《The Titleist》 Introduction Setup I opened my eyes and looked around. Gone was my familiar office it had been replaced with a semi-clear blue platform that spread out in all directions as far as I could see. A few rotations around told me that it was the same all around me. I had been at work, even though this didn¡¯t feel like a dream I figured I must have dozed off. ¡°Aren¡¯t you going to pinch yourself to try and wake yourself up?¡± A voice said behind me. I spun back around, and now standing there was a woman. Not the most attractive woman I had dreamed about but still a solid 7 with nice curves. ¡°Oh please I¡¯m at least a 9.¡± ¡°Ah so we¡¯re going with that kind of dream huh?¡± I asked. ¡°This is not a dream, and all my clothes are staying on, also you¡¯re not dead either John,¡± she said. ¡°If this isn¡¯t a dream and I¡¯m still alive, what¡¯s going on?¡± I asked. ¡°I pulled your conscious mind out of your body while you slept so that we could talk before everything gets tossed around,¡± she said. ¡°How is that different from dreaming?¡± I asked. ¡°Dreaming involves your unconscious mind watching home movies and bad porn,¡± she explained. ¡°Also, what was that about everything getting tossed around?¡± I asked. ¡°Now you¡¯re asking the important questions,¡± she said. ¡°First let me introduce myself. I am Newbina, the goddess of newbies.¡± I got excited. ¡°Is this one of those animes where I get dragged into another world to save it from a demonlord and get a harem of hot chicks dropped in my lap?¡± ¡°Nope, you¡¯re staying right where you are,¡± Newbina said. ¡°I¡¯ll skip all the incorrect guessing about what¡¯s going on and just tell you because time is short. Everything about your world is about to change, it¡¯s being added to the Anti-Entropy System. It¡¯s a thing we came up with to counteract the heat-death of the universe, you don¡¯t need to know the specifics. Have you ever played video games? Of course I already know the answer to that. It¡¯ll be a lot like one of those.¡± ¡°In what way?¡± I asked. ¡°You¡¯ll have an interface you can access, it will tell you everything you need to know about things, yourself mostly. You¡¯ll have stats, abilities, banes, blessings, feats, perks, powers, skills, spells, talents, and most relevant to you, classes and titles.¡± ¡°Why do I not like where this is going?¡± ¡°Because you suck. Anyway we randomly assigned starting classes to everybody on the planet over the age of 14 and you sir got a very, very, very rare one.¡± ¡°Can I reroll?¡± ¡°Why would you want to reroll, you have a very special gift now?¡± ¡°Special gift exactly, it sounds like I¡¯m about to be the center of attention. I don¡¯t want that.¡± ¡°But you were OK with being sent to another world, saving it from a demonlord and having a harem of hot chicks?¡± ¡°I was hoping to just help the girls see what¡¯s really inside them the whole time and call the shots then retire to a small kingdom somewhere where I can just delegate everything to underlings and retire in peace.¡± ¡°You¡¯re lazy,¡± she said crossing her arms in front of her. ¡°Damn skippy I¡¯m lazy,¡± I said. ¡°Why work hard? I¡¯m never going to get rich no matter how hard I work, why not enjoy life?¡± ¡°I will pre-emptively weep for your world if you have the standard thought process among people on it. Anyway I had all kinds of useful information I was going to share with you, but you clearly won¡¯t listen to me¡­¡± ¡°Woahwoahwoah,¡± I said interrupting her. ¡°I didn¡¯t say stop explaining.¡± She was starting to slowly fade from sight. ¡°Goodbye and good luck. You¡¯ll need it.¡± She said waving as she vanished. ¡°Nonono,¡± I yelled jumping towards her and just barely missing her and vanished. ¡°At least tell me if I respawn or not!¡± And just like that my sarcasm may have screwed me over real good. ¡°John, John, JOHN!¡± A screaming voice yelled at me as I was shaken awake. I raised my head and took a quick look around. I was back in the IT office I worked at, although it was much darker than it usually was, the overhead lights were off and the familiar hum of the servers running was absent, also Jackie the offices assistant manager was standing over me and she looked pissed. ¡°Have you been asleep this whole time?¡± She yelled. ¡°Well, power outage, not much I can do. Figured I¡¯ll be here most of the night fixing things up after the power comes back on so I may as well grab a quick nap now,¡± I said hoping that my guess about the power being out was right. ¡°The power outage is the least of our problems,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Did you not hear the voice?¡± ¡°Never admit to having heard a voice,¡± I said. ¡°Damnit this is serious,¡± Jackie said slamming her hands on my desk. I could sense that something was seriously wrong. The anger Jackie had of finding me asleep was starting to fade and was being replaced with concern. ¡°OK what happened?¡± ¡°While you were asleep this booming voice was heard, saying we were all trapped in a video game or something and a bunch of us transformed into animal people and Steve took pretty much everybody else and left.¡± With each word she spoke her anger was being replaced with fear and I knew my ¡®dream¡¯ had been real. I found a skippable tutorial at the worst possible time. Gearing Up Jackie lead the way out of my office filling me in on what had happened. ¡°After the changes to the people Steve rounded up everybody that was still human and left.¡± I took a moment to look Jackie up and down, she looked the same as always from the rear, hair almost all the way down to her amazing ass. ¡°You still look human,¡± I asked. ¡°I am,¡± Jackie said. ¡°I¡¯m just not dumb enough to go anywhere with Steve. Also the women that changed are terrified for the most part. I couldn¡¯t just leave them alone.¡± ¡°Good call. Steve is an ego-maniac he sees all the men that went with him as fodder and all the women that went with him as breeding stock. You said women that changed, did any men change?¡± ¡°Only women here and we have no way of checking on the outside world. Powers out, phones don¡¯t work anymore, cars don¡¯t work either.¡± ¡°How bad were the changes?¡± I asked. ¡°Varies, Candice and Melissa grew dog and cat ears, claws and tails respectfully. Kelly grew some fangs and got really pale. Samantha grew like 3 feet put on 300 pounds of muscle and grew cow horns, her main problem is finding something to cover her breasts. Do. Not. Stare. Heather, Amanda and Beth got it bad though.¡± ¡°How bad?¡± I asked. ¡°Beth¡¯s entire bottom half turned into a horse bottom half. She¡¯s huge now she¡¯s bumping into everything. Heather turned into a mermaid, thankfully she can still breathe but she can¡¯t move around on her own. Amanda just kind of melted into a puddle of blue goo.¡± Jackie said. ¡°What?!¡± ¡°She seems to still be aware and trying to form herself into something and she hasn¡¯t attacked anybody yet.¡± ¡°How is everybody mentally?¡± I asked. ¡°Scared. Why aren¡¯t you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m concerned.¡± I said. ¡°But this is my time to shine, if it¡¯s true we¡¯re in a video game now I am so ready for this.¡± ¡°How can you possibly be ready for this?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°I have spent most of my life playing video games and my entire adult life preparing for a zombie apocalypse. Although this is not a zombie apocalypse there¡¯s enough overlap in skills for there to be a bit of relevance. What do you bring to the table that qualifies you to be a leader?¡± ¡°My degree in business administration,¡± Jackie replied. ¡°That qualifies you to run a business not lead people in a life or death situation.¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m the best choice for leader and you know it.¡± Jackie pointed right at me, bringing her finger inches from my face. ¡°I am in charge here. I value your input, but at the end of the day, I am in charge here. If you don¡¯t like it, the elevators aren¡¯t working, take the stairs.¡± With that she turned back around and started walking again. We entered the main room of the office. Most of the cubicle walls were now knocked over and several computer monitors were on the floor as well. There was nobody in sight. ¡°What happened here?¡± I asked. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. ¡°Beth bumping into everything.¡± Jackie said quietly. ¡°Where is she now?¡± I asked. ¡°Hiding in my office, when she transformed her clothes shredded.¡± Further conversation was halted by a figure stepping out of the womens room. I looked over and saw Melissa, sure she had a set of cat ears now super sharp looking claws on her hands and a cat tail poking out from under her skirt. ¡°You¡¯re still here?¡± ¡°Yeah lazy mclazy here slept through the whole mess,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Did he change?¡± Melissa asked as though I wasn¡¯t here. ¡°Nope still perfect in every way,¡± I said. ¡°As much as I hate meetings we need to have one, all get on the same page about a lot of things.¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We can take a partition out of the walls of the meeting room and connect my office and HR to it so everybody can take part. Well except Amanda, but she can be in the room at least.¡± It didn¡¯t take long to gather everybody together, everybody had sure enough changed. In addition to the changes in Melissa, Samantha the cute little accounting girl was now hunched over in the corner so she didn¡¯t bust through the ceiling holding a sweater in front of her chest to hide her breasts because her shirt had shredded in the change. She was 8 feet tall and now had a very muscularly build, she had a pair of cow horns poking out of her head above her ears, and a set of abs that you could grind meat on. Candice now had a set of wolf ears, massive scary looking claws, fangs in her mouth and a wolf tail, and was pacing around. Heather was still where she had been standing when her legs turned into a fish tail in the HR office and she had dragged herself over to the gap in the wall so she could listen and give input, her bright pink tail thrashed occasionally creating an echo. Amanda was in a bucket, a vaguely head shaped object poked out of the bucket, and in the middle of all the blue goo that made up her body now was a small red orb the size of a child''s fist, which I suspected was her brain of sorts. Beth in addition to now being a centaur, had grown a few sizes shredding her clothes as well. I was beginning to think that whatever force had done this was a massive pervert. Kelly had much paler skin now and fangs sticking out of her mouth, given the fact that she had her back to the windows covering her face with her hands she was a vampire, apparently they can be in the sun they just don¡¯t like it. We had just finished going over our status screens I had explained most of what I saw, nothing to nonstandard for a typical RPG, and now we were looking at our inventories. We each had some kind of subspace pocket dimension that allowed us to store things, we each had two things in them, a starter box for our various classes, and a starter box for our various races. I had a human and a titleist starter boxes, Jackie had a human and a paladin starter boxes, Candice had a wolfen and a rogue starter boxes, Beth had a centaur and an acolyte starter boxes, Kelly had a vampire and an apprentice starter boxes, Melissa had a felnid and a rogue starter boxes, Heather had a merfolk and a bard starter boxes, Samantha had a minotaur and a warrior starter boxes and Amanda had managed to materialize her two boxes a humanoid slime starter box and an apprentice starter box, although we had no idea how she was going to get her stuff out of them and only the person whose box it was could reach into it. The girls had all opened their boxes, we didn¡¯t find any real big surprises, everybody had food, water, HP, MP, stamina potions and a bedroll in their racial boxes, exceptions being Heather who got some kind waterproof hammock instead of a bedroll, Beth got a large skirt that could accommodate her huge size, and Kelly who got 5 vials of fresh blood instead of food and water and a small coffin that would expand in size when she put it down instead of a bedroll, inside their class boxes was a typical assortment of things that their classes would need, including gear and some misc consumables. Now it was my turn, the contents of my human starter box was identical to Jackies, no surprise there. I now stared at my class box Titleist Starter Box, what the hell was a titleist. I opened it up and saw the now familiar glowing light inside the box and reached in an pulled out my first item. My first item was a long robe, ¡°OK so a titleist is a clothie,¡± I said reading the item description out loud. ¡°Baby Titleists First Robe, looks awesome but protects you from nothing more threatening than a stiff breeze. So I¡¯m super squishy, back row for me.¡± ¡°Aw,¡± Samantha taunted from the corner. ¡°Does the big strong man need us girls to protect him?¡± ¡°First off none of you are young enough to qualify as a girl anymore you¡¯re all women. Second off,¡± I said pointing right at Samantha. ¡°47 strength score remember? You don¡¯t need protection from anything.¡± ¡°You know it.¡± Samantha said flexing her muscles with a big grin. She went from struggling to get the groceries in on her own to champion weightlifter levels of strength in an instant, she was understandably excited. I reached into the box again and pulled out a thick book, ¡°A book titled, Baby Titleists Guide to His First Titles.¡± I opened the book and briefly flipped through it, 418 pages and it looked like mostly boring jargon.¡± I went to reach into the box again but it had shrunk down to the size of a small jewelry box like the other ones had when they were empty it was now a Beginner Storage Box which provides 4 inventory slots when placed into an empty bag slot in your inventory. ¡°What the hell no weapon?¡± ¡°Looks like we¡¯re going to be doing all of the work,¡± Samantha said mockingly from the corner. ¡°What exactly do you bring to this group anyway?¡± ¡°Knowledge and experience with video games.¡± I said. ¡°Which you are all lacking.¡± ¡°His knowledge and experience will be invaluable,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Plus it would be wrong to just kick him out. This whole situation despite being very, very strange is no different than regular work. We need to set a goal and work towards it. What do we need to do first?¡± Jackie asked looking at me. ¡°I need to pick my children up from daycare,¡± Candice said looking up. ¡°I left them there on my way in.¡± ¡°Me too,¡± Melissa chimed in. ¡°My daughter,¡± Heather said. ¡°I think we need to make a fundamental decision right now,¡± I said. ¡°Are we going to function as a group, or are some of us going to go our own separate ways?¡± Everybody started eying each other until Candice spoke up. ¡°I need to go get my children, I am not leaving them to fend for themselves. If you all aren¡¯t going to help me with that then goodbye.¡± ¡°I for one vote for staying as a group,¡± I said. ¡°In my opinion the benefits far outweigh the downsides. Also I agree that find your three¡¯s children should be a priority. Does anybody disagree with my assessment so far?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t see why I need to put my ass on the line to go find her son,¡± Kelly said. ¡°It¡¯s not my kid, why is it my problem?¡± ¡°Because if we¡¯re going to function as a team we need to get into an ¡®our¡¯ mentality,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We need to consider going to find their children our goal.¡± ¡°I guess,¡± Kelly said. ¡°OK,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We have our first mission now.¡± ¡°Wrong,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re getting ahead of yourself.¡± ¡°What could possibly be more important than getting to our children?¡± Heather asked. ¡°What are you going to do swim there?¡± I asked. ¡°You¡¯re basically immobile and I¡¯m going to go out on a limb and say we have more than one daycare to go to. Which daycare are we going to?¡± Heather, Candice and Melissa each gave a different answer to which daycare their children were at. ¡°Exactly,¡± I said. ¡°My proposal is as such. Beth, Heather, Kelly and Amanda stay here while the rest of us go on a brief scouting mission to find a solution to our transportation issues and to try and gather more information on what exactly is going on and how bad the societal collapse is.¡± ¡°Societal collapse?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°What does that mean?¡± ¡°It means that things are broken right now,¡± I said. ¡°For maximum survivability we should assume that no help is coming and we¡¯re on our own. For all we know we may all end up back here in a month back to work like usual.¡± I added trying to minimize worry. ¡°But we should prepare for the worst so we can handle things if they¡¯re better than that.¡± ¡°OK we have a workable plan,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Everybody that¡¯s heading out meet at the stairs in five minutes. Do everything you need to do here before that, that includes bathroom breaks. Dismissed.¡± Jackie stood up and left the meeting room. ¡°Good call on the bathroom,¡± I said realizing I needed to pee. ¡°Kelly, Beth, while we¡¯re gone could you two look around for anything that could be useful for our journey. If you think there is even a chance that it could be useful, put it in a pile somewhere, we¡¯ll cut down later based on what we find for transportation solutions. A map of the city is the most important thing you could possible find though.¡± Kelly and Beth nodded at my request. Quest 1: Scouting Mission Around the Nordstrom Building. Part 1: Venturing Outside We were now in the main lobby of the building our office was located in staring out the full pane glass door. ¡°OK let¡¯s go over a few things before we go out there.¡± I said. ¡°When we get out there we need to be careful and stay alert. If a fight breaks out.¡± ¡°What do you mean if a fight breaks out?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°Who would attack us?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know there are too many variables involved but we should be ready.¡± I said. ¡°Now if a fight breaks out, Samantha, Jackie, you two are our tanks, our front line, it¡¯s your job to keep the enemies attention focused on you.¡± ¡°Wait a minute why us?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°I¡¯m the only one with a healing ability shouldn¡¯t we be focused on keeping me safe?¡± ¡°In theory,¡± I said. ¡°But you have 44 HP and chainmail, I have 12 HP and a glorified housecoat. 5 HP of damage coming at me is just shy of 50% of my HP, 5 HP of damage going at you is just over 10% of your HP and that¡¯s before your chainmail blocks some of it. Understand?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Jackie said. ¡°I can take the hit you can¡¯t.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± I said. ¡°Now Candice and Melissa you two are our DPS, that¡¯s damage per second. Your job is to actually kill the targets that Jackie and Samantha keep distracted.¡± ¡°Wait, kill?¡± Candice asked. ¡°I¡¯ve never killed anything besides a bug before.¡± ¡°Same with me,¡± Melissa said. ¡°Except for that cat I ran over when I was 17, and I cried for like a week after wards. Oh my god, I¡¯m a cat now. What if somebody runs me over?¡± ¡°Melissa, calm down,¡± I said. ¡°I agree, killing is wrong, but if a fight breaks out it¡¯ll be us or them, and I don¡¯t know about you, but I don¡¯t intend to start any fights out there, but I sure as hell don¡¯t want to die either.¡± This calmed her down, I could tell because she was at least part cat now and emoted heavily with her ears. ¡°Attack from the sides and the back to be most effective. Preferably without exposing your own to the enemy ranged attackers if they have any. If we run into any archers or magic users we have to fight, use Samantha and Jackies shields to get close, or sneak around the sides if you can. In the interest of improving teamwork, Candice and Samantha fight in front of me to my left, Jackie and Melissa fight in front of me to my right. Eventually you¡¯ll get better and better at reading each others moves and will be more effective in combat.¡± ¡°What if something gets behind us while we¡¯re fighting?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°I¡¯m the eyes,¡± I said. ¡°I can¡¯t do much else right now, so listen for any instructions I give and follow them. I¡¯m fairly decent at strategy games so we should be good. The basic plan if something comes up from behind when we¡¯re in battle is for one group to switch to the back and the other having to focus on the entire front, not ideal but it¡¯s gonna have to be our fall back plan. Outside of battle Candice, Melissa, you two are more mobile than the rest of us and have better senses, you need to keep your senses open and pay attention, if we see potential threats before they see us we¡¯ll have an advantage, you¡¯re our scouts. We can do this.¡± Samantha and Jackie stepped outside, weapons drawn shields up, Candice and Melissa right behind them with their twins sets of twin daggers drawn and ready. They stopped in front of the door eyes and ears peeled for trouble. ¡°Good work,¡± I said trying to encourage them. ¡°Is it safe?¡± I could clearly see that the parking lot was clear of enemies, barring some hiding behind the vehicles, but I wanted to encourage them so I asked anyway. ¡°Clear,¡± Jackie said lowering her hammer and shield. ¡°Nothing but dead cars,¡± Samantha said lowering her shield and axe. ¡°I feel like that would have looked really cool if we had been seen coming out from the outside, but completely wasted given how unlikely it was that somebody was waiting to ambush us right as we came out the door.¡± Melissa said. ¡°No it was good, you need to get into the practice of doing that,¡± I said. ¡°I was a good exit and any ambush waiting for us would have been far less effective. So who remembered to bring their car keys?¡± I said pulling mineThe narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. out of my pocket. ¡°Steve took them all when he figured out his peoples cars weren¡¯t running,¡± Jackie said. ¡°What the hell gave him the right to do that?¡± I asked. ¡°His ego,¡± Candice said flatly. ¡°Well good thing everybody forgets the IT guy until something breaks,¡± I said starting to walk over to my car parked in the back under some trees, I didn¡¯t get too far before Jackie stopped me. ¡°Every tire in this parking lot is slashed,¡± Jackie said. ¡°What?¡± I asked looking around and at my own car, sure enough every tire was slashed. ¡°God. Damn. It. Steve.¡± ¡°Why would he even do that?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°To screw us over,¡± I said. ¡°He gains no benefit from it, but we get screwed by it.¡± ¡°Why does it matter?¡± Samantha asked. ¡°They didn¡¯t run anyway.¡± ¡°Yeah but with non flat tires my first plan was to use Robs truck,¡± I said pointing to a big black pickup truck. ¡°Put Heather in the bed of it, pop it into neutral and have you push it.¡± ¡°I like how you just volunteered me to do that,¡± Samantha said. ¡°47 strength score remember?¡± I said. Samantha gave a slight flex and smiled. A scream coming from across the parking lot interrupted anything else she was going to say. Two small green creatures that stood about 3 feet tall and wielded small swords and shields had just come around the corner of the building. ¡°Goblins,¡± I said. ¡°Formation now.¡± I ordered and sure enough they got into formation, weapons drawn. Ten more goblins came around the corner and charged at us. They were all moving at different speeds so the now twelve total goblins would arrive at us at slightly different times. I took a quick look behind us to confirm that there was nothing behind us, once I did I assessed the situation. ¡°What do we do we¡¯re outnumbered?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°Don¡¯t panic,¡± I said giving myself an extra second or two to think. ¡°Stay calm, move away from the cars, they¡¯ll get more benefit from them than we will. They¡¯ll be coming at us at staggered times so we won¡¯t have big numbers if we take them out quickly, go for kill shots as fast as you safely can.¡± Their movements were hardly synchronous but after a few steps we were far enough away from the cars so the goblins couldn¡¯t use them for cover or a jumping platform. The first goblin approached Samantha, she swung her ax back in a wide arc to swing it and hit Jackie in the face with the head of it knocking her down. ¡°Oh shit sorry,¡± Samantha said turning to help her up. ¡°Focus on the enemy Sam!¡± I yelled. ¡°Candice support Sam, Melissa pull Jackie back so I can give her a healing potion. Sam protect them.¡± Samantha hesitated for a moment, and the goblins that she intended to hit with her axe jumped on her and landed on her left arm. ¡°Candice get that goblin off her.¡± I ordered as Samantha dropped her axe to grab at the goblin. Melissa had finished dragging Jackie back to me and I dropped to my knees and materialized a Puny Healing Potion in my hand from my inventory, pulled the cork out of it and poured it into Jackies mouth. ¡°Melissa get back in there.¡± Candice had stabbed at the first goblin before Samantha could grab at it. Samantha turned her attention to another goblin and kicked it with her right hoof sending it flying back. This caused the other goblins to pause just slightly, enough for Samantha to reclaim her axe from the ground. ¡°Form a line, Sam on the right, then Melissa then Candice. Take them as they come, watch your friendlies.¡± I took a quick look around to make sure that nothing was sneaking up on us, then turned my attention to Jackie. ¡°You good to get back in there?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Jackie said getting back to her feet. ¡°Jackie get on the left side of the line,¡± I said bringing the battle back into focus. They had already taken out 3 more goblins. They were doing good at the moment so I didn¡¯t say anything for fear of distracting them. It wasn¡¯t long before Jackies hammer came down on the skull of the last goblin. When the goblins died their corpses laid where they fell for a few seconds then disintegrated into light which formed into a crystal that floated in place. ¡°Theres only eleven crystals here, there were twelve goblins, where is the one Samantha kicked away?¡± ¡°Why does it matter we beat them?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°We don¡¯t want him coming back with reinforcements,¡± I said. ¡°Spread out and search for him. Samantha you¡¯re with me.¡± It didn¡¯t take Candice long to sniff him out hiding underneath a car. ¡°Come out here you little runt,¡± She said diving under the car after him. ¡°No don¡¯t,¡± I said too late. There were several yelps and screams coming from under the car and then Candice popped out with the goblin impaled on her daggers and dropped him to the ground to turn into a crystal. ¡°So what are these crystals?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°Probably loot,¡± I said. ¡°Our reward for killing the goblins.¡± ¡°Reward for killing,¡± Candice said. ¡°Don¡¯t think I¡¯ll ever get used to that.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s hope we don¡¯t have to,¡± Jackie said grabbing the crystal. ¡°What do we do with these?¡± ¡°Give me a minute and I¡¯ll have an answer for you,¡± I said reaching out for a nearby crystal. I grabbed hold of it, but try as much as I tried I could not move it, it just floated there. ¡°Oh come on I know my strength score is 1 but come on.¡± ¡°Let me help you with that,¡± Samantha said with a laugh grabbing the crystal and not being able to move it. ¡°The hell?¡± My mind raced trying to figure out what was going on. ¡°Who killed this one?¡± ¡°I think I killed the one that landed in front of Lindas car,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Come over here and try to grab this crystal,¡± I said. Jackie walked over and grabbed the crystal with no problem. ¡°Well that¡¯s going to be annoying,¡± Melissa said. ¡°Having to keep track of who kills what.¡± ¡°We never formed a party,¡± I said closing my eyes and focusing on my interface. Sure enough there it was in the corner, Party Utilities, there was a lot of extra stuff but the stuff I needed was there, party invite, and looting options. I set the looting options to let anybody in the group loot anything the group kills. ¡°I¡¯m inviting you all to a party, please accept the invite.¡± Their names along with their HP, MP and SP bars appeared in my interface on at a time as they accepted the invites. ¡°Did anybody else level up?¡± Melissa asked, Samantha and Candice both spoke up with an affirmative response, Jackie did not. I looked at my own xp, Titleist 1 2/100. ¡°There¡¯s some kind of icon next to my class and level, what does that mean?¡± Samantha asked. ¡°I don¡¯t know I can¡¯t see it as I didn¡¯t level up, what does it look like?¡± I asked. ¡°Looks like a star,¡± Samantha said. Try focusing on it, see what happens,¡± I said hoping nothing bad would happen. ¡°Woah,¡± Samantha exclaimed. ¡°Now I¡¯m Warrior 2, and my stats went up, ha, ha, 51 strength score now.¡± Samantha stood there flexing with her eyes still closed. ¡°Also I have a window labeled newly leveled skills now, I think I got those before my level up though. 1-Handed Weapons Novice 4/100, Axes Novice 4/100, Axes (Hand) Novice 8/100, Shields (Small) Novice 2/100 Shields (Defensive) Novice 1/100, Unarmed (Basic) Beginner 1/100, Combat Expertise Novice 1/100.¡± ¡°Yeah those are pre-level up,¡± Candice said. ¡°I have 1-Handed Weapons Novice 6/100, Daggers Novice 2/100, Daggers (Twin) Novice 4/100, Dual Wielding (Beginner) 2/100, Duel Wielding (Twin) 4/100, Combat Expertise Novice 3/100. I¡¯m still Rogue 1 but I have that star icon next to my level.¡± ¡°Same here,¡± Melissa said. ¡°My numbers are lower though, I also have a Battle Assist Untrained 1/100.¡± ¡°The numbers are probably lower because you did less fighting, and you probably gained Battle Assist for dragging Jackie out of danger so I could give her a potion.¡± I said. ¡°Just to confirm that skills and levels are independent, Jackie did you get any skill ups?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Jackie said. ¡°No surprises, combat expertise, battle hammers and shields, nothing for getting smacked upside the head by our resident cow though.¡± Quest 1: Scouting Mission Around the Nordstrom Building. Part 2: Working Out the Kinks ¡°I said sorry,¡± Samantha said. ¡°And I could have died,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Sorry doesn¡¯t quite cut it.¡± ¡°Knock it off you two,¡± I said trying to restore some semblance of calm to the situation. ¡°No, I will not ¡®knock it off.¡¯¡± Jackie said. ¡°She is a danger to all of us out here, she should stay behind.¡± ¡°I said I was sorry,¡± Samantha yelled. ¡°It was an accident, they happen.¡± ¡°Calm down both of you,¡± I said. ¡°Emotions are pretty high right now, so calm is necessary. Mistakes were made, now we have to learn from them. Samantha, your first mistake was hitting Jackie with your ax. Combat awareness is super important, you need to know exactly where your enemies and allies are at all times. Understand?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Samantha said. ¡°You said that was my first mistake. What was my second one?¡± ¡°You turned your back to the enemy to try and help Jackie,¡± I said. ¡°Good on you for thinking about your ally, bad on you for turning your back to the enemy. That was a huge mistake, and mistakes can cost lives now. My mistake was not anticipating the chances of one of you going down and preparing you for it. So if one of you goes down the other one stands over them to cover them while their partner drags them back to me so I can administer a potion.¡± ¡°Oh that¡¯s right,¡± Jackie said materializing a Puny Healing Potion into her hand from her inventory and handing it to me. ¡°Here¡¯s the potion back you gave to me.¡± I took the potion and put it into my own inventory. ¡°Thank you, but I¡¯m not too concerned with whose potion is whose,¡± I said. ¡°I think a communal pool of resources is prudent, but time is of the essence right now so we¡¯ll talk about that later. Speaking of potions everybody check your HP, is anybody down HP?¡± ¡°I am,¡± Melissa said. ¡°I¡¯m down 2 from a scratch one of them got on me.¡± She pointed to a slight scratch on her outer left thigh. ¡°Think I should drink a healing potion too?¡± ¡°Not for 2 HP worth of damage,¡± I said. ¡°Jackie what did your Lay on Hands do again?¡± Jackie closed her eyes and after a moment started reading. ¡°Channel divine energy to heal others, uses all available healing until out or targets HP is full, does not work on undead. 10 of 10 HP left for today.¡± I thought about it for a second. ¡°Judging by the sounds of that you can use it over multiple uses a day instead of all at once like potions. Try healing Melissa for 2 HP.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Jackie said moving over to Melissa. ¡°What do I do?¡± ¡°Well best guess is it starts by touching Melissa, probably on the wound would be best,¡± I said. ¡°May I?¡± Jackie asked Melissa. ¡°Sure,¡± Melissa replied turning her wound towards Jackie. Jackie put her hand over the wound, ¡°now what?¡± ¡°Focus on activating the ability.¡± I said. ¡°How?¡± Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. I resisted the urge to say something along the lines of ¡®how should I know I don¡¯t have any abilities that I can activate?¡¯ ¡°Try thinking Lay on Hands,¡± I said. Jackies hand started glowing bright, after a moment it faded and she removed it. ¡°Did that hurt?¡± ¡°Not a bit,¡± Melissa said looking at the area. ¡°Actually felt kind of good, and not even a scar.¡± ¡°OK,¡± I said. ¡°Ninety nine percent of my reasoning for doing this now was so we wouldn¡¯t have to figure this out in the middle of combat if it came to it. Now on to the next mistake, Candice, why did you dive under a car after a goblin?¡± ¡°Because he was there and you said he needed to die before he came back with reinforcements,¡± Candice said. ¡°Although the risk was small, it was also unnecessary.¡± I said. ¡°The proper course of action would have been to surround the car and have Samantha flip it over revealing him.¡± ¡°Wait,¡± Samantha said. ¡°I¡¯m strong enough to flip a car?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I said. ¡°You certainly look it though.¡± I turned back to Candice. ¡°Anyway I¡¯m glad you¡¯re OK, but try not to do that again.¡± I turned to Jackie, ¡°are you and Samantha going to be OK?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Jackie said with her arms folded across her chest in a huff. ¡°As long as she watches where she¡¯s swinging her ax.¡± ¡°Yeah that was partially my fault for not realizing she had a huge swinging arc with her ax,¡± I said. ¡°In the future, you stand on the left and she¡¯ll stand on the right, that should about take care of that problem.¡± A sudden loud sound of metal crashing onto concrete echoed through the parking lot and off the building. I turned around to find Steve sports car on it¡¯s roof and Samantha standing over it striking a pose with a massive grin on her face. ¡°51 Strength score baby!¡± ¡°You think maybe you could make some more noise?¡± I asked her. ¡°I think some goblins on the moon didn¡¯t quite hear that.¡± ¡°Ops,¡± she said sheepishly covering her mouth with her hands. ¡°Sorry.¡± ¡°Alright, Let¡¯s figure out these crystals we got.¡± I said looking at the ones that Candice held in her hand. They all looked the same, about 3 inches long, half an inch wide with 3 sides and flat tips on either end. I couldn¡¯t see anything too strange about it. ¡°Does it say anything?¡± ¡°Loot Crystal Level 1 goblin scout,¡± Candice said. ¡°Oh great, they were scouts,¡± I said. ¡°That means there is probably more around somewhere. Anyway, open it up. It probably doesn¡¯t physically open, try mentally focusing on opening it.¡± Candice closed her eyes, and I made a mental note that we needed to work on being able to do things with our eyes open soon. The crystal disappeared from Candices hand. ¡°It had 3 copper pieces and a Throwing Dagger in it.¡± Everybody else opened their loot crystals as well, they each had anywhere from 2 to 7 copper pieces in them and between the lot of them they also had a Puny Healing Potion which they gave to me, a Puny Stamina Potion, and a Scrap of Ruined Fabric. All in all a fairly typical assortment of low level mob drops. After we finished checking the loot we walked down the drive way to the main road. ¡°Now we have a choice to make,¡± I said. ¡°Where too? The nearby office buildings probably won¡¯t have anything to help our transportation needs in them and I can tell from here there are no pickups in the lots. I think our best bet would be to head down the main road here to the corner where the Outdoor Center is. I think that¡¯s our best bet for solving our transportation needs.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± Melissa said. ¡°They do a haunted hayride during Halloween, I remember bringing my kids there last year. If they store the wagon they pull you around in there, I¡¯m sure we could hook it up to Beth and she could pull it.¡± ¡°NotrunningitbyBethonetwothreenotit,¡± I said putting my finger on my nose. ¡°Not it,¡± Melissa said putting her finger on her nose. ¡°Not it,¡± Samantha and Candice said in unison also putting their fingers on their noses. ¡°Oh no that¡¯s not how this works,¡± Jackie said. ¡°What are you five? That¡¯s not how we decide things in the adult world.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right we shouldn¡¯t decide how to do things like that we¡¯re adults,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re the leader you do it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not the leader you are,¡± Jackie said. ¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°I am a consultant. I recommend solutions to our current problems and you agree to it.¡± ¡°You¡¯ve been bossing us around like a leader,¡± Jackie said. ¡°You said when you came to get me in my office and I quote ¡®I am the leader around here and if you have a problem with it leave.¡¯ To which I did not argue so that is my acknowledgment of you as the leader.¡± ¡°Fine mister consultant,¡± Jackie said. ¡°You¡¯re helping me though.¡± I suppose I walked into that one. Quest 1: Scouting Mission Around the Nordstrom Building. Part 3: The Outdoor Center Our journey to the Outdoor Center was not uneventful, we encountered more goblins. Thanks to a change in formation and more familiarity with things we were able to get through 2 encounters of ten and twelve goblins without any major injuries although Jackie had finished off using her Lay on Hands ability for the day. Thanks to us now being in a party we were all now level 3 except for me who was still lagging behind at level 2 and Samantha who was level 4 thanks to a boar we encountered that she powerbombed into the road which got her more experience and Unarmed (Wrestling) Novice 2/100. Loot from the journey was also easier since we were in a group no more needing to keep track of who killed what any of us could pick up loot crystals. The only real surprise from the loot was the boar liver we got, other than that it was more copper pieces, a Puny Mana Potion, and some more Scraps of Ruined Fabric. ¡°Does anybody else find it strange that we haven¡¯t run into any people yet?¡± Candice asked. ¡°Yeah that¡¯s weird,¡± Jackie said. ¡°You don¡¯t think all those goblins that we¡¯ve been fighting were people before do you?¡± ¡°Unlikely,¡± I said. ¡°47 people work in our office and only 7 were transformed into another species, and none of them repeated. I don¡¯t think the odds of a random group of 12 people all close together being transformed into the same species are very good. Also your minds don¡¯t seem to be affected very much so I doubt they would have been turned into mindless monsters.¡± ¡°So where is everybody?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°Thursday morning, work and school.¡± I said. ¡°This is the empty part of town, we have a half dozen office buildings, an Outdoor Center, a movie theater and a gas station nearby, not gonna be super busy on a Thursday morning. Plus most people I think would hunker down is this situation and not roam the streets.¡± ¡°School vacation this week,¡± Melissa said. ¡°So what is your official recommendation for heading in there mister consultant?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°I recommend that Candice and Melissa as our most mobile and in theory our stealthiest members go ahead and scout the front parking lot and try to get a look inside, without actually going inside themselves. While the rest of us remain ready to rush in should they need our help.¡± ¡°I think splitting up is too dangerous,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We all go in together.¡± ¡°I think that you and Melissa should take point,¡± I said. ¡°Candice should watch our backs while me and Samantha stay in the middle ready to rush in if needed.¡± ¡°Tight formation,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Me and Samantha in the front, Candice and Melissa watching out, John trying to be useful.¡± I felt a twinge of shame at her bringing up my lack of combat ability, and another twinge of hatred for her bringing it up. I had to bury those emotions for now, too much was on the line to make an issue out of it. We headed towards the building walking directly up the side of it to the front. Upon reaching the front corner Jackie poked her head out and looked around, once she was satisfied that the coast was clear she stepped out. We followed her one by one, when I turned the corner I saw that there was only 5 vehicles in the parking lot, 2 cars, 2 SUVs and a van, if we couldn¡¯t locate the wagon we may be able to use the van. We made our way to the front door and stopped right before it. ¡°What are we looking for in here anyway?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°Besides the wagon?¡± ¡°Well,¡± I said. ¡°Either the wagon or a suitable substitute for it. Some tents would also be good in case we need to sleep outside in the rain. Possibly an inflatable boat or a canoe in case we need to cross a river or something. Something to start a fire with, something to cook food in, something to store water in, walkie talkies, handheld radios, pillows, a light source.¡± ¡°Woah woah woah,¡± Jackie said interrupting me. ¡°We¡¯re going across town not across the country.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I said. ¡°Where are we going after that? Also we should keep an eye out for cold weather clothes.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll worry about where we¡¯re going after we pick up the kids after we¡¯ve picked up the kids.¡± Jackie said. ¡°We have the supplies here we should get them now, we have no idea where we will find more supplies.¡± ¡°How are we going to transport everything across town?¡± ¡°The wagon, Heather isn¡¯t going to take up all the space in it.¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t even found the wagon yet and you¡¯re already filling it up with junk.¡± ¡°Junk? Everything I said is potentially necessary for survival, except the pillows.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t even know if any of that will work.¡± ¡°Children!¡± Candice said interrupting Jackie and Is argument. ¡°Behave.¡±Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°Let¡¯s meet in the middle,¡± Melissa said. ¡°We gather up the stuff we may need, and then we pack it up based on how much space we have.¡± ¡°Fine,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Let¡¯s go in.¡± Jackie and Samantha led the way into the store. The doors were already opened, pushed off their track from the inside. The interior of the store was a mess shelves were strewn about, goods all over the floor. The lights were off and everything that wasn¡¯t directly in front of the front doors was covered in shadows. ¡°My thoughts on the matter are, Jackie has her Light blessing she can use, and the rest of you all have some form of Dark Vision, so I recommend you split into two teams and search for supplies, bring them back here and I can sort them out while keeping an eye on the front door.¡± ¡°No you don¡¯t get to laze around John, you work too.¡± Jackie said. ¡°Go with Samantha and Melissa.¡± ¡°How?¡± I asked. ¡°Try using your feet you lazy asshole,¡± Jackie said taking a step towards me. ¡°How am I supposed to see anything?¡± I asked. ¡°Being with people who can see in the dark doesn¡¯t give me the ability to see in the dark. If I go with anybody I¡¯d have to go with you because you¡¯re the only one who can make light.¡± ¡°Gee maybe if you put that brain to use trying to think of something besides naps you could come up with something,¡± Jackie said taking another step closer to me so that we were face-to-face. ¡°Alright alright,¡± Samantha said stepping in between us. ¡°First thing you two are going to do is stop fighting. Second thing you¡¯re going to do is tell me why you two hate each other.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t hate each other,¡± Jackie said. ¡°She tried to get me fired three times,¡± I said pointing a finger at her. ¡°I caught you sleeping on the job over a dozen times.¡± ¡°I was not sleeping, I was dozing there is a difference.¡± ¡°You have a pillow and a blanket in your office.¡± ¡°You two fight more than my children do,¡± Candice said with her hands on her hips tapping her foot. ¡°And they¡¯re three and five.¡± ¡°You two go stand over there by the cash register,¡± Samantha said pointing. ¡°And we grown ups are going to go have a conversation and we¡¯ll let you know what we decide to do with you two.¡± I went over to stand by the cash register, Jackie followed me after some grumbling. I sat down and closed my eyes, it was time for me to go digging into my interface. ¡°Another nap, just what you need.¡± ¡°No I¡¯m going to go through my interface see what I can learn,¡± I said. ¡°Maybe you should too?¡± ¡°I will castrate you with a spoon,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Castrate me with a spoon?¡± I asked. ¡°Do I need to report you to HR when we get back?¡± ¡°A rusty spoon.¡± I gave a slight laugh hoping she was just letting off some steam, the first thing I noticed was my SP, it had fallen to 13/20 during our journey here. I decided to wait until I could get a full 10 SP out of my stamina potions before drinking one. I turned my attention to my inventory there were four icons one that looked like a backpack, two that looked like boxes, and a lock icon. The two boxes had been empty squares before I put the Beginner Storage Boxes in them, now I could focus on them and they would expand into four empty squares, I had nothing in them. The backpack icon was labeled ¡®weightless secure storage¡¯ I had no idea what secure meant in this context, it had 20 slots, each different potion I had took up it¡¯s own slot, they did not ¡®stack¡¯ unfortunately. The lock icon said ¡®additional bag slots can be unlocked with points.¡¯ What are points referring to, experience points, or something else? Just as I thought that something popped up. Points are gained while engaging in any activity relating to any of your Classes, Skills, Perks, Spells, Blessings, Powers, or Abilities and also gained while accomplishing feats and using certain items. ¡®Are you alive?¡¯ I thought wondering if there was somebody intruding upon my thoughts, nothing changed. I turned my attention elsewhere, to my abilities. The only one I had was Bestow Title, bestows a title on those you deem worthy. It was grayed out as opposed to the white that everything else was indicating that I couldn¡¯t use it, but why not, were my base stats too low? Another notification popped up, In order to use Bestow Title you must meet certain requirements, each title requires a different amount of MP, SP and rarely HP to bestow upon a person, they also require something from the receiver usually an oath of loyalty or a promise to undertake a quest on behalf of the Titleist. A Titleist can also bestow Titles as a reward or for past deeds or even because he/she/it feels like it. Some very rare titles may be bestowed on an unwilling target as a punishment. If the Titleist does not have a seat of power of some kind the cost to bestow Titles is dramatically increased. So my stats needed to go up they had started at 1 and had only increased to 2 when I leveled up to Titleist 2 Samantha seems to be getting 4-6 Strength per level which didn¡¯t tell me much, was stat growth a factor of your race or your class? Another notification appeared in my mind, stats go up based on what class you took on level up. What determines what classes are available on level up? Most classes have different requirements in the case of your first class you must ascend to level 25 (or it¡¯s max level if you were randomly assigned a class during world assimilation) in them before you can select a level in another class. After that you may take any class you qualify for, qualifications can be virtually anything, but the most common requirements are stats and levels in other classes. I also had a Perk Symbiotic Overlord, special interaction with Titleist class, grants you 1% of base stats of anybody that has a title from you, or 3% if they have two titles from you. Also can allow for Spells, Abilities, Powers, Skills and Talents to be shared back and forth between yourself and people who have your titles on a case-by-case basis. My skills were lackluster for combat, but helpful for a supporting role I guess. First-Aid Untrained 1/100 allows the use of basic first-aid measures, Medicine 2/100 Untrained allows identification of the most common types of medicine, Potion Use Untrained 1/100 allows the administration of potions to others, Battle Medicine Untrained 3/100 helps while administering Medicine of any kind during a battle, Battle Assist Untrained 3/100 assists with many aspects of supporting your allies during battle. But what does untrained mean, does it mean I can¡¯t use it yet? Another notification popped up. Skills are special things you can do that are within the bounds of normal activity or your expertise with different types of magic. Skills are leveled up with use. They have different thresholds which are in order: Untrained, Beginner, Rookie, Novice, Journeyman, Advanced, Experienced, Master, Aspirant, Savant, Grandmaster, Supreme Master and Godlike. The different thresholds may have additional requirement to access beyond simply using the skill. There are 100 levels within each threshold and some classes will automatically advance you to certain thresholds with certain skills. A sharp jab into my side brought me out of my thoughts and back to the present situation. The others were making their way back towards me and Jackie and I stood up. ¡°OK,¡± Samantha said. ¡°This is what¡¯s going to happen. First, you two are going to forgive each other for everything that you¡¯ve done to each other before right now. Agreed?¡± ¡°Agreed,¡± Me and Jackie responded. ¡°Secondly you both need to understand a few things,¡± Candice said. ¡°First Jackie, you have nothing to prove to anybody here, and John you need to step back a little. Jackie has real leadership experience so she should lead us as a group, but you¡¯ve already proven an effective leader in battle so we¡¯d like you to direct us in battle.¡± ¡°I can agree to that,¡± I said, Jackie nodded slowly at first. ¡°John,¡± Melissa said. ¡°I don¡¯t know if you intend to come off as a know-it-all but you do. Whenever you give us advice it seems like you¡¯re talking down to us, this has been going on since at least when I started working here. Err, at the office. You need to work on that, we can¡¯t just passively be annoyed at each other anymore, we need to be a team.¡± I thought about what Melissa had said. Communications are not a strong suit for me, hopefully I¡¯ll get a skill in that later. ¡°I will endeavor to improve.¡± ¡°Anyway we saw the wagon while we were talking, let¡¯s go check it out,¡± Samantha said. We made our way over to the wagon that they had found. It would certainly suit our needs, it was part of some sort of display complete with a large fake horse, but that would be easy enough to disassemble to get at the wagon. With Jackies glowing hammer illuminating it we could all tell that it was in good enough shape for our plans. ¡°I would like to amend my previous recommendation concerning the wagon and getting supplies from here,¡± I said. ¡°How so?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°I think we should hold off on getting supplies until we come back through with everybody. For two reasons, first it¡¯s slightly uphill from here to there, second with more people going through this place will be faster.¡± ¡°Will we even be coming back this way?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°Probably, where do you two send your kids for day-care?¡± I asked. ¡°Happy Tots Day-Care,¡± Candice said. ¡°Angels Touch After School Care,¡± Melissa said. ¡°Yeah those are both east of here,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯ll be coming back through.¡± ¡°Sounds good,¡± Jackie said. It didn¡¯t take us long to disassemble the display and with Samantha pushing and Melissa steering we started the journey back to our office. Interlude Interlude 1 We were finally back at the office. Amanda had gotten herself together and was now able to maintain a vaguely humanoid form, she still couldn¡¯t talk though. Kelly had managed to find a map and laid it out circling where the three daycares we needed to go to were. They were of course all over the place. Candices two children were at Happy Tots Day-Care located quite a ways away to the southeast. Melissa two children were at Angels Touch After School Care which was east northeast of our current location, and Heathers daughter was at Riverside Community Center which was located far north of our present location, but an almost straight shot up the highway from Angels Touch After School Care. Heather, Candice, and Melissa were all making cases for why we should go after their children first. I didn¡¯t really care which order we did it in, and I was perfectly content to let Jackie make this decision on her own. ¡°Everybody quiet,¡± Jackie said silencing the room. ¡°John what do you think, they all make a good case?¡± I was more than a little surprised that she wanted my opinion on the matter, but I was willing to give it. I stared at the map for a minute pretending to think about it, but I had already come up with a plan. ¡°I think we should prioritize getting to each daycare as quickly as possible overall. So we should either do Riverside, Angels then Happy, or Happy, Angels then Riverside. As another thing to consider Riverside is in a better location for finding a place to set up shop, so I think we should go there last.¡± ¡°What do you mean ¡®set up shop?¡¯¡± Heather asked. ¡°Well what are we going to do after we round up all the kids?¡± I asked. ¡°We can either wander around or hunker down, I think hunkering down is by far the better choice.¡± Heather was about to say something, but Jackie spoke up before she could. ¡°We¡¯ll debate about what to do after we round up the children after we¡¯ve rounded up the children. I agree that being at Riverside Community Center will put us in a better spot, so we¡¯ll do this in the order Happy Tots, Angels Touch, and then Riverside. What were you able to recover for supplies?¡± ¡°Not much,¡± Kelly said indicating a small cardboard box filled with junk food. ¡°Steve cleaned out the vending machines and took all the water cooler bottles. All that was left was some miscellaneous snacks that people had squirreled away in their desks and two half drank bottles of water.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We¡¯ll leave them here, this is survival we need food with high nutritional value.¡± ¡°I would like to offer an alternative,¡± I said and waited for Jackie to ask me what it was. ¡°What¡¯s your alternative?¡± ¡°When we get to the kids, they¡¯ll likely be scared and stressed out,¡± I said. ¡°Nothing cheers a kid up faster than junk food.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We¡¯ll bring it with us. For the kids.¡± She added looking at me. ¡°So mister genius consultant.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t recall ever calling myself a genius,¡± I interrupted. ¡°Don¡¯t interrupt me,¡± Jackie said. ¡°You know I hate being interrupted it¡¯s rude.¡± ¡°I know no such thing,¡± I said. ¡°Rusty, spoon,¡± Jackie said sternly. I laughed at Jackies response. Our relationship was evolving, either we had an inside joke or she was really going to castrate me with a rusty spoon. ¡°Anyway, how do you propose we get Heather and Beth out of here?¡± I stopped laughing immediately, I had actually completely forgotten about that. We had converged at the stairwell everybody had already offered at least one overly complicated solution involving, rope we didn¡¯t have, pulleys we didn¡¯t have, or fixing the elevator that nobody knew how to do. I had two plans in my head, one of which was elegant in it¡¯s simplicity, but involved knocking out a wall so I didn¡¯t thinkIf you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. anybody would go for it. So I would have to resort to my own overly complex plan involving Samantha, weird poses, and the best pun I¡¯ll make this week. ¡°OK, I got a plan,¡± I said. ¡°Short version is Samantha carries her down.¡± ¡°We already established I can¡¯t do that,¡± Samantha said. ¡°I¡¯m too clumsy on the stairs, I need one hand to hold onto the rail.¡± ¡°Is your strength score 53 or 3?¡± I asked. ¡°53,¡± Samantha growled with a flex. ¡°Good,¡± I said. ¡°Do you remember ¡®I¡¯m a Little Teapot?¡¯¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Good, make a handle.¡± Samantha awkwardly placed her left hand on her hip, ¡°Like this?¡± ¡°Yeah like that,¡± I said. ¡°Now Jackie, Candice and Kelly help Heather get into Samantha''s arm and fish her tail through to the back. Heather grab onto Samantha like you¡¯re hugging her. That should provide enough support so that Samantha can carry her down one handed.¡± Everybody was looking at me. ¡°Did you formulate this entire plan so you could make a pun?¡± Beth asked. ¡°No,¡± I lied. ¡°But plan A involves having Samantha knock out an exterior wall, and I don¡¯t know enough about architecture to know how to do that safely.¡± They were all looking at me not buying my excuse. ¡°So we gonna do this or should Samantha start knocking out a wall?¡± It was a slow moving trip, but eventually we got Heather down to the wagon and put her in the front of it. Samantha, Jackie and I went back into the building to help Beth downstairs, Kelly had remained in the building with her, it was probably safe but neither me or Jackie were too keen on anybody being alone right now. ¡°So what¡¯s your genius plan here?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°Preferably without a joke about horsing around.¡± ¡°I believe the politically correct phrase here would be centauring around,¡± I said with a grin. ¡°Let¡¯s just please get this over with,¡± Beth said with a stamp. ¡°Stay on focus,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We don¡¯t have all day here.¡± ¡°OK so my plan is, Jackie goes down first with her Light Blessing we¡¯re gonna need all the light we can get. Samantha and Kelly will go next to keep an eye on Beth and be ready to catch her should she fall, and I will take up the rear to oversee things and spot any potential problems.¡± ¡°So we do all the work you do nothing except stare at my ass?¡± Beth asked. ¡°Admittedly my role in this is small, but it¡¯s only that way because you four are so capable,¡± I said. ¡°I promise not to look too hard at your ass, and I promise not to derive any sexual titillation from it when I have to.¡± Samantha gave several deep sniffs. ¡°You guys smell that? It smells like bullshit to me.¡± ¡°Oh come on,¡± I protested. ¡°I have barely done anything wrong all day.¡± ¡°Cause you¡¯ve barely done anything all day,¡± Jackie said. ¡°If I¡¯ve barely done anything all day than why do I only have 11 stamina left?¡± ¡°Because you¡¯re stats are so low that you have less to start.¡± ¡°Exactly,¡± I said. ¡°A lot of effort for me is different than it is for you. You can¡¯t hold me to the same standard.¡± ¡°I find it hilarious that the man is all of a sudden the weak one.¡± Samantha said putting her arm around me. ¡°It¡¯s OK darling I¡¯ll protect you.¡± ¡°Could we get on with this?¡± Beth said stamping again. ¡°Yes enough rambling,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Let¡¯s go with Johns plan for now, if it¡¯s not working out we¡¯ll figure something else out. It was extremely slow going Beth was extremely unsteady on the stairs and stumbled several times, but Samantha was able to catch her and Kelly was able to stabilize Samantha. We were now down at the wagon a little out of breath but none the worse for wear. ¡°I know this isn¡¯t the time to ask,¡± I said. ¡°But does anybody know why we¡¯re on the seventh floor when all the other ones are empty?¡± ¡°Company bought the building with the intent of renting out all the other spaces after they got sick of paying rent at the old building. We¡¯re on floor seven because the owner wanted to be on lucky number seven. Nobody else is in the building because they decided it wasn¡¯t worth the hassle.¡± Jackie explained. I looked at my SP 9/20 remaining. ¡°Well it¡¯s time to conduct an experiment,¡± I said pulling out a Puny Stamina Potion. ¡°Time to find out what these things taste like.¡± I uncorked the vial and downed it. ¡°Bleh.¡± ¡°What¡¯s it taste like?¡± Heather asked. ¡°It tastes like coffee and orange juice had a love child, were so disgusted with it they threw it in the sewers, then twenty years later said child came out of the sewers and they made 3 horror movies out of it.¡± I said. ¡°But it works, my SP is back up to 19/20.¡± ¡°I need to stretch my legs a moment,¡± Beth said. ¡°I¡¯m going to take a jog around the parking lot.¡± Beth darted off without waiting for a response from anybody, she looked quite majestic, her long hair flowing in back of her, her tail whipping in the wind. At least until she rounded the second turn and fell sideways onto the tar. Samantha, Candice, Melissa, and Jackie ran over to help her leaving me at the wagon with Heather, Kelly and Amanda now having collapsed down into a copper bucket, she had been in a plastic bucket before.
Humanoid Slimes First Bucket Misc Object
A basic bucket designed for Humanoid Slimes, lacks any form of special features but is comfortable. Grants +10% HP, MP and SPrecovery while resting or sleeping in it for Humanoid Slimes. Only one Humanoid Slime may benefit from this bucket at a time
¡°You OK Amanda?¡± I asked. A vaguely hand shaped figure emerged from the slime in the shape of a thumbs up. ¡°OK. I¡¯m going to invite you three to the party now, please accept the invitations.¡± They quickly accepted and now out party was up to eight, we only needed Beth to get everybody in it. I was starting to wonder how many people we could have in a party. Beth was back on her feet and they were heading back towards us. I invited Beth to the party and when they got back to us I told her about it and she joined. We headed off back to the Outdoor Center, we were actually starting to look like a real adventuring group now.
Name/Class HP MP SP
John/Titleist 2 15/15 16/16 19/20
Jackie/Paladin 3 56/56 7/57 51/101
Candice/Rogue 3 41/41 43/43 81/92
Melissa/Rogue 3 41/41 38/38 41/73
Samantha/Warrior 4 111/111 34/34 112/236
Amanda/Apprentice 1 36/36 64/64 12/62
Kelly/Apprentice 1 51/51 30/30 89/96
Heather/Bard 1 32/32 36/36 51/59
Beth/Acolyte 1 51/58 3/36 162/185
Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 1: Setting Out Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 1: Setting out. We arrived at the outdoor center without incident. Beth, Heather and Amanda waited outside with the wagon and the rest of us went inside to look for stuff, we split into three teams, Kelly and Samantha, Candice and Melissa, and Jackie and I each split up and started searching. Jackie and I took the far left side of the store using her hammer with Light cast on it to see.
Blessing: Light Beginner 20/100
Creates a ball of light on an object or portion of an object Brightness 0/100
We were currently in the tents section, debating on what to do. We had brought two carts with us to carry stuff. ¡°We should get 1 for each of us and a few extras in case of damage or running into others.¡± I said. ¡°Why so many?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°Get three of the big ones for the girls and a small one for you.¡± ¡°Only way we¡¯re fitting two people comfortably in that small one is if they¡¯re in a sixty nine.¡± I responded. ¡°What do we do if we run into another guy?¡± ¡°Sixty nine, who needs to be reported to HR now?¡± Jackie asked sneering. My retort was cut short by the light on Jackie¡¯s hammer going out. ¡°Hey what gives?¡± I asked taking a quick step back in case she decided to take a swing at me in the dark. ¡°I don¡¯t know it just went out when I got distracted arguing with you. This is your fault.¡± She said. ¡°Well learn to not get distracted,¡± I said. ¡°You may have to maintain that while in combat sometime.¡± ¡°Everything is not going to be about combat,¡± Jackie said I could hear her fiddling with her hammer. ¡°Why isn¡¯t this working?¡± I then heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like her smacking her hammer. ¡°How¡¯s your MP?¡± I asked. ¡°You were getting pretty low I noticed.¡± ¡°My MP is fine,¡± Jackie said. ¡°It¡¯s¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s what Jackie?¡± I asked. ¡°Don¡¯t just stop in the middle of a sentence in pitch dark. That¡¯s how horror movies start.¡± ¡°I¡¯m out of MP alright? You were right are you happy?¡± She snapped. ¡°I¡¯m just happy it¡¯s something easy to fix. Drink an MP potion.¡±Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. ¡°How do I know what it is in the dark?¡± ¡°Well what did you pull out of your inventory?¡± ¡°Nothing yet. How do I know what I pull out is an MP potion?¡± ¡°You just think MP potion and it will appear in your hand.¡± ¡°But how do we know it will be an MP potion?¡± ¡°Jackie! John!¡± Candice called from somewhere else in the store. ¡°Are you two all right? The light went out.¡± ¡°We¡¯re fine!¡± I yelled back. ¡°Jackie ran out of MP so the light went out. Can somebody come lead us out?¡± ¡°On my way!¡± Candice yelled. ¡°She¡¯ll be here in a minute,¡± I said to Jackie. Jackie suddenly grabbed my wrist. ¡°Are you afraid of the dark?¡± ¡°No!¡± She practically shouted. ¡°I¡¯m just making sure you don¡¯t wander off in the dark.¡± ¡°Good thinking.¡± It didn¡¯t take long for Candice to find us, and as soon as she was aware of her presence Jackie¡¯s hand flew off of my wrist. ¡°Thanks, we were just about to fill our carts up with tents. What do you think do you think we should get two big ones for the women and a small one for me, or small ones for everybody?¡± ¡°I¡¯d say get the medium ones for everybody,¡± Candice said. ¡°Beth, Heather and Samantha are far larger than the rest of us, and when we get to my kids I¡¯m gonna want to keep them close at night so a medium sized tent would afford us more room.¡± ¡°Sounds reasonable to me,¡± I said. ¡°Leader?¡± ¡°Sounds good,¡± Jackie said. After Candice loaded up the carts she pushed one and I dragged the other, me and Jackie put our hands on Candice¡¯s shoulder and she led us out to the front door. ¡°Thanks for the bail out,¡± I said. ¡°No problem,¡± Candice said. ¡°Pick out some good stuff for us.¡± Kelly arrived with a cart full of stuff and took a new one with her back into the darkness of the store. ¡°OK, so why don¡¯t you go through this stuff and I¡¯ll take two of the extra tents and try to make some kind of canopy for the wagon, so that Beth, Heather, Amanda, Kelly and the kids can stay out of the sun a little bit.¡± I said to Jackie. ¡°Oh,¡± she said. ¡°That¡¯s a good idea, and thoughtful. Yeah get to work on that.¡± I went over to the nearest cash resister and grabbed a package of bags and put them in my cart with the tents. ¡°What are those for?¡± ¡°The bags?¡± I asked. ¡°Somewhere to put trash, just because it¡¯s the end of the world doesn¡¯t mean we start littering.¡± Jackie just shook her head. I rolled the cart out to the wagon set two of the tents up on the wagon and climbed aboard myself. Amanda was still in her bucket, I assumed she was sleeping so I was careful to step around her quietly. ¡°What¡¯s up?¡± Heather asked. ¡°I¡¯m going to try and erect a canopy of some kind, create some shelter from the sun for you.¡± I explained. ¡°Oh thank you so much,¡± Heather said. ¡°I¡¯ve been getting so thirsty since coming outside.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what dehydration does to a mermaid, but I¡¯d like to not find out,¡± I said. ¡°Or a humanoid slime.¡± I took the support rods out of the tent box and looked at the sides of the wagon. The sides themselves were made of metal pipe, two wooden benches ran down the interior sides of the wagon. I tried propping the rods up in- between the benches and the railings to no avail. ¡°Hey Jackie!¡± I yelled into the building. ¡°What,¡± she yelled back after a second. ¡°See if anybody has found duct tape, I need some.¡± There was a slight pause I heard Jackie yell some stuff, but couldn¡¯t make out what. ¡°How much you need?¡± She yelled out to me. ¡°As much as you can carry, it has a lot of uses,¡± I yelled back. I turned my attention to the fabric part of the tents. I¡¯d have to cut them up to make them fit how I needed them to, but if I did that they may be too small to cover everything I wanted them to. I was deep in thought when a large crashing sound rang across the parking lot, I looked up to find Samantha standing there, she had dumped an entire shelf of duct tape, shelf included on the parking lot. ¡°What?¡± She asked as I was staring at her in disbelief. ¡°You said as much as I could carry.¡± ¡°Hey when you go back in try and find me a tarp or a big section of fabric to use as a covering for this.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Samantha said walking back in. It took me about an hour but I eventually managed to erect a cover for our wagon. It would win any awards for it¡¯s appearance, but it was stable. Just as I was getting done with that the girls started coming out of the Outdoor Center with carts filled with stuff we¡¯d need. Two outdoor cooking stoves, a dozen blankets, a dozen sets of outdoor clothes in children''s sizes, a couple of small hatchets, a half dozen flashlights, another half dozen lanterns and the rest of the tents me and Jackie had gotten. It didn¡¯t take us long to get packed and ready to go, it was now early afternoon. Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 2: The Lone Monk We hadn¡¯t been on road to Happy Tots for long when we encountered our first goblin ambush. It was eighteen this time, I wondered if the number of goblins that attacked us scaled to the number of people in our party or if it was just a coincidence. Samantha, Jackie, Melissa, and Candice were getting into their grove and were functioning well as a team. Heather, Beth, Amanda and Kelly still had some kinks to work out. Heather and Beth were effectively immobile so Beth was saving her MP for Cure if it was needed, and Heather was using her Rallying Song from the wagon.
Blessing: Cure Beginner 0/100
Restores HP Damage. HP Restored 0/100
Power: Rallying Song Beginner 0/100
Provides a morale buff of 10% to all allies within earshot. Duration after song ends 0/100
Kelly and Amanda were both using their magic from behind the main line. Amanda was using Magic Missile and Kelly was using Spark.
Spell: Magic Missile Beginner 0/100
Creates a point of pure arcane energy that flies at a visual target without error. Damage 0/100
Spell: Spark Beginner /100
Creates a small ball of electricity that flies toward a visual target. Stun Chance 0/100
Both of the spells had their pros and cons. They both performed the same basic function, traveled from point a to point b, but Magic Missile traveled much faster than Spark and it was more accurate, Spark had a bit of drift to it. Spark was therefore more likely to hit an ally by mistake, I had no idea what that would do, would being in a party together prevent damage from spells that missed their target? I made a mental note to figure out what their other spells Flash, Create Flame, and Chill did exactly, I had a good idea, but I wanted to know for sure. The goblins went down fast enough, they weren¡¯t using tactics at all, just attacking en mass we received a few rewards
John Jackie Candice Samantha Melissa Beth Kelly Amanda Heather
3 exp 18 exp 18 exp 18 exp 18 exp 3 exp 18 exp 18 exp 12 exp
0 points 9 points 7 points 11 points 7 points 0 points 3 points 5 points 9 points
We also received loot in the form of 94 copper pieces, 4 Scraps of Ruined Fabric, 1 Puny Mana Potion, 1 Scrap of Ruined Leather and 1 Dull Mace.
Dull Mace, Quality: Junk Weapon, 1 Handed Hammer
Properties: Mob Drop Damage 1-2
Mob Drop: Will resize to match the size of the first person who equips it, size is then locked after that.
¡°Well I don¡¯t have a weapon yet so I¡¯ll take the mace,¡± I said looking at the stats on it. ¡°Better than nothing right?¡± I picked it up and equipped it, it immediately expanded from goblin size to human size and holy crap was it heavy, I took a practice swing with it and fell over much to the enjoyment of the girls. ¡°OK so not better than nothing?¡± Samantha walked over to me and picked me up, ¡°you OK?¡± She asked. ¡°Yeah I¡¯m OK, I just didn¡¯t expect it to weigh so much,¡± I said but as soon as Samantha took her hand off of me I fell back down. Samantha caught me in her arms before I hit the ground this time. ¡°Whoa there,¡± Samantha said. ¡°You are not OK.¡± A quick check of my status told me everything I needed to know. ¡°I¡¯m down to 1 stamina,¡± I said getting a Puny Stamina Potion out of my inventory and drinking it. ¡°1?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°You haven¡¯t been doing much.¡± ¡°Maybe trying to swing a weapon with such a low strength score cost him a lot of stamina?¡± Beth volunteered as an explanation.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. I figured that may be the reason myself but was glad that someone else had volunteered it. ¡°That is likely it,¡± I said. ¡°Wow, you really are frail aren¡¯t you?¡± Jackie asked looking down at me. ¡°Knock it off,¡± Samantha said setting me on my feet. ¡°I¡¯m not playing peacemaker between you two anymore. His knowledge is too useful to kick him out and I¡¯m not that comfortable with leaving him to fend for himself anyway.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry again,¡± Jackie said. ¡°It¡¯s just that my entire world has been flung upside down and¡­¡± ¡°Quiet,¡± Melissa said ears brimming. ¡°No,¡± Jackie said. ¡°I am venting here¡­¡± ¡°Shut up,¡± Melissa said putting her hand over Jackie¡¯s mouth, ¡°I think I hear something.¡± We were all quiet for a moment, all straining to hear whatever it was that Melissa had heard, or thought she heard. ¡°I hear it now,¡± Candice said ears twitching. ¡°Sounds like battle.¡± ¡°Somebody may need help,¡± Heather said. ¡°It could also be Steve,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Let¡¯s find out who it is first and decide what to do about it then,¡± I said rushing over to the wagon and hopping in the back. We started moving towards the direction Candice said the battle was in. The wagon was clearly not built for a comfortable ride at fast speeds as my ass barely touched the seat the entire time, I was more than a little jealous of Kelly just sitting there like nothing was happening, I didn¡¯t even notice her get in actually, nor Amanda who was back in her bucket but instead of resting she was holding it down to keep herself from falling out of the wagon. I decided that in the back blind to what was going on outside wasn¡¯t a good place for me so I made my way tot he front of the wagon and poked my head through the flap I had built into it. Heather was holding on to the sides for dear life. Candice and Melissa were far out ahead of Beth, and Samantha and Jackie were only a little bit ahead of Beth. ¡°Left up here,¡± Candice said coming to a stop and looking down the road. ¡°Beth come to a stop here we don¡¯t want you to tip over again.¡± I said to Beth. ¡°What do you see?¡± I hollered to Candice. ¡°All I see is goblins,¡± she yelled back. ¡°They¡¯re fighting something.¡± ¡°How many goblins? What are they fighting?¡± I asked as Beth approached the intersection. Beth came to a grinding halt in the intersection and I looked up. Three blocks down in the intersection was a horde of goblins, at least a hundred in number all swarming around one thing that I couldn¡¯t make out what it was. Whatever it was it was stronger than any goblin on it¡¯s own as occasionally a goblin would go flying either backwards or up and disappeared into a point of light which went upwards and joined with a floating loot crystal far larger than any we had seen up until now, easily the size of a car. Just then there was a momentary opening in the goblin horde and I saw what they were fighting, it was the worst possible thing. ¡°It¡¯s a little girl,¡± Melissa said taking off towards the battle. ¡°Wait no don¡¯t,¡± I said too late as Samantha and Jackie followed her. ¡°CANDICE STOP!¡± I screamed at the top of my lungs to keep my last melee attacker from leaving us behind. She turned back towards us. ¡°Why? We have to help her.¡± ¡°But running in half cocked with no plan is only going to make more people who need rescuing. You¡¯re with me, Beth get the wagon close enough to the battle so that Heathers music can affect everybody, Heather Rallying Song, Kelly stay near the wagon when we get there and use your Spark and aim it at clusters of goblins to try and get maximum effect out of it, Amanda use your Magic Missile to target anything that comes near the wagon. Candice, when we get close to the battle I¡¯m going to unhook Beth from the wagon so that she¡¯s more mobile, cover me while I do that.¡± We arrived at the battle shortly behind Samantha, Jackie and Melissa. Samantha had charged in headfirst and was now completely surrounded by goblins, much to the disadvantage of the goblins, each swing of her ax was cutting right through at least two goblins at a time, I was quite glad that they didn¡¯t seem to have any blood and guts. Jackie was closer to the girl but still trying to smash her way through the goblins to get to her. Melissa had lost a bit of her nerve and was further away, taking goblins on two at a time quite easily. With more targets for them to focus on the goblins had spread out a bit and I could get a decent look at the girl, the term ¡®little girl¡¯ was a huge misnomer she seemed to be about sixteen, she didn¡¯t seem to be wearing any gear, just her clothes from before the change, now torn and dirty. She had a look of pure fury on her face, and was punching and kicking the goblins and each time she did the goblin didn¡¯t get back up. I hopped down from the wagon and started to work on unhooking Beth from the wagon. ¡°Beth when I get you free stay mobile and be ready to get in and heal anybody that needs it, but don¡¯t put yourself in more danger than you need to. Use your own judgment on what that means.¡± I had gotten the first part of the harness undone. ¡°Candice switching sides now switch too. Beth coming around front hold your swings for a second.¡± I moved around the front of Beth and got to the other side of the harness. ¡°Clear, Beth swing away.¡± I heard Candice land behind me and two goblins give a screech as her daggers killed them. ¡°How much longer? There¡¯s far more on this side than there was on the other side.¡± Candice asked. ¡°As long as it takes, I can¡¯t rush this,¡± I said. ¡°Kelly focus right try and get as many as you can at once. Samantha, Jackie, try and get into formation.¡± I tried to holler over the din of combat, but I doubted they heard me. I got the last of the harness off of Beth. ¡°Beth you¡¯re free go!¡± I climbed back up to the front seat of the wagon. ¡°Where¡¯s Amanda?¡± I asked noticing she was nowhere in sight. As if to answer my question she appeared off to my left, she was now more of a tentacled mass than a humanoid figure, slamming into goblins, picking up goblins and swinging them at another goblin. ¡°Well Amanda is doing her own thing.¡± I said to inform everybody as to what was going on. Jackie was starting to slow down greatly between her swings, Beth even though she was new to the fight and using her horse half to great results, was already surrounded. Even Samantha was down on one knee and her ax was gone, she was resorting to bashing with her shield and hands but for each goblin she killed two more were there to take it¡¯s place. Melissa was now fighting six or seven goblins at a time and spending too much time defending from their attacks to launch very many of her own. Candice was trying to make her way towards Samantha to help her up but there was a lot of goblins in-between them. ¡°I only got three more casts left before I¡¯m completely out of MP,¡± Kelly said. My mind was racing trying to figure out how to get us out of this mess. ¡°We¡¯re all going to die.¡± I said reaching the only sane conclusion I could. EVENT CONCLUDED
Stephanie Samantha Jackie Melissa Amanda Kelly Candice Beth Heather John
Rank SS B C D D D D F D F
Kill Count 1722 127 70 41 37 36 29 19 0 0
Awards Feat: Goblin Killer Feat: One Punch Tank Righteous Fury The Impossible?! Buffer The Load
Rewards Goblin Skin Belt Spiked Buckler Holy Potion Crossbow Steel Boots 36 Silver 29 Silver ''I Tried'' Sticker ''I Buffed'' Sticker ''I Didn''t Try'' Sticker
A notification popped up and all the goblins disappeared instantly. ¡°What the fuck?¡± Kelly asked. Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 3: Gym Ratt ¡°What the hell was all that about?¡± Samantha asked getting herself up off the ground. ¡°Give me a minute to go over this notification. In the meantime check on everybody and regroup.¡± I said turning my attention to the notification.
Award: Feat: Goblin Killer Awarded for killing 1,000 Goblins
Award: Feat: One Punch Awarded for killing 100 consecutive enemies with a single punch each without help.
Award: Tank Awarded for taking the msot damage and surviving during an event.
Award: Righteous Fury Awarded for entering an event late and immediately scoring a kill with one hit.
Award: The Impossible!? Awarded for doing something that shouldn''t be possible. (In this case drowning an enemy with no source of water nearby.
Award: Buffer Awarded for providing the most party-wide buffs during an event.
Award: The Load Awarded for contributing absolutely nothing to an event.
I couldn¡¯t inspect the items directly from that notification, so I settled for looking at my own for now.
''I Didn''t Try'' Sticker Sticker
1/10 Stickers go directly into your sticker book, when you have enough you may turn it in for a reward.
I took a quick look at my status screen and a new option ¡®Sticker Book¡¯ was there. I looked over the scene the girl was out cold, Jackie was barely upright and everybody except Heather, Amanda, Kelly and myself were visibly wounded, Samantha, Jackie and Melissa seriously so, and a quick look at the party information told me Jackie was down to 2 SP, and everybody else was below half. We needed to stop and rest, possibly for the night. I moved over to the back of the wagon, most everybody was in it sitting down, the girl was laid out on the bench and Amanda was in her bucket. ¡°So,¡± I said. ¡°Thoughts?¡± ¡°I can¡¯t do this,¡± Jackie said. ¡°I thought I could be a good leader still, that this would just be another project to do as a team. It¡¯s not, it¡¯s.¡± Jackie paused to compose herself. ¡°We almost died because of me. There I said it. I¡¯m not fit to lead. John I concede leadership of the team to you.¡± I stood there for a moment resisting the urge to do a victory dance. Now I needed to say something humble. ¡°Well Jackie one of the marks of a good leader is knowing when they are out of their depth and need to delegate work. Even if that work is being the leader. I would like to keep you on as my second in command though.¡± I said extending my hand towards Jackie. ¡°I¡¯m to tired to shake, but yeah sure,¡± she replied. ¡°Good,¡± I said. ¡°Because your first official duty as my second in command is to tell me my next idea is wrong.¡± ¡°You¡¯re wrong,¡± Jackie said. ¡°You have to wait until I actually say it though,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t see anyway around needing to stop now for an extended break, possibly the night.¡± ¡°But I need to get to Ricky and Jackie,¡± Candice protested. ¡°But I¡¯m right here,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Oh no no, my daughter Jackie.¡± ¡°And I need to get to Tommy and Evie,¡± Melissa said. ¡°And I need to get to Evan,¡± Heather said. ¡°The way I see it, between Beth¡¯s healing and our potions, we can get back up to maybe 50% capacity, but that runs us completely out of resources. Also we¡¯ve been outside for about four hours and we¡¯ve run into four different packs of goblins, five if you count this event here. Needless to say we¡¯re either going to be slowed down by fighting goblins or by avoiding goblins, which by a generous estimation puts us at Happy Tots a little bit after nightfall.¡± ¡°But Jackie cries if she doesn¡¯t have her stuffed puppy with her at bedtime, and Ricky likes it when I do the funny voices for his favorite bedtime story.¡± Candice said with a look of worry on her face. ¡°We have to face facts Candice,¡± I said. ¡°We need to factor in the danger of getting there, this isn¡¯t just a stroll downtown. We almost just died and we can¡¯t realistically go on right now.¡± ¡°But what if something happens?¡± Candice asked. ¡°Miss Olivia is very strict about picking the kids up by five thirty. What if she just leaves them?¡± ¡°She¡¯s not gonna leave them Candice,¡± I said. ¡°You don¡¯t run a daycare without having a genuine love for children. She won¡¯t leave them, they¡¯ll hunker down for the night and we¡¯ll get there in the morning and everything will be fine.¡± ¡°Candice,¡± Jackie said taking a moment. ¡°As much as this pains me to say, he¡¯s right. I wish we could get to your kids today but simply put we can¡¯t. It¡¯s too dangerous to travel at night right now and you¡¯re no good to your children if something bad happens to you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re sure?¡± Candice asked looking like she was about to start crying. ¡°Candice,¡± I said looking directly into her eyes, a dangerous proposition considering she had literal puppy-dog eyes now. ¡°If I thought there was even an outside chance of getting there safely before nightfall I¡¯d say keep going. I¡¯m not some evil bastard that wants something bad to happen to your children so I can cackle evilly in the background. I want you and your kids to be reunited safely.¡± ¡°And we can¡¯t just stop here anyway,¡± Jackie said. ¡°We¡¯ll have to do at least some traveling still before we find somewhere safe to stay for the night.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Candice said brushing the formation of a tear from her eye. We finished regrouping, we drank enough stamina and HP potions so that we could fight if need be, and I hooked Beth back up to the wagon and we got back underway. I sat up front with Heather and the rest except for Samantha and Candice stayed in the back. We traveled for another hour until I saw the perfect place to stop for the night. I took a glance into the back of the wagon, the girl was still out cold, Jackie was dozing off using Melissa¡¯sUnauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. head for a pillow, Melissa was using Jackie¡¯s shoulder as a pillow, Amanda was in her bucket and none of the others seemed to be very alert either. That settled my decision we were stopping here for the night. ¡°Stop here Beth,¡± I said. ¡°Here?¡± ¡°Yeah this gym here,¡± I said. ¡°Why at the gym?¡± Heather asked. ¡°That¡¯s where we¡¯re going to stay for the night.¡± I said. ¡°A gym?¡± Beth asked. ¡°Yes a gym, it¡¯s perfect, it¡¯ll have enough space inside for all of us, plus a privacy curtain that can be pulled across the front window to hide us.¡± I said. ¡°Privacy curtain?¡± Beth asked. ¡°Yeah it¡¯s a curtain they pull across the front when all the fat people come out to work out so they don¡¯t get harassed.¡± I explained. ¡°What kind of gym do you go to where people make fun of people trying to better themselves?¡± Beth asked. ¡°It¡¯s not the people at the gym it¡¯s the people on the street,¡± I said. ¡°Anyway it doesn¡¯t matter there should be a curtain we can pull.¡± ¡°Why are we stopping?¡± Jackie asked poking her head out of the wagon. ¡°We¡¯re gonna stop at that gym for the night,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s big enough for all of us and if our luck holds out the water will still be working there so we can get showers in the morning.¡± The wagon was too big to fit through the door, so we parked it across the street and down a little bit so it wouldn¡¯t be immediately obvious where we were if somebody came looking for us. Samantha carried the girl and Heather rode on Beth into the gym. There was a front lobby, and a gym room with all the weights and machines in it. In addition to the weights and machines it had the biggest ratman I¡¯d ever seen, and not just because he was the only one I¡¯d seen before. He was smaller than Samantha but taller than anybody else, he had two swords in his hands and his tail was wrapped around a small metal ball with spikes on it.
James Clungly Ratman, Level 8 Rogue
Structure Boss Once defeated or otherwise subdued the structure he guards will become a haven for 72 hours.
He stood next to a large weight machine with several stations at it, he stood in place but was moving back and forth on his feet ready to jump into battle at a moments notice, he clearly could see us. I was focused on the ¡®or otherwise subdued¡¯ portion of the notification for now. ¡°Hello Mr. Clungly,¡± I said with a wave. ¡°Mind if we come in?¡± He stood there doing the same thing as he was before, only now his eyes shifted to me. ¡°Do you prefer James? Or Jimmy, can I call you Jimmy?¡± Still no response, his eyes were still locked on me. ¡°We¡¯d like to negotiate for the ability to stay here the night. Are you amenable to some kind of a deal?¡± ¡°What are you doing?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°Trying to get out of this without fighting,¡± I said. ¡°He seems to be some kind of an NPC, only responding to certain things. Let¡¯s try anger.¡± I turned back to face James Clungly. ¡°Your mother sucks dick in hell for nickles.¡± He still stood in place. ¡°What the hell was that?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°The ultimate insult,¡± I said. ¡°It didn¡¯t work. OK, Sam and Jackie will lure him forward a bit, then Candice and Melissa will get behind him and attack, watch his tail. Kelly and Amanda get to the sides and use your magic, before the fighting starts Beth you buff everybody with Bless Ally and then you come in with Heather and be ready to heal, Heather use your debuff song to slow him down a bit.¡±
Power: Sorrowful Song Beginner 0/100
Provides a 10% penalty on the morale of enemies within earshot. Chance to work 0/100
Blessing: Bless Ally Beginner 0/100
Raises an allys stats by 10% Duration 0/100
Samantha put the girl down, and the former office women surrounded James Clungly with Beth and Heather hanging back they were buffed up and ready to fight this would be their first real test. They assumed their positions and were ready for him to strike, I took the opportunity to lock the front doors of the gym to keep anybody from surprising us while we were dealing with James Clungly, when my attention returned to the scene I spoke up. ¡°He probably won¡¯t respond unless somebody attacks him first.¡± I said. ¡°Jackie or Samantha move forward and attack him.¡± Jackie and Samantha exchanged glances and then Samantha stepped forward shield first, when she was an arms length away she took a swing at him. James parried the ax swing with one of his swords and counterattacked with his other one, Samantha blocked that attack with her shield, but was unable to dodge or block James tail whipping around and hitting her side. Jackie ran up and swung with her hammer that James easily dodged while whipping his tail back around to catch Melissa in the gut. Candice was able to score a direct hit to James back, and Kelly almost hit Jackie with her Shock spell, but did hit James. Amanda stretched out herself a swung at James, but missed. ¡°No Amanda, use your magic,¡± I shouted. ¡°Melissa pull back, Beth heal her, Sam watch your side.¡± Jackie swung again at James who dodged her hammer again. Samantha put her shield forward and took a few steps towards him forcing him back and allowing Candice to get a couple of shots in on him, but also taking her shield out of the defensive equation. James swung his tail around for another shot a Samantha¡¯s side and connected, but quick as a flash Samantha dropped her ax and pinned his tail in between her arm and her side. There was a moment where everything seemed to stand still as James realized the predicament he was in, and then Samantha hit the floor with James right behind her. ¡°Excellent,¡± I shouted. ¡°Good thinking, attack him quickly while hes down, but watch his swords.¡± Samantha brought her legs down on James to help keep him from moving. James brought up his swords as much as he could and stabbed Samantha in the legs causing her to scream out in pain. Candice and Melissa swooped in and stabbed him in the shoulders and then quickly got out of the way just in time for Jackie to bring her hammer down on his head. He dropped his swords and went limp. ¡°Beth heal Sam,¡± I said. ¡°Don¡¯t lower your guard till we¡¯re sure he¡¯s dead.¡± Samantha rolled off of him and slowly got to her feet, just as she did James sprung back up doing a backwards flip to put some distance between himself and the others and managing to catch Candice on the side of her head with his tail in the process. ¡°He was playing possum, be careful,¡± I yelled in case anybodies attention had wandered. James managed to pull two daggers out of somewhere and now stood in a defensive posture. Before I could say anything Samantha charged him at full speed, he threw one of his daggers at her but it just bounced harmlessly off of her chainmail. She held her shield out at the last second and slammed it into his gut, then brought it up and smacked him across the face with it which sent him sprawling onto the floor. Samantha took another step over to him and leapt up into the air and landed shield first on his back eliciting a scream out of him. Samantha then collapsed in a heap mostly on top of him. James struggled to pull himself out from under her only to be met by Jackies hammer coming down on his head again, and again, and finally with the third strike his skull gave out, there was a hollow sounding crack as his body disappeared to be replaced with a loot crystal. Jackie fell back on her butt after the last strike. ¡°Is he dead now?¡± She asked as she too passed out and a notification popped up.
Building Cleared Building is now a Haven 71:59:59 remaining
MVP Award: Samantha, 10% increase to all xp gained during this battle Enemies cannot enter, vending machine spawned in lobby for everybody''s use, and faculties have been activated.
I looked at the party screen real quick, Samantha and Candice both had low HP, and Samantha was at 0 SP and Jackie was at 2, everybody was now low on SP, Beth was running low on MP and much to my surprise Amanda¡¯s class was listed as Berzerker 2. ¡°Amanda,¡± I asked. ¡°How did you change your class to Berzerker? You were an Acolyte before.¡± Amanda slithered over into a corner, placed her bucket into it and climbed in. ¡°Did she just ignore me?¡± ¡°What¡¯s the plan now?¡± Candice asked holding her head. ¡°Oh right,¡± I said looking back to the party screen. ¡°Beth how many cure spells can you cast with your current MP?¡± ¡°Three left,¡± Beth said. ¡°OK, cast one on Candice and one on Samantha, save the last one in case an emergency comes up.¡± I took my bedroll out of my inventory and set it out on the side of the room. ¡°Candice and Melissa go get the girl and lay her there.¡± I turned my attention to the loot crystal, it was bigger than the ones that the goblins left behind and a light blue.
Loot Crystal James Clungly Level 8
Group Loot Expires in 99:97:47
We had one hundred hours to ¡®open¡¯ it, I figured we would take care of it in the morning when everybody was awake. ¡°Um, John,¡± Melissa said standing in the doorway. ¡°Yeah,¡± I said coming out of my thoughts. ¡°There¡¯s a vending machine in the lobby that wasn¡¯t there when we came in,¡± she replied. ¡°Oh yeah the vending machine that spawned,¡± I said going over to the lobby. ¡°Spawned?¡± Melissa asked. ¡°When?¡± ¡°When we beat James,¡± I said. ¡°Didn¡¯t you read the notification?¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you the leader so we don¡¯t have to do that?¡± ¡°Well I suppose as long as somebody is reading all of the notifications it¡¯s OK, but you shouldn¡¯t assume other people are reading them, or that even other people can even see them and communicate with your team. Poor communications kill, now more than ever.¡± We were now at the vending machine, Candice was standing in front of it staring it down, hands on her daggers. If I get a watchdog title at some point she¡¯s totally getting it. I resisted the urge to scratch her ears and took a look at the vending machine. It was about the same size as a regular vending machine with ¡®BOXXO BRAND VENDING MACHINES. BOXXO BRAND HAS ALL YOUR ADVENTURING NEEDS. TRUST BOXXO BRAND¡¯ plastered across the top. It seemed advertising would still be a thing. There was a panel with buttons on it to order things and a label ¡®Boxxo Brand Vending Machine Type-1A¡¯ a glass window looking into the machine showing the products it sold. Nothing too surprising considering, rations, water, a quiver of arrows and other adventuring necessities. ¡°We¡¯ll go through that tomorrow after we¡¯ve slept we¡¯re all exhausted. The notification said that enemies couldn¡¯t enter so we should all be able to get a good night sleep tonight.¡± ¡°Are we going to trust it?¡± Candice asked. ¡°I¡¯m too tired not too,¡± I said going back into the workout area of the gym and passing out in the corner. Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 4: 9 Woman Party, and 1 man. ¡°John wake up,¡± Candice said rousing me out of my slumber with a gentle slap across the face. ¡°The showers are working and hot and the lights are working, if you want one take one now.¡± I opened my eyes and looked out the windows, it was starting to brighten up but the sun wasn¡¯t up yet. ¡°What time is it?¡± I asked. ¡°Don¡¯t know, nobody has a working clock,¡± Candice said. ¡°But it should be light out in an hour or so, so we should get ready now, so we can leave as soon as possible.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s not just my mother that does that?¡± I asked. ¡°It¡¯s a generic mom thing?¡± ¡°What thing?¡± Candice asked. ¡°The whole wake people up far earlier than you really need too thing,¡± I said. ¡°It leaves plenty of time for unforeseen things,¡± Candice said. ¡°OK mom,¡± I said getting up and going into the mens locker room to take a shower. When I emerged I found that everybody was now awake, including the girl we had picked up. Everybody had gathered around her, I made my way over. ¡°OK give her space, this is probably a lot to take in all at once.¡± I gave her a quick look over, she was either still in high school or a recent graduate, her expression seemed to be a mix of fear and confusion. ¡°Jackie get her caught up to speed and make sure she gets equipped with her gear see if she wants to go with us or go her own way. Samantha, Candice and Melissa go outside and check the wagon, make sure nothing decided to stop in there for a nap or that it hasn¡¯t been tampered with. I¡¯m going to go take stock of the vending machine see if there¡¯s anything we need in it.¡±
Puny Healing Potion 10 cp Puny Mana Potion 10 cp
Puny Stamina Potion 10 cp Puny Recovery Potion 1 sp
Tiny Healing Potion 1 sp Tiny Mana Potion 1 sp
Tiny Stamina Potion 1 sp? Tiny Recovery Potion 10 sp
Basic Arrow X 10? 1 sp Basic Bolt X 10 1 sp
Basic Ration 20 cp Water 20 cp
Puny Recovery Potion Misc Consumable
Potion, 1-use, Magical Quality Restores 10 each of HP, MP and SP, modifiers are applied separately
Tiny Healing Potion Misc Consumable
Potion, 1-use, Magical Quality Restores 50 HP
Tiny Mana Potion Misc Consumable
Potion, 1-use, Magical Quality Restores 50 MP
Tiny Stamina Potion Misc Consumable
Potion. 1-use, Magical Quality Restores 50 SP
Tiny Recovery Potion Misc Consumable
Potion, 1-use, Magical Quality Restores 50 each of HP, MP and SP, modifiers are applied separately.
Basic Arrow Weapon, Ammo, (Bows)
Basic Quality Damage 2-4
Basic Bolt Weapon, Ammo, (Crossbows)
Basic Quality Damage 3
Basic Ration Food, Consumable
A large cracker with the consistency and flavor of cardboard. Replaces 1 meal
Water Drink, Consumable
Do we really need to tell you what water is? Enough for 1 humanoid creature for 1 day.
I had no idea what the exchange rate was on copper pieces and silver pieces, I could guess at 100 copper pieces per silver piece, but only guess. I apparently had spent more time in deep thought than I realized because before I knew it everybody had emerged from the main room. The new girl was dressed in what I assumed was her gear, a plain light brown gi that you¡¯d see at a karate class and padded leather gloves. The impressive part was her belt.
Goblin Skin Belt Armor, Belt, Leather
Mastercrafted Quality Part of the Goblin Skin Leather Set. Any Goblin within visual range of the belt being worn receives a 25% morale penalty
¡°You must be John,¡± she said sticking out her hand. ¡°My names Stephanie.¡± ¡°I am John,¡± I said shaking her hand. ¡°Little tight there.¡± I pulled my hand out of her vice-like grip. ¡°Yeah you gotta be careful with him,¡± Jackie said. ¡°His stats are all really low.¡± ¡°Sorry,¡± Stephanie said. ¡°I¡¯m still getting used to this.¡± ¡°We all are,¡± Beth said with Heather nodding on her back. ¡°So are you going to stick with us or go your own way?¡± I asked. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll stick with you guys,¡± Stephanie said. ¡°When the voice rang out and everything changed I was in the car with my dad. The car just stopped suddenly and when I looked at my dad he was gone.¡± ¡°What do you mean gone?¡± I asked. ¡°We were talking, the voice started I looked out the window to try and see what was making the noise, then the car came to a halt and I turn back to my dad and he¡¯s not sitting in the drivers seat. It was like he was never there.¡± The internal gears in my head were working overtime. ¡°Did the car come to a sudden stop or coast to a stop?¡± ¡°Sudden stop, no braking sound or nothing.¡± ¡°Why does that matter John?¡± Jackie asked. I took a minute to think on the matter again before saying anything. ¡°I can now say with a reasonable level of assurance that there is some form of intelligence behind everything that¡¯s going on.¡± This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ??¡°Well yeah the voice we all heard,¡± Jackie said. ¡°It¡¯s worse than that though,¡± I said. ¡°Worse how?¡± Jackie asked. ¡°The world basically ended and now we have to travel across town to pick children up from daycare and now that we¡¯ve heard about Stephanie¡¯s dad they may not even be there. How pray tell could things get any worse?¡± ¡°The intelligence behind all this is fallible.¡± I said. ¡°Fallible how?¡± Jackie said. ¡°What does it even matter?¡± ¡°Read the description of the Tiny Stamina Potion in the vending machine. It says ¡®potion period one use comma magical quality¡¯, all the other ones say ¡®potion comma one use comma magical quality¡¯ the intelligence made a typo.¡± I explained. Jackie looked at me for a moment. ¡°Just give Stephanie a group invite so we can get out of here. A typo, really?¡± ¡°What?¡± I asked sending Stephanie a party invite. ¡°It¡¯s a big deal.¡± I looked over the party window once Stephanie joined, it said Monk 1 for her. ¡°Stephanie you need to level up, do you have any stored? Jackie walk her through that.¡± I looked at Amanda¡¯s status and it was back to reading Acolyte 3. ¡°Amanda how did you change your class to berzerker and back?¡± Amanda was walking around in an almost fully humanoid shape now, she was still blue, still had a red sphere in her but her form was much more identifiable as human and female. She just shrugged her shoulders, speech still eluded her it seemed. I sighed and turned my attention to my own status screen, I had a couple levels of my own stored it seemed. I was now a Titleist 5 and I received a new notification.
New Class Feature Unlocked Ability: Titleist''s Eye
Allows you to discern what Titles can be bestowed on a person. Use a Soul Shard or visit a Soul Crystal to enable.
¡°Good news everybody,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve gained a new ability that comes with a description that is vague at best and I can¡¯t even use it without one of two things I¡¯ve never even heard of until now.¡± There was a moment of silence as everybody looked at each other. ¡°How is that good news?¡± Stephanie asked. ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s really not.¡± "So where were we on figuring out how to divvy up loot and share money or was I just thinking that?" I asked. "You were just thinking that," Jackie said. "But it does bring up a good point how do we divvy up loot that isn''t assigned to a specific person? We should probably figure that out before we open that crystal that we got for defeating James." ¡°What about just giving it to the person who could make the most use of it?¡± Kelly asked. ¡°I¡¯m okay with that if you all are,¡± I said. ¡°To be clear I¡¯d be the one deciding who gets what because putting everything to a vote would be time consuming and cumbersome.¡± Nobody objected so I pulled out the crystal we got from James Clungly.
Loot Crystal James Clungly Level 8
Group Loot Expires in 91:27:51
I opened up the loot crystal, a screen popped up with a list of what was in it.
Crossbow of Accuracy Weapon, 1 Handed, Crossbow
Magic Quality +10% of base accuracy bonus minimum of 1 maximum of 10
Soul Shard X2 Power-up, Consumable
Allows Access to the power-up screen for 1 person once. Maximum duration ten minutes.
40 Silver Low-Quality Leather X4
Currency Raw Material
Elixir of Minor Fortitude Buff Consumable
Elixir, 1 use, Magical Quality Increases all physical defensive bonuses by 5% to a maximum of 25
Level 1 Dungeon Crystal Consumable
Infrastructure, Permanent, World Quality Can be used to create a level 1 dungeon in the area or to edit the settings of an existing level 1 dungeon that you have admin access to.
I considered what we had for a moment. ¡°My thinking is to give the crossbow to Heather so she can attack from her seat on the wagon, use some of the money to buy some bolts for her, use one of the Soul Shards so I can activate my new ability and store the rest for later use.¡± ¡°Why do you get to use one of the Soul Shards to use this power-up screen?¡± Kelly asked. ¡°Why only you?¡± ¡°Because the ability I need it to activate, according to it¡¯s description let¡¯s me know what titles I can give to people, that will be the first step towards hopefully being a bit more useful. I¡¯ll be the only one using a Soul Shard because I¡¯m the only one that has a reason to, unless one of you has an ability to unlock you haven¡¯t shared with the rest of us.¡± ¡°OK,¡± Jackie said. ¡°Go for it.¡± I assigned the loot to the people it should have gone to, giving Samantha the rest as she had the highest strength score and thus the highest carrying capacity, then I used the Soul Shard. A screen popped up, it had a list of all my stats, skills, and abilities, and a point value next to it. I looked for Titleist¡¯s Eye, it required 100 points to unlock and I had 112. I guess I was lucky I hadn¡¯t considered that I may not have enough points to unlock it. I unlocked it and spent the remainder of my point increasing my stamina by 1. I closed my power-up screen and looked at Jackie, I intuitively knew what titles she could receive now and I also somehow knew that I couldn¡¯t give them to her. I picked one that looked good, ¡°the Resolute¡± and looked deeper.
The Resolute?? Suffix Title
+500% bonus to resist morale penalties applied by enemies. Base morale cannot fall below +200%. Allies receive a morale boost equal to the combined levels of the Resolute one. 2000 MP and 500 SP to apply to current target with current penalties.
¡°What are you staring at?¡± Jackie asked breaking my concentration. ¡°Seeing what titles I can give you,¡± I said. ¡°But there are too many penalties right now and my stats are too low.¡± ¡°Well unless you have some titles to give,¡± Candice said. ¡°Let¡¯s get going.¡± ¡°Right,¡± I said. ¡°If we hurry we can get to both Happy Tots and Angels Touch today.¡± It only took us two hours or so to finally get to Happy Tots Day-Care. It was a smallish building with a decent sized parking lot and play area outside, and something felt very very wrong. Quest 2: Happy Tots Day-Care Part 5: The Darkest of Shadows ¡°Ricky! Jackie!¡± Candice called out running towards the doors, they were simple metal doors with small windows on them, the windows were blocked off with something and we could tell that all the windows we could see were blocked off. Candice had now reached the doors and was pounding franticly on them, ¡°Ricky, Jackie, it¡¯s mommy open up. Valarie what¡¯s going on here unlock the door I¡¯m here for my kids.¡± ¡°Something very bad is in there,¡± Jackie said. ¡°I don¡¯t know how to explain it I just know that something bad is in there.¡± ¡°Some kind of sense evil skill maybe?¡± I offered. ¡°What could be evil inside of a daycare?¡± Beth asked. ¡°Toddlers,¡± Melissa said. ¡°We¡¯re going in be careful,¡± I said. ¡°Beth and Heather stay out here and be ready to back us up if needed.¡± We made our way to the doors with Candice, but before I could ask Samantha to break them down one of them opened slowly. The inside was pitch black and a small voice called out, ¡°come on in.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a trap,¡± I said. ¡°Was that captain obvious or Admiral Ackbar you were channeling there?¡± Kelly asked. Candice dashed into the pitch black daycare. ¡°Ricky! Jackie! Where are you mommy¡¯s here? Oh god what is that smell?¡± The rest of us filed into the building being only slightly more careful than Candice. No sooner had I entered the door when it slammed shut behind me, I tried to open it but it was locked. ¡°We¡¯re locked in,¡± I said. ¡°Extreme danger. Jackie cast Light on something.¡± Jackie held her hammer aloft as light sprang forth from it and illuminated something no sane person would want to see. Haphazardly strewn about the room was the dried up bodies of children, seemingly drained of all their blood and left to rot where they dropped. ¡°Ricky, Jackie?¡± Candice said quietly falling to her knees. ¡°It¡¯s OK now mommy¡¯s here you can come out now.¡± ¡°Little Ricky was so brave,¡± the voice said from the shadows. ¡°He fought till the end. Jackie meanwhile just kind of shut down once she realized she was going to die and that nothing could change that, most of them did.¡± Candice let out a feral scream that morphed into a howl and charged into the shadows towards the voice. As she disappeared into the shadows we heard the sounds of hitting. We couldn¡¯t tell who was hitting who but we got our answer when Candice came flying back into the circle of light with a shadow over her that slammed her into the ground and quickly fled back into the darkness. It was only for a second but I got a good look at it with my Titleist¡¯s Eye.
Valarie Vampire
Shadow Stalker/1 Possible Titles: Sadist, Child Killer, Sibling Torturer, The Depraved
¡°She¡¯s a vampire!¡± I yelled. ¡°Get her into the light.¡± ¡°Good eye,¡± Valarie said from the shadows. I moved next to Jackie hoping the light would keep her at bay. ¡°Unblock the windows, Samantha bust open the doors, get as much light in here as we can.¡± ¡°Nice try,¡± Valarie said as she came barreling out of the shadows faster than any of us could react and knocking Samantha down with a single blow and quickly retreating back into the shadow. ¡°But to get rid of the darkness you¡¯ll have to go into the darkness, and to do that you¡¯ll have to get past me.¡± ¡°We need a better plan,¡± Melissa said. ¡°I can kind of see her at times, she¡¯s moving around really fast within the shadows, she¡¯s not standing still.¡± ¡°Good kitty,¡± Valarie said. ¡°I can have fun with you after I drain the others. Except for you my sister vampire.¡± There was a moment of silence as we all looked at Kelly. ¡°Betray them, kill the paladin and we can feast on their blood together.¡± ¡°Shut up!¡± Kelly roared. ¡°I¡¯m nothing like you, you¡¯re a complete monster, I¡¯ll never be like you. NEVER!¡± Samantha let out a roar and charged into the shadows. ¡°Stupid cow I¡¯m over here,¡± Valarie taunted. The whole building shook with a bang when she hit the far wall and more banging ensued. ¡°Mad Cow Disease I guess.¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ??Valarie again came out of the shadows knocking Kelly, and Melissa down and dodging a counterattack from Amanda before disappearing back into the shadows. Meanwhile Samantha had finally knocked her way through the far wall and light now poured into the room from the rising sun. Samantha ran out the hole she made and went around the outside of the building either pulling whatever fabric had been put up out and knocking over anything that had been placed. By the time she rejoined us by kicking in the front doors there was barely any shadows left for her to hide in. ¡°Good going Sam,¡± I said. ¡°That will help a lot.¡± ¡°Meddlesome cow,¡± Valarie said. ¡°All you had to do was be quite and get drained of all your blood and die. But no you had to make this complicated, now I¡¯m gonna do it slow.¡± Valarie came out of what little shadows that remained, much slower this time and kicked Samantha in the face. The blow knocked Samantha off balance slightly, not so far off balance that she couldn¡¯t throw a punch and miss with it though. ¡°Still too slow,¡± Valarie taunted. ¡°All that work and I¡¯m still going to drain you all dry.¡± Candice, Melissa and Kelly were now back on their feet, ¡±here kitty kitty.¡± Valarie said grabbing Melissa and slamming her to the floor next to where the light met the shadows. She knelt down next to her and went for her throat with her fangs. ¡°No!¡± Candice yelled jumping towards them with her daggers drawn. Valarie had to divert her attention and grabbed Candice by the wrists forcing her daggers out of her hands. ¡°Pathetic, your children put up more of a fight than this.¡± Candice let out a roar and gave Valarie a mighty head-butt that did far more damage to herself than to Valarie. Valarie leaned her head back and let loose with her own head-butt knocking Candice down. Samantha came running up to Valarie and picked her right up and kept running towards the wall and with one charge put Valarie right through the wall. Not giving her any time to recover Samantha picked her back up and ran her through the building to the other side and put her through the other wall. Still not giving her any time to recover she picked Valarie up yet again and charged towards the parking lot, going right past Beth and Heather, and slamming her into a car with such force the building shook. ¡°Jackie, Amanda, get Candice and Melissa up and let¡¯s get out of here I don¡¯t think this building is going to last much longer,¡± I said making my way for the door. While I was barking orders Samantha had picked Valarie up again and choke slammed her through the roof of the car and was now out of breath. Candice had slipped out of the hands of whoever helped her up and ran towards the wreckage. She straddled Valarie and brought her daggers down into her face, again and again until there was nothing left of her skull. A few moments later Valarie¡¯s body turned white and disappeared into a loot crystal. With nothing left to take her anger out on Candice broke down into tears and then into a guttural howl.
New Skill: Mournful Howl
Buffs all allies morale and lowers all enemies morale and causes Fear.
I walked up to Candice and gave her a hug, I motioned for everybody else to come in for a group hug. It had taken awhile for Candice to calm down and for us to get her into the wagon. ¡°Samantha tear out the corners of this building, that should finish it off,¡± I said. ¡°Oh yeah Samantha just go over there and knock over that building there,¡± Samantha said. ¡°Why? Vampire bitch is dead.¡± ¡°What about the,¡± Melissa started to ask and stopping herself for a moment. ¡°Bodies?¡± ¡°We can do nothing for them,¡± I said. ¡°If we knock the building over at least any parents that come looking for their children might be able to convince themselves their children at least died quickly.¡± There was a moment of silence that was broken by Jackie, ¡°come on Sam, I¡¯ll help you.¡±