and we don't have to go anywhere."

"I never played many games or used the internet much," Carlo chimed in. "Mine just looks like the interface from work at the firehouse."

"Mine looks like a game I used to play when I was a kid," Jamal said. "I play games occasionally, but nothing avid. Just some battle arena, farming or story games..."

"That means you two should listen to us," Marisol said and walked over to grasp my arm. "We're the experts. And you know what I'm thinking, Lila?"

"That the Wargs are essentially sitting ducks, now that we know where they will most likely be and in what numbers?" I replied.

She smiled wider. "Just like getting a good distance, quick-traveling to a merchant, buying a bunch of potions, taking a rest and then popping back to finish off the boss."

"We would need an actual strategy, and to wait until the morning, when we will have renewed energy," I replied.

"I've got another two kind of seeds," Jamal said. "My base skills were Entangle, Nourish, Enrapture and... Poison. Enrapture is basically like ecstasy and poppy. It makes a target sleepy... but only a little bit, since I'm still pretty low level. Nourish is just about growing outside seeds that aren't in my pouches. It's for like, food. I'd rather not use Poison, it goes everywhere, apparently. Because my level is low."

"My skills are Slice, Throw, Bash and Block," Carlo said.

That was expected.

"I have Brenna and Vara, burn and barrier from my starter pack," I said. "My starter pack upgrade skill and other two free skills are Hrekja, Lýsa, Binda. To drive back, to illuminate, to bind."

"You get an extra skill from upgrading your starter gear!?" Marisol sighed and slapped herself in the forehead. "S'too late now, isn't it?"

"I don't know, you should try," I said. I wondered, if she'd just skipped reading a lot of the information in the FAQ's I sent to everyone. Maybe she hadn't had time.

She turned away from the party and then turned back with a displeased look. "It says I can't upgrade my starter set, but I can buy a whole new set. And the one that comes with extra skills is like five thousand Coin."

I suppose I got a discount because it was an upgrade that I hadn't purchased yet.

"Well," Jamal pursed his lips. "I'm not gonna lie, I have enough money to outfit all three of us. But I'm a bit reluctant to use it all at once."

"Outfit Carlo, he's the one who needs it most. And I'm sure you could work out a payment plan," I said.

"How do you figure?" Carlo asked with a surprised look.

They were ALL looking at me like that.

"...you're the Tank, of course you need good equipment and skills, more than anyone else?"

"Ohhhhh!" Marisol smacked herself again. "He's not supposed to be, but he's all we got. So yeah... he needs it bad. Me and Jamal can just make more seeds and traps tomorrow. But Carlo needs protection. He gets hurt and we're all screwed."

"Alright," Jamal nodded once. "We'll buy one of those payment contracts off of the shop menu. We can set the amount low for monthly coin payments so we don't strain a teammate while we're trying to level up."

"Marisol," I turned to her. "What is your coin balance and what have you got to buy for the traps?"