This is horrible. I fell asleep. I haven’t planned to end up here. I haven’t looked at the maps. The man from the railroad is shaking me awake. „Where am I?“. He told me. I need to get out of this unobserved. I’ve started wearing a watch again. It tells me that it is fairly late. The platform is dimly lit and there is a light drizzle coming down. That gives me an excuse to get a cap out of a „pocket“ and to put my bag of equipment onto my shoulder facing the lit part of the station.
„Good night.“ this guy is friendly. „Good night to you, too“.
I step behind the time tables on a board in the middle of the platform. That puts me largely out of his sight. He may still see my legs. I need a reason to linger. So I pull a soda can out of my inventory and pop it audibly. My aura sense tells me that he is wandering off along the train. Do I see a piece of dimly lit public road across the tracks? I teleport.
This must never ever happen again. Falling asleep left me helpless. I must face reality, it has been too much. I need a few consecutive days of rest. And I need a motor vehicle. Given my lack of experience with motorbikes this will have to be a car. Just stealing a car in this city is not an option. It would be reported. I can’t risk driving a car reported stolen for long. If I abandon them, I’ll draw a line showing my movement, if they manage to correlate them with me. Even if I annihilate the car, they may trace me by vanishing cars. And I am not going to murder their owners just to prevent them from reporting the theft.
All that is just theory. I understand that I don’t know what I am doing.
That leaves me with few options. The best I can think of is heading for the evacuated zones and find a car of somebody killed in a monster attack that will still run. Or should I try a freight train or a ship. I am tired and unsure what to do. First I need to get out of the cty. I take out my bike and start out. I am pretty fast. As I get tired I trigger [Immortality]. I go on through the night hiding whenever a car approaches. I am crossing through a small forest as the sun rises. I leave the road.
An aura. Monster. Iron rank. Something like an upright rat with oddly human hands is plucking berries off a thicket et the rim of the forest. I have to risk it. I use my sniper rifle and a shot through the head finishes it. The loot is not spectacular. The place is sheltered against sight from to sides by a thicket. Is that actually good or am I cutting off my own routes of retreat? I am losing my selfconfidence. I need to sleep. I set up my shed.
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It is a common misconception that navigation devices need internet. Your phone needs it when you use it to navigate to access traffic information and maps it hasn’t stored locally. But if you have your maps on the device, the GPS signal alone will do. GPS is also unidirectional, that is you cannot be detected by use of GPS.
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My navigation device can connect to the internet to update its maps and mine I had connected to the WiFi of the family in whose attic I stayed. It knew which villages were still evacuated and without connection to services. In the state of affairs 3 days ago. 5 km is not far. I can walk there.
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Some lights are on. That is a surprise. It means that the government has switched the power on again. That makes sense. It takes time to reactivate a power grid and you want to know about trouble spots. So doing it as soon as possible makes sense. But I hadn’t learned it before. I scold myself for buying a battery-powered radio, but then not listening to the news.
But who has switched them on? My observations so far have shown a few dogs and cats people seem to have left behind. Or, more sinister, they are pets of people who have stayed behind and been killed. I should not condemn people without evidence. I have no chance to detect auras at this distance. Do I walk or teleport?
Teleport. If somebody senses my aura it makes no difference, they’ll know that I am iron rank and I need an excuse. I change back into combat gear and body armour. First, it provides protection. Second I can claim to be part of a government mission to scout out towns for resettlement.
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No human auras. It seems people fleeing just left some lights switched on. That was stupid. It may attract monsters. Had they wanted to deter looters?
I decide to patrol the town. If it holds monsters I need to know. In addition it matched my cover story, should it come to that. Therefore I walked in the middle of the road, assault rifle with my new grenade launcher attached held at ready.
The town is built against a small hillock with a church on the center of the hill. I circle the town, before I go up a hill. The houses are usually one-and-a-half storey constructions built into the hill, with nice gardens.
The very center has a small square with a pub and a church. The pub is the last thing that closes in a village. Drinking and driving is illegal. I sense monster auras from both.
I decide to check the pub first. The door is smashed. I can see magical monster tracks going through it. I hesitate at the door. Four auras. They feel like that rat monster. So they are nesting here. That is, do monsters reproduce at all? A question for later. My aura sense says to the left and down. Does this building have a basement? Most buildings in this area should have one. If so, the monsters probably have found stored provisions. I do not want to shoot up the good stuff. Very well I have options now. There is fairly broad round staircase going down with signs guiding patrons to the toilets. A typical setup. Would I sense what monsters feel, in particular if they notice me? I cannot depend on that. At the foot of the staircase I hesitate. The corridor is too narrow for my taste with too many doors. I can hear a chirping sound.
Let’s try this the sinister way. I fire two of the four tear gas grenades in launcher under the barrel of my assault rifle into the direction I think the sounds are coming from.
All hell breaks loose. But in contrast to an actual assault rifle I can stay on full auto for much longer than an actual assault rifle would have ammunition, nor does the weapon overheat. I get them all.
I loot the monsters and step forward to inspect my much more conventional loot. I have found an alcoholic’s paradise.