In the Cosmos full of more stars and galaxies than one could ever hope to count, many looked for fame, fortune, and riches, but a few, a very few, sought to make their wishes a reality. Magic. The ability to influence the world around them was rarer, and so, these few, would listen to the secrets of the Universe. And gleaned from their ramblings, the ability to influence the very reality that surrounded them. The lucky experienced stories out of a book and the sleeping found only nightmares. Shadows twisted upon a plain fraught with perils, gusts of wind stirred the sands of Destiny into unreadable patterns and the sky darkened and Magick shall be the scapegoat, released back into the world of danger and desire.

  Prologue

  As most of our brave protagonists all partied late into the night, stupidly ignoring all media and instinctual warnings of peril, news reporters broadcasted about strange solar flares and extrasolar radiation that riddled the emergency stations, only moments before all the satellites shut down for good.

  Chapter 1

  Dalton Dankworth awoke to find himself, surprisingly, back in his room in the two-bedroom townhouse downtown he had recently bought. With an arid, dry mouth and the particular aftertaste of a heavy night of drinking and smoking, Dalton guzzled the tepid water that was still full beside his bed.

  Thanks for the water, drunk Dalton.

  You’re welcome, hungover Dalton!

  He lazily pulled the blinds open and inspected the view of the historic street. Strange hues of orange and purple played across the sky like the Northern Lights. The striating colors had a surreal effect, like a sunset painting with water splashed onto the canvas before the paint could dry, the colors ran and bled into each other. The streets were nearly empty with the only occupant apparently being a middle-aged businessman running down the sidewalk, guessing he was probably late to some important meeting Dalton wished him all the speed in the world.

  Gah! My mouth tastes like something died in it.

  The spacious room on the third-floor brownstone overlooked the downtown streets of a mid-sized little city in the southeast of Georgia named Savannah. Old cobblestones adorned the street that ran alongside the river. The view was awesome with the gold capitol dome in the distance.

  His city was a renowned colonial port from the origins of the United States. Its rich history had garnered a reputation of ghosts, haunted buildings, and cemeteries and its progressive underground and acceptance of art and free thinking had encouraged Dalton to move here from his neighboring state of South Carolina.

  Still groggy from sleep, he rubbed his eyes and wondered what day it was and what his plans had been, if any, and would consequently most likely blow off.

  He walked into the bathroom and in the mirror stared at his rather disheveled form. Twenty-six years hadn’t been unkind to him, having grown into his large jaw and intimidating height, at six foot three, he usually towered over most of his fellow compatriots, but his height was one of his favorite attributes. His thick mop of light brown hair attempted to point in every direction at once and appeared to be succeeding.

  Running his hands under the faucet, he collected some water into his cupped hands and attempted to tame the beast that was his coif into some semblance of order. A quick brush was necessary.

  His dedication to the gym was evidenced in his broad shoulders and lean muscle covered his entire frame. At 200 pounds, Dalton was by no means a small man, but years of being gangly and sudden growth spurts had taught him body control and how to move nimbly so as to avoid running into door frames and various pieces of furniture whilst growing up.

  Dalton prided himself on his ability to be quiet and light-footed, and in particular, sneaking up on his frat brothers, roommates, or friends and scaring them could be considered a hobby or pastime of his.

  Quickly dressed in some athletic gear, he decided a quick jog might clear his head and allow him to feel more like a human being again, and would hopefully combat this wicked hangover.

  He threw on a pair of running shorts, a tight fitting, black pullover, and a pair of tennis shoes, he crept downstairs so as not to wake his roommate, Katie, who had been out as late as he had. Pumping himself up, he vigorously splashed more water in his face. Cranking some 80’s music into his earphones, he stretched quickly and loosened up his taut muscles. The residual smell of gin was not pleasant, so he decided to depart.

  It was time to hit the asphalt.

  Chapter 2

  Opening the front door, Dalton was presented with a very peculiar scene. The sky continued its eerie display of shifting lights, like some equatorial version of the Northern Lights. Dalton reached in his pocket to look at his cell phone. The phone was completely off, and he couldn't even get a light to turn on or his saved music to play. This was strange because Dalton had been charging his phone all night, trusting his muscle memory and firmly encrusted habits to put his phone on charge no matter how drunk he had been the night before.

  Looking around the nearly deserted street, everything was odd. No matter what time of day, there were usually some people walking around, whether they be tourists shopping, locals heading into or out from work, or even a random vagrant or homeless person meandering down the street asking for change. This time, the streets were ghostly with the flickering lights in the sky. The roads and buildings had a fantastical appearance, the shifting shadows and heavy breeze blowing bits of paper and trash around the air, added to the effect.

  It looked like the set of a dystopian movie.

  At a brisk jog, he began to head towards the center of downtown. After only a few steps, he began to hear a high-pitched noise, wails and voices, overlapping and crescendoing at random intervals. Shouts reverberated from the center of downtown, no, not shouts, screams, echoing through the valley-like buildings.

  A cacophony began to arise of different volumes, frequencies, and intensities. The ulations emanated from the downtown center. Some even began to not sound human, as Supra-auditory echoes reached him from the megaphone-like downtown district.

  Dalton was no coward, but had seen enough movies and read enough books to know that something bad was happening. Those screams contained pure terror and fear in its most unadulterated form. He threw himself against the side of a building. The numerous openings and alleyways provided cover and places to duck behind every few feet.

  Using the quiet steps Dalton so prided himself on, he ran through various scenarios in his head, whilst slowly inching himself towards the noises, which grew increasingly louder. Could this possibly be a terrorist attack?

  Another 9/11 but located in the heart of his quaint, mid-sized city in Georgia? Maybe another shooting from some gun-toting psycho? Or possibly some form of a natural disaster, like a sinkhole under the street, or a small earthquake had disrupted the calm of the tourist hub?

  He continued to creep closer, and in the distance could see figures moving, darting about at what were clearly high speeds. The figures sprinted and ran about in every different direction. Dalton neared a side street, a couple in their fifties exploded from a side alley, nearly barrelling into Dalton.

  “RUN!! MONSTERS ARE COMING. RUN!!!”

  The slightly overweight woman was shouting nearly incomprehensibly, her voice wavered, and she was already gasping for air.

  The man continued to pull her along by her hand, not even halting to look at him. They continued at a slow run, the woman continually looking back over her shoulder, fear causing her eyes to bug out and look unnaturally white.

  Thoroughly confused, Dalton advanced with even more trepidation and caution. He began to see more people running, screaming incoherently, others just sprinting full out away from the cluster of high rises and office buildings and the capitol building. An explosion and concussive boom rang out somewhere in the distance. Dalton was wondering if it was an elaborate prank or if they were possibly filming a movie or show and he just didn’t know where the cameras were located.

  Savannah was becoming a hub for the entertainment industry and filmmakers enjoyed Georgia and its relaxed tax laws compared to places like California and New York. Now you know why so many shows finished with, “Made in Georgia”.

  It was then Dalton began to see people covered in blood. A woman ran screaming with a child clinging to her torso, wrapped tightly in her arms. The woman had a massive gash over her eyes that was relentlessly streaming blood. The baby didn't appear to be moving or crying which was even more concerning to Dalton, as the gory imagery of the woman's bright red blood dripped onto the white bassinet covering the baby’s head.

  “Ma’am, do you need help, what's happening?” Dalton cried out uselessly, the woman ran past with nary a thought about stopping for help.

  He looked forward then, and on cue, turning a corner, was one of the “monsters”. The creature wasn’t large. The creature was about three feet tall, completely nude save for a small loincloth, leathery forest-green skin, overly large ears that flopped to either side like a dog or rabbit, huge bug eyes that had cat-like pupils, red-tinted irises, and a shark-like maw containing rows and rows of little razor teeth and claws with hooked, black nails shining like jet in the odd spectrum of light. Dark, reddish brown liquid dribbled down his jaw, and splashed onto the dark gray concrete of the street.

  Dalton froze, his heart felt like a literal drum had been placed inside his chest, each frantic beat felt as if his whole body was thrumming with each tympanum of sound and motion, his breathing resonated in his ear like a train roaring by at close range. A slight trickle of sweat ran down his back, gathering speed as it was absorbed into the sporty fabric of his black under armor pullover.

  In the distance, Dalton could see people screaming and running haphazardly every which way. They were being chased by the odd looking creatures, some wielding little clubs and daggers, others just using claws and teeth. Tearing apart women, men and children with equal abandon. The juxtaposition of the serene fountains still going off jetting water into the air, provided a surreal counterpart to the mayhem.

  It was hard to tell, but there were various other shapes and creatures stalking about, some appeared tall, very tall. Some he couldn’t see at all, they looked like shadows flitting about the ground, utilizing the shifting lights from the confused twilit sky. The screams got louder as the visual imagery sunk into place, the devastation, the impossible massacre of everyday people by fiends and monsters.

  The absurdity of the situation hit Dalton like a truck. This…..simply couldn't be real. A much too lucid dream or possibly, maybe he had been drugged and this was some auxiliary hallucinatory effect, were the only reasonable explanations to come to mind. The creature turned and looked directly at Dalton. His huge frog eyes scoped him up and down, and even from thirty feet away, Dalton could feel the animal-like appraisal. He suddenly felt that this visceral situation was a little too real, and warranted a quick response.

  Dalton took off at a sprint back the way he came.

  Oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man.

  To say Dalton was freaking out was a minor understatement. He ran full tilt back towards his house, the same thought, the same word kept bouncing around inside his skull.

  Goblin.

  That thing looked exactly how he imagined a goblin, an imp, a gremlin, whatever you wanted to call it, it would look like that. Dalton played enough games and watched enough fantasy films to recognize the creature. The description was pretty much spot on from any of his computer games or RPG’s.

  Could this be some throw back from another era, a creature re-released back into the world from some underground cavern? Possibly, some government cloning or genetic manipulation project gone awry? These thoughts tumbled through his head as the sound of his frenzied footfalls slapping against the street provided an accompanying soundtrack.

  Dalton quickly passed the older couple and likewise did not look back, as the sounds of their gasping punctuated the background roar of screams and melee carnage downtown.

  As he neared the entrance to his townhome, a flash of green was his only warning when one of the goblin creatures emerged from a side alley squeezed tightly between two shop buildings. Dalton careened into the goblin without the slightest possibility, or even thought, of slowing down.

  As he slammed into the smaller creature his weight and momentum carried the monster into a cartoonish tumble of arms and legs, knocking both of them onto the ground. The long sleeves of his shirt protected his arms from the worst of the damage, but his knees suffered a severe scraping and bruising and the presence of gravel on his face indicated he might have eaten some dirt too.

  Sitting up, slightly dazed but still amped with adrenaline that coursed through his system like some druggie on a terrible amphetamine high, Dalton looked at the goblin, who was face down and just rousing. It’s high pitched vocal chords issued forth groggy and whining sounds, similar to an injured animal. Dalton realized this creature, about the size of a large toddler, had taken the hit worse than him. It shook its head and raised itself off the ground on spindly arms and wicked looking claws that clicked on the street as it placed them points down.

  Without a second thought, Dalton raised his leg, and brought his foot down on top of the thing’s head as hard as he possibly could.

  *Dalton Side Note: Because of my height and history as a swimmer, I had always been self-conscious of my “chicken legs” As a result, the last few years were heavily dedicated to squats, deadlifts, and leg exercises to remedy this corporeal deficiency. Consequence = my legs were strong and packed a wallop, and at 6”4, my long legs created a lot of speed and force when given freedom of movement.

  The goblin’s head was smashed into the unforgiving street with his heel directly behind its skull. Its open maw smashed into the concrete, teeth and black blood sprayed forth from its mouth in a sudden jet. This was desirable, but the shocking result was the indentation and crumpling of the thing’s skull. The bones seemed much more frail than humans, and the heel of his shoe went half way into the muck and grisly matter before stopping. The goblin dropped to the ground and immediately stopped moving. Dalton withdrew his foot with a little shaking, bits of brain and skull were twitched off. He couldn’t help making a mieu of revulsion, with the musky and decaying smell of rotting meat assaulting his nostrils immediately. The goblin smelled something awful.

  Dalton looked for the couple and caught the tail end of them turning down a side street, clearly wishing to avoid the obvious encounter he had just started, and to his growing elation, finished.

  “Thanks for the help and checking on me,” he called out uselessly.

  So much for humanity bonding together, huh?

  As he stood up and began to brush himself off, he looked around for any other monsters or goblins. The street was still relatively empty, with a few people running in the distance. Dalton must assume that this phenomenon was fairly widespread, and he could only assume that this was what all the commotion was about. Dalton began to walk away, an image popped into his mind, overlaying his current view of the downtown streets and the corpse of the goblin. His body began to glow slightly and he felt invigorated, like he had an amazing night of sex and sleep and had a potent energy drink.

  LEVEL GAINED.

  Huh?

  SEARCH GOBLIN?......

  Confused, Dalton swiped at the letters. They hovered over the corpse of the goblin like some game prompt. The writing was clearly visible but so was everything behind it, like having a fuzzy squiggle in your line of sight that moved with your vision. Dalton bent over and fumbled around the nearly skeletal body of the creature. Its head was disproportionately large to its fragile skeletal structure. Flipping the body over, the goblin appeared to have a small bone knife tucked into his loincloth. Grabbing it, Dalton turned it over in his hands, examining the details more closely.

  Bone Knife- A crude knife made from the bones of some unknown animal. It looks to be in poor condition.

  The writing again appeared overlaying his normal vision, akin to a computer screen with multiple windows open at once or a military HUD. Dalton’s confusion and apprehension was only surpassed by his growing fear of being out in the open. Tucking the knife into his waistband, he jogged in the direction of his house.

  Chapter 3

  Dalton ran the short distance back to his house as quietly as possible, his head on a constant swivel looking for any signs of movement, monsters, or anything out of the ordinary.

  Climbing the stairs to the second story door he went inside as quickly as possible and shut the door, turning both locks firmly.

  Panting and catching his breath whilst leaning against the door, his roommate, Katie was coming down the stairs staring intently at her phone.

  “Hey, is your phone working?” She didn’t bother looking up and continued uselessly pushing all the buttons on the side of her gadget.

  Without saying anything, Dalton snatched up the remote control in another futile attempt at working any technology. The lights wouldn’t even come on. Angrily tossing the remote onto the couch, it bounced and careened off the edge of the cushions like an amateur gymnast competing badly in the junior Olympic vault category.

  “What’s wrong, you look a bit pale…and gross.” Katie said having finally witnessed his sweat-plastered hair and gradually glancing down at his leg smeared in filth. He assumed it must look like mud, but knowing it was dried goblin blood made nothing better.

  “Have you looked out the window, spoken to anyone, done ANYTHING?” He shouted a bit at the end, realizing he’s tense from everything going on, but it's like he’s watching himself from a distant perspective, floating around, watching this guy freak out, he couldn’t help getting frustrated.

  “No….I just woke up. What's going on with you? Why are you freaking?” Katie cocked her head at him and scrunched up her nose. She was still in pajamas with a loose shirt on. We had lived together for a few years now and we got along well enough. She was a bartender at a restaurant downtown and we work similar hours. She was tall for a girl and a bit overweight, unruly brown hair that hung almost to her waist provided her signature look.

  “Katie, the freakin’ world is ending and you’re the only person going to sleep through it.” He started pacing through the room, closing the blinds, peeking down the still empty streets, scanning for the enemy with furtive glances.

  She was obviously rattled, knowing that Dalton was not one to become agitated easily. This was the guy that talked anyone down from starting a fight in a bar, even though he could have won easily having a 100 pounds on the guy and being a foot taller.

  “Just tell me what’s going on Dalton.” Katie asked pleadingly, a slight tint of whinging perforating through.

  Dalton walked to the back door and began describing everything that had happened in detail. Beginning with the strange sky and finally finishing with the goblin and the strange magical air writing. He looked over at Katie and she looked dumbfounded.

  “Really? All that just happened? While I was asleep? You’re not going to prank me again Dalton, so stop trying” She began to walk to the front door, he quickly dashed past her and pushed his back up against it.

  “I’m not kidding. I’m not pranking. If anything, I’m underexaggerating.” Dalton said with the most sincere and emphatic belief he could force into the statement.

  “Look out the windows, but be careful. Don’t draw attention to ourselves, I’m going to get whatever weapons I can find. We need to think about gettin’ out of here, my car is out back, we can gather some food and head out of town.” Dalton said quickly moving back into the kitchen and collecting knives and opening cupboards.

  Katie began to look out the window with caution, only separating the blinds about an inch or two from the wall. At least she was taking him seriously enough to listen to some advice. Dalton knew she wouldn’t believe him until she saw for herself, but it was only a matter of time before she squealed and fell backward, thumping heavily onto the carpeted floor right on her rear.

  “You saw one of those green goblin things? I told you, we need to get out of here Katie.” Dalton grunted this out a bit while removing the head from a long mop. Taking the thick wooden shaft he inspected the end, and grabbed a huge gleaming butcher knife off the kitchen counter.

  “No, it was like a furry brown dog thing, but it was walking, and I think it had clothes and weapons.” Katie was still sitting on her backside in the middle of the living room.

  Dalton rushed past her and peeked through a slit, there's no movement on the street, but he believed Katie.

  “What Is GOING ON?” Katie repeated, her voice became increasingly louder with each word.

  “Listen,” Dalton huffed in and out and began strapping the butcher knife tightly to the end of the mop handle with duct tape he pulled from a drawer, “I couldn't even begin to tell you what is ‘going on’ and I could possibly give you a dozen theories, but end of day Katie, I want to survive.” Dalton punctuated every few syllables with a vigorous and noisy turning of the tape.

  “So, I will tell you what I plan on doing, and the choice to help and join me is yours.” As Dalton began his tirade, loud screams were heard from outside.

  Dalton and Katie stepped back to the blinds and spied through the same horizontal slit. A girl was being mauled by three goblins. She was still screaming while all three appeared to be tearing into her torso and stomach. There appeared to be no shortage of blood as it began splashing and pouring out of her gaping wounds. Their second story view gave them a gross perspective on the goblin’s animalistic nature, gorging themselves on her still warm entrails while she slowly and noisily faded from life.

  Katie bent over and immediately disgorged anything she might have had left in her stomach from the night before, which based on the smell was most likely gin and….tacos?

  Dalton returned to the kitchen and proceeded to gather whatever canned foods, bottled beverages, potential weapons and even chemicals he could find.

  Katie poked her head in, wiping her mouth she said, “I’m in, I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

  She looked exhausted all of a sudden, and the distinct feeling of her on the brink of breaking down already seems pervasive.

  “Wash up, get dressed, dark clothes, better warm than not and cover up all your skin. Get what might be useful, any weapons, a small change of clothes, like socks and underwear, running shoes that hold tight to your feet, but pack very lightly, you don’t want to become cumbersome. You have fifteen minutes.” All business, good. Katie turns around and heads upstairs without a word.

  Then again, wondering if time or fate was playing tricks on him, he went to ready himself for the apocalypse.

  Chapter 4

  Dalton continued to rummage around the house, he found a few bandages and some very basic first aid supplies. Throwing this into his backpack, he followed his own advice. Running upstairs he quickly changed out of his tiny running shorts and into a pair of form fitting jogger pants. They’re black and made from a thick, breathable material and he wondered if he should wear something sturdier, but recalling those wicked talons on the goblin, a pair of jeans were not going to make a big difference. Dalton changed into dark and flexible boots which he luckily had for work and thick black socks. A few extra pairs of socks, underwear and another top for layering go into his bag. It was bulging but the zipper still managed to close.

  Dalton felt ready.

  Having looked in the mirror at his statuesque frame, silhouetted in black on black athletic gear, baggy hood hanging down his back, tight pants tucked into his socks, hiking pack strapped tight to his back with carabiners attached to the straps, and some rope hanging from his side that he had stashed years ago “just in case”.

  Dalton smiled and couldn’t help feeling more than a little badass. His skin fairly tingled with electricity and his muscles felt like they were vibrating on the brink of exploding into motion, releasing frenetic energy out into the world, to live, to survive, TO THRIVE.

  Man, I feel great. It could be the Armageddon happening right now, and I’m staring at myself in the mirror, cheesing like a girl at prom.

  Dalton flexed his muscles, his shoulders bulged like he had never seen before. Even his thighs looked thicker. His skin looked healthier, and his hands felt strong, like he could crack walnuts just for fun.

  It was only looking down at himself, and admiring his new body that another screen image appeared before his eyes.

  STATISTICS

  Dalton mentally acknowledged the ‘button’ hovering midair, but intentionally didn’t use any motion, to his satisfaction, it worked. The button on the HUD slid aside and revealed his personalized stat board

  STATS:

  LEVEL 1    HUMAN

  STRENGTH 10 +2

  AGILITY   12 +1

  DEXTERITY 12

  INTELLIGENCE 14 +2

  VITALITY   10

  LUCK    10 +2

  SKILLS

  STEALTH +1

  INSPECTION +1

  BASH +1

  Dalton guffawed. Is that the right word, guffaw? What exactly was a guffaw, a loud noise followed with an open mouth of incredulity, a boisterous unbelievable laugh, wait, was this what shock felt like? Focusing on trivial details because your whole reality had seemingly been turned upside down, most everyone you know might be gone or probably was dead, and you now appeared to be what in all aspects was a live action game.

  Having looked down once again at himself, the screen immediately dissolved as soon as his attention was drawn elsewhere, at least it was instinctual and wouldn’t distract him at inopportune times. Having reached up and grasped his biceps, and pecs, yup, they felt a bit bigger. The changes might not be noticeable to anyone else, but it was Dalton’s body and he knew it better than anyone. The level up had given him extra stat points. It was all clicking into place, a mind boggling, unbelievable, desk-licking crazy place, but at least one Dalton was beginning to understand.

  “Hey Katie? Katie, you dressed yet, I need you to try something out.” Dalton called out crossing the landing to her bedroom door where he lightly rapped. Without waiting, Dalton pushed the door open, nothing he hadn’t seen before anyway right? Katie was dressed, but lying on her bed next to her still empty bag, bawling heavily into one of her pillows, she attempted to muffle her near hysteric and gasping sobs.

  “Katie, there, there. It’s going to be alright. You got me, right? Look at me, I’m a badass.” Dalton rubbed her back, but she didn't even turn her head.

  Dalton opened his mouth to attempt to coerce her back into moving when a terrible banging occured at the door. Dalton’s head snapped forward and he stood abruptly pushing Katie’s head slightly off kilter.

  Katie’s head darted up and she looked at Dalton instead.

  “Oh GOD! What is it, oh no oh no.” She whimpered a bit pathetically and her eyes were already bloodshot and swollen from crying. She looked like she'd been crying for hours when Dalton knew it was only a matter of minutes.

  Whispering adroitly, “Katie, pretty sure monsters wouldn’t knock,” Dalton stood up and quickly headed downstairs into the living room. The floor was carpeted but he still attempted to be silent so as not to alert the knocker that anyone was there. Dalton walked backward into the kitchen and grabbed the improvised spear from the corner it had been leaning against. The butcher knife was firmly taped onto the five foot shaft. It allowed a ranged attack which at least the goblins shouldn’t be able to penetrate with their stubby arms.

  The entirety of the time the knocking hadn’t abated, but as Dalton approached the door he could hear only what he could describe as whispered shouting.

  “Daaaalltton, Kaaattiee. PLEASE, let us in PLEASE QUICKLY, they're coming. We saw the blinds moving, someone is in there, I KNOW IT.” The voices were a deep baritone, masculine, and more than a little familiar, whereas the feminine voice was a smooth alto, and talking much more quietly.

  Opening the door ever so slowly, a burly man of about six foot one, black hair and beard, crystal blue eyes that shone under bushy black eyebrows, and a girl of olive-skinned heritage tumbled in, shoving Dalton aside, they shut the door firmly behind themselves, a little loudly for Dalton’s taste, but they turned both locks and crumpled to the floor in a dogpile of limbs, sweat, and relieved panting.

  Dalton had no idea who the girl was, but the man, well that was Derek. His neighbor.

  Chapter 5

  Dalton returned to the blinds to peer out, the streets were filling up with goblins, and what he could only assume was the creature Katie had seen. It seemed to be leading the goblins, directing them into search parties. This did not look good.

  “Were you spotted? Where did you come from? How long have you been awake?” Dalton rapidly fired questions at the still breathless duo. Katie came halfway down the stairs holding a metal bat in her hands. She was visibly trembling but seemed to have pulled herself together somewhat.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Me and Cece…..we woke up a few hours ago. The tv, phones, electricity…..nothing was working. We thought it was a black out.” Derek’s breath was returning and his speaking became more regulated. Cece was glancing around the house like a frightened squirrel, but she seemed observant, like she was already checking for escape routes.

  Dalton found himself liking her immediately.

  Derek stood up, upon seeing him, Katie dropped the bat and ran to him. Throwing her arms around his neck she sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder.

  Dalton glanced at Cece, she seemed annoyed by the expression of vulnerability and he felt that Cece was a very independent person usually. Katie and Derek had been friends for years and years and it was sheer coincidence he had also been their neighbor this year. Derek bartended at the restaurant next to Katie’s, so they also knew each other loosely by way of happy hour and the bottle.

  He was an accomplished jiu jitsu fighter and was well liked by everyone, constantly maintaining an affable manner, Derek was regarded as one of the more popular service industry workers downtown.

  Cece stood up, she was lithe like a ballerina, maybe 5”9. She looked to be of Lebanese or middle eastern descent. She was nothing short of stunning. Her foreign looks, sensual lips, and straight, glossy black hair made her look like an egyptian goddess, stepping out of the Nile to grant one man a boon, if they could but tame her. Looking her up and down, it was only then Dalton realized she held a long knife in her hand that had the vestiges of black dried blood on it.

  “Did you kill one?” He shot off before thinking twice. Cece started, and looked him up and down with a more discerning eye than before. She soaked in his uniform and demeanor, it was hard to tell but Dalton was sure there was a hint of approval behind her long lashes as she took in his full regalia.

  Derek was prying Katie off of him, he was continually mumbling soothing words and quietly telling her it's going to be ‘okay’.

  “Dalton, have you been out there yet?” Derek made eye contact with him, he looked imploringly, silently begging for him to assuage his fears that he wasn't crazy. Dalton only knew the feeling all too well, because he was still living in it. Derek’s eyebrows raised questioningly, he didn’t know if they would believe him.

  A sigh escaped his lips, “Yes, I saw them, the monsters, the carnage, the square downtown is a bloodbath. I saw what I could only describe as a goblin attacking and killing random people,” He glanced at Cece, she was nodding slightly, poised on the brink of violence, and Derek seemed…boisterous?

  Grinning sheepishly, the deep V-neck of his shirt revealed the curly black hair on his chest, he rubbed his head aggressively, satisfied with his tacit agreement. It would be discrediting Derek to say he was childlike, but his aura of innocence did not dissuade anyone of these notions upon first appearances.

  Katie had plopped down onto the couch and was watching the conversation unravel, her head tilted and she seemed slightly lost, how he imagined someone watched a sitcom from the audience when there was a live filming, but they had never seen the show before.

  “Ya, Cece and I were supposed to be leaving early to go explore the park, do some light hiking, but my car wouldn’t start. It was then we heard some shouting. The neighbor behind us, Bill, saw him.” Derek gulped, he was visibly having a hard time saying the words, he clearly rewatched the memory video in his head. “He was already dead…it was awful.”

  “A goblin? Like a green skinned child with fangs and talons?” Dalton instantly regretted using the word child, but the image it conveyed was accurate enough.

  “No, it was a giant beetle. The size of a big dog. It was eating his face.” Cece’s first words. Man, she should be a poet.

  “Did you kill it?” He asked, darting a quick glance between the bright blue eyes, and the dark brown ones.

  “I grabbed the biggest rock I could find and tried to smash it.” Derek quickly explained, “The rock practically bounced off its shell, dude!” Derek was always the ‘dude’ and ‘bro’ sort, remember, you gotta love him.

  “So than Cece,” Derek pointed at the exotic beauty, “oh ya this is my friend from back home. Cece, this is Katie and Dalton. They both work downtown too, and ya, they’re my neighbors,” end of the world and Derek was still cognizant enough for introductions,“Anyway, Cece whacked the thing with this huge stick, it plops onto its back like a turtle, man, legs just kicking. Cece pulls out a knife and tried to stab it, it barely nicks its shell man. So I grabbed this rock and this time smashed it right in the belly.”

  Derek exaggerated the story with assertive gesticulations, reproducing the motions for those of us apparently incapable of visualizing what happened, even mimicking a turtle on its back.

  “So anyway, the shell just cracks man. Purple ooze started coming out, and it kept kicking for like five minutes, then it stopped, that's when I leveled up.” He finished his story with a shrug and a monumental revelation.

  “You leveled up?” Katie added to the conversation, still disbelieving the weird gaming aspect of the whole situation. Dalton couldn’t really fault her for her bafflement, but having already explained it once he was getting a bit tired of the repetition.

  “Ya, like a game, popped up right in front of my eyes, a personal interface with the game, a Terminal. Checked my stats and said I gained Strength, Vitality, and gained a skill called ‘Rage’. Cece also leveled up at the same time. She gained Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and skills in Stealth and Piercing” he finished explaining casually for the silent beauty.

  Cece, meanwhile, strided to the kitchen and inspected the back porch. She jiggled the lock and ensured it was secure. Dalton felt slightly mesmerized by her swaying hips. Derek noticed and grinned mischievously at him.

  “Ahmmph, well, so you know, I um killed a goblin. I leveled up too.” Dalton confided, hiding his slight blush behind a cough and his hand, “I gained Strength, Agility, Dexterity, and Intelligence. I got Stealth as well, like Cece, but I also got Magical Inspection.” Saying it out loud made him feel proud, as if he was bragging a little, which he guessed he was in a way.

  “So what's the plan, Stan?” Cece chimed in. Her voice even sounded sultry.

  “Well, first of all, my name is Dalton once again,” Cece offered a lopsided grin, “we were planning on cruising out of here, but it sounds like the cars aren’t working either, huh?” he asked redundantly.

  “Ya man, no bueno,” Derek answered anyway.

  “Well, I still think we should get out of highly populated areas. No matter how you cut it, we should be safer off in the country. Wider views means we won’t get snuck up on. Food might be a bit harder to come by, but we could try our hand at hunting.” Elaborating quickly on the improvised plan, he felt a bit like a fraud. Stepping into a leadership role came naturally, due to his years of managerial experience, but this was life or death. He could get someone killed with one bad decision, but the way Katie was looking at him and Derek’s hopeful eyes, he plowed on ahead. Someone had to at least provide goals, but he was more than willing to listen to any advice.

  “I’ve been hunting before with my dad. He used to take us out into the woods, we would use bow and arrows, set snares, and try to hunt deer. Never got anything, but I know how to skin a deer and get the meat, technically.” Katie chimed in, with a most surprising and useful talent. He had known she was raised in the country but not quite so….well country.

  “Well, that's all good but what are we hunting with, how are we going to get there, what are we going to do about the monsters along the way, and well, ya?” Cece expertly blew a lock of hair out of her face whilst crossing her arms. The knife was still clutched in her hand, and the metallic point gleamed dangerously close to her face. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Cece’s right, we have to stock up. Arm ourselves, if this is a game, then we need to go shopping.” Derek said this affirmatively, with the conviction of the optimistic.

  “What about Dick’s Sporting Goods, it's off the highway and we can follow the road out into more rural areas outside of the city. They have tons of stuff we can use, sports gear, fishing and camping equipment, and all sorts of stuff.” Dalton threw over his shoulder while heading into the kitchen. Grabbing the last few knives that looked usable in a fight he handed one to Katie and Derek. The other two he tucked into his belt.

  “We can swing by my place and grab a few more backpacks. I have a few for camping and hiking. We can also take some of my gear, but I don't have much.” Derek added.

  “OK, sounds like a plan. Are we waiting on anything else?” Cece punctuated her question with a light clap.

  Dalton glanced over at the shivering Katie. He handed over the long spear hoping at the least that him and Derek could handle a monster up close, and she could maybe pokey poke and help out from afar. Cece appeared dangerously calm and wielded her long dagger with ease. Glancing over at Derek, he brandishedwa his knife like a villain in a bad cartoon movie. His white teeth flashed childishly as he tossed the knife from hand to hand, almost missing it on the second toss.

  Katie and Cece giggled, and even Dalton couldn’t suppress a begrudging smile.

  “Idiot. We need to get you a bigger weapon…bro!” Cece quipped with more levity than we had seen from her, and this got a real laugh from all of them.

  As the laughter died down, reality began to settle in like a heavy, damp wet blanket on bonfire night, on the last day of camp.

  Dalton made slow, intense eye contact with all three members of his party, they all looked around and a net of comradery fell upon them, gently, he was sure all of them felt it, a link connecting them, an empathic connection, tying their fates together. Cece flicked her wrist and the blade glinted in the light as she broadened her shoulders and she extended her index finger down the length of the back of the long blade, Derek flipped his knife point down and finally looked serious as he bobbed slightly side to side like a boxer, his brows knitting down over his eyes in a menacing glare, Katie straighened her back and gripped the spear with two hands holding the point up and away from her, cinching her pack a little tighter. She looked about as ready as she ever would.

  The PerTerm bonded them all together. Tying their fight experience into a firm knot.

  About to turn towards the door, Dalton subconsciously flipped the bat in his hand, and with more dexterity than he had ever exhibited before in his life, the bat made a fluid, full rotation that whistled slightly in the quiet of the living room. The three of them all grinned from ear to ear.

  “Let's go kill some stuff.”

  Chapter 6

  Looking back at the last half hour, he had time believing everything that had happened and wondered again if he was hallucinating or going mad. Either way, he was going to continue on his path.

  Dalton took the lead. They decided to go out the back, and down the stairs to the alleyway and avoided the major streets out front. They crossed one yard over, moving in a circle with backs to one another. At Derek’s back gate, Cece and Derek mounted the stairs quietly and let themselves in. Katie and Dalton stood guard outside, practically holding their breath looking up and down the street, constantly looking for any sign of motion or color.

  They heard a screech at the same time, a loud piercing bird-like sound filled the sky. It came from a distance, but sounded huge [reverberating like a deep sonic boom dragged over the sky]. Some deep psychic resonance within the ‘caw’ instinctively let him know that this creature was not to be trifled with.

  Dalton looked up only to see a silhouette disappearing into the canopy, the size of an airplane after having recently taken off from the airstrip. Being further away, it must be massive. It also definitely wasn’t anything that they found on earth before the “storm”. It had four wings that beat asymmetrically, huge gusts of cloud were blown away while others were wrapped around the body of the beast as it ascended higher into the ever shifting sky. It looked as if it had feathers but it also was shining in the dull light, as if it was made of metal.

  The flying beast quickly disappeared from view, and Dalton could only thank whatever higher powers out there that he would not have to face anything of that magnitude any time soon. Or ever actually.

  He ducked down slightly behind the cars parked behind the townhomes and pulled Katie down with him.

  “Best not start any fights we aren’t sure to win,” He whispered into Katie’s ear, to which she nodded vigorously, her lip trembled with unspoken fears and tension and he’s terrified that at any moment she was going to collapse in hysterics. “We got this, deep breaths. In through your nose, out through your mouth,” he offered advice whilst providing a running example. Nothing like empirical training.

  Soon afterward, Derek and Cece came bounding down the stairs. Each had packs strapped to their backs, in addition to having opted for similar garb to his own, having donned dark, tight-fitting athletic gear, layers of vests and pullovers, and boots and hiking apparel. Derek had a large black and gray cloth shemagh wrapped around his neck that could easily convert into a mask or head wrap, fully adorned with a chunk of his muscular chest peeking out from underneath, and a sleeveless fishing vest with a plethora of pockets.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  He’s paired this with what looks like spandex hiking pants and a pair of shorts thrown over them. In addition to this, Derek had slung an even thicker coil of rope diagonally across his shoulder and chest. Dalton had just hung his from his waist, thinking he wanted to look like Indiana Jones when clearly going full Chewbacca was way cooler, not to mention utilitarian.

  Cece on the other hand looked like a yoga instructor and a monk crossbred and she was their prodigal child. She had on skin tight black pants with dark brown hiking boots and dark brown socks that were almost leg warmer high. She sported a tight, black form fitting pullover like his own but it had a loop that wrapped about each of her middle fingers, stopping the sleeve from riding up, her long dagger was tucked into a thick dark gray belt cinched around her waist, but over this she was sporting a nearly floor length, sleeveless black shawl, that looked both billowy cool and blanket warm. Her hair had even been quickly braided and tied back. They both looked pretty superhero-cool in his opinion, but so did he looking down at his garb.

  Glancing at Katie, he literally laughed out loud, quickly stifling the outburst with his knuckles. The makeshift spear shook in her grip, and she leaned against the shaft that she had planted into the ground. She looked miserable, her hair was disheveled and hanging all about her head, a black, off-brand sweater with a ‘Hello Kitty’ logo loosely covered her torso and she paired this with faded black jeans and tennis shoes. She had on a bright pink backpack that might as well have said ‘eat me’.

  He hadn’t meant to get the ball started but Cece and Derek both snickered loudly into their hands.

  “You know, fuck you guys. I didn’t know we were gonna go all ninja outfits. Ya’ll barely gave me a minute to get ready, I totally could have pulled off ninja.” She hissed this, knowing not to get too loud, which only threw fuel on the fire as the three of them could barely restrain the chuckles that kept dying to burst out.

  A howl in the distance quickly sobered the group of their moment of normality. The four of them hunkered down. Derek scooted over to his car and opened the trunk, he pulled out a large, black crowbar that looked solid.

  “Range enough for you big guy,” Derek said, having winked at him suggestively while gripping the shaft of the crowbar. Cece giggled again, he felt as if he had been left out of some joke that only Cece and Derek knew.

  “Ok, we know Dicks Sporting Good store is south of here and we have to head past downtown to make it there. We know that section of the city is overrun and crawling with those goblins and dog lizards, so we skirt around,” he said.

  “Whey trek through the suburbs, cross back over and follow along the highway until we get to the shopping outlets. Stay low, stay quiet, make it alive, kill what we have to do along the way, gear up, and then we plan from there.” Dalton said this quickly, and with confidence. He’d been coming up with it since they were waiting for Derek and Cece to get dressed.

  “Kobolds” Derek stated.

  “Huh?” Katie said, throwing herself on that grenade.

  “Those are most likely kobolds. They show up in most games, lower level monsters, but sometimes they have magic, use weapons, you know, mid level shit” Derek said all this casually. He’d played a decent amount of games, but more of his knowledge came from shows and movies, Derek was a legit gamer. Yes!!!

  “Magic? MAGIC? That's a thing too?” Katie’s voice kept escalating even in their dangerous situation.

  “Ya most likely, I mean look at the rest of the world. Magic doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me anymore, and if we follow the logistics of gaming, it's going to start happening the sooner we level up. And we do that by MURDER,” he said this last part growling under his breath. Derek seemed to be enjoying himself, and secretly, Dalton was ecstatic too. He had never felt so alive. Being on the brink of death could do that to a man, or a woman, or a non-identifying, non-binary gender, he guessed.

  “You level up by gaining experience. Experience comes from killing monsters, but also from completing quests or figuring puzzles out. Things like that. Leveling usually happens pretty quickly at first but it exponentially slows down and becomes harder and harder. But you typically get benefits and become stronger and stronger. It's a bell curve thing.” Cece with the addendum was clearly trying to explain things to her fellow female-in-arms.

  “Ya, Katie, check your stats.”

  “LEVEL 0. Human. Everything else is blank.” Katie looked disheartened. Their earlier conversation must have finally indicated she had to play to become stronger. She blanched at the thought, as they all saw it race across her visage.

  “Don’t worry. We don’t plan on fighting anything that doesn’t seem easy. But we still should. I want to see what else we can get.” Dalton said this and attempted to pull up his experience tab.

  Nothing appeared before his eyes but he had a mental response deep in his psyche, a feeling of a bucket that was already more than half full, maybe more of a feeling of contentment, his satiated feeling would be greatly increased in this amount of experience.

  Well, it was hard to describe, but that was the closest he thought he could get to illuminating the feeling. He gathered that he was almost level two. The goblin was a decent amount of experience.

  “Hey, try and search for your experience points. Tell me what you feel.” He asked Cece and Derek.

  Both kind of have a glazed look in their eyes, both returned almost instantly.

  Derek responded first, “It feels like I'm hungry and I need to eat this much to get full.” He held his hands a far space apart, which although amusing to watch him flex, did nothing to elucidate how far along he was to leveling.

  “I’m pretty sure we barely leveled, we have the full amount to go, but it doesn’t feel like too far,” Cece’s description was way more informative.

  “So you shared the experience for the beetle because you killed it together, and the experience was just enough to level up, while my solo goblin gave me that much and more than half.”

  Interestingly, he was pretty sure the four of them were in a party now, and all experience would be doled out evenly. So technically, if they made a kill they could drag Katie up with them.

  He was itching to test these theories but also terrified of, well, dying. Dying usually sucked, he assumed.

  “Ok we should start moving, we head north and then east. Circle around through the neighborhoods, scavenge along the way if it seems safe, and start heading south once we are a few blocks from where it crosses downtown. Agreed?” Everyone nodded.

  They were walking in the eerie half light that was like a dim day, it hadn’t seemed to change at all, but it had only been a few hours since he had woken up, maybe the weather would shift in a few hours. It wasn’t long before they found their first monster. The screams in the distance slowly died down as ruined cars and fires adorned their way.

  Resting on the branch of a large dogwood tree was a massive butterfly, its wingspan was two feet across, and the colors were radioactively bright along its wings and antennae, the colors seemed to shift in the light creating a luminous camouflage effect, and the organic tissue appeared more like scales than anything else. The butterfly’s wings slowly opened and closed, and the butterfly seemed pacifistic and non-threatening, even when he approached for a closer look. Expecting the monster to react to its aggro zone, he stood ready with his bat, but the butterfly continued to slowly open and close its wings.

  “Be careful dude, beautiful things can still be really deadly, I mean, check me out.” Derek snickered at his own joke.

  “Oh please, you’re ruggedly handsome, big difference,” Cece added, “now Dalton is beautiful.”

  Trying his best not to blush, Dalton reached forward with his bat, and as it neared within a few inches the wings suddenly jolted open and a spray of dust puffed out like a smoke bomb. They were all caught in the cloud and began coughing violently, attempting to swat the beast with his crowbar, Derek connected with what must have been the tree, as his arms rang like a struck bell.

  He could hear shouting but it faded into the distance, as he became:

  delirious….tired….apathetic?

  He couldn’t be bothered to find the right word. He drifted down to the welcoming pavement of the sidewalk and sparse grass, his head rested lightly on his bicep. The shouting became a thing of the past…..drifting, his thoughts became cotton candy, and the air was the rain, dissolving his every whim and desire…sleep beckoned him….sleeping….was bad…shouldn’t be sleeping……

  What's wrong with me?

  STATUS:   ASLEEP/CONFUSED

  The butterfly did this, he can't go to sleep, he could barely get his thoughts together. The game, the party, he must wake up.

  His Personal Terminal felt like it gave him a mental bitch slap. Jerking up off the ground, he saw the butterfly was zipping around the party, apparently pretty pissed off at being disturbed. Still beautiful, but definitely angry, it flitted about in a semi-circular pattern, appearing to be defending the tree.

  Derek looked to be peacefully snoozing beside him, a trickle of drool was making its slow escape from his open mouth, Cece was staring off into space, blinking slowly like a cat but still standing somehow, and Katie was the only one out of blast range and she was now waving her spear over her head attempting to strike the butterfly.

  He was overwhelmed by a surge of adrenaline and the effects of the Sleep spell seemed to wear off in a matter of seconds once his consciousness had become aware of the ever-engrossing delusion of exhaustion created by the purple butterfly dust.

  Picking the bat off the ground beside him, Dalton kipped up to his feet, using only his legs and core strength to right himself. Quickly judging the distance from the butterfly to Katie’s next swing, and accessing his newfound skills, he sprinted at the dogwood the butterfly seemed to be protecting. Jumping and managing to place both his feet almost shoulder high, he kicked off with both legs twisted in the air, and having judged the distance almost too short with his jump skills, he swung the bat and connected squarely with the butterfly’s torso.

  It exploded in a cloud of dust and insect carapace. Glittery scales of rainbow hues sprinkled around him. The scene was beautiful and sad, but also thrilling. He tried not to grin stupidly. He was marveling at his newfound agility when his PerTerm popped up.

  LEVEL GAINED

  Dalton ‘whooped’ and punched the air. He felt invigorated, like he could flip, and at this point he probably could. Quickly looking around, the death of the butterfly had not apparently lessened the effects on his party members.

  Reaching down to Derek, he began to shake his shoulders. Gripping Derek’s shoulders he shook him harder, man Derek was heavy. His height was misleading to his density.

  Katie likewise was shaking Cece. Cece came to quickly, blinking a few times furiously, then swiping at her eyes and nose roughly. Katie looked relieved and the spear sagged in her grip.

  Looking down on Derek, he gave him a much more violent shake, and to his dismay, Derek continued to snore lightly. Dalton did not see it coming, but quick as lightning, Cece’s hand reached around his shoulder and…

  ‘SMACK!’

  Cece’s hand connected with Derek’s scruffy cheek with a loud crack that echoed across the empty streets. His head flopped heavily to one side. Derek started and looked up, seeing Dalton’s face upon waking, Derek proceeded to give him a pretty solid smack back.

  “How dare you take liberties sir, I am a LADY!” Derek said in his best Victorian accent, only to be swiftly dumped back onto the ground while chuckling mirthfully.

  Dalton and Derek both stood up, brushing the leaves and dirt off their backsides.

  “If you two are quite done flirting, what do you think that is all about?” Katie said with a sniff of impatience and pointed with the end of her spear at what appeared to be a floating book. The group, as one, turned their attention to the loot. The hazy hologram-like aspect let him know this was another overlaid vision, but this one; all of them could see. The book was thick, bound in leather and engraved with runes along the edges and border, it gave off a purple-sky blue sheen of light, an inviting aura that indicated no danger. It was more of a tome, a spellbook!

  Katie, in either an act of complete bravery or stupidity, reached and grabbed the book deftly out of the air without much hesitation, much to Dalton's envy before he could grab it. The grimoire stopped glowing and immediately became corporeal. The weight clearly shifted in her hands as she caught it and had to adjust to the heavier mass. Looking at the page, we all crowded around behind her.

  SPELLBOOK

  SPELL: SLEEP

  CONCENTRATED SPELL EFFECT.

  6 FOOT DISTANCE.

  PUTS TARGET TO SLEEP, CONFUSED, OR DIZZY.

  LEARN SPELL?

  The words floated in their vision screen, just out of touch. Dalton was kicking himself, he expected something like this to happen, and Katie goes and gets the first spell.

  “Told you magic would be real” Derek unknowingly rubbed salt into his gaping emotional wound.

  “Ya, try and learn it, see what happens.” Cece offered with the most asinine advice ever.

  “Ok, here goes…” Katie concentrated on the book, and eventually shifted the huge book into one arm and attempted to tap the words.

  “All it says is that you are unable to learn the spell.” Katie said this quietly, petulance ringing in her tone.

  “Maybe you need to be at a higher level?” Derek responded.

  Thank you, Derek.

  “But I Leveled from the butterfly,’ Katie looked around like we made the decisions around here.

  “Well, I leveled as well. I'm two now.” Dalton said this matter of factly, no inflection at all, “maybe I should try, we could really use it on our travels.” He added like a dollop of whipped cream on top.

  “Ya try, we haven’t reached hit Level two yet, I could tell we all gained experience, but Derek and

  I are still lagging behind you.” Cece with some sound reasoning if it be said.

  Quickly glancing at his stats, realization set in that he would not be allocating his points, but that these decisions were apparently made for them

  LEVEL 2          HUMAN

  STATS

  STR +2

  AGI + 2

  DEX +1

  INT +3

  VIT +2

  LUCK +2

  SKILLS

  BASH +!

  STEALTH +2

  INSPECTION +2

  BLUDGEONING +1

  DIPLOMACY +1

  SPELLS

  …

  Well three points roughly per level, but that apparently was up for some cosmic discussion. Not bad, stealth went up. Making sure he kept skulking basically everywhere he went was a must. He assumed bludgeoning skill came from smashing that butterfly with a bat. His parkour skills were coming along nicely as well. So skills could be achieved and spells learned?

  “Let's try this out”.

  Taking the book from Katie’s hands she bent down and retrieved her spear quickly, all of them consistently glanced around the quiet neighborhood streets running adjacent to the larger downtown routes, scanning for danger.

  The book was heavy, and felt like it was humming with pent up energy, similar to a large engine or electrical equipment that had a field you could feel in your bones.

  He cracked open the book, it apparently only opened to the center page, and there the writing materialized once again.

  SPELLBOOK

  SPELL: SLEEP        AFFINITY:

  PSYCHIC

  CONCENTRATED SPELL EFFECT.

  6 FOOT DISTANCE.

  PUTS TARGET TO SLEEP, CONFUSED, OR DIZZY

  LEARN SPELL?

  Yes.

  The book dissolved into particles and purple ash and floated away, as this happened Dalton was flooded with a vast array of knowledge. What felt like years of study, crammed into a quick gigabyte of information which had then been downloaded in a matter of seconds.

  His eyes hurt and the front of his skull began pounding. Distant memories of schooling, learning the various incomprehensible words for sleep, confusion, daze, and many of its tangents, in languages he could never have known or heard before, but suddenly made sense, like watching a movie and putting on the english-dubbed subtitles.

  It all became clear, memories of being a butterfly were downloaded. The waking from an egg, pupae, sleeping in a cocoon, the metamorphosis into wakefulness again. The fine powder and the innate psychic deterrent that the butterfly emitted to protect its future progeny. The sleep it induced, all of it rushed into his cortex and memory banks.

  Just like that it was over. The pounding headache receded into a dull throb, and even that quickly became moot. He realized he had fallen to his knees and was attempting to hold in his eyes and brains by grabbing his skull. He once again pulled up his stats.

  LEVEL 2         Class: Mage

  HUMAN: Novitiate

  STATS

  STR +2

  AGI + 3

  DEX +2

  INT +4

  LUCK +3

  SKILLS

  BASH +1

  STEALTH +2

  INSPECTION +1

  BLUDGEONING +1

  DIPLOMACY +1

  SPELLS

  SLEEP  LVL 1     AFFINITY: PSYCHIC

  “It says I got it.” He exuded, gushing.

  Derek slapped his back with his meaty paw and Cece wished him congratulations on leveling and becoming a mage. Katie looked a bit put out, but offered a smile and congratulations eventually.

  He could not wait to try it out.

  “Let's keep moving, we know what we're up against and we know how to get stronger. Let's use this knowledge to our advantage. Everyone good to keep moving?” He said as a stronger feeling of bravado suffused him, and the stat boost had him feeling a little too invincible. Plus, he could now put anyone or anything to sleep, theoretically.

  Be humble, Dalton, above all, stay alive, he thought wryly to himself.

  Most of the day had gone, seeing as they hiked through the Savannah neighborhoods and countryside a few, cautious miles. The eerie lights in the sky still undulated in bruised colors and unnatural hues, it was hard to keep track of time. Long stretches of grassland and large copses of woods riddled the countryside.

  The once urbanized city had become a thing of forests and rolling plains with deep grasses.

  They decided to bunk down, it's muggy and the night barely cooled down as they took the items of gear from Derek and Cece’s rucksacks and tried to make themselves comfortable. They all fell into an uneasy and apprehensive bundle, never truly getting any good rest.

  Chapter 7

  The party followed the main roads on a parallel, but opted to stay off on the sides trekking through the bushes or parks when available. The sounds of screaming and carnage had faded into silence, and they were engulfed by the sound of Mother Earth.

  There was no shortage of beasts and monsters, but the semi-sapient ones seemed to have gathered more downtown as they suspected. At one point they jaunted through a park. They found another butterfly perched on a dogwood tree again. It was their third kill since leaving the condos. He began to slide his bat from the tight space between his back and his pack and conjured his new spell, Derek sprinted ahead and just smashed the butterfly against the tree before it could so much as flutter, with his crowbar of smashing, causing a plume of pink and purple to erupt into the atmosphere.

  Derek’s face was completely covered by his shemagh, save his eyes, as he was enveloped by a cloud of dust and scales. He waved his hand about, fanning the dust away from his face, and laughed quietly.

  “Oh come on, I wanted to see if my spell works against them or if they’re naturally immune, it's useful to know these things.” Dalton said this a bit childishly but couldn’t take it back.

  “I’m sure we’ll see more soon.” Cece responded like a mother consoling a bratty kid.

  Katie had wandered off slightly to the side, using her spear as a walking staff, she stopped and was looking closely at the ground, when her left leg suddenly disappeared into the ground. One second she was upright, and then she was crotch deep with her right leg bent at an uncomfortable angle at best.

  The group rushed over as she screamed in surprise, but what hopefully wasn’t pain.

  “HELP! Get me out, I can feel something down there, it's on my foot,“ her voice was squealing, she's panicking and her breathing was increasing at a rapid rate. Derek and him dropped their weapons and grabbed each one of her arms, Cece stood behind her and tried to lift her straight up by her armpits, she lifted uneventfully because Katie was firmly implanted in the ground as the worm ate away at her leg.

  “One, two, THREE” He whisper-shouted it just audibly enough over Katie’s increasingly more panicked screeches.

  All three of them yanked on her and she popped free. Lo and behold though, there was a huge earthworm-asaur?....attached to her leg, no let me clarify, her entire leg was in its mouth and the muscular mandibles around its circular maw was creeping up her leg inch by inch, slowly ingesting the entire thing.

  You could even see the shape of her foot outlined by its thin membrane of gray flesh. It had scales and spikes running along the length of its sinuous body. It must have been three feet long but judging on its ever increasing ability to contort and conform to new shapes, it wasn’t a stretch of imagination to visualize it eating her whole.

  *Dalton Side Note: You see what I did there, with the stretch comment, inner monologue jokes, just wanted to point out that I like to find the humor in any situation, but seriously, this thing is probably going to eat Katie.

  Back on track, so the three of them sort of just stared for a moment, digesting the scene in front of them (Eh? EH??).

  Katie gave an even higher pitched scream than before and they all awoke from their shocked stupors and hopped into action. Cece pulled her dagger out but hesitated upon cutting the thing, it was clearly very close to Katie’s leg and they didn’t want to hurt Katie. Bashing it was not an option.

  Cece’s quick thinking showed itself when she placed the dagger flush against Katie’s upper thigh, allowing the worm to begin to clamp around the blade.

  Katie was now moaning and she seemed as if she was in great pain, but trying her best not to scream. Derek was lightly tapping the thing with his crowbar trying to startle it per chance. The muscular torso only tightened.

  “Everyone cover your mouths, I’m not sure what's going to happen,” he proclaimed, beginning to utilize his new-found spell. The memories came swirling to the forefront of his brain, like a movie theater, the film began running on autopilot and he began to cast Sleep. Deftly waving his hands and a deep mumbling of arcane words emanated from vocal chords which sounded as if they were hitting many octaves at once, light pink and purple mandalas dashed along his wrists into his hand, and a faint aura of purple hung about his head.

  A final punctuation and a sharp gesture at the head of the worm and a purplish ray of dust jetted from his hands and hit the worm square in its distended face.

  The previously tight grip of the muscular mouth slackened visibly, and Cece, whose blade was now half consumed by the creature, wrenched the dagger up and turned the blade simultaneously. There was a spray of bloody orange ichor from the head of the thing which now had a much wider smile. Cece winced at the spray of gore on her face but otherwise seemed unperturbed.

  Derek quickly yanked the carcass off Katie’s now melted limb. It looked like someone had dripped acid along the entirety of her leg. The jeans had proven mostly resistant, and only a few holes showed scorched flesh.

  “Is it still burning, should you take your pants off?” Derek chimed in with the most helpful inflection to his tone he could muster, the mischievous twinkle in his eye couldn’t be suppressed though.

  “No, it stopped as soon as you pulled it off.” Katie sat up whilst rolling her eyes a little and rubbed her leg, twitching the fabric off the melty parts of her skin. It was rather ghastly to look at, but she seemed toughened by the experience. She grabbed the spear and used it to help her stand up, awkwardly positioning the spear in a vertical fashion and sliding up the length of it.

  They looked at the carcass of the worm, it began to decay rapidly and dissolved back into the ground leaving nothing behind, not even a tidbit that could be worthwhile if they were on their adventuring quests.

  “Let's go, but look out for newly turned patches of earth. That’s where it was waiting.” Cece poignantly reminded the struggling band of adventurers, as she indicated the freshly overturned soil.

  Dalton nodded approvingly at Katie’s brave display and Cece’s observation, Katie slightly hobbled behind the group, staying close.

  Only a few steps later, Cece discovered a freshly turned hole but it was a safe enough distance not to trigger the worm’s trap mechanism. She leaned over and tapped the ground slightly, ever closer, trying to elicit a response, they all approached slowly, walking light-footed across the freshly mown grass of the park.

  “Ok, get ready everyone, Katie stay a safe distance away, get ready to use the spear if things go squirrely, Derek, your up to bat, we both don’t want to be swingin at the same time, Cece, you trigger it, and then provide melee coverage if it gets any of us by some shitty swing of luck.” Dalton looked at everyone, they all nodded in understanding, moving into position, he readied his sleep spell just in case.

  Cece stomped the ground ever closer, about 10 inches away, the ground exploded upwards and the worm burst forth from the ground, its spikes twirled much more noticeably, obviously allowing it to traverse through the ground with ease. It swung its body left and right seeking prey, Cece pounced back with feline grace and Derek stepped forward at the same time swinging his crowbar like a baseball player. He hit the worm in the middle of its scaled body at what seemed to be right in the middle of its exposed two feet of segmented body, the skin didn't break, but the force of the strike pulled the worm the rest of the way out of the ground. Its tail was a spiked affair, with an excretion hole and everything.

  This worm was almost four feet long and it thrashed about like a fish out of water. The barbed, most-likely poisonous tail whipped about atrociously quick. He began casting sleep, waving his arms about as arcane circles formed about his feet and runes drifted along the ground in phosphorescent beauty and… SPLAT! Brick-orange ichor squirted up from the worm as Katie pierced its hide with her spear, wordlessly shouting at the top of her damn lungs.

  She pulled the blade out as it snagged and the worm shifted a bit, its tail flopped closer and it hissed a little, she stabbed again and again and again.

  Well, you get the point, cute girl gone crazy, ruin her juicy jeans will you?

  The sloggy mess that was Earthworm jim was now a messy pile of guts and slime.

  This time, another book appeared. This one was likewise a thick leather volume, but unlike before, it had a greenish aura around it, and the cover and spine were decorated with swooping spirals and sharp points.

  Katie once again snagged the book out of the air, and its green aura dissipated.

  Bitch, damn she’s quick.

  She popped open the book and they crowded her again.

  SKILLBOOK

  SKILL: PIERCING    LVL 1

  +1 TO PIERCING DAMAGE AGAINST TARGET.

  LEARN SKILL?

  Well, That's not that special.

  Cece, ever the diplomat, “You should take it Katie. That was your kill, and I’m guessing it gave you piercing as a skill because of how you killed it. I’ve already got it too.”

  Katie focused on the book, this time it did dissolve and she gripped her head quickly, squeezed her eyes shut and exclaimed, “Wow, that is not pleasant at allis it?” She shook the cobwebs from her head.

  I bet you spellbooks hurt worse.

  Dalton turned his inner eye towards his display screen and summoned his experience. He felt as if he was about a third of the way to Level Three. This quickly reminded him, “Hey how are your levels doing?”

  Derek and Cece glanced at each other knowingly.

  “We both just levelled dog, wassup Level Two in the house.” Derek paired this with some archaic hand/gang signs that he must have studied on MTV somewhere. Dalton could only assume he got a double major in music history and sociology.

  “So how are your stats and skills looking?” he inquired innocently, his voice raised slightly. Derek’s smile dropped as apparently he took talk of party dynamics very seriously. Apparently, seriously for him anyway.

  “I increased strength, vitality, and agility this time. No new skills and rage is still the same. Guess I need to work on that one, but I did gain bludgeoning damage. Guess I’m on the way to being King Tank.” Derek stated this, tucked his thumbs into his belt and poked his flat stomach out in efforts of looking like a dad. He guessed anyway.

  Geez, just giving it out like hotcakes, huh universe?

  “I bumped in Agility, Dexterity, and Vitality. I’m pretty sure getting hurt and surviving increases our life points. Based on my stats, I’m on the way to being DPS and melee combat with a rogue-ish nature.” Cece examined her blade and wiped the gunk off onto the grass.

  “So, like, are you a big gamer or what?” Katie, again, with the save. Took the words right out of his mouth.

  “Ya, I’ve played my fair share of games, RPG’s, WoW, first-person shooters, you know the usual dorky stuff.” Cece responded like a girl of her hotness often classified herself as a dork. Katie and Dalton exchanged impressed looks, and Derek responded, “I know, right?” He shrugged his eyebrows expertly.

  Chapter 8

  They were going to continue on foot through some more neighborhoods, but began picking off gargantuflies and wormasaurs (the names having been created by Derek, the latter by yours truly) as they continued along. They found a groove to say the least and felt all the safer for it. They decided as a group to comb the entire park and farm for experience. Derek or Cece would trigger the worms, and he would hit them with a sleep/stun spell. This usually resulted in easy pickings.

  Between Katie’s spear and piercing damage, Cece’s knife skills, and Derek’s incredible ability to smash, they began raking up experience points.

  The only real difficulty came from the beetle. It was, according to Cece and Derek, much smaller than the one they had killed in Bill’s driveway. Yet, when they triggered its aggro response, his sleeping spell bounced right off it.

  The beetle monster clearly had some spell or magic resistance, which they had not considered into a possible scenario. It was basically a repeat of their previous encounter that let them know how to handle the confrontation.

  Three gargantuflies, five wormasaurs, and one more beetle brought them all up a level and Katie two. She was about halfway to three, Cece and Derek were on the cusp, and he was about a fourth of the way through level three. His stat points again fell into agility, dexterity, and intelligence. He was fast becoming a stealthy wizard, which he was not mad at.

  Likewise, stealth and inspection had increased again. Bludgeoning stayed stagnant unfortunately. Sleep seemed to be improving, he could tell it was increasing in strength, speed, efficiency of casting, but it still took him about two to three seconds to cast.

  He had to improve these times, and if that meant solely using spells and ignoring weapon proficiency, he would do it. With this decision having been made, Dalton decided that his use of the bat would be purely defensive.

  Disappointingly, only one more skill book dropped from all these kills, and no loot that they could deem worthwhile from their bodies. The skill book was a passive ability for

  INCREASED INHERENT HEALING*.

  They all reasoned that Derek should get it, as useful as it may be, if they were going to tank him up, it was a necessity.

  Katie had gained some new skills with her Level two rise as well. She gained a proficiency in Woodcraft. This was apparently due to her knowledge that she had expressed about her rural upbringing, which the game had taken into account, even though she had yet to use it.

  Interesting, to say the least.

  Could one conjure skills into being by simply claiming they have said skill??? Or did they actually have to pre-exist. Dalton doubted that Katie was any sort of expert, but if she could conjure a skillbook he would likewise do the same.

  Questions for another time (as a small voice deep inside him began whispering “you’re the most powerful, handsome mage on the planet” on repeat).

  The party approached a railroad track, they were more than halfway to their destination if their rudimentary skills at geography had anything to say. The downtown district should be about a mile to their right as they trekked southward towards the highway.

  They moved quietly over the tracks, attempting not to shift the gravel underfoot, when Dalton heard a loud ‘yip’ reverberate from the trees.

  This was followed by a cackle and a bark.

  “Something wicked this way comes,” he let the group know in an ominous whisper.

  They all froze, indecision warred across almost everyone’s face. Cece looked agitated and…..hungry, Derek looked apprehensive, but not scared, Katie, well Katie looked bewildered, like she still couldn’t figure out if it was all a big joke, luckily she pulled back her hair at some point and looked slightly less crazy.

  “What should we do?” Cece whispered out of the side of her mouth.

  Derek’s response was quick and obvious, “Hide dumb dumb, til we know what the hell that is.”

  They quickly followed suit and dashed into the heavy bush opposite to the side they heard the sounds originating from. Ensuring he used as much stealth as possible, Dalton sneaked behind a bush with a crouched Derek as his partial support, Katie practically went fully prone with her spear splayed out beside her, gripped tightly in hand, and Cece ducked silently behind the bush next to them.

  In one of those nick of time moments, out of the adjoining treeline wandered a pack of three goblins, a mangy looking wilddog, and a kobold in a brown and green tunic with a bow and quiver strapped to his back. The party heard yips and barks from the group, who seemed to be having an argument, or their bestial communication just sounded that way.

  The kobold pointed left and right. Two of the goblins broke left and followed the tracks opposite their direction, the other goblin, the kobold, and dog came toward them.

  The dog was dirty, talking like caked-on mud, filth-all-over, visible fleas crawling on his snout disgusting. He felt sorry for the poor thing, probably abused, kept in captivity, starved!!

  That was until its head perked up and it sniffed the air.

  It had caught their scent.

  The beast must die!

  It was a split second decision, but he knew it was the right one. Whether that beast was tracking some other prey, it had clearly discovered something new indicating it was a hound of some sort. It had their scent and they would only lose the element of surprise if they waited.

  The other two goblins were roughly about thirty feet away, and now was the best time to strike.

  He began conjuring the sleep spell and stood up, revealing their location. Derek and Cece both looked ready and prepped, Katie didn’t move a muscle. The geometric arcane lines met upon his person, and the purple ray of sleep dust shot from his hands and struck the kobold directly in his snout. It was a small, concentrated burst of sleep powder, power?, and the kobold sneezed, coughed, and dropped like a bag of rocks.

  Yessss

  *Dalton side note: You might ask yourself, why not hit the mutated dog thing? Well, the kobold was clearly the owner and master of the mutated dog, and I figure he was the bigger threat, also he was wearing clothes, like a tunic, that's gotta mean something right? I wouldn’t say a boss but clearly the leader.

  The goblin looked at the prone form of the kobold leader, the dog was yapping something ferocious, but the leash was firmly attached to the kobold’s wrist, and although he budged with each lunge, the kobold was just too heavy to move. The goblin looked at him standing two heads taller than the bush.

  Dalton glanced upward toward the tracks, the other two goblins had turned around and saw their leader unconscious. They began running back, at this point the goblin looked at him and smiled an evil, wicked grin, but little did the goblin know, he had a barbarian.

  Derek stormed out of the brush yelling incoherently, the goblin who hadn’t perceived him yet stepped back and tripped on the kobold’s arm. The vicious-looking goblin began to teeter, and windmilled its arms attempting to catch its balance.

  Bad luck little guy, Derek proceeded to run up and smashed the goblins head in with his sturdy, black crowbar. It seemed Derek must have been raging, as the goblin’s frontal lobe was pulverized into paste and knocked about ten feet back. The wild dog was now within range and Derek, in his rage, seemed unaware, he attempted to use another sleep spell but it wouldn't form, and needed more time to recharge.

  Wow, should have seen this coming, cooldown times sucked.

  As the beast lunged at Derek, Cece slid into view and chucked her dagger at the beast's face. It slowed down, the dagger that is, the blade flipped end over end and it struck the snarling monster directly in the eye, and sunk down to the hilt in an amazing display of skill, even Cece seemed flabbergasted at the toss.

  The dog’s wild yapping ceased abruptly and it slammed into Derek’s thigh in a heap of dead.

  He exhaled a sigh of relief, but it was at this moment the goblins from up the track finally reached them. Cece dove to the side and Derek pulled his bar back, finally feeling his mana had recharged sufficiently, Dalton fired off another sleep spell and hit a goblin in the shoulder. The puff of smoke was close enough to slow him down, but he gagged and shook his head profusely as opposed to dropping into a coma.

  The effectiveness of the sleep spell seemed to be designated by the strength of mana he put into it, the directness and efficacy of the attack, and the mental fortitude of the guy being hit. The versatility of adjusting the potency of his spells by allowing varying inputs of mana was amazing, and created an even more complicated magic system than he had been aware possible.

  He filed this into his magical knowledge journal inside his head.

  Cece yanked her knife out of the dog’s eye socket and she met the confused goblin head on, well point on, as she rammed the blade into the smaller creature’s bony chest. There seemed to be little resistance and the goblin ‘eeked’ and then fell to the ground.

  The second goblin ran toward Derek with his bone knife drawn. Cece stood ready, but Derek called out, “I’ve got this!”

  With a snarl and a bark of anger, Derek swung the length of iron as the goblin just approached his arm’s swinging range. The bar connected with the goblin’s jaw, shearing it clean off in a spray of black ichor, the body spun about in the mimicry of a pirouette, and slumped to the ground.

  “YES! Woooh,” he couldn’t help but cry out in delight. Their first group fight was a success. The kobold began to groggily roll around. Oh ya, he wasn't dead yet.

  Katie ran out of the bushes screaming wildly, again with no thought to volume or covertness, and plunged her spear into the kobold’s body multiple times. He still stirred about nonetheless, and Cece, with no remorse, lifted its chin and slit its throat.

  OK, thanks for the assist, Katie, great timing

  LEVEL GAINED

  Looking at his stat board was slightly disappointing. His intelligence had increased by two, and thus he assumed his spell casting abilities were equally improved, and dexterity by one. Stealth and Inspection had also increased and Sleep felt as if it was leveling up, but aside from these boosts, nothing else was evident.

  Checking experience was a perk though, he was more than halfway towards five, and Level five was always something good in games. The slightly glazed over look on everyone else’s faces indicated they had all likewise leveled.

  “Anyone get anything cool?” He asked with hope that their group was becoming more powerful.

  Derek got the same stat bumps as before and his ‘rage’ increased. Likewise, Cece was steadily becoming a stealthy melee build, with ever increasing agility and piercing damage.

  Katie seemed to be on the cusp of melee spear wielder or possibly a ranger with her woodlands skills. They asked which way she was leaning and she seemed undecided. Her desire for revenge and killing seemed to outweigh the sensibility of balancing the party as a ranged attacker.

  “I don’t know guys, I finally feel good with the spear, I dunno if I wanna switch yet.”

  Katie’s pout had some validation, but if using the spear meant mopping up the rest of their kills, then yea, she was getting comfortable with it.

  The kobold loot was another skillbook, spellbook and some weapons.

  SKILLBOOK

  ARCHERY +1

  This book grants the user basics in Archery and the use of a bow. Basic fletching knowledge will also be imbued.

  LEARN NOW?

  The weapons were likewise,

  BOW AND QUIVER

  RANGED ATTACK

  RANGE. 40 feet

  30 ARROWS

  BOW AND ARROWS ARE IN GOOD

  CONDITION.

  Cece took the bow and arrow and the skillbook naturally. They needed it and it fit into her stealthy character to be an arranged sneak attacker, Dalton couldn’t understand Katie’s hesitation. She needed whatever she could get, they should be arguing over skills, not passing them up nonchalantly.

  And yet she was Mrs. Congeniality. Giving things away.

  The last item of loot was another spellbook.

  The large leather tomb glowed the same sky blue as before and purple runes danced and floated along its cover and spine like bits of driftwood on a current.

  “It should go to Dalton, he seems to be becoming our mage,” Derek volunteered to everyone’s approval.

  “I, more than gladly, accept.”

  When he opened the book, the tome burst into its miasma of magical particles, absorbing into his skin. It was generally agreed that he was now the mage and he read the book greedily, and soaked up the new spell and the Terminal responded by providing him with a brief description of his new incantation:

  SPELLBOOK

  SPELL: JOLT

  LEVEL 1     AFFINITY:  ELECTRIC

  Casts a small bolt of electrical lightning from your hand dealing damage to the target.

  Strength: Metal, Water

  He hadn’t been told strengths before, it seemed obvious but he was glad his Inspection skills seemed to be increasing. Inside his body, Dalton’s guts were frazzled with excitement, the thought of gaining his first elemental spell and the sheer ‘coincidence’ it was his favorite element to play in games was not lost on him.

  He felt an internal sense of agreement from the Interface. Dalton replied with a sense of gratitude.

  The party trekked through more open backyards and empty plots, the adjacent street a distant parallel point. Houses and residential areas began to thin out as they approached more open plots of green land and patches of dense trees.

  Savannah began to look very much like its namesake, the sky had slowly begun to resume some of its more normal blues and earth colors from the previously turbulent and bruised looking colors from the days before. The rolling plains opened to a panorama of the broken highway and distant fields of green grass and woods.

  Cars were strewn all about the highway, it seemed when the storm hit all the mechanics just stopped, with every car piling into one another.

  Some terrifying vultures circled overhead, indicating the grisly scene underwing, most of the vultures had mutated sizes and forms.

  One vulture in particular looked particularly nasty, spikes adorned its wings and a bone crown upon its head. It seemed to supervise as other vultures on the ground tossed it gobbets of meat. It was almost the size of a Volkswagen. It was terrifying even from this distance.

  The party vehemently steered clear of the hubbub and as they neared the sporting goods store.

  They approached slowly and with caution, the mega-sized building appeared empty.

  Behind the store was an openly vacant lot, at least two acres, no concrete yet, but excavated and flattened; it looked like it was going to be a building foundation or more parking. The surrounding perimeter consisted of dense woods in patches and rolling hills.

  Slowly trekking across, the group spread out so as to make themselves a harder target to hit. Katie fanned to the left and Cece to the right.

  Derek took the lead forming a diamond shape with Dalton in the rear.

  Giddily conjuring a Jolt spell and holding it ready, Dalton and his party approached the vast open space constantly scanning for monsters and threats. Dalton stared at the amazing violet and blue mandalas that twisted about his hands, hints of electrical energy arced wherever the mandalas began to coalesce.

  He was temporarily mesmerized by the magical energy as he imagined he could see a deeper pattern below the visible surface of light and energy. He shook his head and cleared his wandering thoughts. His eyes felt supercharged and he could smell ozone burning.

  Focus ol’ boy.

  At this point, the ground, air, and everything around them was a viable option for attack, so they ended up looking like a gangly bunch of marionettes with their strings cut, heads constantly bobbing and swiveling in circles.

  All seemed calm, too calm, no birds were chirping, no crickets, ummm, violining? Sawing? Not sure but whatever sound they made rubbing their legs together, they were having none of it.

  Stealthily snaking their way through the field, the eerie silence provided an all too disturbing lack of accompaniment. Their footfalls and the rustling of the bushes and scrub sounded like gargantuan noises to him, but he knew he was paranoid.

  Still, they had to survive.

  The ground trembled slightly.

  A deep rumble. The whole party froze not moving a muscle, and looking at one another questioningly.

  “Oh man, what was that?” Derek didn’t seem terrorized to his core like he was, but Dalton was pretty sure he was doing a good job at looking calm, cool, and collected….even in the face of certain death.

  Chapter 9

  The world had changed drastically around them but he felt as if they were adapting quickly. Katie was still hurt but the group of four seemed to be adjusting accordingly.

  “Move slow, spread out, Derek, you have to attract its attention. You’re our tank now, we need to evaluate how it attacks and what our strategy will be. Stay alive, duck and dodge, but stay in aggro range.” He was thinking on his toes, what could this possibly be, rumbling, probably earth type. Sounds big. Probably slow.

  He prepped a sleeping spell in lieu of electrical energy and the party fanned out into a larger semi-circle. The ground continued to rumble, like a huge piece of machinery was getting closer. A train approaching or a massive drill ready to break the surface, the gravel and soil seemed to vibrate with the frequency of the sound.

  This last metaphor was apt, seeing as the ground churned and spiraled suddenly under Katie and Cece in a huge 20 foot diameter. Both were caught up in the avalanche of descending sand and couldn’t do anything: Derek and himself had each missed the sinkhole by a few feet, both having jumped aside as the ground began to tumble downwards.

  Cece plunged her dagger into the sand to halt her movement whilst Katie chucked her spear out and attempted to crawl out using her hands. The pit deepened to about 30 feet and the bottom was a maelstrom of sand and churning debris. Asphalt, gravel and chunks of cement were tossed about freely.

  Katie slid all the way to the bottom of the pit with sand, dirt, and detritus cascading around her, Cece had managed to halt her descent and was mid-slope gripping her dagger with a steadfastness envious of any rock climber.

  As Katie clawed her way out, slabs of sand kept falling around her, it was loose and nothing provided any grip, with growing fear, he looked at the bottom of the pit. Something was coming and he did not feel they were ready to deal with it.

  The sand, clay, and refuse began to swirl around the bottom and Katie freaked out, screaming at the top of her lungs.

  “Get me OUT! HELP!” She was becoming frantic and attempted to run up the sides to no avail.

  Small avalanches of sand rained down about her.

  Derek hopped into the pit, to his surprise with no hesitation, and slid half way down before his heels had accumulated enough of a buildup of sand as foot support. He extended his crowbar and Katie quickly grabbed the end, hauling her up with simple brute strength and upper body muscle, Katie began to climb.

  Sand burst forth from the bottom of the pit and the head and mandibles of a giant creature protruded from the soft, ever shifting ground.

  It was roughly shaped like an ant, but it had huge three foot mandibles, which were slightly asymmetrical to ensure a bite that closed, sharp hairs protruded throughout its body coursing along its length, and it had spikes similar to the wormasaur that would allow it to burrow and dig with ease.

  Only the head and upper thorax rose from the ground, indicating more of it was buried underground. Dalton estimated it to be the size of a pickup truck, with a dull-shining armored carapace of brown chitin that reflected the waning light in opalescent hues of amber and mauve.

  The immediate radius of sand within five feet was constantly moving like a tin of boiling water, only it was sand and gravel, it wasn't hampered by the terrain at all. This monster must have been an elite, a boss of some sort. It was terrifying.

  The wicked looking pincers clicked closed a few times as it clearly sensed her vibrations, Katie feebly tried to scramble from the bottom of the pit. She was kicking aggressively and her feet were tossing large chunks of rock and sand at the creature.

  “Katie grab my hand!“ Derek was extending himself, attempting to increase his reach as much as possible, Cece had finally managed to climb her way up to the edge but was panting with the exerted effort, the tumultuous sides of the pit acted as an ambush predator’s trap.

  He fired a bolt of sleep at the ant lion’s head in the hopes of paralysis or at least a decrease in speed, to his unfortunate expectation, the dusty spell pinged and shot off into the distance, dissolving into a puff of smoke amongst some tree branches, and probably knocking out some chipmunk as it was doing some courtship ritual deep in the woods.

  Sorry, Alvin

  Poor guy, another time buddy!

  The head of the Giant Ant Lion whipped toward Katie and snapped her up in one quick swoop.

  Yanking her body from Derek’s grasp, like an adult would yank something from a child, the barbs on either side of the mandible pierced her torso, locking her in place. She screamed, a blood-curdling scream.

  Ya, he knew what a blood-curdling scream sounded like now, pain so deep and visceral, a fellow sapient could feel it empathetically in his bones. This was a whole other level. She screamed fiercely.

  Katie was lifted into the air as she flailed about, it rocked it’s head side to side and bashed her like a rag doll against the sides of the pit. Her screaming abated quickly as she was knocked senseless.

  “Nooooaarrghh,” Cece screamed, a wordless, helpless scream of ineptitude.

  He conjured a Jolt spell, but it fizzled upon his first casting, the mandalas just dissolved like dust, and barely a static bolt of energy formed in his hands as he lost concentration.

  Derek, upon jumping into the pit like some hulking avenging hero, swung with his crowbar, connecting with the side of its armored torso. The bar ricocheted off, and his arms visibly shook, nothing seemed to deter the mutated insectoid.

  Both magical and physical attacks were useless against its carapace, Katie awoke and continued screaming, bloody murder and holy evisceration.

  He was not sure, but as its mandibles clicked together, Katie was clearly bisected, and her screams were cut devastatingly short.

  The top half of her torso trailed intestines and gore, falling to the ground with her legs flailing about, the parts slid down the embankment, and a full ten feet separated from her upper body to her lower. Her legs were all akimbo and the look on her frozen face was one of shock and disbelief. Pain. Sadness.

  A high-pitched battlecry issued from someone’s throat, he’s not sure whom, but Dalton charged downslope like an idiot pulling his dagger, about ten feet from the bottom he pushed off the wall of the pit and soil and sailed into the air.

  He felt weightless, as he descended from the clouds, dagger poised for sinking, the ant lion turned its gruesome mandibles toward him. Without a second thought he plonked in between the mandibles, limber and light, he landed on its head, the mandibles began to shut close and his extrasensory perception allowed him time to think, the dagger arced down in a violent stab, the mandibles started to shut on his body, who would reach said destination first? He simultaneously cast a jolt spell using the dagger as a focus.

  I mean it’s metal right?

  Dalton didn't really care, Katie was dead. The girl who would catch a fly or spider and let it out into the world because she didn’t want to take a life. Dead. To a bug. Ironic?

  As the dagger descended, his casting of Jolt coalesced fiercely, directing its colorful energies around his hands it shifted into the blade, gathering mana, the purple blue sparks of power danced along its edge, the arcing bolts coursed along his body and arms in a more violent display than he had seen yet: he watched his dagger sink into the beast's left eye, piercing into the rough leather like tissue of its mutated lens.

  The thin blade plunged into the squishy depths of its cornea, the Jolt spell was released, arcs of lightning and energy shot forth, waltzing across its multitude of eyes and face, but more importantly, down the blade, into the cracked fissure that was its chitinous armor.

  Streaks of bright blue and purple electricity slinkied down the blade into the creature’s monstrous visage and skull.

  It spasmed and the whole body went rigid for a few moments. Purple ooze and ichor leaked from its eyes and mouth. The burnt smell of ozone and the chemical stink of bug wafted into the air.

  Derek’s shadow fell across his scope of vision as he fell from the sky with his weapon overhead like some metal club of revenge, smashing into the head of the ant lion, there was an audible crack.

  The carapace had blistered around the repeat attacks and the ant lion looked deterred. Cece began firing arrows into its body; half of which bounced off its hard exoskeleton, the other half embedded themselves in its lower mid-section and what would have been its neck. Beginning to look like an improvised porcupine, the beast began to sag.

  Racing up to the lip of the pit, Dalton grabbed Katie’s fallen spear and aimed it at the monster, casting jolt again and using the spear as his new focus, a sharp bolt of lightning emanated from the tip, striking the ant lion in the body, but once again the bolt seemed to dissipate on the creatures hard, outer shell.

  Derek raised his weapon simultaneously striking the beast with his full strength, raging and screaming insults and curses. The bar slid through the air, gliding, it glowed with an arcane energy, a slight grey-red tinge, not quite purple. I wonder if this is the berserker equivalent of magic?

  The ant lion roared in pain. Finally, they were doing some damage. The carapace cracked visibly again and wider fissures began to form.

  Derek’s attack had visibly damaged the ant lion as its outer shell fissured more noticeably. It responded negatively to electricity and Dalton was even more appreciative of his new spell.

  Derek and him were low on mana and hit points.

  Both of them were hammering this thing with all they had and Cece was pumping arrows from the rim of the pit, but it was difficult to slow down.

  The ant lion was steadily decreasing in health and seemed to be finally dying when it used a new spell.

  Tossing its insectile head, a gathering of mana emitted from its mandibles as a green-brown ray sparked between its impressive jaws and the ground, the ray shot forth like a bullet. The beam hit the ground beside Derek, and he fell prone immediately, succumbing to a mass of tangles and vines ensnaring his legs and preventing him from moving, the ground slowly sunk into a pit, further entrapping the unwitting barbarian.

  This thing had earth and stone magic.

  Dalton had nothing, his mana was depleted past its lowest level’s capacity, he felt exhausted and strung out. He could provide little to no magical support even though his spirit was willing.

  The ant lion shifted and the ground moved with him. Dalton had used almost the last of his mana to begin conjuring another bolt of electricity, but as the ground rocked, he loosed the jolt into the sand, uselessly becoming grounded upon touch and the Ant lion was unharmed.

  The huge three foot mandibles reached over for Derek, and he felt an overwhelming sense of helplessness, Dalton watched the inevitable scene play out. He knew magic, he had weapons, and still it was not enough.

  From the forest, a din began to arise, like large branches being pushed and broken aside, the cracking and groaning of old trees being adjusted askew, the sounds resounded across the hillside. This sound was paired with the arrival of two large plant creatures, branches for arms and a huge canopy making a large wig of leaves and foliage.

  Like summoned monsters from a game, two tree-like creatures came on the battlefield. One was hurling a rock, no a boulder into the pit, slamming the ant lions head onto the ground, rupturing the cracks already present, spider webbing themselves across its head, the second treant jumped, or fell, into the pit and began hammering the ant lion with club like appendages and branches, alternating between bashing and stabbing.

  The ant lion looked confused by all the different motions, it clearly used some ground sense and all the vibrations were throwing it off, using a bit of his newly gained intelligence, Dalton began stomping heavily.

  The ant lion stopped attacking Derek and diverted its attention to the new threat.

  Out of the woods, emerged a crimson leather-clad girl with dark mocha skin. She had her thick hair braided into dreads which gathered behind her back in a medieval looking braid. Her long knife was tucked into her belt, and she was wielding a walking staff that looked as if it could be a weapon in and of itself. She was controlling the treants instead, waving her hands about as green arcane circles spun about her foundation and twirled about her head. She mumbled under her breath and had the focused look of a spell caster. Her eyes glowed emerald, incandescent green.

  The ant lion looked genuinely agitated, wounded, and swung its massive head towards the treant directly in front of it. Using its impressive mandibles it clipped the autonomous flora halfway down its trunk in a spray of splinters and amber sap, it made no noise but keeled over and almost disintegrated into a pile of twigs and branches.

  One hit kills. This thing was boss level at least…..hopefully. Oh man, Katie, my brain keeps trying to forget or compartmentalism, and then it all comes crashing back at once.

  He hit it with a last ditch and completely reckless jolt bolt and this one seemed to strike home: the whips of arcane magic gathered around its head and core, as Dalton crested the lip of the pit.

  The arcs of energy crawled along its length causing the insects legs and horizontal mandibles to convulse.

  Violently.

  Bits of natural detritus and leaves were shot into the air in its spasmodic throes of pain only to fall heavily, surrounding the creature in a revelatory halo of weakness.

  The second treant dived into the pit and began battering the ant lion with its club-like branches, Derek followed in its wake and began bashing the creature with his crowbar, yelling in a deep voice incoherent swear words the entire time, utilizing the Rage only he could summon.

  Luckily the ant lion was looking the worse for wear, but it turned its head and pointed its barbed mandibles at Cece on the opposing rim of the pit.

  Cece reacted quickly and dove to the side like an acrobat as a stream of rocks and debris followed its aimed trajectory: following the path of its target, the stone stream would have careened right into Cece, bludgeoning her to death had she not evaded the damage.

  Derek and the summoned treant continued to hammer on the antlion’s form, the chitinous shell was slowly splintering, he decided to take a gamble and grabbed Katie’s spear, Dalton leapt from the edge of the pit using all his agility available. Kicking off again and twisting in midair he used both hands to bear all his weight down upon the tip of the spear.

  Casting Jolt into the butcher knife adorning the end of his spear, it flowed with blue-purple geometric designs, the blade came down right in between the mandibles of the beast, sharp arcs of blue bolted energy crawled along the length of the knife and shaft into the ant lion, wiggling its way into the now open cracks of its exoskeleton, erstwhile the treant continued to hammer on the beast a few feet further away.

  The ant lion rocked like a ship mid-wreck. The creature was emitting a deep, sonorous noise that sounded plaintive and begging in its beastly desperation.

  Derek aligned one more massive swing whilst glowing, it connected with the creature’s head, the bar and spear seemed to meet midway past its skull and the thin membrane of its elastic and tough hide was the only thing separating the weapons from touching.

  A bright spark of electricity connected the two weapons and the ant lion shuddered like it was being defibrillated.

  The outer skeleton cracked further and it finally slumped to the ground, its upper thorax broken and fractured like an egg, purple ichor poured from its many wounds. The ant lion’s carcass sagged against the ground, and it deflated like a punctured balloon.

  The party slumped to the ground, In the case of Derek, directly onto the creature’s back. Even the black girl that emerged from the woods seemed exhausted. She plopped down Indian style, heaving heavy pants like she had been running.

  Dalton’s exhaustion set in, he leaned against the natural incline of the pit, tears welled up in his eyes, Katie. She didn’t deserve this, maybe the rest of them were willing to participate, but Katie had always abstained from violence outright.

  He attempted to gather himself, but could not stop the tears pouring from his eyes. He had been so judgmental and condescending and now she was gone.

  He felt awful; regret, guilt, you name it, he felt it coursing through his veins. Luckily, Katie’s corpse had been buried somewhere in the ant lion’s death throes, and he was saved from the trauma of having to see the two gory halves again.

  Reality came slamming back into the foreground and he began feeling helpless once again. Moaning and burying his face into the loosely turned soil seemed to help though.

  “We have to get to shelter, the corpse will only attract other predators. He was an apex predator, but they will show up eventually, they always do.” The crimson-clad girl wielded a hobnobbed quarterstaff, she was pretty sure of herself.

  “My name is Zeta, we can talk more when we get indoors.” She was nervous, her survival instincts kept her on the lookout, her head constantly pivoted as she regained her drained mana. He wondered if she was more nervous about scavenging monsters looking for an easy meal, or if she was actually hesitant about trusting the lot of them.

  It seemed she got the superhero memo at least, wearing her survival gear. The snake-skin, crimson leather shone in the afternoon sun.

  Dalton slowly kicked himself off the sloped ground, wiping the muddy streaks of tears and dirt into his face, glancing behind him he noticed an impressive amount of loot had dropped from the ant lion.

  Even in his despondency, he felt a slight tingle of elation. Knowing it was wrong, like a drug addict benefitting from his friend's demise, he could barely Inspect the loot.

  Two Spellbooks, a skill book, and two pieces of gear seemed to have dropped. The glowing from the books illuminated the steep slope of the ant lion pit, coruscating lines of purple, green, and blue made the death trap look like a painting with the hazy imagery overlaying the corpse of the ant lion. It was still a difficult sight to get used to.

  The gear was a golden chest plate and a wooden staff. The chest plate boosted vitality and healing and was clearly intended for Derek, the staff allotted mana regeneration and decreased casting time.

  Upon accepting the staff, it reappeared in Dalton’s hands. It was almost his height, with a glowing gemstone tucked into the gnarled roots at the tip of the staff. It glowed faintly, and even holding the weapon, Dalton felt more revitalized, energy thrummed through his veins, jolting his muscles and body into wakefulness.

  Clutching the staff to his chest, Dalton sat down heavily, plopping onto the ground with the grace of a hippopotamus, and wallowed upon everything that had happened thus far. It felt like he hadn’t had a moment to mourn at all, his family, his friends, his life.

  “Come on you big baby, we have to move. Movement is life.” Zeta had unequipped her own staff and was hauling him to his feet, bodily, under his armpits, like Cece had done for Katie.

  “Are you quoting World War Z to me?” He mumbled.

  “Maybe, you big dork.”

  Tears began to well up again, but Zeta quickly jerked his torso from side to side while slowly scaling the steep sides of the ant lion pit. The spastic movements were distracting enough to cause him to look around, the sky was still its ever present twilight, and the temperature was warm, about eight five degrees.

  He dug his heels into the steep, sandy banks and assisted Zeta in hauling his near-deadweight out of the pit. The books glowed in a combination of sky blue, purple, and green, the spellbooks especially seemed inviting, and Dalton felt a sliver of anticipation and excitement enter his devoid soul.

  Chapter 10

  Derek was lying flat and still catching his breath, Cece was standing protectively over him, he looked at the floating treasure horde over the corpse of the ant lion, knowing he should inspect it, but hardly mustering the energy to follow through.

  The new girl, Zeta, perched herself on the lip of the pit, like a Nubian queen overseeing her domain, she looked at them all and clearly found them wanting.

  She hopped down, sticking her staff into the ground and pulling her knife, she began to saw off the mandibles with a huge serrated knife.

  Who the hell is this chick?

  Deal with it.

  Looking towards the books once again, he Inspected them closer.

  SPELLBOOK

  SPELL: SINKHOLE     AFFINITY: EARTH

  LEVEL ONE

  CREATE A SINKHOLE TEN FOOT IN DIAMETER UNDER YOUR TARGET WITHIN THIRTY FEET OF YOURSELF.

  Ohh that must be an area of effect spell. Dalton felt his mouth salivating.

  SPELLBOOK

  SPELL: EARTH BARRICADE AFFINITY: EARTH

  LEVEL ONE

  CREATES A 10-FT WALL OF SOLID EARTH, FORMING A NEAR INDESTRUCTIBLE BARRIER.

  Defensive spell, seems useful, safety and living are a good thing

  SKILLBOOK

  SKILL: ENSNARING ARROW  AFFINITY: EARTH

  LEVEL ONE

  TWO FOOT DIAMETER,

  PLAYER SHOOTS AN ARROW THAT CREATES A QUICKSAND PIT OR VINES AT THE FOOT OF THE ENEMY.

  Standard Ranger archery buff.

  EQUIPMENT        COMMON

  ARMOR OF VIRILITY

  +1 VITALITY, + 1 STRENGTH

  Upon quick agreement, Derek got the armor, Cece took the skill, he took the Sinkhole spell and the staff, and they offered Zeta the barricade spell, without her help they would all most likely be dead, she deserved it.

  She readily accepted, duh, but it was a defensive spell and played into her flavor. She stood vigilant. Radiating confident energy.

  His stats had again increased in agility, dexterity and intelligence equally across the board.

  LEVEL 6    HUMAN mage

  STATS

  STRG +2

  AGI +5

  DEX +5

  INT +7

  SKILLS

  BASH +2

  STEALTH +4

  INSPECTION +4

  BLUDGEONING +1

  DIPLOMACY +2

  SPELLS

  SLEEP   LEVEL 2

  JOLT    LEVEL 3

  SINKHOLE LEVEL 0

  He realized he had leveled up his sleep and jolt spells and hence the reason they felt stronger, but it still felt like level five and six should have been more eventful.

  The party stumbled towards Dick’s sporting goods. Zeta followed in tow, a menacing shadow capable of wielding extreme earth druidic magic, but she huffed along with a groan and grunt almost every step. She was strong but not well balanced

  They approached the entrance to the mega store together. They stomped the rest of the way to the sporting goods store entrance, the glass and doors were smashed in, even though they were still locked, carts were tossed and left haphazardly anywhere, and broken down cars littered the parking lot. The party stepped over the broken segments of asphalt and wreckage and entered the store which looked like it had avoided being burglarized.

  Upon entering the store, it looked like it had been ransacked though. Mannequins were knocked over and displays were torn apart. His expectations dropped drastically.

  From between two aisles an Asian-looking man emerged, like a ghostly avatar from the Plan, uber white teeth shining in the dark. Appearing middle-aged but lacking any wrinkles, his skin was flawless and his hair was perfectly slicked into a 1950’s pompadour.

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Cece asked inquisitively, openly brandishing her dagger.

  “I am the Trader. I will help facilitate your journey through the Coalescence, providing advice, weapons, armor, spell and skill books, and bartering goods and money for various items of value.” His voice was soothing, but monotonous and lacking any feeling.

  “The Coalescence?” Derek asked the personified game system.

  “The merging of many worlds, timelines, and dimensions. Utilizing tales and myths of folk lore, culture, and history, the Plan will test your species to its very limits to determine its adaptability and will to survive.” The Trader cocked its head and provided Derek with a thin-lipped smile.

  “What happened to our families?”

  “When does everything go back to normal? Why are we being tested?” Cece asked and Zeta chimed in, having finally spoken up from her silent reverie. She’s emphatic and anger dripped from her quick questions.

  “The Coalescence is a Cosmic event, the majority of the population has been deemed expendable and most will not have survived the initial twenty-four onslaught.” The Trader answered in the same monotone, belaying no remorse whatsoever.

  “You’re saying they’re all dead?” Cece demanded.

  “Most likely, statistically speaking.”

  Really reassuring, buddy.

  “We have hardly seen any people, shouldn’t we be seeing a bunch of other survivors, or at least their bodies?” Dalton asked having dwelt on the subject matter often.

  “Not all parts of your world were Coalesced at the same time. Different places and regions experience different time-space shifts and for some what might have been weeks, for others might be a few days. The Coalescence has also increased the size and mass of your world by nearly three-fold. You might know your planet well, but it is no longer the same world,” he finished with the same smile plastered on his face, “also, monsters don’t tend to leave a lot of leftovers.”

  Dalton could see looks of despair descending onto the party’s faces and the Trader seemed oblivious. The Trader’s current analysis of their situation was crushing morale, so he was determined to try and swing things in another direction.

  “What advice do you have?”

  “Rest now,” a general aura of calm and safety surrounded the party. The air became balmy and comfortable.

  His voice rung like a reverberating echo lulling them to sleep. “Rest now…”

  I should….have resistance…I know the spell.

  He began to drift away and Derek settled beside him.

  As they lay in the camping good section of the store, having erected the tents in some facade of further protection, an overwhelming feeling of loss came over him. Stifling his cries into the makeshift pillows, he felt weak and pathetic.

  Derek and Cece decided to share the large tent for the evening and Dalton didn’t say anything about it.

  Zeta erected her own tent and began to get ready for sleep, solitary and silent.

  Dalton flipped over and Derek was staring at him intently, red-runner eyes indicating he’d been crying as well

  Cece lay down behind him.

  Dalton tried not to break down.

  Cece tickled his head and neck.

  Being comforted, Dalton nodded off to sleep with the rest of the band not far behind.