“Try to aim a bit higher, the crossbow does not have a range as large as a gun,” said John putting the empty cans back over the table.
I sighed trying to recharge the crossbow. It was difficult because my hands where trembling. The improvised range had been set up by John inside the cave over the last three days when we reached the consensus that we couldn’t move from this place until the repetitive ends of the world stopped happening, and as always the ironic new world had decided to give us three of the more mild element merges that we had experienced.
Seriously, after the absurdly big barrage of lightning I was thinking we were all dead and instead the next day the air element merged. The worst that we saw happening was a tree being picked up in the air and flying in our opposite direction. I mean, c’mon, I was expecting hurricanes or tornadoes, or houses flying. I guess that is what happened in some place, but here… Nothing, that day was almost normal given the circumstances.
The next day was more of the same, the decay element merged and we saw some trees wither and die, but nothing happened to us or the Zombinator.
And today... Today the spirit element merged. I have to admit my expectations didn’t run very wild because I wasn’t even sure what spirit element meant but... I guess something spiritual was going to happen? Maybe ghosts? And…
Nothing happened, at all. Not even a jump scare or something. We did manage to recharge the batteries back to full and put the lights on. It was a boring day, nothing really worth mentioning.
“We’ve been doing this for almost three days. I’m tired,” I said managing at last to put the damn arrow in place.
“You are not tired, you are going through withdrawal,” said Knight.
“Yes, I forgot the fucking coffee! Thank you for reminding me!” I snapped at him.
Shit. Yes, I was getting restless without coffee. I knew he was right even then, but I was too tired and angry to be nice at the moment. I shifted my weight and ready myself to shot at the targets again. The arrow flew over the can barely touching it but making it fall to the ground.
“Okay, yes, better,” said John smiling. “You just have to remember to...”
“Yes, I know. I have to feel the range of the weapon, how far it can go, how the air moves it and how to shoot straight,” I repeated the words angry. “And now a pause for my brother to do a joke about my sexuality.”
Knight smiled at me. “You are no fun when you are like this.”
I rolled my eyes and growled. Welcome to addiction problems 101, how to make your withdrawal problems better when the world is ending. You can’t, deal with it. I was fucked and for a while I would be a mess. There was not much to do about it. I breathed deeply and tried to concentrate again making appear an arrow from my inventory and charging the crossbow. The arrow flew again failing completely.
“Fuck!” I yelled dropping the crossbow to the ground with anger.
Now it was getting to me all this apocalypse bullshit when it hadn’t at the beginning and I didn’t know why. Besides the coffee thing everything was fine, great even, there was no reason to get like this now.
Okay, maybe I did know why.
NameKnightClassNoneRaceHumanLevel1Physical AttributesMental AttributesSTR:43INT:33DEX:66WIS:56VIT:53CHA:69Luck5
NameSamClassNoneRaceHumanLevel1Physical AttributesMental AttributesSTR:42INT:48DEX:58WIS:77VIT:43CHA:58Luck5
NameJohnClassNoneRaceHumanLevel1Physical AttributesMental AttributesSTR:72INT:46DEX:73WIS:59VIT:55CHA:28Luck5
What the hell man? Everyone was stronger and faster than me. And the worst part is that the system didn’t lie. It wasn’t like people putting on airs trying to look more than what they are. Their strength was certified by the flipping universe, or the gods or whatever the hell makes the blue screens. That made me a bit mad.
It also gave me a deeper understanding on how attributes worked.
Strength was easy, how much you can push, carry or hit. Dexterity was a combination of agility, perception and coordination. It was how fast you could run, but also dodge or attack once there is an opportunity. It was the reason why everyone else was better at shooting than me. Vitality was about how much we could last, from either how quickly we healed or how tough we were to how much we could keep running before dropping to the ground unable to move.
Charisma was easy too, it was about how to understand people and convince them or manipulate them. Intelligence and Wisdom were interesting and the only department where I was above everyone else. Their names could be somewhat puzzling, but basically Wisdom was the things I remembered, my experiences, from the books I read and memorize in college to that stupid night in summer. Intelligence on the other hand was the things that I understand, the things that I could relation with other and draw conclusions from.
It’s like when your teacher told you “You have to understand instead of memorize and repeat things like parrots”, but you didn’t really do it because that could be more difficult and you were already thinking in something else already like the parrot sketch.
Luck… didn’t really make much sense, and I have over 300 luck points after that quest which seemed like a loss. Oh, well, someday I would find out and with some luck it will be something OP as hell.
And guess what? Luckily for us, knowing all of that was going to protect us from hordes of ghouls, wolves and all the other things that had been spawning at night. No. For the moment we hadn’t been molested too much, and the few ghouls that wandered off into the cave were killed quickly by John, but that was going to change sooner or later.
I sighed and massaged my head, I had a headache again.
John looked at me worried. “Okay, we can continue tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” I nodded and walked back inside the Zombinator.
I looked around for a bed. The Zombinator had changed in this three days, tables had been moved from one place to another trying not to clutter the way and taking advantage of the space as best as possible. The laptops were on in a table and Sam worked slowly over something. I took a place across him in one of the beds.
“Have you finished training?” asked Sam without looking for what he was doing.
I mumbled a yes trying to get comfortable on the bed.
“More like his brain is finished,” supplied Knight walking inside. “Couldn’t you heal yourself like you did to me?”
I groaned and looked at him. “I don’t have a hole in my body and neither I’m dying. It doesn’t work like that, the seed enhances the rhythm at which the body repairs and that’s it. I’m not repairing anything, my body is just trying to get used to not have caffeine inside. I can’t cheat.”
He looked at me with amazement. Oh, yes he was amazed, everyone was when I started to talk about magic like if I knew it all my life. Everyone was amazed that I could do magic, that I could heal. Everyone…
For fuck sake, I’m the fucking healer. I was useless in an actual fight and they knew it. I didn’t understand how they could be amazed by that.
Shit, okay, breathe. My head felt about to explode when a hand touched my shoulder. I moved back ready to snap at whoever had touched me and I saw my brother with a cup of something in his hand. For a second I thought it was coffee and then I smelled it. It wasn’t but I smiled.
“It’s not like the one mom used to do, but is the best we have right now,” said my brother passing me the cup of tea.
“Thanks,” I said smelling it, he won me with that gesture but I was still bitter. “Asshole.”
Knight snorted. “I don’t know why you are like that. You are the one with the magic powers and all that cheat bullshit.”
“I would be happier if I could launch fireballs or freeze people or fly. I can heal a person, that’s about it. Unless the things outside think that is so amazing and let us walk away without fighting I’m useless.” I said.
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“Yeah, sure,” he snorted looking at me.” Wait, you are serious?”
I looked coldly back at him.
“You are an idiot,” he sighed and moved close to me. “You… Don’t you realize everyone here is expendable but you? You are the most useful guy here and you saved our lives. You saved my life,” added in a whisper. “Just for that I would put my life on the line for you, all of us would. You don’t need to be the stronger to fight, you have your abilities and we have ours.”
“He is right,” said Sam giving me a look. “I can’t believe after we spend all those years playing World of Warcraft you forgot we need a healer for the party.”
I groaned at the reference but smiled. They were good at pep talks.
“And also I want you to inspect this,” said Sam giving me a normal arrow.
In these days I told them about all of my abilities and they told me about theirs, they didn’t have a class but still obtained some abilities with the attributes that were over 50. It was mostly similar things to what I had, passive abilities that added a bit more power.
I took the arrow confused and observed carefully. It didn’t seem different in any way but I tried to inspect it.
Black arrow
Poor quality.Crafted by a novice this arrow holds a sliver of the void and can cause increased damage to the enemies they hit.
+25% possibility to incapacitate the enemy.
-15% to the attributes of the enemy.
I stared at it openmouthed for a few seconds. “Did you do this with the horn?”
He smiled triumphantly. “It took me a while to find a way to do it but yes.”
“Holy shit, this is amazing. Can you do more?” I asked excitedly.
He looked at the floor embarrassed. “I sort of used all the horn practicing… I would need more.”
“What is it?” asked John.
I blinked looking at him, I hadn’t even noticed he was inside. Then I told them the characteristics of the arrow.
“Wow,” whistled my brother. “That’s cheating.”
“And necessary if we want to survive,” said John.
“Which means we need to hunt one of those wolves,” I sighed. “Not looking forward to go out.”
“Me neither, but these arrows can give us an edge,” said John.
“There is another reason we have to go out,” interrupted Sam when I was about to protest. “We are starting to run low on water.”
Shit, time to go back to hell.
John grunted and nodded. “We will go tomorrow for the water then and we will try to hunt one of those wolves if we can.”
“Great, then tomorrow the merge is going to be awful.” I said going back to the bed.
“Don’t be pessimistic,” smiled Knight.
“I’m not. It’s just the way the new world seems to work now. Trying to fuck you when is least convenient.” I said.
We went to sleep that night without too much to say to each other, and I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about everything again and again until it was my turn to stand watch at the entrance of the cave. We were out of the way inside the cave but from time to time some monster wandered dangerously close and we had to be sure it didn’t take us by surprise.
The thing was, even if a monster got close to me I couldn’t do much besides warn everyone else, because I was the healer. Great job, me. I know it might seem stupid but I didn’t really like that position. I was important for my abilities and knowledge, yes, but that was it. I was the piece that had to be protected and it made me feel vulnerable.
I opened my status screen, I had 35 points from leveling up that I still hadn’t used. The question was were to use them. I was pretty sure WIS and INT were the stats to go being a druid but… I didn’t just want to heal. I wanted to fight and help my friends. I debated in what to spend those points.
In the end the choice was about more than a few status points, it was about who I was and what I wanted to be from now on. It was about what the hell was the fucking point of my life now that everything had ended. Survival? That was not very interesting. Survival just for the sake of survival was pointless. I needed more, I needed an objective.
And then I realized I had already made my choice. Not now, but many years ago when I was still a kid that wanted to save the world. Yes, perhaps eco-terrorism didn’t help the world as much as I thought but now it was different. Now I had powers, I had friends that wanted to help me, and I had an opportunity. Yes, the environment didn’t need saving anymore because I don’t think we could fuck it up as much as these few days had done it, but the world needed saving.
Or at least the people needed it.
Right now it was about survival, there was no way around that, but some day it would be different. I would make sure of that.
I opened the status screen and dumped 16 points into dexterity to make it go into 50.
For having over 50 points in dexterity you have obtained a new ability. Enhanced coordination.
Enhanced coordination Lv. 0
Obtained ability.You perceive and respond to the changes in the world faster and with more accuracy. This ability grows with the DEX stat.Passive ability.
I felt my body shift from the inside. It wasn’t painful, but it was weird, like if my muscles were melting and rearranging themselves just slightly. It was a fast process because the change wasn’t too big, but my body had changed. I was leaner. I moved in place trying to feel a difference and it was there. I could feel myself being more responsive to every change. It was not much but it was what I needed to survive.
And I didn’t care that my choice wasn’t the best for my class because it was just what I needed at the moment. It didn’t matter today or tomorrow because I had a bigger objective.
I was going to save the world, or at least I was going to try to. I was going to help people survive this change, if I needed friends I would find them and if I needed power I would become the most overpowered motherfucker in the universe. That was my choice. I didn't just wanted to survive. I wanted something more.
I wanted answers.
It was a good dream, like the ones I had when I was a kid, and for a second I smiled.
Do you really want answers?
I blinked looking at the screen.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Follow the white rabbit.
The blue screen blinked out of existence the moment I read it. I moved back in place and glanced around trying to catch something moving. It was dark and I turned the flashlight on, some part of my new that was a bad idea because the monsters could see the light and come but I didn’t care.
Follow the white rabbit.Follow the white rabbit.Follow the white rabbit.Follow the white rabbit.Follow the white rabbit.Follow the white rabbit...
New screens flashed in and out of existence in my vision while I desperately looked for the rabbit in question. I tried for hours perhaps and I was lucky no monster came to visit but…
There was no white rabbit.
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Follow the white rabbit.
Rewards:
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Unlimited time to complete.