Brandon was tired. With the amount of hard work he had done yesterday, he was surprised his body did not ache. He had never worked so hard in his old life. When he thought of it, he was surprised his body had kept up with the demands put on it.
He lay in place for a while without opening his eyes. He remembered all the notifications that were waiting and decided to go through them.
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You have learned Weak Heal Undead.
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You have learned Raise Undead Minion.
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You have gained a level. You have three stat points to assign.
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Brandon had not realized he leveled. He pulled up his stats and tried to decide how to assign his points. He was still not sure how he would fit into this new world but knew that if he wanted to survive he would need more mana, so he put one point into his mana-pool immediately.
The thought of the enchanting section in his book made him want to put the other two points into fortitude, the idea of someone screwing with his mind freaked him out. But after thinking about his class, he figured he should be at minimum average in all his stats before he decided to stack something else. Brandon place one point each into strength and constitution.
After he approved his point selection, fire raced through his veins. The pain slowly subsided and he looked at his stats once again.
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Brandon: Multi-Classer, Bag Man
Level: 2
Further Descriptions: Disabled
Stat
Current Points
Strength
9
Dexterity
10
Constitution
9
Fortitude
10
Mana-Pool
4
Current XP: 323/2000
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Brandon pulled up his inventory. Where he once had 30 little square boxes all filled with his miscellaneous possessions, he now had an extra five empty boxes at the end. Brandon had no doubt that those slots would soon be full, but he could not argue with more space.
Brandon looked to the corner of his vision and noticed that after the increased mana-pool stat and his level increase his minion was now only commanding half of his total mana. Last night Brandon had not considered keeping the pet around, but if the trend increased and he was able to get a larger chunk of his mana back it may be a viable option. He would have to see what else his minion could do.
Brandon opened his eyes and sat up only to have the large rat staring at him from inches away. Brandon jerked away from the creature, but his back was against the wall. He got the eerie feeling the creature had been watching him all night.
The rat tilted its head and just stared at Brandon.
“I should probably give you a name at least,” said Brandon trying to relax. “Any preferences?” Brandon figured if he was going to have an undead pet he might as well make the best of it.
The rat shrugged its little shoulders. Brandon was caught by surprise by not only the action, but the state the creature was in. It was completely clean and put together. Brandon double checked his menus and saw that it was still labeled as an undead minion, but just looking at it you could not tell it apart from a normal living creature.
“How about Barry?”
The dire-rat shook its head.
“Bob? Todd? Gary?”
The creature continued to shake its head.
“How about Sandy?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The rat paused for a moment but then still signaled a no.
“Bee? We could go with something longer like Beatrice or Britney, but I think Bee would work well.”
Bee thought about it and nodded her head.
Brandon and Bee joined Janet and Bert at the table in the middle of the room.
“You two have Brandon’s mission to work today,” said Bert.
“And where are you going to be then?” asked Janet.
“I told you I need to go out and meet with all the different leaders in the Outcasts. Things are already moving faster than I anticipated, and if the rumors that I heard last night are true we are in for even more trouble.”
“I can hold off a few days on the mission,” said Brandon. “I really want to get through those two books. The little bit that I did read helped me get Bee.” Brandon pointed down at the dire rat who stood holding the end of the table. Bee gave a little wave with one paw.
Bert looked down at her unamused. “You cannot hold off on missions that P.A.T. has assigned you. If you are not making a good faith effort at attempting the mission, they send bounty hunters after you. Even with all the anti-scrying, anti-tracking, and anti-searching magic we have on this building it will mean nothing if P.A.T. puts a bounty puck out on you.”
Brandon went from slightly eager to completing his first mission to concerned in moments. It was one thing to have a mission and work it as he wants. Forced to drop everything else and work on the whim of an unseen force on the other hand was different.
Brandon was forced into a corner and on the run ever since he had been cloned into this new world. The idea of having a mission to go out and do as his own had given him a glimmer of hope. Now he found that even in this he did not have any real option.
“I can give you this,” Bert tossed something across the table to Brandon.
Brandon caught the little piece of gold in one hand. It took him a moment of looking at the small button to realize it was etched into the image of a person wearing a cloak as a disguise. Two eyes could be seen on the figures covered face.
“That should keep any direct identification or wide range tracking from you, but you will have to sneak around to be safe. Bee here is going to be a beacon for anyone who looks at her. Necromancers are still not looked upon as favorable, not shunned, but not good either. And anyone who takes one look at her will see who is in control of her.”
“I just brought her back to life and you want me to kill her again?”
“You need to read through your interface more carefully. Since you have given this minion more than the minimal control needed, you would have the option of resummoning her or summoning a new minion.”
Sure enough, when Brandon went in to the Summon Undead Minion screen, he saw detailed options of summoning an existing named minion or summoning a new one. Reluctantly Brandon dismissed Bee, feeling a little guilty he stored her body in his storage again and watched as his mana slowly began to refill.
“From what I can see on the map P.A.T. gave you, we have about half a day trek out into the forest to get near where we are supposed to go,” said Janet. “The good news is that we are on the same side of the city as to where we need to go. The bad news is creatures tend to get progressively more dangerous the farther out into the surrounding areas you are. My guess is that things will be around level five in that zone. I will be fine, but you as a level two are going to need to take extreme caution.”
“I guess I will get to learn my first self-healing spell then,” said Brandon trying to lighten the mood.
“Let’s hope so,” said Janet.
It took longer than they had hoped to sneak their way out of the city. Even with the hideout close to the edge, Janet wanted to be safe and avoid detection. She had been very vocal so far about how even though they had spent the previous day in the sewers, Brandon did not have the experience to handle himself if anything real started to happen.
When they reached the end of the city Brandon saw a dirt road ten feet wide that continued in each direction. Janet told him that the road circled the entire city. As if pushing the forest itself back trees began right where the edge of the dirt road ended. Brandon could point out both pine trees and aspens and other varieties he could not name flowed uphill into the foothills of the surrounding mountains.
“What is the name of this place anyway?” asked Brandon.
“They really didn’t tell you anything in The Facility did they?” asked Janet.
“Nope, just a short video and tossed me out.”
“That is unfortunate. The official name of this place is Facility 23, but most people call it Haven.”
Brandon soon became winded as they left Haven and began the ascent of the first hills into the mountainous forest. He refused to slow as Janet continued unconcerned.
After a while the pair crested the first set of foothills. They paused and took in the view.
“You see that in the distance?” asked Janet pointing deep into the valleys to their right.
Brandon tried to find what she was pointing at. After a moment Janet moved his head to the left and Brandon spotted the top of a metallic circle. “You mean that giant ring?”
“Yeah,” said Janet. “That is the only way out of the whole region. People have tried to walk out in every direction over the years. After about 2 or 3 days the creatures get so strong that they kill you instantly. But every year or so that portal will open up and anyone who wants to move on can.”
“When was the last time it was open?”
“About a month ago. It usually goes in a cycle. People leave, P.A.T. lets things settle for a month or 2, then they really ramp up the cloning and a huge amount of people enter the city. They give three weeks notice and the portal opens. Then everything repeats again.”
Brandon tried to get more details out of the inactive portal in the distance. The thing must be massive for him to be able to see it from here. “What is on the other side?”
“No one knows, it is one way only. Anyone who goes through can’t come back. No one says it, but eventually it will start to call to you. Most people leave their first rotation, but if not, it starts to pull at you. Bert says it is just a side effect of the type of people that survive here. Without a little curiosity and hope for adventure you probably die before you get a chance to go through. I think it is something more.”
“That means I have more than half a year before I can get out of here and hopefully somewhere with less people that want to kill me.”
“Time is in their favor right now. No one has to rush to find you. Whereas if you don’t gain some skills and levels you are going to be dead before you know it. Even with my help.”
“Sounds like that portal is a problem for future Brandon then,” said Brandon. “Once I get this mission done, I can figure out what to do with the next six months to a year.”
The pair descended the back side of the hill and down into the forest valley below.