《Planet #3》 Chapter 1 Start of the game "HELLO," chimed an enthusiastic and loud female voice. It sounded like an odd mix between a computer speak and a high pitched anime girl. He looked up from his phone, frowning, but didn''t see the source of the voice; for that matter, everyone else inside the coffee shop was looking around confused as well. Even the cute coffee shop girl behind the counter was looking around with an odd expression. "Did you just...?" came a quiet voice next to him. Looking over noticed the gaze of the wierd girl that had sat down next to him at the coffee shop, blue hair, heavyset, and a stud pierced in her noise, He quickly shrugged his shoulders quickly, "nope," and looked back at his phone, doing his best to avoid any contact with the girl next to him. She smelled really bad. As soon as he did however, the loud voice chimed again, "Congratulations!", with trumpets blaring in the background, "We are proud to announce that you are the third world to be selected for assimilation into our program and you were randomly selected for a free character upgrade courtesy of Deimos company!" "What?" He uttered and again looked up. Everyone had stopped what they were doing in the coffe shop and were uttering similar things. The voice picked up again "Don''t worry if you are confused. We at Deimos have created a very customizable system for all users. In case you haven''t registered yet, please do so now!" "What the fuck?" blue hair girl muttered next to him. He didn''t notice her, however, as in front of him was a floating screen with a floating keyboard below it. Hesitantly he reached up and fingered the buttons in front of him, each making a pleasant tapping sound. A growing excitement spread in his gut as he inputted the name he always had in games. "Thank you for your selection Gans! Processing now!" In the blink of an eye, the coffee shop was gone and he felt him self floating in a pure white void, some part of him felt extremely uncomfortable, as all sense of distance and sound had disappeared Thankfully, the smell from blue hair girl was gone, but the irritating female voice had returned with mock sympathy. "Unfortunately, we at Deimos understand that you and most of our other participants may not be intelligent enough to understand the customization process so we have taken the liberty to lock most of your features and pick your class for you. Please push the big button!" With that confetti came out of no where and a big red button appeared in front of him with the words "PUSH ME!!!" and a big flashing smiley face in front of him. He frowned., "Hey you know I''m not an idiot I can do this mys....." The button enlarged itself and came closer to his face, with the flashing smiley face staring at him point blank. "PUSH THE BUTTON! PUSH THE BUTTON! PUSH THE BUTTON!" The voice began screaming in his ear "OK JESUS OK!" Reaching out quickly his punched the smiley in the face. It may have been his imagination but he thought it turned into an angry face before disappearing. "Thank you for your participation in the character customization process. My name is EVA. Please wait here while we process your results!" In front of him a blue window popped up
Deimos Character Customization complete! Initial Class selected [Summoner] Initial gear: Book "Sam''s simple guide to summoning and surviving" available at current residence Accept? Yes/no
The no portion was greyed out. "What the hell is this?" He shouted into the white void. ... ... ... "Hello, Gans, this is Eva again, I would really appreciate it if you would fill out a brief survey after your Character Customization process." ... ... "No! Whats going on! I''m not stupid you know. I can pick my own character. And what the hell is even going on?" he shouted again, beginning to feel stupid as he shouted into white void. "Are you sure? There is a chance that after the survey you will be selected for entry into our prize raffle! One out of every thousand participants will be eligible to win" "NO! I just want to kn" "Rude!" She paused for a moment, "I completely understand your confusion Gans, many of the other humans selected for the Character Customization process didn''t seem to get past this point as well" "What? I thought this would be easier like I see my avatar and am given a list of choices and races and" An audible sigh was heard from Eva, interrupting him.
Class Summoner selected! Thank you for completing the Character Customization process! Deimos wishes you have a pleasant day!
"Hey what the hell?" he shouted "Thank you for completing the survey for me as well!" Eva chimed in.
Deimos satisfaction rating selected, 100%! Unfortunately you did not win the prize. Have a nice day!
*SNAP Blinking quickly Alex found himself back at the coffee shop face first into his food. "Sir..." He felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him "Sir" "AAArrrgh!" Alex shot up quickly wide eyed. "Are you ok?" The coffee shop girl looked at him. "What!?" his eyes hadn''t totally focused and he continued to look around. Half the people in the shop were either waking up up with confused expressions and the other half were shaking them awake or staring at them in confusion. "I said are you ok?" He up at the coffee shop girl, his eyes stopping briefly at her sweater chest before looking at her concerned face. "Uhn yes... Yes I''m fine" he said while dumbly looking at her eyes. He felt a small bit of egg falling from his chin. "Good...."She paused, looking at him in concern. "I''m going to wake her up now" The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "Yes..." he said dumbly as the coffee shop girl tried to shake the fat blue haired girl awake. He became conscious of her smell again, rotten. Sitting there he thought numbly to himself, blinking a few times and opening and closing his mouth like he fish he watched the others in the store come to their senses as well. Then, coming to a sudden conclusion, quickly blinked stood from his seat and slowly walked out of the store. "Um... excuse me!" He looked back at and noticed coffee shop girl looking at him with one hand on the still sleeping big blue haired girl. "Are you Ok? I know I''ve asked but something bad''s happened" she said, glancing outside. "Maybe you should wait here...." She looked down at the floor quickly "I''ve already called 911 but their line is busy" "I.... think I''m fine. I think I should just.." he felt his heart pounding a bit more and a ball of energy was building in his stomach "go home." Coffee shop girl just looked at him with a slight frown on her face, unsure what to say. "Ok" Alex opened the door and walked outside, and realized what the coffee shop girl had been looking at. It was a sort of weird calm after chaos outside. Wrecked and damaged cars were stopped all along the street, one in particular had slammed into a light pole and cut off part of the street. He could smell burning smoke and copper in the air and watched as several people were pulling people out of their cars. Unsure what to do he walked around the cars, he lived only a block away. On the way to his place there were people sitting on the ground bleeding or looking around in a confused daze, a few halfheartedly called out to him but he avoided them. The sun blazed over head and he started to sweat, a constant feeling of unease working itself into him. The previous excitement and confusion wearing away into a grim feeling. Something was wrong. Buzzing himself into the front entrance way to his apartment building he heard crying. One of the people on his floor had collapsed on the marble tiled stairwell. Blood was coming out of a large cut on his face and his partner was holding his head in his lap looking panic. Their large mixed dog was standing over the two of them barking. Alex didn''t know either of their names but always said hello them whenever he ran into them and he like petting the dog. Instead of stopping he walked past them grimacing and hit the elevator bell. The man stared at him. "I... don''t know what to do." he spoke softly, catching the man''s eyes and then looking down. The man looked at Alex, but didn''t say anything, then ignored him and returned to cradling his partners head. Alex quickly got into the elevator and closed the door. His heart beat was deep and pulsing now, And he found himself shaking as he made his way back into his apartment. Walking into his apartment he took a breath, revealed he hadn''t seen anyone else at his apartment complex. Almost robotically he walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. Downing it quickly he looked down and almost choked at the book sitting next to his sink. In gold lettering there sat a small blue book, "Sam''s simple guide to Summoning and Surviving" Reaching out slowly the touched the cover of the book, feeling the old style leather cover and groves where the gold embroidered title lay
Book Bound to user Gans
He paused to look at the prompt window floating in the air. Staring at it a few moments before hesitantly reaching out and tapping it. Immediately it vanished, and Alex looked around his apartment room, not sure what to expect. Sighing he flipped open the leather book. Hello there. I''m Sam the Summoner. I used to live on planet one and I have to tell you that whoever you are, you are one unlucky son of a bitch. Thankfully, Gans, you''ve got my help, and kid I gotta say that you are really going to need it. The most important thing for you to realize that whatever has happened so far is only going to get worse and the old world is going to disappear. I''m assuming you are on day one when you read this. I''m not going to lie, the next couple of days are going to be getting worse and worse. Tomorrow you are no longer going to be safe. Get that in your head? Lets start with survival basics First thing you are going to need is clean water... The book was weird, if he tried to skip pages he would be presented with a blank pages. It also only covered survival tips and he spent the night following most of them. He filled up the sink and bathtubs with water and threw sheets over the windows. Luckily he lived in a nice condo complete with heavy security doors and he lived just outside of downtown with a lot of empty space around him. He noticed his phone had rung a few times. Calls from his mother, he briefly looked at the phone each time but reconsidered, he had to focus on getting things together and knew she would want to come home. That wouldn''t be possible with the roads. A slight twinge of guilt rode over him each time he noticed a family member call. He also opened up his gun safe, keying in the factory setting code he had first gotten for it, 123456. Slowly he took each gun out, examining them and placing them on his coffee table. He had a 9mm Beretta pistol, a AR-15 rifle, and another AR type sniper gun that shot .308 rounds. He grimaced slightly as he looked at each, then grimaced even more when he realized he had a small box of ammo for each and nothing else "I wish I spent time more time with these" he spoke out loud for the first time in awhile. Staring at the door, he realized he hadn''t spoken since he was downstairs with the gay couple from his floor. "Its not like I could do anything for them..." He fell asleep watching you tube videos for the basics for AR rifles and pistols. He woke up to gunfire outside. Chapter 2 A new world [Author-- how do I get the text to center in the blue section? Can''t seem to get it right for some reason Now that you''ve done the few basics on day one. Here is a pro tip for tomorrow. It¡¯s going to be dangerous outside from now on. Don''t go out unless you have to. -Sam the Summoner "What the hell?" Alex sat up from his couch, hearing the gunfire and grabbed his pistol before carefully shifting the sheet covering his patio door. There were small flashes in the city, but none of the smoke he saw yesterday. Pulling the door open, the noises in the city began to overwhelm him. What had seemed like simple popping noises from gunfire turned loud, what''s worse were the screams. Feeling slightly nervous he walked out on the balcony, getting a better look. Most of the cars in the street he saw yesterday were still there. He took a couple more nervous steps to the balcony, wondering about the wisdom of exposing himself, he leaned over the railing to look at the street and saw...nothing. No people were on the streets, and he couldn''t see the source of the gunfire. Frowning, he looked further down at the coffee shop and saw no one inside the windows. He scratched his head. The world was different now, and he couldn''t help but feel somewhat confused why there weren''t people in the coffee shop during business hours, gunfire or no. The gunfire and screams almost seemed like ambient background music with no actual movement or activity outside. "What the hell?" he repeated, standing there for a few minutes before walking back inside to read the guide. Cracking open the book and returning to his page from last night, his previous excitement welled up in him again. ¡°Finally!¡± Intro to summoning spells And then grunted in annoyance as he started to read more. It read more like a technical manual than a simple guide and had to read the sections over and over again to figure it out. But he kept at it, muttering at the worlds and pausing to puzzle some of the paragraphs out. The excitement feverishly pushing him forward despite how much he hated reading it. A slight chime sounded
Summon small mammal [unlocked] Summons a small mammal to aid the caster. Constant mana drain.
A prompt window popped into his vision, then after a few seconds, popped out of existence like a soap bubble. "Summon small mammal....this.... sucks," looking again at his book he noticed the following pages were blank again. Fuming he dropped the book on the ground and paced around the apartment grumbling before sitting back down in a chair. Leaning forward with a grimace he looked at an open spot on his apartment floor. "Summon small mammal" he intoned slowly, pushing his intent in the words and focusing on carrying out the instructions correctly. He could feel an energy flow out of him, but it felt somehow wrong to him, like he had messed up a part of an equation. He put his hand to his forehead, feeling that part of him had been drained from summoning it. A small whooshing noise and a small cloud later, standing on all fours in front of him, was a "Giant Rat?" A black rat the size of a dog turned to look at him. It had a pink noise and gave out little sniffs in Alex''s direction as if looking for guidance. "Its actually kind of cute" he thought before reaching forward to pet it. As if a switch was flipped the rats eyes glowed red and it began hissing at Alex. The hair on its back stiffened up as well and it began advancing menacingly at him hissing more the closer it got. Alex began backing up "hey rat, hey its fine," he spoke as softly as he could backing up and grabbing the closest thing near him, a large chair by the legs The Rat kept hissing and lounged at Alex, biting deeply into his leg. "Ahh bastard" he yelled smashing the chair down onto the head of the rat ineffectually, the chair bouncing off its head lightly. The rat bit into his leg with even more fervor after being hit and in a haze of pain Alex kicked it off his leg and stepped forward yelling and throwing his weight into swinging the chair. This time the chair cracked harshly against the rats skull. Pulling the chair back for another swing he looked at the Rat and hesitated. Blood leaked from its skull, and eyes shut, it began to twitch and spasm on the floor, half curling up. Still in a pain haze Alex quickly dropped the chair and stumbled over to his patio door, opening it. Returning to the rat he grabbed it by the back legs and then dragged it out to the patio. Struggling, he lifted it over the side of his railing and peered down at the empty street. Alex lived on the third floor of his building, and pausing to consider a second to judge the distance, he pushed the rat over the balcony, stepping backwards so he wouldn''t see the fall. A sickening crack sounded as the rat landed head first into the sidewalk and Alex shivered a little from the noise. A loud tinging bell sounded in his head.
Level up!
Shaking his head, he tapped the window to shut it and looked down at the dead rat on the sidewalk. "Bastard" he muttered, limping back into his bathroom, he put his leg into the bathtub water he had poured the night earlier, not caring about the waste of drinking water. Small clouds of blood leaked from the wound in the water and he reached down tentatively to poke around the bite marks on his leg. Surprisingly it wasn''t too bad, but still painful. After a while of prodding and wiping his leg the wound looked relatively clean but was still bleeding. Pulling his leg out of the water he walked to the closet and got one of his junk work shirts , wrapping it around the wound tightly and then tying it in a knot. It wasn''t much, but in the meantime it would have to do. Wondering what had happened he returned to the couch, propping his leg up-wards on a chair, and then pulled out his guidebook again. Rereading the passages on summoning he didn''t notice any mistakes until he reached the parts that had been blank for him. Hi there, Sam the Summoner here. Sorry if you might have gotten a surprise there. Happened to me as well. I don''t know who is in charge of setting the teaching guidelines but whoever it is must be a an asshole. There was however, the lesson that you need to understand. Your summons CAN and WILL turn against you. Food for thought. -Sam Frowning, Alex cursed a few times before reading the book again, his previous excitement diminished but not completely gone. After Sam''s easygoing passage the book turned technical again and in very hard to understand language pointed out the finer areas of controlling a summoned creature. There were a number of factors, including his base level, his "skill," his current "Mana" levels, his amount of rest, his confidence, and just about every other variable under the sun including being nice to the summon and feeding it treats. He frowned at the last part. However, he hadn''t seen any of that technical information the book hinted at, and he had no idea what level his mana was. Unlike a game, everything seemed to be hidden from him. ¡­ "I wonder" he thought "STATUS" he yelled out loud.
We at the Deimos corporation regret to inform you that your status is not currently available due to features locked in the beta edition of your world. Please be patient while our hardworking development team continues to unlock new features and exciting possibilities. Sorry for the inconvenience and have a nice day!
Scowling he sat there for a moment, before looking up and listening to the sounds of outside again. The violent noises making him feel a little insecure. He turned to look at the floor where had summoned the large black rat, considering his options. "... I should be fine with the level up now,¡± he decided "S...Summon Small mammal" After the small gust of smoke cleared, in front of him was a raccoon looking up with him with beady eyes. The same drained feeling as before crept in but it didn''t seem nearly as bad this second time. Cautiously, he waited there a few moments, waiting for the animal in front of him to hiss and change eye color like the rat had done. After waiting a moments he hesitantly reached out and give it a small pat too the head, the raccoon instead of reacting continued to stare back at Alex mindlessly, "That''s odd." He thought to himself. Then with a bit of insight he realized that he didn''t feel totally drained. Reaching out his hand to a spot next to the raccoon he intoned "Summon small mammal" And again, with a slight smoke flourish another giant rat was looking at him. Unlike the previous one, this had brown fur and sat in front of him placidly. He could feel the drain even more though, and started to involuntarily sweat despite not being hot. "one... last time...." he muttered, trembling slightly "Summon small mammal!" he shouted this time, as he tried to overcome the draining feeling. "Ugghhh" he bent over. It had felt like he had just lost his runners high after running a marathon. Taking deep breaths to calm the nausea he noticed the last creature sitting on his kitchen counter top looking at him with the same dull expression. A large brown sparrow looked at him inquisitively. He smiled. Things finally seemed to be going his way. Making his way to his closet he put on an old backpack and put his book inside. Changing into new clothes, he looked down at his leg, noticing the bite marks on his leg had already started to close. The world really was acting according to a video game. He just had to make sure he knew which game rules were being implemented. He had the slight suspicion that he was being screwed. Before he left his apartment he pulled a few more things out from his place: a bottle of water, his 9mm pistol and a box of ammo for it, he couldn''t find anything inside that would be useful as a weapon. ¡°There has got to be something¡± he mumbled to himself while searching around his place unsuccessfully. He eyed the chair again but dismissed it. He took one last quick peak outside from his balcony, and noted the same weird feeling outside. It looked deserted outside but he could hear gunfire and activity. The entire time he moved around the apartment the three creatures he summoned would watch him move around but not react to anything. Turning to the three he thought for a moment back to games he had played. ¡°Follow me¡± he said, looking at the three. As if released from their spots, the three creatures began moving towards him. As he made his way to his door, he looked back at his apartment, before realizing what was bugging him. He grabbed his smart phone and dialed his mom. ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡°No service?¡± Frowning at the phone he pocked it, pulled open his heavy wood door, and stepped out into his apartment hallway. His first step out triggered a flash, and he felt a sense of vertigo as he found himself back inside of the white room, floating in nothingness. Big text floated in the air, waving up and down like a banner
Loading Please Wait......Loading Please Wait
Thinking quickly he spoke out to the white nothingness. ¡°Eva are you there?¡± ¡°Hello!¡± The same cheery voice responded out from the white. He was actually surprised that anyone had responded at all. ¡°What¡¯s going on here? I was only walking out from my apartment?¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± She responded ¡°Your place was in a different instance from the outside world, at least in the first week anyway. Have Fun!¡± ¡°Wait!¡± ¡­ ¡­ ¡­ ¡°What?¡± Scratching his head that she actually responded to him ¡°¡­what do you mean instance?¡± There was a pause at that and a sigh. ¡°I forget that your world is relatively primitive so I shouldn¡¯t be so shocked that you wouldn¡¯t know. An instance,¡± she began with another sigh and a tone that it sound like she was talking to an idiot, ¡°separates different places in your world. Your current residence has not been connected to the world as a whole yet, due to current restrictions placed on new accounts.¡± ¡°so what..¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry, look, I¡¯m very busy right now, you are just going to have to wait until more of the accounts have died off before I have more time to answer your questions. Honestly, its like I have to speak to children all day because you are all so-¡± This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°DIED off?¡± ¡°YES!¡± she yelled, exasperated, then continued on with a prouder tone ¡°So far we have managed to eliminate half of your world¡¯s population!¡± ¡°WHAT!?¡± ¡°The Deimos thanks you for your time. Have a nice day!¡±
Loaded. Have a nice day Gans!
He didn''t have a moment to think about Eva because popping back into existence into his hallway his eyes widened at how badly things had changed. The sprinklers were all going off and the fire alarm system was absolutely blaring in his ear and white strobe lights were going off and on from their wall mounts. He thought he heard other noises as well, but with the lights flashing and alarms blaring he didn¡¯t notice much. At the end of the hall way there was a body slumped up against the wall. ¡°Holy Shit!¡± With a slight flash, his three summoned creatures appeared next to him. It might have been his imagination but, the seemingly dull look in their eyes had momentarily broken for a moment when they took in everything in the hallway. ¡°Follow me¡± he over the blaring sirens to the trio, before rushing up the body at the end of the hallway. Reaching it he realized that it was his next door neighbor. He was covered in small cuts, and had a huge piercing hold in his neck. Blood slowly trailed from his neck wound and he looked pale. Reaching out to him, he put a finger to the man¡¯s neck. Cold. He never got the guy¡¯s name, but he had seen him once in a while in the hall way, 5 foot Asian guy. He played music, a lot, and half the time he walked by the door a slight pot smell was drifting out. Looking a the neck would again he looked away from his neighbor, glancing down the hallway both ways. Nothing yet. His palms started to sweat and he kept glancing around wondering what had attacked his neighbor. He looked at his summoned creatures for some relief, each of them was still following close by and looking attentively at him. Coming to a resolution, he moved to the elevators, noting with increasing apprehension the blood stains on the door and call button. This was not like any game he had played in the past. People were dying. Quickly tapping the call button and then wiping the blood off his finger he noticed it wasn¡¯t lighting up. A shrinking howl pierced through the blaring of the fire alarm followed by a shrill cry, ¡°HUMAN!¡± It had come behind him in the direction of his apartment. Punching the elevator a few more times he quickly gave up as he heard a few more accompanying shrieks responding to the first one coming from the other direction of his apartment door and he dashed to the stairwell next to the elevator. He left the door open for a moment as his the rat, raccoon, bird trio followed him in, and slammed it shut. Sitting in the corner was another corpse, a girl he didn''t recognize with almost identical pierce marks on her neck. Blood had been smeared across the walls and trailed on the railing up to her body. Without checking the body, be began taking the stairs down two at a time. Half way down the doorway above him crashed open and he heard the same shrill voices as before, screaming excitedly as they closed on his trail. He moved even quicker than he imagined he could, seemingly flying down the steps and at one point hurtling over another body laying across the stairs. Slamming into a blood splattered exit door, he burst into the lobby and took a shocked second to register the scene in front of him. Bodies were strewed across the lobby, some human and a few monstrous shaped. Pools of blood were on the floor coming off the bodies, and blood splatter marks were strewn across the room. Through the glass double door entrance, he could see a clog of the dead laying on inner and outer both entrance doors on either sides. It looked like there had been a mad rush to get inside and outside at the same time. He could imagine people getting attacked as they tried to get through either side of the choke point. Brushing aside the scene in front of him, he again slammed into the first door leading outside, a body leaning against it coming in with him as he stumbled across the bodies in the interior part of it, his three summons following with him. The sparrow latched onto his shoulder at this point, struggling to keep up from hopping on the ground. He heard the lobby stairwell exit door burst open but he didn¡¯t bother looking back, reaching the other entrance door and pushing even harder on it, bodies had been pressed up against it and he wasted a few seconds squeezing against it, the rat and raccoon jumping through his legs as he pressed through to the outside. The outside he saw from inside his apartment unit was not the outside world he was in now. Smoke clouds were littered across the city sky and from what he could see and the intermittent gunfire he heard from inside his unit exploded into full scale war sounds now that he was outside. Heavy gunfire was going off very close by to him. The streets were still littered with the same cars as yesterday, but unlike yesterday the surreal chaotic calm was gone. Most of the vehicles had been damaged in some way, and there were blood stains and bodies littering the road, bearing different gruesome marks of damage. ¡°Holy shit...¡± he whispered Another bang noise popped up next to him and he shook off the shock of the devastation in front of him, looking back over at the creatures that had been chasing him. Three of what could only be described as goblins were trying to push against the inner door of the entrance way, the corpses slowing their progress like it had him. They, however, were not hesitating like he was. Pushing against the door with expectant eyes and huge grins of shark filled teeth and not stopping to notice the destruction and death. They all carried short spears and had painted their green faces with blood streaks. With that one look behind him, Alex ran down the street towards the gunfire, weaving in between the different wrecks and scattered bodies on the street. He saw the corpse of a golden retriever and he grimaced further. He lived in a fairly nice area near a park, and a lot of the people here had dogs and took them regularly for walks. His stomach churned at the thought of seeing more. Running towards the gunfire he turned a corner, the goblins were now on the street behind him shouting excitedly and giving chase. As he turned the corner he ran into five men wearing fatigues and a few cops in riot gear all of them turned to face him and point their weapons at him. Surrounding them lay a pile of monster corpses. He only recognized a few of them and noticed the distinctive green goblin bodies in the mix. ¡°FREEZE¡± a large cop in the lead shouted at him. ¡°DON¡¯T SHOOT¡± he yelled as he dove to the ground taking the bird on his shoulder with him, he noticed the rat and raccoon imitating him, diving behind him as well ¡°GOBLINS CHASING ME¡± he yelled from the floor as an officer in full riot gear kept shouting commands at him and pointing his shotgun in his direction. Just then the three goblins that were chasing him rounded the corner after him and the group instantly unloaded into the goblins. Alex kept his head down the whole time with his hands over his ears, shocked at how loud it was. The explosive sounds nowhere near the level that he heard in video games or movies. Looking over he saw the goblins get torn apart from multiple impacts, one of which was tossed back by the shotgun impact. Relief flooded into him as he smiled and started to pick himself off the ground. ¡°STAY ON THE GROUND!¡± the lead cop shouted at him angrily. ¡°SORRY!¡± ¡°DON¡¯T MOVE!¡± Five of the men men approached him quickly, surrounding him, a few of them still had weapons pointed on him and he caught wary glances at the summoned animals next to him. The rat hissed a little, and he noticed the group tense up. ¡°What are those supposed to be, Pok¨¦mon?¡± One of the voices asked in a rough voice. ¡°It¡¯s my¡­.class¡± he responded, getting quieter as he thought on how dumb he sounded saying that to a five grown adults in tactical and riot gear with military grade weapons. ¡°¡¯Nother one of the weird ones¡± a cop remarked. For whatever reason the guys standing over him looked more relaxed after he responded, despite having mowed down three goblins and the constant gunfire going off in the distance. ¡°Any weapons on you?¡± Large lead cop asked. ¡°Err.. Yeah, I¡¯ve got a 9mm in backpack.¡± The lead cop looked down at him, scowling slightly. ¡°Search him.¡± With that he felt his backpack being opened up and his stuff being removed ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°Shut up kid¡± the lead cop answered warily. ¡°I¡¯ve been out here all day shooting weird things and watching people die. I¡¯m not really interested in you acting stupid. As if a large rat, raccoon and sparrow eyeballing threateningly me weren¡¯t weird enough¡± he grumbled. After a brief pause while they looked at his stuff the lead cop got impatient tapping his feet after awhile while they men were staring at his book. ¡°Alright whatever, stand up¡± Alex stood up and looked at them, his objections sticking in his throat as he took in their appearance. Ragged clothing, bloodshot tired eyes, sweat stink and a general slump to all stances, they had the look of people who were near their limit. Most of them however were fully in gear despite the heat. And two of the riot police still held their riot shields, both of which had been scratched up and bloodied. ¡°Mind if I drink this Sir?¡± one of the guys in fatigues said, holding Alex''s water bottle in his hand. He was dripping with sweat. It must have been 85 degrees with full sun that day and he was standing outside with full fatigues and military armor. ¡°Sure its fine¡± he replied, feeling embarrassed ¡°Summoning book... huh....¡± he then drew the 9 mm action back and checked the inside. ¡°pistols not to bad. You have any experience using pistols?¡± the lead cop asked again. Looking closely at him he kind of resembled a character from a zombie movie Alex had watched. ¡°Not too much. I was going to use it as a last resort kind of deal....¡± he paused ¡°I should have used it on those goblins, but I had forgotten it to be honest.¡± ¡°Hmmff¡± Lead cop grunted ¡°Name is Officer Henderson by the way. I don''t really see any reason to take either of these, although it looks like Dave won''t be giving you back your water any time soon.¡± he said, as he handed back the pistol and book, which Alex promptly zipped back up. ¡°Catch¡± said the guy who drank his water, tossing the empty bottle back to Alex and shrugging sheepishly ¡°probably be handy to have something to refill, never know when you will run into another full bottle out here and the taps are starting to go out... Names James by the way.¡± ¡°Thanks¡± he replied while catching it, ¡°so what now?¡± ¡°Well¡± Officer Henderson replied slowly, looking over Alex a second time, ¡°we are headed back to the station, you''re welcome to come with. You''re not the first person out here with some weird thing going on, although I don''t see how well you are going to do with those three¡± he said pointing at the summoned creatures, who were still glaring at the officer. ¡°Yeah...lets go, I don''t think I could head back to my place without getting into trouble again. I don''t know how many of those... things are still inside.¡± ¡°Really?¡± the cop asked, looking at him askance, ¡°you don''t feel any pressing need to go out and slay the monsters or anything?¡± ¡°Uh.... Not really, I almost died back there.¡± One of the soldiers sighed ¡°well at least hes not stupid like the other ones¡± A couple of the cops gave the soldier a wry grin. ¡°Is that unusual?¡± Alex asked, shuffling his feet. Officer Henderson stood there awhile, looking like he was chewing something over before taking a look at their surroundings again. ¡°Listen, I don''t mind filling you in how things are going out here and, I''m guessing you stayed inside yesterday otherwise you would probably be a bit more wary. But lets talk and move alright?¡± The other men grunted in affirmation, most of them already looking around the street with their weapons still at the ready. ¡°Ok lets go¡± he whispered -------------------------- I''m not sure that last line is gonna stay because I keep thinking of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL65X12ViYQ Chapter 3 Beset ¡°Alright let¡¯s move out¡± ¡°What was your name again?¡± ¡°Err¡­ Gans¡± Alex replied. ¡°OK...Gans.¡± Henderson said, looking like he tasted something bad in his mouth ¡°Stick with me while we head to the station... And keep that pistol of yours in your backpack. If you''ve never had a lot of advanced fire training into you could make a pretty bad mistake.¡± Henderson looked over to him at the last statement, and Alex nodded to confirm he understood. He might not have had a lot of practice with it, but he had grown up in a family that liked to use guns for hunting, if anything, his pistol scared him slightly. With that the group started to move out slowly past the corpse strewn area while Henderson pointed out a few of the things that they had shot. It was impressive how much they had killed. The attacking monsters had generally disregarded their personal safety and charged the group from the open. Alex noticed a few different monsters besides goblins. What looked like wolves and humanoid dogs also littered the road way. ¡°Yesterday¡± he began, kicking a monster corpse lightly while keeping his a pistol trained on it, ¡°Everything was pretty normal if you don''t figure on the people passing out all over the place. Hell, Donnie over there¡± he waved to one of the police officers, a small man red haired man whose riot gear had a large scar running down the middle ¡°passed out head first into his steering wheel while driving. His partner had to grab the wheel from him and even then they crashed since just about every third car had a driver passing out as well.¡± Henderson, stopped briefly as he examined a few more of the corpses on the street, checking the human bodies. Noticing Alex¡¯s gaze he grunted, softly, shaking his head as he passed another dead body ¡°Haven¡¯t found any survivors in the bodies yet.¡± They left behind the battle site and continued down the street, Alex noted as they walked more monster bodies mixed in with the human corpses. He hadn¡¯t noticed it before due to the adrenaline of the moment, but there was an overpowering smell of copper blood, shit and piss in the air. He shook his head slightly at a pile of bodies on the street, wondering what it would be like when the bodies started to rot. As they came up to the corner of main street they all bunched up on one side of a building, the lead man peering out ahead before signaling the go ahead for everyone. Alex followed them quietly from behind alongside Henderson, who kept up his vigil amongst the bodies, looking for human survivors. Turning left onto Main Street Alex got a better view of downtown than before as they were on top of a hill and were able to look down into the town of Appleton. The fires from before had grown larger and the sporadic gunfire surrounding them had intensified as well. Alex checked his watch, 11 am. People like Alex who had hid in their homes before were probably starting to overcome their fears and go outside. ¡°It wasn''t too bad,¡± Henderson continued, drawing out the words and frowning slightly as he recalled it, ¡°we were pulling people out of cars and sending to people to the hospital. Tow trucks were on their way to pull everything out of the way. EMT''s were going into homes to help people who had injured themselves passing out and firefighters were freeing trapped people. It was a disaster but,¡± he paused, thinking, ¡°It was something we were used too. Those were all things we¡¯ve dealt with. Next thing we know...¡± The lead man made sharp signal with his hand after they crossed a block and everyone stopped dead in their tracks, bending down. Alex, walking down the street thinking about the situation didn¡¯t notice and walked into Henderson, bouncing back slightly from the contact. Henderson, making an irritated face turned to stare him down and put a finger to his mouth as Alex, red faced, slowly crouched down next to him. They were relatively out in the open, and Alex noticed the buildings were getting taller as they moved closer to downtown. There were a lot more bodies on the ground now, and Alex got the impression that there was fighting in the area very recently, it just¡­ smelled and looked differently to him in a way he couldn¡¯t put his finger on. Alex noticed all the men tensed up and looking around, guns out. He looked around but didn''t see any dangers around. He tried looking into some of the windows in the office buildings around him but couldn''t see much in them either. It might have been his imagination, but he thought he saw a few frightened faces looking down at him from the windows. Looking back, he noticed that his summoned creatures were tense as well, and all three of them were looking towards the next block at the corner turning right. ¡°Henderson¡± he whispered as quietly as he could. Henderson looked over, making a pissed off face at being interrupted a second time. Alex pointed at his creatures and then towards the next street corner on the right. Looking confused for a second, understanding dawned on the big man¡¯s face and he crept up to the rest of the men whispering quietly and making some motions with his hands. Alex stayed put a few yards behind them all, slowly backing up against a car on the street to make himself smaller. All of the men looked back at his creatures before staring up at the corner and putting themselves into a covered position, most of them preferring to take cover near Alex where a car was sitting sideways across the street. The man with the scar on his riot armor, Donnie, came over next to Alex and squatted down, giving him a thumbs up and a quick smile, before peering over the hood of the vehicle with his police shotgun at the ready. ¡°THIS IS THE POLICE¡± Henderson shouted at the corner ¡°COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP AND IDENTIFY YOURSELVES. WE WILL USE LETHAL FORCE IF FIRED UPON.¡± A few seconds passed before a hulking dog like creature turned the corner, walking slowly as if it wanted them all to get a good look at it. Alex couldn''t make out all the details as it was under the shadow of a building, but it looked like it had armored itself in scrap metal and most of its fur was matted down with blood, its eyes seemed to glow a soft red as it looked at them as it clutched a primitive looking axe in its hand. Dried Blood covered its entire face. ¡°Gnolls. Shit.¡± Whispered Donnie. Alex looked at Donnie questioningly. ¡°They always come with large pack when they decide to come at you. Hopefully that''s just a scout or loner¡± he explained. The gnoll stood there for a few seconds, sniffing the air and looking back and forth at men behind cover before it opened its mouth in a panting smile. Bracing itself against the ground with its legs, it arched its back and belted out an ear piercing loud howl. Windows all around them shattered and several of the men put their hands to their ears, Alex included. ¡°FRAG OUT!¡± One of the men in fatigues yelled, taking the initiative and throwing grenade towards the howling gnoll. The grenade arched up and bounced past the howling gnoll, disappearing from sight. A chorus of howls sounded out in answer to the gnoll. Leaping out and onto the ground, the huge lone gnoll sprinted towards the furthest forward man, moving quickly with four of its limbs propelling it forward at an incredible speed. The riot cop took several shots with his pistol before bracing behind his heavy riot shield. Sparks flashed off the gnoll as Reaching the braced riot cop, the bloodied gnoll hopped on the man¡¯s shield and then kicked off, pouncing on top of a relatively unarmored soldier in fatigues, both of them knocking down violently into the pavement. ¡°FUCKING SHOOT HIM! SHOOT!¡± The man screamed, as he was picked up by the gnoll and then slammed back into the ground. Momentarily stunned the gnoll took a hard swipe into the soldier¡¯s ribs, and then dove forward to bite at him. The soldier, screaming and punching his M4 upwards into its teeth blocked the bite, as it involuntarily bit down onto his gun. Gripping the M4 with its teeth, the gnoll reared up to swing with its claws again before Henderson marched up and shot it off the man with a point blank shotgun blast. The gnoll shrieked like a wounded dog as it was blasted off. The pack of hidden gnolls turned the corner, all of them sprinting on all fours. The grenade went off then, part of the pack getting blown to the side of the street howling and twisting in pain, but still alive and clawing the ground attempting to get back on their feet. The others in the pack kept up the charge, shrugging off shrapnel wounds as they plowed into the two shield riot officers who had run towards each other and slammed their shields together, bracing against one of the cars. Alex watched everything descend into chaos. The men were all letting loose with their guns, wipping into the gnoll pack. Some of the gnolls were dropping, but most were taking fatal wounds and shrugging them off. Pushing their bleeding bodies towards the two riot shield holders, mobbing the two and ignoring the shots coming from all of the soldiers and police. ¡°FUCKING DIE¡± screamed Donnie next to him, as he began firing off round after round from his pump shotgun into the pack as they advanced. The pack leader, despite getting shot close range with a shotgun seemed to be getting back on its feet before being put down again by another blast from the Henderson, this time being thrown backwards and shuttering in death throes. The downed soldier got back up from the ground screaming and cussing and despite bleeding claw marks to his side, and added fire with Henderson into the gnoll pack. Alex, shaking slightly and breathing heavily as he watched, ripped the pack off of his back, zipping it open quickly and grabbing his pistol. He stood there, holding the pistol between his hands shakily, his hands automatically gripping it correctly from memory. Instead of firing however he continued to hold it down and watch as the fight progressed. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. One of the shield bearers had his shield ripped away from him, and three of the gnolls grabbed onto him, each biting into the man as they brought him down into the ground, making tearing and ripping sounds while he screamed. ¡°FUCKING JAMES¡± one of the cops began to scream while unloading his shotgun into the three on top of the man, ignoring friendly fire. By now the rate of fire was starting overwhelm the gnolls and their numbers continued to drop down, most of them being cut down right by the remaining shield bearer as they struggled with him, trying to claw around the man while he crouched down behind his shield and held on to it with both hands, pistol forgotten. The soldiers began to walk up, firing semi-automatic shots as they got closer to the melee pile, accurate bullets tearing through the few remaining gnolls, and each dead gnoll hitting the pavement like a doll with its strings cut. The remaining cops and soldiers, enraged, advanced on the few injured gnolls from the initial grenade blast, pumping bullets into each of them at close range as they struggled towards the men, an insane blood lust still in their eyes even as they were being wiped out. ¡°INBOUND!¡± Screamed Donnie. Alex looked over as shadow fell over them both, knocking Danny aside the figure swung viciously across Alex¡¯s face, claws shredding across. Hot stabbing pain throbbed as he fell to the ground and ineffectually brought his arm up to block another slash, and instead he felt pain as the blood faced gnoll bit into his shoulder and thrashed his head wildly. Overcoming his blindness and pain he cried out ¡°attack¡± as the gnoll let go of his shoulder and reared up to swipe down with his claws. Alex didn''t have the strength to fight back anymore and watched it as it reared up. The trio saved him them. The Sparrow slamming into the head of the gnoll while shrieking wildly, the rat and raccoon both jumping onto its back. Enraged and distracted the gnoll howled and reared up quickly, frantically trying to shake the three off of it. Alex, vision filled with blood, opened one good eye to realize he was still holding onto his pistol. Shakily, with his other hand bracing his firing arm he raised the pistol, thumbed the safety, and hastily shot at the struggling shadowed creature on top him. The figured stiffened up with the shot, and his three summoned creatures continued to bite and claw at it as if fell to the pavement alongside him, its last foul breath blowing against his face.
Level up!
Alex smiled in spite of the pain it caused his face, letting out a soft moan as he lay there immobile, thinking of how ridiculous this world was now. It felt like eternity to him before the remaining gunfire from the men petered out. Donnie had gently lifted him up and propped him up against the car door, saying something to him and snapping his fingers, attempting to get his attention. Alex, however, at that moment, couldn''t care less what Donnie wanted and felt incredibly tired. He could barely see out of his right eye, if at all, he felt debilitating pain across his face and shoulder, and he felt more tired than ever before. Every time he tried to close his eyes to rest, however, Donnie would do something annoying like snapping his fingers in front of his face. After a while, and some muted conversations, two of the men, Alex didn''t know who, had lifted him up and had him half walk. He could hear a bit more clearly now than before and his thoughts started to become less muddled, his uncaring attitude started to move over for the pain. It felt like it took forever to say it, as he was being practically dragged between the two men, ¡°what¡¯s up¡± he rasped... still feeling a little punch drunk ¡°See I told you.¡± He heard the man on his left say, ¡°just needed some time not fighting and he will start healing up like it was no big deal. ¡°He still looks pretty goddam awful¡± another man in front him said, taking a quick look at Alex''s face before continuing forward. ¡°I doubt that James will make it. We might heal faster now, but he¡¯s still bleeding out pretty badly,¡± said the man carrying him on his right. There was a pause at that for a while before cheerful man on his left began to speak again. ¡°Well, anyway, good news for you. The Sarge took a look at your eye while you were sitting there out of it, you''ll be fine, not real wound in your eye, it¡¯s that the blood and swelling that shut your eye up so you can''t see.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good...¡± he mumbled back. A small amount of relief pouring into him. He hadn''t even considered that he''d be blind. ¡°What happened anyway? I thought we got all of them?¡± He asked to no one in particular. Downer man on his right answered this time ¡°Yeah, we did. That one that got you was the one from the very beginning. Remember the Sergeant had shot it twice with his shotgun damn near point blank!¡± Alex remembered it, twitching on the ground in a rictus of pain. The gnolls were really tough. ¡°That reminds me¡± asked the man on the left ¡°those animals of yours...¡± ¡°Stow the talk. We''re not home yet.¡± He heard a familiar voice cut through them. The rest of that day was hell for Alex as his body slowly healed itself. He might have been getting better as the day continued but he was still incapacitated, managing to put just a little more strength into his steps as the two men carried him along. On top of that, no one had any pain medications on them, apparently having used their limited supply yesterday in battles similar to the one with the gnolls. According to the chatterbox on his left, who whispered for the rest of the journey, they were about twenty people strong yesterday. Alex looked around at that, counting only about a dozen of them now, when he first met them they seemed like a pretty strong group. The gnoll pack must have numbered around 20 though, they had been outnumbered from the start. The gnoll ambush wasn''t the only attack of the day as they made their way across the city with Alex limping along slowly and James the wounded riot shield cop being carried. Goblins, only numbering in twos or threes would occasionally harass them. They were easily taken out by their rifles and shotguns however, and didn''t impede the journey much besides slow it down. The men were patient enough to hunker down whenever they heard something approach. The goblins, in naive excitement, tended to break first and expose themselves to the waiting guns of the men. Fortunately, they had even more advanced notice with Alex¡¯s pets, anything that approached them out of sight or quietly would still get picked up by the trio, each of them tensing up visibly. A few of the men started to periodically monitor his animals as they moved. Alex''s pets even managed to take down a lone goblin that he spotted stalking the group from the side. It was incredibly disturbing to watch the trio literally rip apart the small green humanoid. Animals don''t attack like the way his did, it was as if they were missing any sense of caution or pacing that a normal animal would have, instead ferociously attacking his target like the gnolls had done. He shuttered slightly as he recalled the scene again, the vicious fight of three small animals taking apart the goblin playing over again in his mind. The goblin couldn''t react to three attackers at one, and they slowly pecked and bit at it, bleeding it out and crippling it before attacking together. The men with him had watched it with a morbid fascination, none of them giving the goblin a mercy shot to finish the fight. The summoned creatures were far deadlier and useful then any of them thought initially. At one point the group stopped to do something, Alex, instead of paying attention to it, took a nap against a car while they were speaking to one another. When one of his helpers nudged him awake again, he couldn''t help but feel worse from the nap. When they did make it to the station, he could almost walk for himself, and checked the time, 4:30. ¡°Have we been out that long?¡± He thought to himself. Part of him wondered at that, but it made sense since they had to slow down or wait around for a fight. He almost cried out in relief when they reached the police station. Two men in fatigues waved at them from the entrance, and the two group¡¯s cried greetings as a few more soldiers walked out from the police station. A heavyset frightened man also walked out from the front door to greet them, looking relieved when he saw the group return and pushing both doors open, letting them all inside. Alex might have mistaken because of the pain and his swollen eye, but he could have sworn he saw the heavy man scowl at him when he stepped through the doorway into the police station, but he ignored it instead, taking in the surroundings of the station. It definitely didn''t look like he had imagined from moves, as instead of orderly rows of desks past the receiving area he saw a small tent town taking over all of their office space. His helper directed him over to an empty tent, and Alex ignored what he said to him and he fell into the makeshift bed inside, falling blissfully asleep on the good side of his face. --------- Author: ending seems a little weak and rushed, not sure if I will change it though as his pain is influencing how much he pays attention to how things progress. Only went through one proof read so I might have to revisit this again. By the way, holy crap did I make the gnolls OP. Was not expecting that. Chapter 4 Waking up to a murmur of voices, he turned over, looking up to see the top of a white tent, a small beam of light came out of a small hole on the top of the tent. Sitting there for a while and collecting his thoughts he realized where he was. He reached up and rubbed his forehead thinking for a while before sitting up.
Well rested: bonus %10 XP
He reached out and tapped the window shut. Rubbing his head again he paused as his hands crossed over 3 raised angry welts running alongside the right side of his face. He could see out of both eyes, despite feeling one of the lines running across his cheekbone and eyebrow, and wondered what his face looked like. Shaking his head, and disregarding the thought he looked around the tent and noticed his three pets from yesterday. Despite the blood covering each of them, he noticed something, the dull blank stare from yesterday was somewhat gone, and they moving more independently than before. He watched as the rat bent over to scratch at its leg. ¡°You guys look like hell¡± he said to them, grinning slightly before wincing, raising a hand to the inflamed cuts on his face. The three of them responded to his words with questioning glances, the rat stopped scratching its leg as well. Each of them gave an expectant look towards him. Frowning slightly, he leaned back against the cot again ¡°I don¡¯t have anything for you to do yet.¡± Then after looking around for a moment, found his backpack and zipped it open, pulling the leather bound book out again. Running his fingers over the embroidered letters on the front, he felt a slight pull of excitement again as he pulled it open. Blank pages. He slapped the book shut, and shoved it roughly into the backpack again, zipping it up quickly and looping the straps onto his shoulders while sighing. Pausing at the entrance of the tent, he looked back at the empty space next to his bed as a thought occurred to him. He had leveled up! Smiling again despite the pain, he reached out towards the floor ¡°Summon small animal!¡± A flash of light and a puff of smoke and then a second later, Alex was looking at a white and black broad shouldered weasel. ¡°HONEY BADGER! YEAH!!!¡± he shouted, pumping his arms slightly. The energy drain didn''t seem as bad as the day before either, but he got the feeling he had hit his limit again. Taking a moment to examine it, it looked exactly like he had seen it from the internet, except it had the same semi-vacant stare as his other pets. Uncharacteristically, his rat and raccoon each took an unconscious step backwards when they noticed it, and the sparrow on his shoulder shook its wings in agitation slightly. Reaching over he gave it a quick, nervous pat on the head, noting the rough skin of it and breathing a sigh of relief when it didn''t go berserk like the first rat. In hindsight, he thought to himself, it would not have gone well at all in the small enclosed tent if the badger had gone crazy. He frowned slightly, the scenarios running though his head. One of which was a repeat of when the gnoll had bit into him. Sweating slightly at the memory of the crazed rate he looked at the animals. ¡°Stay!¡± he commended, raising his hand with his palm raised out towards them, they looked back up to him dully. Satisfied, he turned, crawling out of the tight tent entrance, the sparrow still on his shoulder. After he was out and stood up he noticed Donnie from yesterday and a middle aged woman. They had stopped talking when they saw him crawl out from the tent and were both looking at him slightly. Alex could tell that their conversation hadn''t been completely friendly from the looks they were giving each other however. The woman turned fully face him. She looked to be middle aged with dark hair worn long. Her eyes had a tired red tint to them, and she had a sort of manic energy in the look she gave him. Taking a second to look over Alex, she scowled and walked away, leaving Donnie to turn to him and shrug. He watched as she walked into an office and slammed the door shut, the walls shaking slightly from the impact. Alex looked at Donnie inquisitively ¡°What¡¯s her problem?¡± He asked. Donnie kicked his feet out a bit, leaning against a railing dividing the office area from the entrance thinking for a moment before he replied. ¡°She knew James pretty well. Not really your fault¡± he said pointing to the tent Alex crawled out of ¡°But that was James''s tent.¡± ¡°He died?... Sorry¡± Alex asked frowning and thinking back. Donnie looked back confused a moment before awareness dawned on his face. ¡°I forgot. Remember when we stopped on the way back and you passed out against that car? We ended up burying him there...Well, as best we could anyway.¡± He stretched then, raising his arms above his head groaning slightly in relief before he returned to his original posture. ¡°We might all heal a lot faster than normal,¡± he said, speaking softly now ¡°but James was pretty much bleeding out the entire time we carried him. Most of the time he was with us, he was unconscious from the blood loss. We might have been able to do something for him, if we had supplies or even someone with medical training. Even then, we didn''t even know his blood type." "We all kind of knew what was going to happen to be honest, only thing we held out for was that maybe he would heal fast. Looks like bleeding wounds like that don''t heal by themselves, even in these new game rules.¡± Donnie looked down for a bit before chuckling, his gloom suddenly replaced by mirth as his face lit up ¡°is that a fricken'' honey badger standing next to you?¡± Alex looked down quicklyat the tiny vicious creature that had padded close to him, disobeying his command to stay. He glad for the change of subject. He didn''t really know James that well but Donnie must have. ¡°Yeah, I guess my class isn''t as stupid as I originally thought.¡± He coughed out, then a thought occurred to him. ¡°Hey Donnie?¡± ¡°Call me Don.¡± ¡°Ok. So... Don. The big guy... uh... Henderson. Mentioned that you had passed out during that event two days ago. Soo¡­ Do you have a class?¡± Don quirked an eyebrow at him ¡°Yup, Warrior. In fact most of the guys around here have it. Seems pretty helpful too, with every level up I start to hit a little harder, get a little stronger, and I can take a punch a little harder as well. See this scratch?¡± He asked, pointing to the large mark across the front of his armor ¡°I got this from some big goblin... hobgoblin if I had to guess.... Anyway¡± he waved a hand in front of him ¡°I took the same hit as the guy before me. Name was Ted. Ted hadn''t gone through the same class process as you or me but he wore the same armor. When Ted took a hit, the thing''s sword went right through his armor like paper. When I took damn near the same hit... I got this¡± He opened his palms, displaying the large scratch. ¡°I''m not totally sure what all the rules are but I''d say the people who passed out that day and woke up with classes are damn lucky. You included, although I think you might have been pissed off someone to have ended up with that class.¡± Alex frowned, remembering EVA''s response to him. Maybe he had pissed her off. Don grinned at his own joke, before a realization struck him and he took in a breath ¡°Anyway.¡± he said, swiping at the air again ¡°I''m not here to talk about James or Ted or classes. I swung by because the boss wanted to see you.¡± He thumbed towards the stairwell. ¡°Follow me.¡± He stated before heading towards the stairwell, assured that Alex would be following behind. Gritting his teeth slightly at the thought that he was acting like his own pets, Alex quickly caught up with Don and followed him up the stairwell. Donnie led him past a couple of hallways and turns, as he passed each room Alex caught glances of other soldiers, cops and families. It was rare for him to spot anyone in a good mood, each room depicting a tiny caricature of a scene, most involved arguments or dead eyed stares. The past few days had been hard on everyone. Reaching down Alex pulled his phone from his pocket, flipping it open and frowning ¡°No Service¡± he mumbled. Donnie hearing him, turned a bit as he walked, looking at the cell phone. ¡°All the phones have been dead since day one.¡± He stopped for a moment, pointing at the phone. ¡°You might actually want to turn that off, I''m not sure how long the electricity is going to last. What¡¯s going on with the water and electricity and cell service... it¡¯s all been getting worse over time. Stuff is starting to randomly fail on us for no apparent reason. The radios have been picking up intermittent static, and we''ve noticed that the water taps have been steadily losing pressure.¡± ¡°We''re lucky that the local army reserve guys came down here. The chief was smart enough to call them in on day one to help out with the disaster. I doubt he knew what was going to happen next though... He didn''t make it.¡± ¡°How is the power still on?¡± Alex asked, wondering at the lights ¡°Is there anyone manning the power plants?¡± Donnie frowned, ¡°As far as I know, they were abandoned. We generally haven''t been able to range too far away from the station without being attacked so no one has checked so far. You want my opinion, I think this might be part of the game.¡± As they talked, Alex noticed a water fountain and rushed over to it, leaning over and slapping down the water handle. A disappointingly low flow of water gushed out of it, and he had to restrain himself from sucking on the spout. Donnie joined him on the other one, chuckling slightly. After what seemed to him to be forever, he finally stood back up, signing in content despite his face burning in pain from where his cuts were, the steady throb lessened as he stood up. Pulling out his empty water bottle he stood there slowly filling it up as well. Donnie gave him an impatient look. ¡°What?¡± You got any better ideas? He looked back at Donnie, who shrugged in reply and watched the water bottle fill up gradually. After a while he capped it off, at a disappointing three quarters full of lukewarm water, the angle of the fountain not letting him fill it further. Stuffing it back in his backpack he gave Donnie a thumbs up and they continued on towards the end of the hall where there were two soldiers slouched on either side of an open double doorway. Donnie gave a quick wave towards the two who nodded in return as he walked inside, Alex following behind. The room smelled of stale smoke and sweat, and a single ceiling fan lazily rotated from the ceiling with a single light beaming down onto a large conference tabled filled with papers and maps. A large map of Appleton and the surrounding city had been taped up to the wall and a couple of men stood there discussing it. Alex recognized the big man, Henderson, standing there with a serious looking man in army fatigues. He had salt pepper hair and despite being smaller than Henderson he could tell that Henderson was deferring to him in their muted conversion as they looked over the map. Looking at it, he noticed several red marks circled inside the city, with a larger one inside of the town where the reserve base was located at. Like before, there was a mix of police officers and soldiers in the room, he even noticed a man wearing full swat gear in the corner of the room, leaned up against a side table. Alex noted a few men from yesterday''s patrol, it seemed like they were wearing a lot more protective gear than then though. Donnie cleared his throat, getting the attention of Henderson and the Soldier he was talking to. Turning towards him, his ice blue eyes studied Alex curiously. A chill ran down his back as he noticed two red scar lines crossing from the side of his neck all the way across his face, with a smaller line a third cutting across his chin. The man grinned fiercely after looking at Alex. ¡°Good to see I''m not the only one who has lost their good looks! What happened to you son? Goblin? Wolf? No wait, let me guess,¡± He spoke, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly, ¡°Gnoll¡± he said with his finger in the air, a satisfied smile on his face. ¡°My name is Major Williams,¡± he continued, introducing himself, ¡°and currently I am the ranking officer in this AO.¡± he said with a more serious look. He put his hand outright and Alex leaned over the table to grip it. The man had an iron grip, thankfully Alex was expecting it, what he wasn''t expecting however, was him to hold the grip for a few seconds extra before releasing it, taking a second examination at Alex''s face as if searching for something. ¡°Anyway,¡± he continued on as he released his grip, much to Alex''s relief, ¡°Henderson here, was telling me that you saved a lot of my boys yesterday. Thanks.¡± He finished with a sincere tone while looking him straight in the face. Alex frowned in confusion, as he turned away slightly from his gaze, feeling embarrassed from the intensity of it ¡°I didn''t save anyone''s life yesterday. It was mostly your guys saving me.¡± He managed to look back at the man ¡°If I hadn''t made it to your patrol I would have gotten torn apart. I''m lucky to be alive.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The man frowned slightly in thought for a moment before looking slightly above Alex, ¡°I guess for someone like yourself who''s never fought before it might be a bit confusing. But when I was a younger man on the front lines, I always found myself being saved by the rest of the men around me. I gave help freely to them, and they to me. The world we find ourselves in now,¡± He motioned to the window ¡°reminds me of my old days. So I guess it would be confusing for you.¡± ¡°I heard the full story about yesterday''s patrol. Saving your life was pretty cheap considering.¡± He shifted slightly, ¡°When your little... pets from yesterday tipped the patrol off they were about to be attacked, you probably saved most of their lives. Sure! It was cheaply given by you, but that doesn''t make it any less significant. Don''t forget the only thing valuable out here anymore is human life. And even then...the way things are going, it¡¯s getting pretty cheap as well out here.¡± He spoke the last part out softly, resting his palms on the conference table. ¡°Enough of that,¡± he started, raising up from the table and waving it away with his hands, ¡°The reason I summoned you,¡± he said smirking lightly ¡°We could use you, or rather those...animals¡± he leaned over to look at the Honey Badger that had wandered from Alex and was gnawing on a corner of the wooden conference table ¡°of yours... I''ve got a upcoming assignment that we need to move on pretty soon, and I could use a first alert system to help us out. If you''re up to it¡± Alex hesitated a moment, opening his mouth Henderson cut in, ¡°I''d like to add to two points if I may.¡± Getting a slight nod from Williams he continued ¡°We did a pretty good job collecting people so far. But a lot of the people in this station right now have friends, and family, outside of these walls. Without cell phone connections, we don''t have a very good idea exactly what¡¯s happening to all of them, but I can tell you this... I wouldn''t blame you if you decided to go off looking for someone out there, but a lot of us here, he waved to the other men in the room, are making some sacrifices to keep things together. All of those people you noticed passing by here, if we each head off by ourselves we''ll doom them.¡± ¡°That''s pretty much the only thing keeping any of us here anyway. It doesn''t help the fact that any of us wouldn''t last an hour out there by ourselves. Some of the guys here left of the first day to check on their families, it''s day three now, and I haven''t heard from a single one of them. Not. One.¡± ¡°Second point¡± he continued after a pause, ¡°Is that we could use your help. Yeah, we don''t know how much you will help, yeah, you could be in danger, and yeah, and we haven''t even told you the assignment yet. But, I''ll say this, who knows how many second chances this group is going to get if we don''t succeed.¡± A long pause followed, as the two looked at him. Alex could tell without turning his head that the others were looking at him as well, evaluating him. He sighed. ¡°Alright sign me up.¡± ¡°That''s the spirit,¡± the major rumbled out ¡°I knew you''d come around. Could see it the moment you walked in here.¡± He turned, pointing a finger back at the map. ¡°We left a fairly sizable group of men and supplies back at base. Its only about ten miles out there. Our last contact last night had them doing pretty damn well. They had cleared everything hostile out about a mile or two out of their base in every direction and managed to rescue quite a large number of people. Our plan is to move most of the people here back to that base and use this as a forward base of operations in the town instead. We''ve got far too many people for the amount of supplies we have on hand, despite a few scavenging sessions we''ve had. Not only that, but it seems like there are more monsters out here for whatever reason.¡± ¡°We have a few problems however,¡± he said, flicking a finger up for each, ¡°for whatever reason the interference has gotten worse and we can''t get a hold of them using our station radio anymore. Another problem is you will have to go on foot. We have a couple of APCs and Humvees, but we need to save our vehicles for when we start transporting people. The last time we rolled out our tires got hit with arrows every time we stopped so I don''t want to take the risk of running through a bad path. You are going to need to clear out any ambushes in the road, or anything...weird. Alternatively we need another path into the base if its been blocked.¡± ¡°I''m not expecting you to fight, but due to the nature of this mission, you¡¯re... Summoned creatures tipping us off to ambushes could make the difference in whether or not we ultimately evacuate people out of here into base.¡± ¡°The men you see in here are all going out there, and they''ve already been briefed on what I expect. If you have any questions you can direct them to Johnson over there¡± he pointed to Swat man leaned up against a table. ¡°If you gentlemen will excuse us. I''ve got another team to fill in for their assignment.¡± He said, taking a quick glance at them and turning back towards Henderson and the wall map looking at the spots inside town. ¡°You heard him,¡± Johnson, barked, pushing himself off from the table and shifting his weapon slightly. ¡°Let¡¯s head out of here. You,¡± he pointed towards Donnie, ¡°go get him set up with some supplies and get him ready for the march. We''ll will be waiting on you outside.¡± ¡°Got it..uh Sir¡± answered Donnie, looking a little flustered at the title. The tan faced swat guy shook his head at that and waved the rest of them forward, all of them walking out together. Alex stepped aside as they all left the room, and Donnie tapped him on the shoulder ¡°we better get going as well. It¡¯s going to take time to get you some of the basic stuff without keeping them waiting too long.¡± They both turned, and Alex quickly walked after the group, catching up to them. With their heavy armor and boots they all made a loud spectacle as the crossed the hallway. Alex had to admit that they felt pretty bad ass as they stomped along. Caught up in his thoughts, he almost missed it, but his mouth flew open when he noticed her pass, it was kind of hard to miss her, and the smell. ¡°Fat blue haired girl?¡± He thought to himself, shocked. She and what appeared to be a group of five others passed him by him in the hall and he turned around while walking backwards to look at the group. Each and every one of them had some sort of scrap armor and weapons on. Most of them had cuts and gauges on their clothes and armor and one thing came to mind to describe them. ¡°Adventurers!¡± He heard Williams bark out, ¡°Good to see you!¡± Alex didn''t know exactly how he knew, but he could tell that Williams wasn''t being sincere in his greeting, a light inflection changed from before. ¡°Hey¡± Donnie grabbed his shoulder, turning him around. Alex looked straight at a white plaster wall, smiling sheepishly, he took a step back, realizing he was about a foot away from running into the wall. Donnie gave him a odd look before grunting when he saw the would be adventurers in the conference room. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s go¡± Alex and Donnie quickly picked up their steps as they caught up to the main group ahead of them. ¡°What¡¯s the deal with them?¡± Alex asked as they reached the stairwell, steps echoing off the cinder block walls and metal stairs. Donnie frowned, ¡°they call themselves adventurers. Let¡¯s talk about them later¡± he said curtly as they exited the stairwell and entered the lobby. Alex took in all the tents and standing people. People must have been trickling in as it seemed a lot more crowded than he remembered. Donnie looked at the crowd for a moment as well. ¡°Yeah, this is part of the reason why we need to go out soon. We''ve got a packed amount of scared people in here and it¡¯s starting to get reaaalllly crowded. There''s no telling when people will get over their shock and become a problem here. There''s simply not enough space in this small safe zone we''re making, and things are only going to get worse if we can''t move some of these people out of here. Alex walked to his tent and heard murmurs from the crowd as they realized a badger was following him, poking his head in he saw his other two summons sitting there looking slightly excited at his appearance. ¡°Follow me¡± he commanded and popped back out, the three from inside following. Looking around he noticed Donnie making a waving motion from where he stood next to a door with another cop. This one dressed in full riot gear guarding a door. Approaching, Donnie opened the door and walked inside, Alex followed, and stared for a moment, understanding why the guard was positioned at the door. There were tons of supplies in there! ¡°Yeah, we had a lot of the patrols pick this stuff up. It was a lot easier than you think since there were so many of those monsters out there wiping people out.¡± Donnie directed him around, giving him an army backpack and throwing different things at him, a foldable map, water, food, a watch Alex strapped on his wrist, a different pistol with more clips and few ammo boxes for it. He tossed a Molle tactical vest at Alex and waited for him to pull it over his shirt, then showed him how to secure his holster and pistol in the front. Alex then transferred everything from his old backpack into the new army style one and threw it over his shoulders connecting the front straps as well, to his surprise, everything didn''t feel too uncomfortable or heavy. He knew that might be different when he went outside for their ten mile hike. Alex thought back to when the gnoll had attacked him, it would be nice to have something for when things got close... looking around he noticed an aluminum bat and baseball cap with a bears logo on it. He picked them both up, shoving the cap over his head and swinging the bat lightly as he took a stance, it felt nice and lightweight, and he liked the grip of the bat. ¡°Go Bears¡± He joked as he gave another test swing. Donnie looked at him quizzically as he watched. ¡°I think they more picked this up as a Joke.... but to be perfectly honest it might be good to have that now.¡± he shrugged ¡°Whatever the hell is happening, I don''t think we are going to have an unlimited supply of bullets. Here, turn around.¡± He moved up to Alex and grabbed the bat, sliding it in the side of his backpack straps and pulling it tightly against the pack. Patting it lightly against the pack to see if it or the pack moved, he grunted, satisfied. ¡°Let¡¯s get going, we need to meet up with the rest of the guys.¡± The two made their way out of the supply room and weaved between some people to make their way to the front of the lobby, Alex noticed the eyes on the supply door and wondered if they should have put more than one guard on the door. Donnie noticed where he was looking and shook his head, Alex kept quiet. With his four animals following him, he found that it was relatively easy to make it past the crowd, as they tended to take a few steps back as they eyed the badger, who hissed slightly at people as it strutting alongside. He looked like he was enjoying himself. Pushing their way outside Alex had to shield his eyes for a moment, before checking his watch, 10 am. It was actually later in the morning than he thought it would be. He hurried up to the patrol group alongside with Donnie, the swat leader Johnson appraising him and the four animals thoughtfully. ¡°So you are supposed to be, what? A warning system?¡± He asked, slightly hostile. Somewhat taken aback, Donnie answered for him. ¡°I can tell you''re skeptical, and yeah you can see stuff coming anyway. But when I was coming back, half of us pretty much watched where the animals looked. They picked up on a lot of ambushes before we did since we can''t see through things. They are good at finding concealed enemies that we wouldn''t have noticed.¡± ¡°Huh¡± he snorted, ¡°We''ll see about that.¡± ¡°I already spoke to everyone else here while we were waiting for you, but I''ll go over it again briefly for your sake.¡± Johnson began. ¡°We''ve got ten miles that we need to cover in an area that is going to be crawling with hostiles, the Terran will impede us. Stick to silence until I say so or unless you...or your...creatures, spot something. Hopefully we can find a quick and easy path towards base, but I honestly doubt it as we are going to have to move slow and silent. If we run into anything that the convoy can''t handle with a front plow, we are going to have to find a different path or take care of it ourselves. Make no mistake, we are going to be sitting ducks out there when we have to do this, so keep your eyes peeled out there.¡± Looking up at the position of the sun he cursed silently then turned back to them. ¡°Let¡¯s everyone get back safe alright?¡± He paused, ¡°let''s go guys, times wasting.¡± Chapter 5 "That was easy" ¡°Hey, hold up¡± Donnie exclaimed suddenly. Most of the group had already turned towards the road and were looking at him impatiently. He took a deep breath before continuing, ¡°group up first.¡± The Swat leader, Mick, looked back at Donnie and Alex, annoyed, before a resigned look crossed his face. Alex watched as Mick raised a finger in the air and started poking in front of him, eyes distant as he continued to tap. ¡°Done. Can we go now? Or do you have any more hold ups?¡± A blue window popped up in front of Alex¡¯s face and he frowned.
Donnie has invited you to the group. Accept? Yes No
¡°What the hell?¡± he muttered, tapping the yes button in the air, the blue window disappearing with a pop as he did so. ¡°How''ed you do that?¡± Alex asked Johnson, who in return gave an even more annoyed look ¡°What are you talking about? Just hit the group option from your interface. ¡°Interface? I don''t have an interface. What are you guys talking about?¡± At that, most of the group looked at him questioningly, even Donnie looked at him oddly. Johnson turned to Donnie, frowning, ¡°Where''d you dig this guy up Don? What the hell kind of question is that? You know what? Never mind.¡± He sighed, before pointing at Alex. ¡°Look. Stupid. I don''t know why I''m being forced to take you along with us, or why the hell you are the only person out here who doesn''t have an interface. As if talking about an interface and partying up wasn''t fucked up enough.¡± He spat, ¡°but I''ll be damned if I end up getting killed out here when you get in the way. So don''t ask any more stupid questions and stay in the back your new pal, Don.¡± Alex could feel heat rushing to his face as he watched the swat man point his finger at him, an old memory digging its way to the surface, he reminded him of an old bully he know, pointing someone out to separate him from the group. He kept quiet and clenched his teeth, but he could feel the anger simmering inside of him. ¡°What the fuck Mick?¡± Asked Donnie, also red faced. A couple of the soldiers were wincing looking at the exchange, but for the most part they were nodding their heads or staring at Alex, as if reexamining him as a liability. ¡°No, don''t you what the fuck me Don. I''m in charge here¡± he said, tapping his chest plate quickly, ¡°And I''m going to be making the rules on our little adventure outside. I might have orders to keep you around, but that doesn''t mean I have to like it, or play nice, or even keep you alive out there. I''ve seen enough fucked up things out here that I have ZERO. ZERO! Patience for fuck ups! You got me?¡± He glared at the two of them. ¡°You got ME?¡± He asked again, insistent, looking at the two of them. ¡°I got you.¡± Alex replied, before clenching his teeth again, a sick feeling creeping into his stomach. ¡°Yeah I got you Mick¡± Donnie replied, his fists clenched and face red. ¡°OK¡± Mick, responded in a mock cheery voice. ¡°Let¡¯s get going shall we, you two stay in the back, and we''ll lead the way.¡± With that, Mick turned, and walked down the road, the rest of the men taking quick looks at him and then Alex, before grunting and turning to follow him. Alex and Donnie followed as well. Alex wondered just how long this trip was going to take, his thoughts getting increasingly dark the more he walked behind the main group. He could hear the soft patter of feet behind him as his animals quietly followed along Walking down the paved road they didn''t have too bad a trip at first. Alex didn''t even concentrate on the idea they would get attacked as he silently fumed at Mick. Not that it mattered, this close to the Police station he noted a lot of dead monstrous creatures that had been taken out. The regular patrols in the area must have been keeping the monsters down. ¡°Where do they keep coming from¡± He thought to himself, distracting himself further, before a memory from back in the conference room returned to him. The police headquarters had been circled, but he remembered all of the other circles on the map, with a flash of insight he realized what they could mean. He had thought the circles had been supplies or potential defensive spots, but he had a sinking feeling that they were sighted concentrations of monsters. All of the little circles had been surrounding the police station, which meant.... ¡°Alright,¡± Mick whispered, holding his hand up. ¡°Keep low and quiet, we are breaking through.¡± The relaxed atmosphere of the patrol faded away at that, the men looking tenser as they began to continue down the street. Alex glanced at the sparrow hopping nervously on his shoulder, its head looking from side to side. The animals at his feet also reacted like the men, a sort of tension that hadn''t previously been there. It wasn''t like the day before, when they were stock still pointed in a direction, hair raised, but they were definitely acting like something was up. With what felt like an eternity they continued to make their way down the street. He hadn''t realized it before, but the cars on the road made a tunnel for the whole trip. He noticed impact marks on a lot of them as they walked, a pattern forming as each of the dents looked similar to him, a faint army color green paint scratching off on each. He thought about it, ¡°They did say they had driven down here from the base. They must have been knocking cars aside as they traveled¡± He grimaced a little as he thought about it further, it was nice having an easy path to follow back to the base the soldiers had come from, but wouldn''t the monsters around them know that they would be using this path? The gnolls the day before might have been suicidally bloodthirsty, but he remembered the eyes of some of them as they had looked at him, and the scrap armor they wore to block some of their bullets. They had a crude intelligence, and they weren''t the only monsters hunting people either. As if in answer to his thoughts he noticed Mick slow down and crouch, raising his hand as he motioned one of his men over, a soft conversation between the two of them, Mick was pointing towards a car that was blocking the roadway car ¡°tunnel¡± that they had been following and noticed another path leading left down the street. Alex crouched down as well, thinking a moment as he puzzled over something else that had been bothering him. Sitting there he realized that he it was too easy to hear the two men whisper to one another. He cocked his head and waited there while the two conversed, hard ¡°s¡± noises slipping out of their muted conversation. Waiting there, he listened to the background noise he had been ignoring. He heard a few soft pops in the distance, and a little later he imagined he heard a faint scream. He rubbed his chin and frowned at the natural conclusion. The gunfire and violent screams had toned down since the second day. He knew intellectually what that meant, but some part of him was still holding out hope that he was wrong. Memories of his brief conversation with Eva floated in, ¡° So far we have managed to eliminate half of your world¡¯s population,¡± he sat there a moment, crouched in thought and chewing his lip slightly, as if tasting the worlds. A brief tap brought him quickly out of his thoughts and he turned, noticing Donnie looking at him with his eyebrows raised, an unspoken message there. ¡°Get your head in the game¡± Alex nodded slowly to reassure him before looking back at Mick in the front. Mick and the other man were now carefully approaching the car blocking in the street, looking side to side as went. The other men followed him and Alex found himself reflexively getting closer to them, his curiosity getting the better of him, to his surprise none of them gave any response to his close proximity. Mick signaled to his whispering partner, an older man with a grey mustache whose body was slightly puffed out from his armor, pointing at a nearby SUV. The man nodded and then slowly climbed up the side of it, making little noise as he reached the top. Squinting, he looked, in the distance where the new path of cars led. Alex watched as the man''s face registered confusion, before blanching. Everyone pointed their weapons at the corner of where the new path led. Alex, took a brief glance at his animals, none of them were pointing anywhere, but he noticed that a few of them were twitching a little bit more than before. The badger made a small hop, looking at him briefly before baring his teeth. Looking more nervous and tense than before, the man slowly climbed back down from the SUV, his footsteps lightly dropping back down on the pavement. With exaggerated slowness, he crept up to Mick before leaning forward and whispering into the squad leader¡¯s ear. Mick stiffened up, but otherwise kept still, crouching there and looking deep in thought before waving the other men over, including Alex and Donnie. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. With the same exaggeratedly slow motions as the grey mustached man, Mick holstered his weapon and strapped it in, then crept up to the car blocking the road, and climbed over the trunk, lightly dropping onto the other side. He made very slow motions with his hands and the rest of the men followed suit, securing their weapons and carefully crossing over the car, moving slowly and quietly as they followed suit. Many of them took quick looks down the direction the mustache man had looked but none of them indicated they had seen anything. Alex waited until he was the last one, then, heart beating, he slowly crawled over the top of the car. A slightly screeching sound was audible and he paused, wincing and turning over, putting one hand on the aluminum bat that had been dragging on the metal trunk. Mick gave him a quick look before waving him forward, and Alex dropped down with the rest of them. Most of them already had their guns out, the majority of which were pointed behind Alex. Alex looked around at the still men, and, taking their cue, waiting in silence. After what seemed like a few minutes, Mick waved at them again, and they all rose slightly before walking down the road, still in the original tunnel of cars that had been made by the military vehicles on the first day. After a few minutes of sitting in anticipation, they began of moving forward again down the road. Alex noticed the buildings had started to get shorter again as they made their way out of downtown Appleton. From the more relaxed look of the men Alex could tell they had gotten through the monster zone. Some of them had started speaking in low tones. ¡°What was that?¡± Alex asked Donnie trying to keep as quiet as possible. ¡°Ambush of some kind¡± Alex, took in his response, confused ¡°You¡¯re not curious?¡± ¡°Nope¡± Donnie replied curtly, before looking over at Alex ¡°I¡¯m not sure if I really want to know¡­Let me put it this way. Yeah, we didn¡¯t see whatever was down that other road, but it¡¯s not like you are going to NOT going to see it either.¡± ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°Look around you man¡± he motioned at their ruined surroundings, Alex noticed a look of pain on his face. ¡°The world is over. There are things popping up I only read about in books and the amount of people we see out here has dropped to just about nothing. I mean, what the fuck are we going to do when we run out of bullets?¡± Alex nodded dumbly in response. Donnie, put his finger on his lips again. ¡°Get your head in the game¡± They continued moving down the road as the sun beat overhead. Despite the heat and the fact that he was wearing more clothing than before he noticed that none of them were sweating. Compared to yesterday he didn¡¯t even feel hot even though he could feel that it was a hot day. Alex thought to himself as they continued their journey, wondering if another game mechanic was in play. He also needed to get a hold of EVA somehow. How did every other single member of the group have an interface, but not him? It wasn¡¯t as if he had actually needed it, but he wondered why he was being held back. When he got to the army base he resolved to spend some more time on it. It felt like more and more, he was getting further behind compared to others. The tunnel path seemed to follow parallel to the main highway heading north out of Appleton. Alex took a few glances at the bumper to bumper abandoned cars on the highway. He wasn¡¯t sure of it as they never came too close, but he imagined he saw shapes moving among the wrecked cars. After what felt like a few mile out of downtown they found themselves approaching a gas station in a residential neighborhood. The houses were all packed tightly together with small front lawns on each. As they approached, his sparrow started to chirp wildly on his shoulder, hopping back and forth. Looking down at his other animals he noticed them all looking down the road towards the Gas station, each had their fur up and their teeth were drawn back in a snarl, something bad was up ahead. After casting a wary glance towards Alex and the still chirping sparrow, Mick signaled the men, and they fanned out and slowly approached the gas station, guns up. A ripping, chewing noise could be heard behind a delivery truck that was sitting next to the gas station¡¯s doors. Mick signaled everyone down and they crouched. Alex, staying behind the group, crouched behind a red sedan, pulling his pistol from his stomach holster. ¡°ANYONE ALIVE OVER THERE?¡± yelled Mick towards the delivery truck, lifting his weapon, an old looking MP5 sub machine gun, to his shoulder. The noise behind the delivery truck stopped, and they saw a massive green hand violently clutch at the edge of the trucks frame, hoisting a large figure into view, looking back at them. ¡°Troll.¡± Alex whispered out loud as he took in its details. The creature in front of him didn¡¯t resemble the troll he knew in video games, but he picked up the hideous and lanky figure immediately. It was easily as tall as the delivery truck and looked down at the men with yellow eyes. Drool and blood slowly dripped down from the corner of a mouth lined with thick, tusk like teeth. Unlike the gnoll leader¡¯s malicious smile, it dumbly smiled at the men, like a child that had discovered some new toy. ¡°Help¡± it mimed crudely, ¡°Help me!¡± Alex¡¯s gut turned as he listened to the troll mime a woman¡¯s voice. It began to slowly move towards the men, eyes slowly looking at each of them as its grin spread wider. It continued to cry out in rough sounding voice ¡°Help me!¡± Drool and blood continued to drip out of its mouth as it moved closer to them, in one of its hands Alex could see identifiable meat and bone. As if realizing it had it in its hand, it paused briefly, shoving the meat into its mouth, blood leaking down from its chin as it was squeezing into its mouth. Bone crunching noises came from mouth before it swallowed, and once again looked at the men with the same dumb smile, undaunted as the guns pointed at it. ¡°Help me!¡± it mimed again before slowly moving forwards again, arms raised as it smiled even wider in anticipation. Mick raised his gun and shot off three quick rounds into its head. Alex watched in sick fascination as the bullets impacted its head, its face being transformed into a green slab of meat. ¡°HELP¡± it roared at him, taking a step forward again as Mick hit it with another burst to its face. The troll, slumped slightly, missing half of his face, before falling forward onto the concrete, its weight causing the ground to shake slightly as it impacted the ground. Green blood slowly leaked out onto the ground from its mulched head. The smell of putrid meat and blood hit Alex then, as if released by the corpse on death. Mick turned towards the group with a cocky smile to his face, ¡°that was easy.¡± ¡°No level up¡± Alex muttered, frowning in thought. Everyone smiled, a few of them cheered, and walked up to Mick slapping him on the back after seeing the large monster topple over. Alex felt uneasy, a thought he couldn¡¯t quite grasp trying to rise in his mind. One of soldiers walked up to the corpse, kicking it in the shoulder, the massive body only slightly moving from the impact. ¡°STOP. GET AWAY FROM IT¡± Alex yelled as realization dawned. Most of them looked at Alex askance, Mick had a pissed of look on its face again. ¡°What¡¯s the big deal?¡± The soldier asked, kicking it again. ¡°GET AWAY. THEY REGENERATE!¡± he yelled frantically, red faced and flustered. He knew he could be wrong, but he had to say something The soldier gave a mocking smile before stepping away from the body, then fell head first onto the concrete as the troll raised its head and swung one of its long arms at the soldiers¡¯ back leg, gripping the leg with its massive hand and jerking the man back towards it. ¡°HELP ME¡± it screamed, louder this time than before, it¡¯s bleeding face grinning with the same anticipation as it dragged the man back towards him. ---------- Author: Not trying to cliffhanger you guys. It just felt like a nice place to stop. I might add into this later if it doesn''t feel right when i start making the next chapter... oddly, this is starting to feel like a zombie novel to me. Side note: Is this series any good? First time doing this and I can''t really tell from my perspective. It seems kind of okish I think. Chapter 6 Troll 2 ¡°UNLOAD¡± screamed Mick as he fired burst shots into the trolls face again, green craters appearing on its face with every shot. Other soldiers in the group circled around, trying to get a clear shot on the troll as it dragged the man towards him. Green blood continued to spray from its face as each of Micks shots hit home. ¡°DAVE, TROY.¡± Mick shouted again, turning towards the men after the troll fell back limply to the concrete, green blood pooling from its head wounds, ¡°get him out of that things hand!¡± Two of the soldiers rushed up to the dazed soldier, and slowly pried the trolls meaty fingers off from his leg. Mick, impatient, walked up to the Troll and fired into its head point blank, as the troll''s fingers twitched and fought the two men from releasing their grip on the man''s leg. After freeing the man from its grasp, the two picked him up, supporting either shoulder, carrying him away. Alex took a look at the man, his rising panic slowly dropping back down. Blood was leaking from mans face from his fall onto the concrete, but other than being dazed and slightly bloodied he seemed fine. Alex turned to Mick, ¡°let¡¯s get out of here before that thing regenerates again.¡± The tan faced swat man''s face soured as he took a moment to look back at Alex. He thought he saw hint of nervousness evident on his face as well. ¡°Let¡¯s get going!¡± He shouted after taking a moment to collect himself again. Then turned and hit the Troll with another burst fire shot into the top of its skull, punching a huge gap into the top of its head. The green blood oozing out from the trolls head at an absurd rate. In the few seconds he watched it, he felt like the blood loss had started to slow down again. Marching around the body and resuming their journal, albeit more quickly, they set down the path they had been following from before their interruption. ¡°No need to move silently just yet guys. If anything is going to come after us they already know we are here. Guns out and eyes peeled!¡± They were only a few minutes into their trip before they heard a shrieking peel ripple into the air. ¡°HELP ME!¡± ¡°Holy fuck¡± Alex said out loud, bug-eyed, staring backwards at a hulking shape far in the distance. They all turned to look nervously at each other at that. Mick looked grimly back behind them ¡°double time guys. Don¡¯t forget, something could surprise us up ahead.¡± He motioned at their surroundings, before pointing at a silhouette looking back at them from inside one the the homes. ¡°Don¡¯t think about that big bastard behind us or we could walk into some more shit up ahead.¡± Nodding, they took off down the trail, faster now than before. They had to slow down initially for the dazed man who had hit the ground with his head, but after a few more minutes he showed signs of recovery and began moving by himself, thankfully the rules included increase healing rates. Alex had to stop and pick up the raccoon as it lagged behind, panting heavily. He scooped it up and rested it on top of his backpack, he could have imagined it but he thought he saw a grateful look on its face as it looked back at Alex. He looked at his other two summons, the honey badger and rat seemed to be enjoying themselves as they ran. The badger, especially, as it was hissing excitedly and bearing its teeth as they ran. Thankfully the sparrow on his shoulder stood stock still and didn¡¯t call out any more warnings as they quickly moved down the path and he relaxed somewhat. The tighter suburban areas gave way to larger lawns and more open spaces, each a small vista of the American life. He fought back a grimace as he glanced at the scattered bodies on two day mown grass lawns. The bodies in the city had blurred together, a confused mess, but now that there were less he was able to imagine their final moments as he passed, their bodies telling an awful tale. By now, the car tunnel had almost completely disappeared and they had started to weave around the random vehicle instead of following a dent filled path, their surroundings becoming more open for them to move around in. Alex, looked back in the distance and saw a large green shape following behind them at a quick pace. Thinking to himself as they jogged, he called over to Mick, who ran up alongside him. ¡°Yes?¡± He asked, eyebrow raised. ¡°I¡¯ve been thinking.¡± Alex said, puffing a little as they ran, and mentally cursing himself for not exercising more, ¡°do we have any way to start a fire?¡± Mick looked thoughtful a moment before answering back, ¡°I¡¯ve got a flare gun.¡± ¡°That¡¯s probably wouldn¡¯t work. Trolls from games can¡¯t regenerate after they get hit with fire or acid.¡± He huffed again, nearly out of breath from his rushed sentence. ¡°hmpf¡± Mark responded before a look crossed his eyes and he called out to the rest of them, hand raised in the air ¡°HOLD! Guns out! Line up on me!¡± They all stopped then, and formed a rough line on Mick, raising their weapons at the approaching troll, who still had the same stupid grin on its face as before. Alex slowly brought his pistol up as well, flushing with embarrassment as he realized he had the safety off the entire time he had carried it. The Troll had gained on them since before, moving at a much faster pace than at the gas station. Alex, thought he understood the dumb smile now as it charged back towards them again. It didn¡¯t think anything could stop it. They lined up and aimed on the troll as it approached, its speed having increased from when they had first seen it at the bus stop, it had slowly outpaced them as they made their way across the outskirts of the town. ¡°Hold up¡± yelled one of the soldiers. Alex looked at him, it was the same man who had kicked, and was then grabbed the troll earlier. The man looked to be the shortest one in their group by a large margin, and had a cocky look on his face despite the fact that it was still slightly smeared with blood and dirt from when he was grabbed. ¡°HELP ME!¡± The troll was getting closer yet and Alex quickly glanced at it. Closer to them now, it no longer looked like had the the same placid look in its eyes, instead it was snarling as it ran and began chanting its phrase, face distorted. ¡°HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME.¡±It screamed as it ran towards them. ¡°WHATEVER JUST FUCKING DO SOMETHING THEN MOUZE!¡± shouted mick nervously, looking at the man. The short man, still with a cocky grin, ran ten steps in front of the lined up men, turning towards the charging eight foot tall monster and began a serious of postures: cracking his knuckles, rolling his shoulders and then pointing to the charging monster before yelling in a deep voice, ¡°YOU''RE NO MATCH FOR ME MONSTER¡± ¡°HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPME¡± the troll continued on, its madness growing as it came closer to them. ¡°IS THIS GUY FOR REAL?¡± Alex shouted over the screaming at Mick and Donnie, who both watched the man stupefied. Mick snapped out of it and was about to open his mouth before Mouze shouted again. ¡°TASTE MY JUSTICE. FIREBALLLLLLLLL!¡± he screamed, shrilly, the deep voice gone, posed in the Haduken stance from Street Fighter. And to Alex''s incredulous eyes, a small fireball grew between the small man''s palms and shot off to hit the Troll straight in the chest. The Troll, blinked in shock from the impact, then roared at them, before catching fire like it had been doused in gasoline, a flaming torch. ¡°HOLY SHIT¡± Alex screamed, before shielding his face from a blast of intense fire and heat as the Troll screamed out in agony. Not willing to take any chances Mick screamed, ¡°FIRE.¡± But, only the men on the very outside of their line shot at the still charging, on fire Troll. Mouze had blocked most of their shots by walking towards it. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Mouze had shielded his eyes with his hand as well, and looked back at the group as he he took a step backwards to get away from the still advancing monster before tripping and falling towards the ground, slamming his hand and forehead back into the pavement, an almost repeat of before. The burning Troll howled again and leapt on top of Mouze''s back, still taking only a few shots from the men, before opening its maw. Like a destroyed dam washing over a village, green steaming acid boiled out from its mouth and splashed over Mouze''s prone body, its eyes gleaming with delight as it vomited on him, before closing its mouth again as the flow ceased. Mouze screamed bloody murder as he violently bucked from underneath the Troll. ¡°HELP ME¡± it shrieked triumphantly, before being turned into hamburger by gunfire, the men no longer worried about friendly fire. Mouze was still shrieking underneath him until the butchered burning troll fell on top of him, the monsters frame cutting out any sounds. They continued to fire on the troll before the men had to reload again, even then some of them continued to put a few shots into its ruined body before giving up and cursing. Alex simply stood there stupefied as he watched the corpse mound that was Mouze and a Troll. ¡°What the fuck was that¡± he asked to no one. ¡°Idiot!¡± yelled Mick kicking at the ground, he face flustered red. ¡°This is why I told Williams that this was a bad fucking idea!¡± ¡°Fucking god damn¡± he spun around, cursing, before looking at Alex. ¡°And what the fuck was that green shit supposed to be.¡± ¡°Acid¡± he replied dumbly. ¡°AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT?¡±he shrieked back at Alex. Alex could tell the man was venting, but he could feel the anger flush up his neck ¡°BECAUSE WE ARE IN A FUCKING VIDEO GAME YOU IDIOT.¡± He screamed back, before looking back down at the ground. Mick stood there glaring at him before huffing. ¡°Lets get going¡± he signed in resignation after a moment of looking at the Troll, its massive frame completely blocking any sight of Mouze out. ¡°What about Mouze?¡± Donnie asked, a desperate look to his eyes, a few of the men nodded at Donnie and looked at Mick. ¡°What about him?¡± Mick pointed towards the still burning mound. ¡°Are you telling me, we should pull that, on fire, five hundred pound monster, off of him? And then find a spot to bury whats left of him? You heard Gans there, he was covered in ACID and now the two of them¡± he said pointing again towards the Troll ¡°are slowly going to burn alive from the looks of it.¡± He paused a moment, looking each of them in the eyes before continuing on quietly. ¡°We just shot of a fuck ton of rounds here, and just about anything in the area has heard us by now, maybe even a couple more of these....Trolls.¡± He said the last slowly, as if tasting it. Several of them paled as they imagined the monsters their gunfire would draw. None of the men responded to him as Mick waited there patiently, looking each of them in the eye, even Alex. ¡°Lets get going them¡± he said again, tiredly, waving towards the road. Alex was the first to snap out of it, surprising himself as he spoke with a sudden irrational surge of energy ¡°I don''t know about you guys, but I didn''t know him.¡± He spoke quietly, but with a burning energy in his gut ¡°I want to get out of here before any more of us get killed as well.¡± He turned, and slowly continued down the path, hoping that the others would snap out of it and follow. It wasn''t too long before the rest of them followed behind, before getting ahead of him and returning to their previous group formation with Alex in the back. He wasn''t sure if he imagined it or not, but he thought that Mick might have given him a pat on the shoulder as he passed by. The uplifting thought and feeling didn''t last too long as they continued on their journey through the suburbs. When he had first started out on their journey, he thought the worst thing he would have to deal with would be the monsters again like before. He hadn''t worried too much about that however. They still had guns right? After the gnoll pack and the lone troll he was starting to wonder about that now. What was worse was that he couldn''t stop himself from looking at the lone bodies as he passed. Now that they were less than what he saw in downtown, he noticed each one, they all seemed to tell some terrible story. The easiest ones to deal with were always the lone people, despite the fact that they had been chewed on. The hardest ones to deal with were the families, it wasn''t just the adults that had been attacked. There were children and animals lying among the dead, and he chewed on his cheek as he felt the bile rise up from his throat as he noticed how the families were always close together, like they had tried to protect each other. He could imagine each family waking up in their home, confused by the odd noises outside, but still safe in their individual instances like he had been. Then they open the door to head outside and are immediately attacked. All of their loved ones inside don''t know whats happening and one by one each of them had to have met the same fate unless they ran back inside to try and sit out whatever was happening. The people cowering inside their were probably doomed as well. Alex considered how lucky he had been running into a patrol when he was escaping from his apartment complex. Mick noticed him looking at a doorway ¡°Don''t bother¡± he said, getting Alex''s attention ¡°any house you poke into will be empty. Any house that won''t let you in means that its still.....instanced. Probably people hiding inside that won''t come out. God help their souls.¡± He paused for a moment before mumbling quietly ¡°Mouze told us that anyway.¡± Mick said the last loudly enough that the other men grunted, before looking back on their surroundings. Thinking back he remembered his own instance and wondered about going back, before dismissing the idea. Whatever was happening, he wouldn''t be able to make it on his own, better to stick to the military and police guys he was with. He might not have had the most... aggressive, power, but it was better than nothing. He looked at Mick, the rough looking man scanning their surroundings, and thought back to how angry the man had been speaking about game powers. Maybe Mick hadn''t been gifted with anything at all? Slowly, his thoughts began to recede back into unpleasant numbness as he continued along with the group on their journey. He felt the sparrow on his shoulder twitch again as it pointed its beak to the right. ¡°AMBUSH RIGHT¡± He yelled suddenly, as if waking up at the same time. This time he managed to pull the pistol from his stomach holster quickly, cursing in anger as he realized the safety was still off as he pointed it towards a suburban home on his right. The rest of the squad reacted immediately as well, most of the men slamming themselves against whatever cover their could, while others with no immediate cover crouched or dropped to the ground. All of them pointed their weapons towards the same house as Alex. A slight feeling of pride trickled in his chest as he considered how none of them questioned it this time. Almost immediately after the thought, he heard several familiar sounding shrieking voices as almost two dozen goblins poured out from inside and around the house, several of them carrying bows. s ¡°PICK TARGETS AND FIRE!¡± Mick shouted, and the world around his erupted in violence. Chapter 7 Quickly raising the pistol Alex lined up on one of the charging goblins, and fired quickly. His first shots were panicked and rushed and he noticed it was still charging at him unhurt. Cursing, he fought to bring the pistol down as he shot, the pistol kicking upwards and partially blocking his sight of the onrushing goblin. This was way easier in movies! His heart jumped as an arrow whizzed by his head and he realized that he was standing out in the open. Looking around, he side stepped towards a nearby light pole, partially blocking his body while still taking shots at the advancing goblin. Alex noticed the other goblins being accurately cut down in the edge of his vision by the other soldiers. Taking a deep breath as he aimed this time as it rushed towards him, this time hitting the grinning monster square in the chest. Its grin faded as let out a shriek of pain, but continued charging, its eyes locked in rictus of pain it looked back at Alex in hatred as it advanced on him, it''s small hand axe raised high in its hand. Alex took his time to aim again at the goblin and squeezed the trigger again hoping to end it quickly as it had gotten much closer than before. The gun clicked as he pulled the trigger and his eyes widened in realization as he hadn''t been counting his shots. Fumbling around he tried to get another clip out from his pouch as the goblin advanced but only succeeded in dropping it as he tried to empty the gun at the same time. Cursing as his hands shook he dropped the pistol. The goblin was even closer now, and its smile was back as it charged towards him, the small bullet hole in its stomach ignored.. Its yellow eyes shined in anticipation as it reached Alex. Reaching for his back, Alex ripped his bat awkwardly from his side, the Velcro holder rippling off as he brought it in front of him. The goblin was almost in reach of him and began to howl as it charged him, its axe raised even higher in preparation for an overhead chop. Adrenaline overriding his fear, Alex instinctively punched forward like a fencer with his bat, the end of it crashing underneath the goblins chin sending it flying into the ground on its back, dazed. Alex took a step forward and with a two handed overhead swing brought the bat smashing down into the goblins face, turning it into a ugly mush as the bones of its face gave way. Alex grimaced and looked away, slightly sick, as green blood spattered upwards hitting his face. He didn¡¯t have much time to react however before another goblin charged into view following the same path as the other. Alex pointed at it and yelled ¡°attack.¡± He felt the Sparrow leap from his shoulder and like a missle in slammed into the face of the goblin, clawing at its eyes while chirping loudly. The goblin frantically swiped at the small bird, who dodged its clumsy strikes, before being tackled into the ground by his three ground summons. Alex watched as the angry pack of small animals began tearing into the shrieking goblin. The goblin helpless to the attacks of all three at the same time. Another arrow streaked out towards Alex, and he cursed as he dove down from the part protection of the light post to a mailbox and crouched, Peering over from the side. Another arrow slammed violently into the side of the mailbox just as he was about to peer over fully, and he reared back quickly, before quickly popping over the top to look. Despite the withering fire from the men, the goblins were fiercely fighting back as more and more emerged from the house. Many of the goblins carried bows and primitive weapons and a few larger ones emerged with red tribal paint covering their faces. Alex began to feel a little nervous about their chances as more and more of the goblins emerged, shrieking high pitched curses as they left the home. The few larger ones were taking cover around the house and making motions at their fellow goblins, directing them. Alex looked over at the soldiers and noticed that a few of them had been injured by the arrows, others had actually stopped firing and were motioning to others for more ammunition. Little by little, the rate of fire on the goblins slowed down and more and more of the small green creatures were able to break away from the slaughter at the doorway making their way towards the men crouched behind vehicles, arms raised high with crude weapons and screeching out an odd warbling battle cry. Alex realized he was the one of the closest people near the house, and before he could backpedal two more of the goblins had reached his position again. One of them stumbled as the honey badger leapt from the dead goblin it had killed, onto its leg, tripping the goblin. He noticed that the other animals weren¡¯t far behind as they all pounced onto the now defenseless creature, biting onto limbs and clawing at it. The other goblin reached Alex and swung at him with a small wooden club. Alex shifted to the side while parrying the blow with his bat, the tiny impact barely registering as the small wooden club glanced off the side the bat. The goblin fell forward from the exchange, all of its momentum in the strike, and Alex, seizing the opportunity swung his bat across his body, cracking the small creature across the back of its head as it continued past him. The goblin fell like a doll with its strings cut, smashing onto the pavement of the road. Grimacing again in anticipation, Alex brought the top edge of the bat down onto the fallen goblins skull, turning his head slightly as it made impact and more blood splashed up at him, slapping against the side of his face and neck. Fighting back nausea he turned to look back at the battle, and jerked his weapon up to try and parry another goblin that had been running at him, this one wielding a spear. The small creature screamed in delight as it took Alex by surprise , managing to slip the spear over his awkward block, stabbing him in the shoulder. It felt like a sharp red hot fire had been stabbed into his shoulder and he gritted his teeth while staggering back from the attack. The goblin, having run full speed to catch alex unawares, crashed into his chest after stabbing him, taking him down to the ground with him. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Alex felt his back pound into the pavement, and the air rushed out of him, the goblin reached down towards him, face smiling as it tried to bite down on his neck, but in a fit of anger and panic Alex threw the creature off of himself, before rolling forward into a crouch. The goblin punched forward from his spear, at the same time Alex¡¯s sparrow came from nowhere and latched onto its face, the spear narrowly whooshing by his face, cutting a line across his cheek. Yelling incoherently in anger and pain, Alex stood up fully while the sparrow distracted the creature, and swung overhead, bringing the bat smashing down on the goblins shoulder. A sickening snap sounded as the goblin collapsed in pain on the ground, dropping the spear and clutching at his shoulder, the sparrow jumped off from the goblins face and flew off circling around the two of them. Alex looked down at the goblin in anger, and the goblin, noticing his gaze reached a hand up towards him as if to protect itself. ¡®NO! NO KILL ME!¡± it shrieked. A blue notification popped in the corner of his vision but Alex ignored it, focusing instead on the goblin. Alex, grinning cruelly as he dropped his bat on the ground and picked the goblin spear off the ground. The goblin continued to shriek out, begging for mercy, but Alex didn¡¯t pay any attention to it, the pain and anger buffeting out his senses as he focused on the small shrieking creature below him. With a quick two handed thrust, he drove the spear point into the chest of the goblin, and the small creature gasped for air after the blow, the life slowly leaching from its eyes as it feebly tried to claw at Alex with one of its hands. Green blood bubbled out of is lips as it continue to try and fight feebly, reaching out with its claws. Alex ignored its last attempt to attack him as he stood up again, putting a foot on the side of the dying goblins chest and with a quick jerk, pulled his spear free. Anger simmering in his veins, he looked up and he saw four more goblins charging towards him, one of them stopped and stabbed into Alex''s rat, killing it almost instantly as its kicking and squeeling figure was lifted into the air by the victorious goblins spear point. Alex''s other summons left at it as it back petaled punching the air with his spear to keep his distance from the hissing animals. Alex tore his gaze away from the sight as the other three goblins were getting even closer now and acting on adrenaline and instinct Alex stepped forward and threw the spear, extending his body into the throw. The spear flew towards one of the goblins and pierced in through its stomach, the angry green creature shrieked and dropped its weapon as it fell onto its knees and futility grasped at the spear embedded into its stomach. Without sparing any time Alex leaned over quickly and picked up his bat again, before slapping it into his opposite hand to block as a wooden club came crashing down onto his bat, his hands shook from the impact and had to backpedal as the second goblin came around from the side, thrusting its spear towards his side. Another strike came from the club goblin as he felt it smash weakly against his right arm, but in the sheer adrenaline of the moment Alex ignored it. Instead he charged into the club goblin with his shoulder, bashing the small humanoid away from him. Alex, using his forward momentum, spun and swung two handed into the spear goblin hitting it across the face. Another sickening crack sounded as he impacted its face, but instead of falling it staggered back, an ugly broken jaw sagged under its face and it looked at him with a dazed anger. Alex charged again and brought his two handed bat down, missing its head but crunching into its shoulder, he felt the bones snapping through the aluminum bat as the goblin collapsed under the blow, still alive, but shaking in death throes on the ground. Alex, looked slightly stunned at the sight and felt himself blackout for a moment as pain registered on the back of his head. Spinning slightly to drunkenly look back he saw the the grinning club goblin and he felt himself falling. Slamming into the ground, he felt disoriented as he numbly tried to push himself get back up off the ground. He felt the wooden club strike against his back and he hissed in pain, throwing himself up off the ground and tacking the goblin into the ground with him. Still trying to get his bearings Alex could barely react as the small creature swiped a claw against his face and then tried to elbow him. In response Alex puked on its face, his concussion drowning out his adrenaline and will to survive. The puke saved his life, as the goblin shrieked and reflexively covered its face instead of attacking. With one last effort of will Alex slammed his forearm down into the goblins neck, crushing it. The Goblin shrieked weakly and brought claws from one of its hands racking across his face. Alex ignored the pain as he wrapped his hands on the Goblins neck and squeezed. The Goblin continued to shriek and claw at him but its attacks slowly started to give way as it convulsed for air. Alex, still disoriented and numb, didn''t completely understand what was going on and continued squeezing its neck until he felt his vision go black and he fell on top of the smaller creature. His consciousness falling away to a background of violent screaming. Chapter 8 Ophelia sat back into the depths of her chair and let out a slight purr of satisfaction as she reached for her side table to grasp at the small bottle of ice wine. Bringing the bottle to her lips she let another purr of contentment out as she continued to watch the ensuing battle. The ice wine was sweet but fairly dry tasting, a rarity in the world of ice wine. She licked her lips as the bottle fell from her lips. She did her best to collect the very best, after everything she had done in the previous she deserved a few moments of extravagance. Ice wine was one of her few temptations. Escaping of the moment of savoring the delicacy Ophelia looked back again at her view screen. The human forces were fairing quite poorly to the goblins. She took a moment to muse over that as she watched a human male wipe out several goblins with his weapon before being overwhelmed. Planet #3, she glanced over at a data screen to confirm the name, Earth, wasn''t very advanced compared the other worlds in their galaxy. In fact the weapons that the humans were carrying would be like toys to the advanced weaponry her own race possessed. Sadly, those days were gone now for the humans. The natives of planet # 3 would likely suffer the same defeat as from planet #2. No matter how advanced the civilization, they would be crushed by the system that had been put into place by Deimos. It didn''t help that they had lost their warrior culture either . She sneered as she watched another human soldier get overwhelmed by the goblins, his ability erased the moment he ran out of ammunition. Had that been a warrior from her planet, it would have been a different story. They would have been able to fight with or without advanced weaponry and didn''t have the same sort of soft bodies that the humans did. Ophelia rested her glass of ice wine back to the side as she sighed at the display, her building anger draining from her. It still burned her inside that she was relegated to an...admin... for Deimos. Still, it was a means to an end for her. After the game had destroyed her entire world she had thought that there was going to be some sort of....recompense.... for her loss. None came, so she took the look as clutched at what she could...an admin position. Recognizing one of the humans in the fight she felt her anger slowly simmering back again as she clutched the ice wine and took another sip. The man was doing a pathetic job of it, despite the fact that he had advanced ranged weaponry he ended up discarding it for a primitive club weapon. Even still he continued to survive attacks, each goblin nearly killing him and yet he was managing to survive. She spit out the ice wine as the fight progressed and the humans managed to push back the goblins before being forced to retreat. She wanted to scream at her screen as she watched the fate of the fallen club wielding human she was watching. The goblins were ignoring his prone figure, thinking him dead, while attacking against the retreating human patrol. She seethed at this. As the local administrator she had managed to settle hundreds of accounts quickly, but her regression quota was being held up by one single human that had been meant to die in his first day. She had done what she could, each action costing her precious points in the game system. She had giving him a weak starting class and then put him into a goblin spawn point building, thinking that was the end of the matter she worked on other tasks. Then while she was working on a report she had been called into the system to speak with him again! How could he have still been alive? Not to mention the fact that he was rude. The humans hadn''t yet learned their place in this world yet, if she had been anywhere else, that person would have been licking her boots for favor. The situation slowly became worse for her as she watched the slow drain of her own RP within the company from the single unfilled task of her human regression quota. She took even bigger hits when she directed the gnoll tribe towards him and then later on a troll. Still he survived like a cockroach! She hissed, watching the human''s prone form as it wasignored by passing goblins. A troll had even moved into the area but hadn''t detected the living human presence yet. Ophelia slapped the glass of ice wine off her desk, the destructive shattering of glass doing little to ease her temper. She was going to be a minor god in this world! She had earned it! Had spent her blood and time in planet #2 earning it, and she watched in anger and frustration as she continued to lose more and more points from his continued survival, from the incomplete quest. After a minute of seething Ophelia took a deep breath and considered her options. She wasn''t in her position for her inability to act after all. Mulling it over she cursed as she opened a blue menu prompt and quickly ran her fingers over her remaining options. She hesitated before hitting the final button, sealing her fate in the new world. She took another look at the unconscious human. A smile came to her blood red lips and she couldn''t help herself from laughing as a solution came to mind. If this human was going to block her from her god-hood then she could very well repay the slight in kind whilst furthering her own goals, she would simply just have to take a slightly different tact. She paused at her own personal menu, and turned to bring up her own administrative menu for the remaining players for her personal quest. Only Gans remained. Pulling up his name she briefly looked through his information before a glaring red letter text came into view. She smile as she noticed it, and her plans solidified as she clicked on it. ** Gans... Alex, felt himself waking up. He rubbed his cheek against his pillow and felt the morning air blowing against his face. He felt exposed and turned away from the sun slightly as he coughed into his pillow before opening his eyes. His eyes opened and he felt the strongest surge of terror in his life, coming instantly awake as he watched the 8 foot silhouette of a troll lean over and grab onto a dead goblin next to Alex, before promptly shoving the upper body of the body into its mouth. The troll stood there while it chewed, the body still hanging from its over-sized mouth. Blood and drool leaked from the sides of its mouth and it made a slight humming noise of contentment as it looked away. Without looking at anything else, Alex felt himself slowly pick himself up and back away. Green blood slowly peeled as he left the dead goblin he had been using as his pillow. Thankfully the troll didn''t seem to notice him as he backed up, it continuing to dumbly hum as it slowly pushed the goblin corpse into its mouth as it chewed.This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. Taking a moment to look around he recognized the surrounding area, he was still at the ambush point, small suburban homes surrounded him on the street, each with overgrown lawns and corpses decorating them. Looking around he didn''t see anyone else besides the troll, all the others from his patrol were gone, and it looked like the goblins were gone as well. The Troll finally pushed the legs of the goblin inside its mouth and collapsed on its ass while watching the sunset, still moaning contentedly as it chewed on the body, its back turned to Alex. Not wasting the opportunity, Alex stood up, only feeling a dull ache on the back of his neck. The smell of puke reached his nose and he remembered what had happened what could only be hours ago. As quietly as he could, he turned around and headed away from the troll, watching his feet as he made his way across the bodies. A loud fart sounded behind him, preceding a loud sigh of contentment of the troll who was still sitting and watching the sunset. Alex noticed it casually pawed at the ground before grabbing another goblin corpse by the leg and hauling it towards its mouth. Alex didn''t stay to watch. Reaching one of the homes he hesitated at the doorstep, looking at its pitch black windows then the doorknob before heading around the house and hopping the fence. He didn''t want to end up opening a door and walking into an instance. Alex noticed as he passed that all the windows of the house were pitch black, hiding the instance inside. After hopping the fence he found himself in a large house''s backyard with a shed in the back. The homes windows were darkened like the house he had passed by but he noticed that the shed door was still open. He headed towards it and put a hand on the frame of the door. ¡°Hold it¡± said a dry voice inside, ¡°walk in slowly.¡± Alex walked into she shed slowly. It was actually bigger than he thought it would be. An old lantern hung from the side, illuminating the insides with a soft orange glow. Alex could just barely make out the old man sitting at a table inside of the shed, pointing a semi-automatic shotgun his way. Red blood spatter covered most of the man''s face before disappearing beneath a white beard. ¡°That''s enough¡± the old man tiredly said, before motioning at the door with his gun. ¡°Close it.¡± Alex turned around and closed the door, bringing it back into its frame with a soft click. Not sure how to proceed Alex turned back towards the old man who still had the shotgun trained on him. ¡°My names Gans¡± he spoke softly, a slight tinge of fear running through him as he noticed that the old man hadn''t stopped pointing his gun towards him. The old man grunted. ¡°I... uh... I''m part of a group of survivors, well I was going with them.. well..¡± He scratched his head ¡°Listen¡± he continued on, more slowly now but with a little more confidence ¡°I''d love to stay in here for awhile. You heard the fire fight outside right?¡± He looked into the old man''s eyes. ¡°I was in that fire fight. There is a shit ton of goblins and even a troll now outside....I... get why you wouldn''t want me around with everything that is going on... but look. I''ll leave.... alright? You tell me the word, and I''ll go find another shed.¡± The old man sighed at that, looking at Alex before nodding, as if deciding something internally. ¡°Alright¡± he hooted ¡°I suppose I never was going to shoot you anyway.¡± He paused, as if looking around at the shed for the first time before looking at a chair on the opposite side of him. ¡°Why don''t you take a seat?¡± he asked, laying the gun tiredly on the table as he sighed ¡°tell me what''s going on outside?¡± Alex sat down, still looking at the old man. He felt the tension leave himself and he suddenly felt tired as he sat down at the table looking back at the old men. He went with his instincts. ¡°Names Gans¡± he repeated nervously, reaching across the table. The old man automatically raised a hand and griped his outstretched hand, ¡°Albert¡± the old man replied before lifting a pipe from his pocket, the tension leaving him as well. ¡°Well¡± Alex began, taking a hand to wiping his face down and looking nervously back a the door he entered through. ¡°It''s pretty bad outside. I...¡± Alex struggled to focus his thoughts as he looked at the old man, so much had happened in only a few days. Albert struck a match to his smoking pipe, puffing in the smoke to get his tobacco lit before nodding at Alex and letting the smoke puff out of his lips, the match falling to the ground. ¡°I was in a bit of a scrap myself just recently.¡± He said slowly ¡°used to be¡­ a lot more of us¡± he looked out the window ¡°now it¡¯s just me.¡± He tapped the table with the end of his pipe, ¡°Don¡¯t go into the houses. We thought that we could pick up some things inside each¡­ and we did damn well for some time¡­. But not all of the houses are safe.¡± At that the old man nodded his head back towards the large house in the shed¡¯s yard. ¡°Used to be more of us.¡± He mumbled, staring somewhere behind Alex¡¯s shoulder. Alex sat there silently, letting the old man take his time before continuing again, hesitant to interrupt him. ¡°Tell me about it?.. how¡¯d it go¡­outside?¡± the old man asked intently, looking back at Alex. Old blue eyes looked back at Alex and for whatever reason he started from when he was at his apartment complex. Alex didn''t know how long it took, but for whatever reason he gave the full story to the old man he had just met, going over every detail no matter how irrelevant. Time seemed to pass in that shed as he told his story, the old man occasionally taking another puff at his pipe, the sweet smelling smoke seemed to permeate throughout the entire shed. After what seemed like hours, Alex finally finished. The old man across from him had fallen asleep during his story, but Alex continued to tell the tale anyway, even more so than before, as if he was regaling someone at a bar of an amazing tale. Even with his audience asleep, it felt good to him. Alex took a quick look at Albert''s shotgun laying on the table and briefly considered taking it before standing up and looking around the shed. It looked like someone had tried to turn it into a man cave slash hardware shed. A large keg sat in the corner of the room with a tap on top of it. Tools littered the walls as well. Alex didn''t see a good place to sleep but grabbed the keg and a few other items and tried to jam the door up as much as possible. Alex...no... Gans, looked out the small shed window, noticing the stars seemed brighter and more numerous than before. Alex stood there for a moment, breathing in the old man''s remaining pipe smoke in the air and looking outside of the shed window. The night seemed a lot darker to him as well, without as many places producing light the night sky didn''t have any residual light to it. Gans sat back down in his chair, leaning back against the wall of the shed, feeling nervous again as he looked back outside the window, before glancing at the old man calmly sleeping against the table without a trouble in the world. With a start, he realized that he had been ignoring the blue exclamation point in the corner of his vision. He slowly pointed his finger towards it, and it came into view towards him. He tapped his finger to it and was surprised by the number of messages from the day that he had ignored. Most of them were nonsense to him.
Goblin Argunh killed. 38 exp gained.
Level up!
Level up!
Then he hit another window in the queue of other waiting messages.
Congratulations on reaching level 10! We at the Deimos Corporation appreciate individuals that can demonstrate the necessary survival skills to reach level 10. As such you account is now upgraded to Beta! Feel free to read the necessary documentation to get accustomed to you class and all privileges given to beta customers. We at the Deimos Corporation welcome you to Planet 3!
Alex''s eyes widened slightly at that, before clicking it closed. What did that mean? His musing was cut short by the next message.
Warning!!! Conflict in local character creation. Spawn area not designated as viable starting location for [Race] Human. Sending automatic ticket to local administration. Please wait..... Done
Something in Alex started to warn him, something bad was happening. He tried to interrput the sending process by closing window but it just popped up again. He waitied in the shed for a few minutes, listening to his own breathing in the dark before another pop up came into his vision. He opened it hesitantly.
HELLO GANS! Its Ophelia! Remember me? We''ve met before in that white waiting room. Maybe next time you should really just take the survey? Please be a dear and lay down and DIE FOR ME??
Holy shit? Who is Ophelia? That admin in the white room?
Admin response processing... processing... solution accepted. Enjoy your time in Planet #3 Gans!
Pain like no other ripped into his body as he fell onto the floor, his nerves on fire. He limply fell to the floor, screaming incoherently. The last thing he felt while he was being electrocuted was the feeling of himself wetting his pants. Chapter 9 Taking a bath Gans groaned as he woke up on the hard wood floor of the hut, the harsh grain digging ridges into his face. Daylight streamed from the small shed window and he turned his head to look away from it. He moaned again as he took a whiff from the air, the smell of puke and piss assailing him as he realized he was still covered slightly in puke from the other day and there was a chafing wetness to his pants. Overcoming his misery he finally pushed himself up off the floor into a squat and rubbed his forehead. He felt light headed and dizzy, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead even as he felt extremely hot. Standing up slowly, he felt the room sway a little as he fought to regain his balance. ¡°Fucking shit¡± he swore, and stood there for awhile as he felt another wave of nausea pass him. Holding his stomach with a hand, he slowly limped over towards the chair he was sitting in the previous night and sat down roughly, gritting his teeth as he felt the urge to puke rising again. If he didn¡¯t know any better, it felt like he was hung over. He eyed the old man across the table from him, his head still tucked into the crook of his arm from where he fell asleep the last night. Why didn¡¯t the old man react when he had fallen onto the floor last night, kicking and screaming? He took another look at the old man, and noticed that he was paler than yesterday. Gans he felt himself sniffing the air as well. He hadn¡¯t noticed before, with the smell of puke following him around, but there was a copper blood smell to the air. Slowly reaching his hand out he put a clawed finger to Albert''s neck. He didn¡¯t need to feel the pulse, as the moment he touched his skin he could tell Albert was dead. The old man was cool to the touch. Standing up and walking around the table Alex pulled the old man back up into a sitting position and saw the huge blood stain on the man¡¯s stomach. Old crusted over blood was pooled underneath his chair as well. Gans looked thoughtfully back in the direction of the house Albert talked about last night. He must have come back to the shed wounded and knowing he was going to bleed out when Alex discovered him. Gans noticed something else was bothering him. His own entire body felt somehow wrong to him. The feet hurt inside of his boot as if each of his toes were pressed up against something, and his fingers itched him. He took a moment to look away from Albert, eyes finally focusing on his hands that were supporting the body up. He released Albert, the old man¡¯s body collapsing back onto the table as Alex looked at his hands with shock. His hands were green. Alex stood there for a moment quietly, his exhaustion over the day¡¯s event smothering the shock as he turned over his hands slowly. Most of his arm hair was missing, and his skin was dyed a dark green. Purple veins ran across his arms and running a hand across his arm the skin felt tougher than before. He quickly looked around the room for a reflective surface but didn''t see anything usable. ¡°Status¡± he said out loud, in a quiet monotone voice.
Name: Gans Race: Green skin hybrid Level 11 Fame: 0 Health: 15 Mana: ??? Stamina: ??? Strength:10 Endurance:10 Dexterity:10 Intelligence:5 Wisdom:10 Luck:1 Charisma:5
Skills: Pistol: Amateur Club: Beginner
Traits: Book worm Nature affinity Chaos affinity
Titles: Cockroach
44 Stat points unused
10 skill points unused
Dumbly he reached up and touched the race screen bringing another pop up into view.
Green Skin Hybrid: The green skin hybrid is considered to be an unpredictable creature at best. Gifted with characteristics of unknown heritage the green skin hybrid can develop erratically. Like most green skins, they are most closely tied to the powers of nature and chaos but their unique parentage can cause this to shift. Green skin hybrids are hated by almost all of the races, seen as a bastardization of their own race and possessing features of their own racial enemies.
¡°Fucking great.¡± He said with a sigh. After everything else that had happened and the few times he had nearly been killed already, this was just another thing to pile onto his run of bad luck. Shaking his head, he reached over to the rest of his notifications queued up on the right side of his vision, waiting there from the previous night. He cringed a little as he popped open the first. It was fairly benign, just a standard kill confirmation. ¡°exp¡­.exp¡­kill¡­¡± he kept swiping until his face lit up.
Please allocate your skill points.
Yes ma¡¯am he grinned. His inner nerd coming out at the prospect of finally being be able to access anything in this world. It had pissed him off when the soldiers were giving him shit about it. It wasn''t like it was his fault that he couldn''t access this shit before! He groaned as a gigantic and confusing skill tree popped up. He sat back down in his chair, for some reason the smell and dead person removed from his mind as he tapped at the different configurations. Alex had never been a patient person. He had read stories of Russians stuck in video games who would spend hours fine tuning everything with an overall plan that came together at high levels. That sounded terrible. He didn¡¯t even like the fact that he had to allocate his stat points himself to begin with. What if he made a mistake? He hated self-doubt. One of the reasons why he never finished many of his games was because he kept abandoning his characters to start anew with a slightly altered build. It really pissed him off over the years until he figured to just chill out and go with what he wanted. He wasn¡¯t the guy who could pull out a calculator and diligently create some rare phantom build that no one else had ever thought of. He mashed buttons, and chose things that sounded cool, and that tended to work out just fine. There were three main branches in the skill tree and those three branched out to a further two, and even that eventually branched out again several times. He scrolled down the list and felt his head spin again. Was there even a max level to this game? It looked as if the skill tree was nearly infinite. How the hell was he supposed to pick a build in this game? He shook his head, and cursed, remembering his golden rule. Interestingly enough, when the tried to examine any of the skills below the first level it was only marked as ¡°???¡± It looked like in order to actually know what the next skill was going to be you had to unlock the prerequisite choices. He felt some relief at that, at least he wouldn¡¯t have to compete with a Russian with a calculator. He look another look at the top of each skill tree, examining simple gold text above each.
Path of the Warrior ¡°Why rely on others when I can do it myself?¡± Path of the Warlord ¡°Why do it myself when I can rely on others?¡± Path of the Warlock ¡°Why not blast them to pieces and use others as walking meat puppets?¡±
He grinned at the descriptions before selecting Warlord and putting 5 points into the skill box, maxing it out. The description of the skill was pretty vague, each point was supposed to increase the loyalty of his creatures, but it didn''t specify how much. Probably for the same reason he couldn''t see his health, mana or stamina either. After being handicapped for so long now, he wasn''t going to complain. Two other skill choices were unlocked after he put a point into warlord.
Training: Each point of training raises the awareness of summoned creatures.
Efficiency: Each point of efficiency reduces the cost of summoned creatures.
Gans sat there for a moment scratching his head, frustration slowly building in him. He hated it when games did this to him, he wanted both! On one path he ended up with better summons, and another path he ended up with more of them. He felt himself growl as he looked over the options before finally picking ¡°Training¡± and putting the max five points into it He didn¡¯t want to be stuck with a glassy eyed summon that gained awareness and intelligence over time like his animals had. Gans looked up at that thought and winced. He had forgotten about his summoned animals. Thinking back to when the goblins were swarming him he realized they must have all died at the ambush. Wanting to confirm it, he probed the mana pool he felt in his gut and realized there was no draining feeling like when he had previously maintained a summon. Alex reached out to the floor with his hand. ¡°Summon Small animal¡± he felt the mana push through his hands and then dissipate out towards the floor. Nothing happened. Alex frowned. ¡°Summon Small animal!!!¡± he yelled this time, pushing more power into it, his raw magic leapt from his hands and¡­fizzled out on the floor again.
Error: Spell not learned
¡°What the hell?¡± He sat there a moment confused before remembering his summoning book. Pulling it out of his backpack he slammed it down on the table and flipped to the first page. The text was different than he rememberedIf you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Hello there. I''m William the Warlock. I used to live on planet one and I have to tell you that whoever you are, you are one unlucky son of a bitch. Thankfully, Gans, you''ve got my help, and kid I gotta say that you are really going to need it. Conjuration is a dangerous magical art, and like many other things, its great power is countered by the level or risk involved. Remember the golden rule regarding all conjuration: Never summon anything more powerful than yourself. What the hell was with the relaxed language? It was almost a carbon copy of the first time he read the book but now he was reading from some guy named ¡°William the Warlock?¡± Why the hell is everything so casual around me when I keep nearly dying? Gritting his teeth back and forth he felt his teeth bite into his cheek. ¡°OW¡± he yelled, putting a finger against his jaw before his eyes widened. Running his finger along his teeth he could feel a small set of lower and upper canines in his mouth, with the lower ones jutting outwards slightly. ¡°Great¡± he sighed again, ¡°I¡¯ve got wolf teeth¡­awesome¡­ well, at least I don¡¯t have a lisp¡± he spoke slowly, making sure he didn¡¯t accidentally bite himself while talking. Looking back at the book he started reading again and sure enough like before he found the first spell of his new...conjuration? book. I guess it changed with my race he thought Intro to conjuration spells Everything detailed seemed the same to him as he read, with different twists and variations to the form of the spell. Conjuration seemed almost the same to him as summoning, the only difference was the practice of it. There were always more sigils and hand waving with conjuration, while summoning just needed words of power. It took him a bit longer though as it seemed to delve further into the subject than the summoning book. It seemed as though there were a lot more forms to memorize compared to last time and they eventually coalesced into three primary hand gestures as finishing configurations. Thankfully it was so similar to summoning that it didn¡¯t take him nearly the same amount of time to complete.
Conjure runt goblin [unlocked] Runt Goblin: Physically weaker than humans, goblins typically grow to the size of a large child. Runt goblins are the lowest able-bodied of their society. Their less than average strength earning them the lowest rank of goblin society as a whole and as such they normally come equipped with only the bare minimum of arms and armor. Conjure goblin skirmisher [unlocked] The ¡°typical¡± goblin foot soldier. The goblin skirmisher comes skilled in various weapons that delay an enemy charge, temporarily holding the line for goblin archers to pick off opponents. They wear various grades of leather armor and emphasize using light shields and longer weapons to hold of large opponents. Conjure goblin archer [unlocked] Due to their small size, goblins emphasize ranged combat, and are extremely effective at hitting their targets. In order to make up for their lack of strength and range they typically wait in hiding and use low grade poisons on their arrows.
He slammed the book shut and put it back into his pack while he stood up. His tolerance for leveling up, spell craft and stats were being strangled by how dirty he felt. Nothing like having half dried piss pants and goblin blood mixed with vomit to really make you feel like shit. Not to mention he was hanging out in a shed with a dead guy. Looking over at Albert he felt apathetic. Maybe it was the race change, or maybe it was the amount of dead people he had seen over the past few days, but he didn¡¯t feel too bad about the old man. In fact, thinking about it, he reached over and searched the man¡¯s pockets. Pocketing the man¡¯s pipe and loose tobacco. Stuffing the pipe into one of his vests many loops and the tobacco into his back pack. He checked the shotgun as well and grimaced, only one shell left. He looked at the old man, and imagined if he had never showed up to the shed to meet the old man. Would old man Albert have blown his own head off? He picked up the shotgun, glad to have a familiar weapon in his hands. He had little to no practice with pistols and rifles, but plenty of time with shotguns. Running his hands over the grip he smiled, this was a relatively modern one, with shock absorbers running inside the stock at an angle. Hopefully he could find more ammunition, he wasn¡¯t too worried however as 12 gauge were pretty common. The shogun would have to be for emergencies. He needed a more reliable weapon. He looked around the shed at the walls filled with tools and smiled as his eyes came upon a small hatchet and a fire axe in the corner of the shed. Mentally blessing whoever the owner of this shed was, he grabbed the small hatchet, fitting it into one of his vest loops near his back and then picked up the fire axe with both hands, taking a few experimental swings. He smiled as he felt himself swing the axe around. Laying the axe on the table temporarily Gans focused a bit of his magical pool into his finger, then knelt over and drew a circle into the ground. He could feel a connection to the circle on the ground and focused on it, pulling on what felt like a void in the floor. He felt another connection made and a small green goblin head poked out from the ground. The goblin runt pulled itself up from the earth and looked at him with a vicious grin, its yellow eyes flashing with excitement before it stepped aside and another goblin runt pulled itself out of the ground. Alex continued to pull from the circle until he felt he reached his limit and then imagined mentally cinching off the void, the circle shrinking and then vanishing from sight. Five goblin runts looked at Alex expectantly. Unlike his first animal summons, each had a slight look about its eyes that betrayed a degree of awareness and independence. It seemed like his ¡°Training¡± skill had worked. Alex viciously smiled back at them, his new canines on full display. It didn¡¯t bother him that these were the same green skinned vipers, albeit smaller, that had been chasing him around the past couple of days. These were his little green skinned vipers, and part of him felt excited to use them against the same exact things that had been tormenting him. Fight fire with fire. He hadn¡¯t dared to summon the ambusher or skirmisher types yet, as he remembered the first time his summons had attacked him. He knew intuitively that he could trust his goblin minions far less than his previous animals. He inspected the goblin runts in front of him, each looked like the size of a 12 year old kid to him, and they had little or no clothing besides a loincloth. Most of them carried daggers, and one of them carried a familiar looking club that he had bashed him over the head. Taking a look along the walls, he didn¡¯t see any other weapons that he could give them, so what they had would have to do. Alex looked back at the black windowed house that the old man had warned him off. Normally he wouldn¡¯t take the risk, but he was getting tired of walking around with dirty, soiled clothing. Maybe even the water was still working inside the house? He wanted to gamble on it. The old man had said that others went into the house with him, maybe whatever was inside was weakened? ¡°Hey¡± he barked quickly to get the attention of the goblins in front of him. Their attention had been waning as he was thinking, each one shuffling their feet and looking around themselves. One of the 5, a goblin with blue whorl dye on its face, was eyeing the tool wall as well, and jumped suddenly as Gans called out to it. He imagined it, but there might have been a slight glimmer of defiance in its eyes. He mentally noted to keep an eye on that one. ¡°Follow me¡± he turned and made out for the door reaching out for it. He stopped as he put his free hand on the door. Looking at it, he couldn''t shake the feeling that the door seemed to large to him. Shrugging, he opened it and walked outside. Daylight flooded his senses and he had to move a free hand to his face, hissing slightly while he took in his surroundings. The goblins filed in behind him, each voicing displeasure as they were temporarily blinded by the sun as well. After awhile Gans looked around him. It was actually incredibly peaceful in a way. He couldn''t see anything over the fence and the distance gunfire rounds were even less frequent than before. A cool breeze whipped through the backyard he was in and the smell of himself lessened somewhat. He eyed the house. It didn''t seem like anything special, a one floor colonial style house sitting in a suburban neighborhood filled with them. The only eerie thing were all of the blackened windows that he couldn''t see through. Other than that, it looked OK. He hesitated slightly and considered picking up the patrol path instead. The only problem was, there was no way for him to even find them. That assumed they were even still alive. He stood there a moment thinking back to the fighting and really couldn''t tell whether they would have even been able to get away. They seemed resourceful though, for some reason he couldn''t imagine Mick or even Donnie dying out there. Donnie was a thoroughbred warrior that could punch through armor if he wanted, and Mick seemed like kind of guy who knew when to get out when the shit hits the fan. His dumb-ass was the one who decided to fight close to the house and then fight them off instead off falling back. Without knowing better, it seemed risky to try and rejoin the patrol, or at least make his own way to the army base. At least not until he figured out what he could do with his new conjurations. That and he starting to feel more and more like shit, standing there with piss soaked pants and a shirt covered in puke and blood. He had been stabbed, bashed, knocked to the ground, and chased for a few miles by a troll. He could use a little break inside a secured instanced home. Assuming he could clear it anyway. Gans took a moment to consider the house before pointing at the blue tattoo goblin. ¡°Hey. You¡± He pointed at it. The other goblins shrunk away as it looked for support from the others. After a moment it replied, hands wringing together slightly, ¡°boss?¡± Gans smiled and pointed a thumb at the back door of the house. ¡°Go inside and find out whats in there.¡± The little goblin runt with the face tattoos stared at him in horror, looking back and forth between the house and Gans. ¡°b...but boss?¡± ¡°No buts. Don''t think I didn''t see you eyeing those tools back in the shed you little shit. The last thing I need is for you to stab me in the back with an ice pick. Now get inside there. Or else.¡± Gans raised his axe a little, and then pointed it towards the house. Like one of the condemned, the goblin slouched a little bit and shuffled over to the door, opening it and then disappearing through the entrance way. The other goblins seemed to delight in this, and were smiling to each other as they watched the lone goblin get sucked through the dark portal of the doorway. Their celebration cut short when Gans gave them a glare.
Trait gained: Tough boss Decreased chance your subordinates will work against you while you are around them.
He clicked his tongue and he closed the window, sneering a little at it and clenching his fist. He was starting to hate this game world with a passion, despite how much of a gamer he was. Why did everything have to be measured? If he got a pop up notification for everything he did and the associated boosts for it he would go crazy. After what felt like a few minutes Gans pointed to another goblin at random. It looked like the littlest of the group. The others sighed in relief as they noticed him point that one out. ¡°You. Pop inside, tell me what you see, and then pop back outside. Don''t die.¡± Unlike the blue tattooed goblin, this smaller one looked like it was getting ready to run away from him. Sensing it, he quickly reached over and grabbed it by the neck, lifting it into the air and then carrying it over to the black portal of the doorway. ¡°wow boss is cool¡± he heard whispering behind him from the other goblins, and he rolled his eyes at the flattery as he walked. ¡°remember,¡± he said, looking at the small goblin in his hand, ¡°I just need you to tell me what you see when you get inside. Take a look, and then come back out. Got it?¡± He looked the small runt goblin in its frightened red eyes and it nodded furiously. ¡°Good.¡± Then he chucked it into the portal as well. Within seconds the goblin popped back out, shaking furiously in fright. ¡°j..j..just dead humans boss. It..it...looked like they had been fighting each other.¡± Gans stood there a moment debating in his head before turning to the goblins behind him. ¡°Alright everyone inside!¡± He yelled at them. Hesitantly, they complied, each looking like the first goblin as they marched in, faces betraying their fear. After they were all inside, Gans took a deep breath before a smile grew on his face. He couldn''t explain it himself, but for some reason the idea of getting into a fight made him excited. He surged through the portal, axed raised in a ready position. Popping into the house he looked around quickly. Beside the human bodies on the ground and the covering group of four goblins with their weapons at the ready he didn''t see anything hostile. The house was fairly open, with the kitchen on his right, and the family room in front of him. The front foyer and front door were visible as well. Taking hesitant steps forward he ignored the human bodies and turned to look at a small hallway leading towards bedrooms. He felt his adrenaline continuing to rise and his hands twitched nervously in excitement. Knowing better than to walk down the hallway Gans backed up into the kitchen and banged the back of his axe head against the kitchen table. The glasses and silverware along the counter top shook with the vibrations of his axe head bashing against it. A few glasses fell off the counter top and shattered on the floor. Alex placed his axe back in both hands again and looked at the hallway, getting ready for whatever charged out. Surprisingly the other goblins with him were starting to look eager as well. ¡°COME ON! GET ME!¡± he roared down the hallway. His blood was surging now and he tasted blood on his lip from where one of his canines had jutted out from his lower lip. Nothing came. Still high on a surge of blood lust Gans stepped forward, choking close to the handle of the large axe as he entered the hallway. Throwing the first door open he saw a nursery with bloodstains coming from the crib. Pass. The next room, an immaculate office. Pass. Next room, a kids room, stupid posters handing from the wall. He cursed. Next room. The family bathroom, a tub filled with water. Finally he reached the last door of the hallway and bashed the door open with his foot, the flimsy door handle quickly giving way before he charged into the room, axe at the ready looking around for his target. No one inside here either. The only thing of note were the two bodies laying side by side on the bed, hands held together. Gans snorted, and turned away.
SNEAK ATTACK CRITICAL DAMAGE. BLEED AFFLICTION
He looked down at the grinning face of his blue tattoo faced goblin and drooped his axe in shock, the burst of energy whooshing out of him. The goblins outstretched arm led to a large knife handle that was sunk down into his gut. Blue tattoo face snickered a bit as he released the hilt before shrieking in victory and pumping his small arms. In disbelief, Gans slowly grasped the knife handle and pulled the large blade out of him, the serrations rubbing against his insides as he started to pull. In a fit of excruciating pain and anger he felt himself rip it out and fall back against the back of the bed, his stomach bleeding profusely. Some part of him idly wondered if he should have just left it in Looking back up at the celebrating goblin Gans smiled. ¡°Kill him,¡± he said horsely, looking behind the blue face goblin where the other four goblins had followed him in. The four looked between him and the blue faced goblin who was now weaponless. Bluffing his strength Ghans gritted his teeth and managed to grip onto the handle of his axe again. On seeing that the four turned on the blue faced goblin, small daggers out as they fell upon the now defenseless traitor. Alex savored the screaming while it lasted, the other goblins were just as savage as he remembered, only this time they were attacking their own kind. After watching the short lived fight, he sighed slightly, bringing the axe to his chest with weak fingers. When it was done, he pointed back towards the hallway. ¡°Search the house.¡± he said weakly, looking at the four blood stained grinning goblins. The four grinned even more, thrilled at the prospect of finding something else to kill or steal and knuckled their foreheads ¡°Boss¡± one of them said, before turning with the others and heading back down the hall way. Loud crashes sounded as the goblins carelessly started to rip apart the house in their search. Alex sighed again and waited there. Resisting the temptation to close his eyes. The four may have helped him there, but he was unwilling to fall asleep while looking weak in front of them. Pressing his hands against his wound he waited, and waited, until the blood flow finally stopped. Sitting there as he regained his strength a thought came to mind and his eyes widened. ¡°SHIT!¡± ¡°STATUS¡± he shouted and the familiar menu popped open in front of him. Tapping quickly he added five points into strength and five points into endurance. With a whoosh, he felt his body swell and the weakness he felt from his blood loss lessened somewhat. Slowly, on shaking feet he felt himself rise back off the ground and walk down the hall way. Making it to the couch of the family room before falling down into it in a sitting position. In the center of the room there was a small pile of miscellaneous shiny items. One of the goblins emptying drawers in the kitchen walked over and pitched the silverware into the pile. Gans looked over the pile, frowning slightly. The goblins didn''t seem to have very good taste for looting. Half of whatever was piled onto the floor was junk. He noted the silver necklace sitting on top of a shiny toaster as an exemplar of their loot philosophy. Tearing his eyes away from the every growing pile of shiny items looked at the human bodies scarred across the family room. Thankfully the goblins hadn''t moved any of them. There were about a dozen of them laying in different positions. He noticed that most of them had larger wounds that what the goblins would inflict. Groaning, he stood up and shuffled over towards them, taking in more details the closer he got. Standing among them he started to get a picture of what happened. Most of them looked a lot like the man he had met in the shed, ragged and tired people fleeing from whatever kind of apocalypse this world was falling under. However, others were dressed with full body armor, and not the modern kind either. One of them was even wearing what looked to him to be a vest of leather scale armor. The two groups were facing each other and the wounds on either side clearly matched up with each other. Were these adventures that came across a group of survivors? He scratched his head. It didn''t seem to make any sense to him, but it was indisputable that the two groups had fought. The only survivor being the old man who had made his way to the shed after getting stabbed in the gut. One of his goblins walked around him carrying an ornate silver platter with a big smile on his face and he turned to it them go about its business looting. It looked like it would take awhile, there weren''t being very efficient about it, and he wasn''t sure how they planned on carrying it all after all was said and done. Shaking his head from the absurdity of it all, Gans walked into the bathroom and stripped down. Tossing his soiled clothes back into the hallway. He eyed the filled bathtub with a gleam in his eye. It would be a giant waste of water, but all the blood and piss and puke on him was starting to wear his patience thin. He slowly lowered himself into the cold water of the bathtub, sighing in relief as he felt himself relax. Chapter 10 Gans leaned against the back of the tub and closed his eyes for awhile, taking a moment to relax as he closed his eyes, mind drifting peacefully. A loud crash echoed from the house, and he twitched slightly, looking at the hallway door, his goblins were still at work. He frowned for a moment and tried closing his eyes again and resting is head against the back of the tub. After a moment, he felt himself relaxing again, despite everything else. An even loader crash of something being purposefully tipped over reached his ears and he could swear he head snickering afterwards. ¡°Those goddamn bastards¡± he murmured, as he started to shift his body upright again in the tub. He felt a twitch in his arm, and rubbed it with his opposite hand, teasing out the soreness in it while sighing. Rubbing his neck he thought back to the past couple of days. Things had not gone well. He had always known that things were going to get worse. He knew had been surviving out of pure luck. If that patrol hadn''t been there on his first day out of his apartment building he would have been killed then. He just didn''t realize things would get this bad. Looking down at his junior, he felt a sort of sadness. Greenskin halflings didn''t get any perks in the fertility department either it seemed, he was short an inch ,and some girth as well. This fucking sucks. He slapped his cheeks together a few times, shocking some of his drowsiness out of his system. He really didn''t have any right to complain. If anything, he was probably one of the luckiest people on the planet. He could only imagine the amount of people who had been caught flatfooted on the first day. Even the smart ones who ran home were probably ambushed the moment they tried to leave like he had. Not everyone was lucky enough to have run into a patrol of well armed solider remnants. He rubbed his chin. Things outside looked pretty bad. Having a firearm was probably the only reason why things weren''t even worse than they should be. He could only imagine other countries with their gun laws. The U.S was probably the only one who stood a chance with the ridiculous amount of fire arms inside the country. That advantage wouldn''t hold for to long however. After all, how useful were their weapons going to be when they ran out of ammo? Rubbing the rest of his skin to get the majority of the dirt off he stood back up and walked out of the tub. Grabbing a towel from the wall he started to dry himself off. The sensation felt slightly numb to him due to his thicker skin. In fact he knew the water in that bathtub had to have been cold, but to him the temperature didn''t seem register at all. Maybe there were advantages to being part Greenskin? Looking at his body and smiling in relief he realized that for the most part, he was physically unchanged, besides his skin being an extremely dark shade of green. His toe nails were black and ended in points though, but he figured he could take take care of that with some trimming. It probably explained why his boots had felt so uncomfortable to him. Taking a look at his face in the mirror he felt even more relieved. He was worried that the race change would have warped most of the bone structure in his face, but to his relief, he was able to retain most of his human characteristics. He had been worried that he would end up looking like one of the goblins he summoned. They were not a pretty bunch. Looking at the bathroom mirror he gripped his face, turning his face from side to side. For the most part, it was his own face that looked back at him the in mirror. Unlike the dark green of his body, his face took on a lighter shade. Oddly, His ears tapered back into points as well, he fingered the tips, the sensation making him feel as if they were roughly the same. However, looking back at the mirror he realized the worst of the changes would have to be his eyes. His blue eyes had changed into a bright green, but the whites of his eyes had turned towards an unsettling dark crimson color. He opened his mouth to inspect his teeth. He had retained his smooth back teeth, but his front canines looked a little bit more threatening. He tried smiling in front of the mirror. It ended up looking slightly menacing instead. Holy shit I look terrifying. Better to keep his mouth closed and speak as little as possible when interacting with people. He definitely wasn''t looking forward to being treated as a monster by the other races spawning into the world. A mask might work, but he didn''t like the idea of trying to get past a guard with a suspicious looking mask on...something to think of later. Noticing a smudge on his face he reached up slightly to grab water that was pooled in the sink sink...reached up? He stood there a moment as he took another look around him. The weird feeling about how the doors seemed larger and now the fact that he had to reach up slightly to grab water in the sink. He had shrunk a little bit. Trying to look around the room and getting a feel for it, he figured he was only about five feet now. Great Grabbing his backpack, he walked out in the hall way in the buff. Taking a long stretch out into the hall he realized he was more comfortable naked than with clothes. He heard a tiny snicker out around the corner of the hallway and smirked in spite of him self. He was a five foot tall green naked wild man standing out in the middle of the hallway amongst a bunch of green shark toothed idiot raiders. He almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. It was like a bad mad max film but with in a fantasy universe. Speaking of which, where the hell were the hot girls supposed to be? He pondered that as he walked into the master bedroom and tried on clothing, before cursing and walking into the kids room. After rifling through the clothing he found some clothing that fit him. It really didn''t help that the kid living in the house must have been a goth''s goth. Most of the clothing seemed to be right out of the hot topic store. It was to his extreme embarrassment that he ended up pulling on the kids Punisher shirt. That was one of the more normal articles of clothing. It was hard to find anything that hadn''t been purposefully ripped or slashed. Fuck it After a quick walk around the house, hopping over piles of garbage that the goblins were throwing all over the place Alex...Gans picked up some basic supplies. Water bottles, food and more important, whoever lived a in the house loved hunting ducks. He picked up several boxes of twelve gauge and grinned as he thought of the shotgun in the shed. He might have not known much about rifles and pistols, but he was intimately acquainted with Beretta xtrema in the shed. He could drill just about anything with that shotgun. Even better, in his opinion anyway, he found what he had been looking for. Backpacks! There were no bags of holding that he had seen, and he could summon creatures with two hands. Why not have them carry their own loot. ?Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. As much as he hated goblins by now, he was going to enjoy seeing them carry everything back to the army base for him. That''s what you get for making a shit ton of noise you bastards. He grinned as he imagined the overburdened four following him back to base, then frowned slightly as he imagined himself approaching the base and getting gunned down by nervous sentries. Maybe as long as he did it really slowly and cautiously they wouldn''t shoot him on site. He would definitely have to keep his quasi fangs from showing. Green or not, maybe he could cut a deal? Hopefully someone from the patrol group could vouch for him. After awhile of scrounging around the house while his goblin conjures switched from looting things to breaking things he stopped by master bedroom again and looked at the bedroom mirror attached to the door. He posed there in his punisher shirt, and smiled, letting his canines out into open air. It was hard for him not to laugh at first, but after awhile he was able to smile in a way that looked slightly terrifying. Magnum! He chuckled, before adopting a serious look, touching his face as he examined the changes the beta patch had brought. It was almost meditative, besides the loud crashes. After the bath and new clothes he stood there and simply enjoying the feeling of being clean again. He hadn''t felt that in days. It seemed as if survival had quashed every feeling of any sort of life. He might have changed in race, but after everything he had seen, he actually felt pretty good. Things are going to be different he vowed to himself, still looking at himself in the mirror, as if holding his reflection to the pledge. He didn''t summon a bunch of rats any more, now he could conjure a bunch of goblins to protect him. Maybe he could even try attacking some things? Part of him stiffened as he felt his excitement rising. He looked down at his offending article. That''s different. He thought, looking at it. Why was the idea of killing things arousing him? Belting it, he walked back into the family room, whistling for the goblins. They all came eventually, their faces holding the look of kids of excited kids on the day of Christmas. They each knuckled their foreheads. ¡°Boss?¡± He looked at them, each holding their knuckles on their foreheads. Morale seemed to be pretty high. After a moment of thinking he pointed towards the first goblin to his left. ¡°Your name is Red¡± he said to the goblin that had red tattoos splotched all over his body. A blue screen tried to pop up into his face but he grabbed it and tossed it aside. The blue window expoded into a burst of silent pixels before fading away. Then he pointed at the second goblin, it looked at him pensively, it was much more muscular than the others and he could see numerous veins covering its arm. ¡°Your name is arm.¡± A second prompt appeared but he repeated the process, crumpling the window and tossing it aside as garbage. ¡°Fuck this shitty system¡± he said out loud. He pointed at the third goblin who had shrunk back slightly from the others. It seemed a lot leaner than the others and had constantly been looking around its surroundings ¡°Your name is slim¡± He pointed to the final goblin, who actually had a thoughtful expression on his face as Gans addressed them. Unlike the others, with their green pupils, this one had golden eyes. Gans looked at the goblin, realizing how that he had missed those details before. He stood there for awhile pointing at the small goblin who examined him. Gans hesitated as he thought of a proper name. The goblin stood there for a while and then dropped its salute, looking back at Gans. ¡°Chopper¡± it rasped out. Gans looked at him askance. ¡°Chopper?¡± He asked It nodded in reply, a slight look of reproach in its eyes. ¡°Chopper?¡± he asked. The little goblin looked, back, gold eyes shining brightly ¡°Yes boss¡± it answered with a smile. Gans looked back at it, momentarily stupefied again as he looked back at the goblin. He had never really paid attention to them before, and this one was close to talking back to him intelligently. Thinking of the movies he had seen Gans stood up taller and straighter before looking down on the four looking at him ¡°I don''t know what you were thinking¡± he pointed his finger at each goblin, to his surprise each one looked bashfully, even chopper, as he pass his finger over them. ¡°I mean, good job taking all of their valuables,¡± he started, the goblins smiled as he spoke the words. ¡°BUT¡± he said, viciously bobbing his finger up and down in the air as if a lash, ¡°you are going to need to carry it!¡± he ended with a big toothy grin, his canines reaching over his lip when he finished. He then tossed the backpacks he had collected from the house into the middle of the goblins. A look of excitement entered the eyes of the goblins before they looked at each other and started to frantically scoop handfuls of shiny items into their the backpacks Gans winced slightly as they broke a few of the more expensive looking things in their haste. Arms started punching the other goblins, but its muscled fists mostly hitting air as the other goblins dodged away from him while still taking valuables off the ground. After awhile, of jamming what they could into the backpacks their eyes bulged comically as they realized there was no change they could carry everything. Red had even manged to pick up a second backup and doubled them up over its shoulders. Alex whistled at the sight, the small creatures determination showing clear through its face as it sweated, the second backpack weighting it down. Its peers looked enviously at him. A thought crossed Gan''s mind What am I actually going to do with any of that stuff? He waved it away as unimportant, it wasn''t as if he was carrying any of that junk. His own backpack was filled with actual supplies that he had taken from the house. After waiting for them to scoop up as much as they could he waved at them. ¡°Lets go¡± he said, walking to the door and swinging it open. He marched out of the house feeling feeling his blood stir with excitement. Reaching the backyard he felt himself hissing slightly. There was not going to be any more the the shit that had been suffered the past few days. Things were going to be different. He headed towards the shed. Entering the shed he found old man Albert still sitting where he had left him. The shotgun was still still clutched into his cold dead fingers. Gans slowly pried the fingers away before lifting the gun and inspecting it with reverence. He might have not known pistols and rifles that well, but one thing he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was his ability with a shotgun. He grinned openly in front of the other goblins as he picked up the weapon and then dipped his hand into the side pocket of his backpack, taking the twelve gauge rounds out. He found, to his pleasant surprise, that the old man had wisely taken out the capacity limiter on the weapon and was able to load a few extra shells in it. He loved the grip of the gun in his hands, the rubber underside resting against his hands. Smiling as he grabbed its strap, he slipped it over his shoulder and headed out to door and around the house. More cautious now that he was approaching the street, he slowed up and looked around. Everything seemed clear to him. The house across the street where he had been fighting had been stripped clean of all the bodies. After cautiously approaching the battle site, he found all the signs of the battle that had taken place. Old blood stains were still covering the old spots of the dead. And he still saw spent ammunition littering the ground where some the soldiers fired from. He looked around but couldn''t find any obvious signs what had happened to the bodies and then he thought back to the troll eating the dead. He whistled slightly as he imagined how many dead bodies the troll would have eaten. Either it followed some sort of magical game rules, or there had to have been more than one troll in the area. Either scenario slightly terrified him. He glanced briefly at his goblins. Red and Arm were looking around, disinterested. Thin was actually standing back from the others, crouched up against a ruined car. Chopper looked back at him, a cruel grin slowly growing on his face. He shrugged slightly, then poked a finger towards the road that he was taking with the soldiers before. Fortunately he knew where the base was, having driven near by for work every day, he should be able to make it before it grew dark again. Chapter 11 It wasn''t too far down the road before he begun sniffing the air. The familiar scent of blood iron filled his nose, and it smelled different from the day old variety that was out rotting in the sun. The scent seemed to be more clear and defined from before. He paused, looking at the empty street, noticing the numerous bodies he remembered on the street had turned into a just a few. Faded red stains marked the spots were fallen were previously, and he noticed large blood ringed footprints ringing most of the missing bodies. The trolls had been busy. The bodies were gone, leaving the cars to rot out in the sun. Looking around, he felt a slight smell catch his attention. Looking around to see if he could find the source, he took small sniffs from the air before finding a fresh corpse, or what was left of it. Something had mangled the body pretty badly. Cocking his head to the side he was able to faintly make out the camo pattern of fatigues. One of the soldiers. Reaching out he dug his hand around the soldiers neck , he grimaced as his fingers easily passed through the goo of what remained of the body before his fingers tapped against metal. With a quick tug, he pulled the dog tag from what remained from the mans neck. After wiping the blood off of it, he let out a sigh of relief, it wasn''t one the the guys he knew from the group. That didn''t mean much, however, as he hadn''t remembered of all their names. A slight feeling of shame crept up in his gut, but he pushed it down as he considered how lucky he was to survive so far. He pocketed the dog tags, and sniffed at the blood on his hands. He felt his mouth water slightly and he looked down at the day old blood staining his hands from the fresh corpse. Now that the scent was closer to his face... it smelled... tasty. Filing another quirk of his body away mentally he stood up quickly, trying to distance himself from the now alluring smell of the body. The goblins following behind looked at him with hungry eyes. ¡°Mind if we have some boss?¡± He reeled slightly as the implication crossed his mind. An image of the four goblins eating the dead man''s flesh from the body like zombies. The thought of how good the flesh would taste crossed his mind briefly before he dismissed it.. Holding his hand to his forehead to disguise his look of disgust he took a moment to compose himself before replying. ¡°No, we don''t have time. Maybe later... Maybe we will run into something else.¡± The four looked looked down at their feet like disappointed children. Disappointed murderous runt goblin children who wanted to eat a human body raw. ¡°Common, lets go¡± he felt himself say gruffly before turning down the road again, not looking behind him to see his goblin companions were following closely behind. The road ahead was filled with the dead corpses of cars, but otherwise seemed clear. As far as he could see, the rest of his journey back to base should be relatively easy assuming he wasn''t ambushed or chased by trolls again. He didn''t see too much chance of either of those things happening however. The group he was with would have fled down the same way, and anything in their way would have been killed. All he had to do was walk down the pathway that had already been secured in blood. As he walked down the road he glanced up at the sun high in the sky beating down on him, and he grimaced, his momentary feeling of ease disappearing again. The heat from the sun beat down on him, and he could feel the pavement heating up on his feat. Heat distortions appeared in the distance, making odd illusions in the distance. He walked down the street like that for awhile, weaving in between cars and checking around their corners for any monsters that might come after him. He kept his shotgun slung across his back despite his sense of alert. He had learned from hunting trips that hunting weapons only seemed early initially, carry any weapon in the field for long enough and you would grow sick of carrying it. After awhile of weaving down the street with his green entourage in tow, he felt his mind start to wander, and it made him more missed off in the process. He took stock of the his current situation. He had essentially been left behind by the patrol. Hd didn''t blame the others for their choice, but it still pissed him off anyway. The changes that he had experience since then were a serious downgrade as well. His fingers ended in talons. He face was green. The whites of his eyes were blood red. He imagined the flesh of the dead as tasting sweet to his tongue and he felt his stomach growl slightly in response to the though of consuming a body. He reached up and picked at one of the tusk teeth that was sticking out from his bottom lip, then glanced over at his four goblin followers.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. They seemed a lot more capable than his animal summons, but didn''t like the vicious look in thei eyes either. They were only slightly more trustworthy than the blue face goblin that had stabbed him. He felt like the only difference between them and blue face was that they had not betrayed him yet. Picking at his tusks again, and looking at the malevolent grins cutter was giving him, he began to fully understand his new oddities. Greenskin creatures were always portrayed as monsters, because they were monsters. He wasn''t going to be any different either. If he didn''t give into the cravings that he was experiencing, then he would still have them riding on his back for the rest of his life, however much still remained. Involuntarily he thought back to the body again, and part of him thought back to how good the flesh would taste, the other part of him was fucking pissed off and disgusted with himself and the situation he was in. He didn''t even know what parts of Greenskin hybrid he was even supposed to be. Human goblin? Human Orc? Elf goblin? He hissed in frustration as he walked. His attention span started to waver after awhile of walking and he encountered more random bodies in the street. Oddly enough, there were bodies littering the roads not more than a day ago and he looked at them as no more than background scenery. Following an instinct, he took time to look over each body, ignoring their smells and checking for valuables. His goblin followers imitated, him. He glanced at them looting the other bodies and paused in thought before resuming he search, he could always shake them down for what they had found later. A few of the bodies he came across had money, but he decided not to keep the paper bills, if he learned anything from all the nerd books he had read, money was essentially useless now, unless he came across metal. He paused again, looking at the three goblins trailing him. They were making a lot of noise whenever they moved, each weighted down with a large bag of crap that was shifting around as they moved, clacking loudly. They eyed him back wearily when they noticed his gaze upon their packs. Arms bared his teeth slightly towards him, a slow hiss escaping the small muscular goblins lips. Narrowing his eyes, Gans slowly looked back at the other goblins faces, scanning each to detect any other emotions.. Chopper''s yellow eyes peered back at him in an eager smile of anticipation, then looked between him and Arms. The other two looked back at him dumbly. Not letting any emotion show on his face, he slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, pulled his shotgun from his back. He made a show of checking the chamber and peering down the barrel to see if the end of the tube was clear. Arms looked back at him stupidly as he watched the motions, cow eyed, the slow, methodical motions intriguing him. Gans looked right at arms as swing the shotgun back and forth, as if stretching his shoulders. The small muscular goblin''s smile started to falter as he watched Gans, his erratic and methodical behavior unnerving him. With a sudden burst of speed, Gans tightly gripped the shotgun above the trigger guard and barrel and swung it around his shoulder, the butt of it smashing into Arm''s head with a loud crack. The impact broke skin, and blood splashed back onto Gan''s face. The moment the blood reached his mouth, he could feel his mouth ache in anticipation and his pupils dilated in response. Arms, bleeding heavily from his face and forehead, fall backward from the hit, dropping backwards onto the pavement, whining and hissing back at Gans. Fangs fully bared in a bloodthirsty smile, Gans swung quickly again before Arms could react. More blood kicked up from the already downed creature and it started to whine miserably. Gans, as if removed from himself, felt himself swinging again, and again, and again repeatedly into the already dead creatures head,. His other minions watched on as he continued to plow into the dead goblins face, each blow spattering more blood onto his body. Continuing to swing down, he felt his sense of logic evaporate, as he felt the intoxicating feeling of his muscles working rhythmically, the excess blood splatter only seemed to egg him on further and he could only hear the sound of his own grunting and heartbeat downing out everything else. An odd feeling of purpose filled him as with each swing, and he felt his smile widening with the feeling of each hit of contact. After awhile he felt himself snap back awake, and he wiped his nose, finding himself looking down on a mangled goblin corpse. Huffing in exertion he felt the green blood of what was Arms drip off his extended fangs, and he turned to the other goblins. He saw them flinch, as if coming out of hypnosis. Each of them quickly knuckled their foreheads, in fear. He noticed Cutter had taken a step behind the others, as if using them as a shield. Gans merely stood there, the wide eyed crazed look still upon his face as he caught his breath. He stood there awhile, breathing in and out, looking off into the distance. Cutter was the first to break the silence. ¡°Boss?¡± Cutter rasped out. The older looking goblin looked back at him intently, red eyes blazing underneath a hoodie the goblin had stolen from the house. Gans looked back at him, before huffing slightly as reality started to sink back into him, the intoxicating high vanishing as quickly as it appeared. He looked around at his surroundings, ignoring the dead body at his feel or his subordinates. Compared to the last few days, it felt too calm to him outside, even with the occasional gunshot going off in the distance. He slowly inhaled, taking a deep breath, then hesitated, looking back at the mangled corpse as an idea blossomed. Kneeling down he reached out and, he pierced the body with one of his claws, before pulling it out again, his claw dripped with green blood. Then using his finger as a pen he began to draw a conjuration circle on the ground next to the body. The goblins he had conjured were meant to serve him. They were evil creatures, and if he couldn''t think of how to use them flexibly he would doom himself. It took him a few extra dips into the body before he was able to fully draw out the circle and the few symbols he knew around it. If he couldn¡¯t hide himself out in the open, he would need something to serve as a bigger distraction. He didn¡¯t actually know much about the symbols themselves, his book not explaining much beyond the ¡°How¡± functions of conjuration. He did know however that they were specific to what he wanted to create. Unlike a summoner, he couldn¡¯t simply call things into being as he liked, whenever he liked. Drawing the circle and its constituent symbols took time, but was much more rewarding in terms of its versatility. Placing his hand on the circle like last time he focused inward, feeding it from his inner pool of mana like last time. This time however, he focused on a specific creature he knew. He murmured underneath his breath and he feelt the circle hook into his chest again like last time. Mana began to suck from his body and after a few seconds of the circle sucking down he felt the connecting made. He reached his hand down into the circle, gripping on the head he knew was there and pulled. Blue face emerged from inside the circle, eyes wide in confusion before looking at Gans and widening even further in fear. As quickly as a snake, Gans grabbed blue face by the neck in a choke hold and smiled as he lifted the smaller green skin off the ground, its legs fluttering helplessly off the ground. Gans smiled cruelly back at him. ¡°I need your help blue face.¡± Chapter 12 Gans slowly walked down the paved street, carefully weaving between cars and sharp objects like broken glass on the ground. A slight smile tugged at his lips, some of the stress he had felt from yesterday had melted away in a few short hours since he had left the house. He had his shotgun resting on his hip as a precaution, but didn¡¯t hesitate from adjusting it back and forth between his hip and shoulder. Carrying a gun any amount of distance in a ready position was tiring. Red and Cutter walked alongside him and seemed to hold the same cheery disposition as well, albeit with a small amount of fear any time they noticed Gans glancing their way. Red had the annoying habit of trying to hum on the journey, and it took a few whacks to the head from his shotgun butt before the goblin finally stopped. Cutter proved an intelligent traveling companion, in that the older yellow eyed goblin was smart enough to keep his mouth shut after what had happened to Arms. Gans didn¡¯t show it, but Cutter made him nervous. The old goblin made no outward signs of resistance to him unlike the others. He had the feeling that unlike blue face¡¯s betrayal in the house, or Arms and his defiance, Cutter could actually succeed if he tried to betray him. He knew now, that he needed to train out any hint of rebelliousness out of the goblins whenever he got the chance, but he had the feeling that cutter wouldn¡¯t give him the opportunity to do so. It bothered him that he couldn¡¯t act on the feeling of unease welling up inside him. Sighing, he, tore his gaze away from Cutter to the open rode in front of him, lifting his shotgun and quickly snapping it on target towards the long figure of Blue face crouch walking in fear Fifty yards out in front of him. The small goblin nervously jerked his head from side to side, looking for anything that might attack him. Taking a quick breath, Gans repeated the motion and snapped his shotgun up to practice, hissing in frustration when it caught against his chest. Anything other than a quick snap up was far too slow for his taste. He signed and rested the shotgun against his shoulder, his hip feeling sore from being carried against for too long Alongside the loss of height he suffered from the racial change, he soon realized his arms were much shorter than before. His muscle memory from going hunting regularly with the shotgun was off, and he had to relearn the motions of bringing the weapon to his cheek quickly. He wanted to get the motions back as quickly as possible, he wasn¡¯t sure when the next attack would happen after all. Having a target to practice on helped. Gans smiled, Blue Face was becoming extremely useful to him. The traitorous goblin served an unconventional purpose for him. Blue Face represented something to practice his shotgun reflexes on, getting the snap onto a target just right. Blue Face also made an excellent distraction, hence why the goblin was traveling far, far, in front of the group. It wasn¡¯t a perfect setup, but he would wager he could sacrifice the little goblin to whatever random hazard they would fall prey to. Something like a passing troll would immediately charge at Blue Face, and Gans could slip away with the others in the ensuing chaos. His goblins might not have had the same danger senses as his previous summoned animals, but if he used them unconventionally he could achieve the same results. Not to say that the goblins didn¡¯t have a well-developed danger sense, it was just nowhere near the same level of surveillance as having a sparrow flying overhead. Goblins had an odd sense of betrayal hierarchy, another use of Blue Face''s unconventional usefullness.. When Blue Face had stabbed Gans inside the house, the other goblins responded by killing Blue Face instead of him. Instinctively he knew that the others would still attempt to betray him later on, but he had the feeling that they would pick on the weakest member of their group before messing with their boss. Blue Face was that weakest member. The journey so far was relatively uneventful. Gans kept working on quickly snapping up his shotgun to his shoulder. Some part of him expected an annoying blue notification to pop up in the corner of his vision regarding shotgun proficiency but it never came like he expected. It was possible that gun powder weapons like his shotgun ran outside of the system. He glanced at his weapon and wondered how much longer it would work before he ran out of ammo for it, or the system rendered it ineffective. He needed to work on getting some sort of weapon training going. He had the goblins to fight for him, be he wasn¡¯t sure how useful they would be if he came across another goblin pack, or even another pack of gnolls. If he ran into those, he would just have to run and hopefully they would get distracted by the goblins he threw at them. Not an ideal solution. There was some hope however, if this truly was a game world like the ones that he knew, then there was a way of getting stronger. He just didn¡¯t dare attempt it without using his shotgun, not yet anyway, even if it hamstrung his ability to use other weapons he was certain he would end up with. He grimaced as he pictured himself missing with a bow and arrow and getting taken down by a gnoll. He dwelled on that imagery for awhile before a loud shriek pulled him out of his thoughts. Gans looked down the street at Blue Face, who was currently celebrating by what looked like a bunch of dead goblin bodies on the front lawn of a house. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Red open his mouth to shriek in mutual excitement before Gans cut him off quickly by driving the stock of his shotgun into his head. Reaching over he grabbed the stupefied goblin and ducked behind one of the cars. Chopper follower a second later, peering cautiously over the hood. Blue Face was making a lot of noise. TOO much noise. Gans peered over at the small blue tattooed goblin who was now eagerly looting the other bodies and making an odd eager sounding shrieking noise that Gans recognized from when the goblins were looting inside of the house. Keeping his grip on the still dazed goblin Gans lowered himself against the car and slowly counted down from Sixty. Blue Face continued to shriek and was now starting to make an odd sort of war dance on the dead bodies, waving a large looted dagger in his hand with a big smile on his face. The fact that its traveling companions were nowhere to be seen didn¡¯t seem to register in the mind of the smaller goblin, and after doing its victory dance, it continued to move from body to body, checking for valuables. Gans continued to count down from sixty. Red shifted nervously under his grip, and Cutter sat there with his eyes closed, as if counting the time down with Gans. It was right around his twenty count with it happened. Blue Face by now had stripped a fair amount of the dead and was using a shirt like a portable bag, grinning ear to ear. Gans watched as Blue Face quickly turned his head towards the roof of the house, sensing something in sudden fear and only managed to cringe a little before a gold streaked arrow slammed through his skull. Blue Face¡¯s body slammed into the pavement limply, his prized treasures clattering around him from the fall. Wide eyed, Gans ducked back below the car again, hoping he hadn¡¯t been noticed. Then he counted down from one hundred and eighty as his mind raced and his heart beat. Then after that he counted another sixty seconds before slowly peering over the hood of the car.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. There were six tall male figures standing over the body of Blue Face. They were at least fifty yards away from his hiding spot but it wasn¡¯t hard for him to recognize them immediately. Elves. Each one of them was wearing dull brown and green clothing with what looked like wood armor covering their vitals. Compared to Blue Face, they looked like freakishly skinny giants, and Gans would guess they all standing well over 6 feet tall. One looked at the body of Blue Face cruelly and gave it a few hard kicks. Gans could hear a light sing song type of laughter in the air alongside the sound of a rib cage breaking. The laughter was light and airy, but Gans felt the airs creeping up on the back of his neck. Another kick was followed into the body of Blue Face, more light laughter ensued. There was an oddly menacing undertone to it. Their laughter was cut short as a female elf walked into view from the side of the house. She was dressed in the same type of gear as the others, but her helmet had gold inlaid patterns running on the edges. Probably an officer, Gans mused. She begun barking orders at the men, who seemed suitably afraid of the female. A conversation began as one of the males pointed at the fallen form of Blue Face. It almost seemed as though they were trying to justify something to the female from the guilty looks on the faces of the men. Their words seemed to carry on the wind, and had soft vowels to them. It was hard for Gans to differentiate between each word, as they all seemed to blend into an unpleasant mush of a conversation. Gans crinkled his face like he had smelled something bad. The female elf pointed towards the road and began talking, the normally rounded edges of their language coming out much harder than before. Looking ashamed the men turned down the road and begun walking down it. In a flash of precognition Gans ducked his head back down just as he saw the female turn her head to scan her surroundings. Letting out a breath, he counted down one hundred and eighty seconds, then added sixty seconds afterwards. Red fidgeted during the entire countdown, occasionally opening his mouth before Gans shot a glare to shut him up. Slowly peeking back up from the ground, he let loose another breath he was holding. The elves were gone, walking down the road. Cutter leaned next to him. ¡°What was it?¡± he asked, rasping out the words softly. Looking at the older goblin in surprise, Gans shifted away from Cutter before replying. ¡°Elves¡± At that both goblins hissed in anger. ¡°Bad news elves. Never see them before they kill you. Better to keep away from them boss.¡± Red merely held his hands to his head and whined instead of speaking. Gans twitched an eyebrow. ¡°Compared to everything else out here?¡± ¡°Goblins live in forests. Elves live in forest. They don''t get along¡± Cutter explained in clips, shrugging before continuing, ¡°Better to stay away, other things out here we can see coming. Elves we can''t.¡± ¡°If elves are so bad, then how can goblins live in the forest as well?¡± Gans asked. Cutter smiled slowly, menacing yellow jagged teeth coming out for air. ¡°Goblins make more goblins faster than elves make more elves.¡± Gans frowned at that, and shook away the thought of goblin breeding with disgust before turning back to the empty road. Were elves bad asses in this world? In most games he had played they were a pretty lame. Most of the time they were depicted as a dying race of pretty looking tree huggers that humans would try to eliminate. The six foot monsters out there that had eliminated Blue Face with an arrow to the face looked almost military to him. He thought of the sound of the ribs cracking again and shuddered, they didn''t seem like the nicest group either. If the goblins and elves didn''t get along very well, then he doubted that they would give him a chance to open his mouth before they turned him into a pincushion. He might not be a goblin, but he didn''t exactly have the right color of skin either. The fangs and evil eyes probably didn''t help either though, he mused. Best to avoid the elves, like Cutter said. Standing up, he motioned to Cutter and Red to follow, the latter of the two goblins still looking like a scared child from the mention of elves. Gans slowly walked to Blue Face''s dead body in a half crouch, eyes peeled for any elves that decided to be tricky and lie in wait. Poking his finger into the dead goblin he created a circle again, first drawing the green blood circle and following up with the specific symbols the book had described. He felt the slight tug of his mana reserve being used to power the circle . He paused, thinking for a moment, before looking at Cutter and Red again. He didn''t trust either of them fully, but if he couldn''t trust them a little than they would be no use to him either. ¡°Help me if he comes out fighting.¡± Arms might have been a goblin, but there was a reason Gans had named him Arms. The diminutive creature was strong for a goblin, and could do some damage if given a weapon and the opportunity, Not looking to see if either one confirmed he turned back the the circular pool, reaching a hand inside. After awhile, he felt his mana hook onto his minion, and he pulled the muscular Goblin from the circle, tossing the goblin quickly onto the ground. Arms immediately rolled into a ball with his arms in the air in order to fend off an attack. Sputtering out apologies when he saw the look in Gans''s face. He didn''t realize it, but Gans was tensed up and looking at the cowering goblin with his teeth bared, a sense of fury filling him again. On some instinctual level, the disobedience his subordinate displayed infuriated him and he had to resist kicking the cowering figure. He would have done so if hadn''t seen the elves kicking Blue Face''s body, which pissed of off on some unknowable level as well. Grunting, he looked quickly at Red and Cutter, both of whom nodded in his direction before watching Arms. Gans turned to the circle and reconnected with it, he could feel a faint dizziness as he felt another connection with the circle. Slowly he reached his hand in and pulled out Blue Face, who looked even more panicked than the last time he had been pulled out. Unlike last time, however, he set Blue Face lightly down on his feet. Gans frowned slightly, wondering at why he didn''t feel pissed off at Blue Face as well. The trembling wide eyed goblin knuckled his forehead before shuffling away from Gans, joining Red and Cutter. Red, surprisingly, hissed at the blue tattooed goblin, taking a step away from it as if he was sick, Cutter merely eyed the other goblin warily. Blue Face didn''t notice however, getting as close as possible to the other two, a traumatized look on his face. Gans watched the exchange with curiosity, maybe dying a few times took the fight out of them? He noticed that Arms had shuffled over the the group as well, a fearful look on its face. Ignoring the reunion, Gans looked around his surroundings, taking in the dead bodies of the small goblin pack that been taken out. Looking down at his feet he twitched an eye brow. The corpse of Blue Face was still there. Looking between living Blue Face, and dead Blue Face he didn''t see any difference between the two. Was living Blue Face a clone? Hopefully his conjuration grimoire had finally updated himself. There were a lot of things not adding up, like the fact that he could re-conjure the dead. Looking down at dead Blue Face he reached down before pulling the leather belt and dagger he saw the goblin take off the bodies earlier while looting. Strapping the belt to his waist, he felt surprised at how comfortable it felt on him. Taking a look a the dagger he noted it wasn''t anything special though. It was an old looking pitted blade that he turned over in his hands, definitely a useful weapon if something got past his shotgun and tried to tackle or grapple with him. With a feeling of satisfaction he put the dagger into the sheath attached to his belt before taking a look at the other items Blue Face had been looting. He found a few Silver and copper coins as well and pocketed them before looking up at his four goblins, who seemed to be edging up on him as he had been looting. He hissed at them and the four wisely took a half step back. Returning back to the dead bodies, he didn''t find much else of value besides junk weapons like a shiv or an impromptu stool leg/club. Some armor off one of the goblin bodies caught his interest and he pulled a vest of leather scale off one of the bodies. Lifting it up to the sky he realized that it would be far too small for him to wear. Looking at his four eager goblins he thought for a moment before throwing it towards Red who caught it with a look of glee. If he couldn''t use it, it might as well go towards the most tanky of his small fry group. He cocked his head towards the bodies as red hurriedly strapped on the armor while his companions looked on in envy. ¡°Alright, go nuts¡± he said, indicating the bodies. As if he had shot a gun at a horse race, all four goblins raced towards the dead bodies and begun filling makeshift backpacks and sacks with more of the crap. Over loading themselves with all the loot. The prospect of loot and greed overpowering their sense of logic again. Gans sighed as he walked away from the Goblins. He scratched at his side, and gave the sun an annoyed look. Out of the corner of his eye he saw clothing hung out on a clothesline, gently swaying in the wind. He looked down at his Punisher shirt and grinned before heading the the clothesline and looking through what was available. Tossing the Punisher shirt to the ground he picked up a plain brown tee shirt off the line. It was a little large for him, but he pulled it on, glad to be rid of the shirt that would likely get him shot, or filed with arrows. He imagined himself approaching the base in a black t-shirt with a white skull on it and rolled his eyes. That would not be taken well by the defenders. On that thought he noticed a set of white clothes hanging as well. Grabbing a white t-shirt he rolled it up and stuffed it into his belt. Then after a pause, he grabbed another two white t- shirts and stuffed them both into his backpack as well. After a quick jump to readjust the backpack and gun riding on his shoulders he walked back onto the street and motioned his goblins to get moving. With looks of disappointment of their faces, they picked up their packs and wandered over to him. They weren''t far from the base at all now. He could easily reach it in the next hour assuming he didn''t run into any more nasty surprises. He glared at Blue Face, who after while, dropped his head and shuffled out in front of the group. ¡°Boss?¡± Cutter spoke ¡°Hm?¡± Gans asked, looking down at the old goblin while waiting for Blue Face to get further out. ¡°The elves boss. They were headed the same way.¡± Gans looked down the road towards where he knew the base should be. Then he looked at Cutter again, then looked back down the road. The same road the elves had taken when they had left. ¡°Shit¡± Chapter 13 Back to Base ¡°Hey Luth¡± Terry asked, lowering his binoculars to his chest. ¡°Yo¡± Luther replied curtly, keeping his binoculars to his eyes, scanning out in the distance for more incoming. ¡°That elf chick, she was pretty hot right?¡± Luther sighed, lowering his binoculars before rubbing his eyes and face and then turning to look at his friend. Don wore a shit eating grin on his face like always, and like always Luther had to struggle to prevent a slight smile from tugging at the corners of his lips. Don had that effect on people. ¡°Yeah,¡± Luther replied, a smile growing on his face, ¡°Yeah I''ll give it to you man. She was pretty hot. If you are into that sort of thing anyway,¡± he added casually. Don snorted and turned back towards his surroundings, keeping watch over the base, the shit eating grin still on his face. ¡°If you are into that sort of thing,¡± He mock imitated Luther. ¡°Sometimes I think you are gay as hell man.Everrryguy is into that sort of thing. Fucking sexy. I''ll bet you she''s a biter too.¡± He wiggled his brows suggestively, knowing that Luther was still looking his way. ¡°Yeah,¡± Luther replied, rolling his eyes, before returning to scan the perimeter, ¡°go ahead buddy. I get the feeling she would rip your dick out. ¡° ¡°Hey I''d fuck crazy.¡± ¡°Yeah I know you''d fuck crazy. You fuck yourself every night,¡± Luther shot back, laughing. ¡°Aw man common. You saw her that tight ass armor. Fucking HOT! Admit it Luth, You''d fuck crazy too.¡± ¡°Sorry, I stopped fucking crazy after I fucked your mom last night HA!¡± Luther shot back again, and couldn''t stop himself from widening his smile. ¡°Oh real nice Luth. Here we are, twobestfriends, one of which is gay, you, hanging out in a tower, and you gotta bring up mom jokes.Reeeaaaalclassy.¡± ¡°CUT THE CHATTER¡± a loud voice screamed from below. Both men promptly shut up. Luther sighed again and returned to his work, scanning the surroundings for whatever weird creature was going to show up. None of the monsters outside of their chain link fence had managed to get through yet, it wasn''t for lack of trying either. There had been so many bodies the past few days that they had to send a patrol out to retrieve a bull dozer. Even then, it took almost an entire day to push the bodies together, a macabre hill bordering part of their fence line. Ever since yesterday the surrounding area had started to settle down alongside the lowering monster attacks. Deep down the lack of gunshots and violence was starting to depress him though. The gunshots and explosions meant that there was as still a fight going on somewhere, now all he heard, more often than not, was silence. It was like humanity had stopped fighting back. Luther looked away from the base, scanning further out towards the suburbs and city, or whatever was left of a suburbs or city. There wasn''t much to see compared to before. Most of the city itself as well as parts of the suburbs were still smoldering from random fires and explosions. He squinted off in the distance and noticed a growing fire out in part of the suburbs. He bit his lip, hoping that it didn''t spread further. Both men settled into silence as they continued to survey the area, a gentle breeze passing against an open window of the tower, the only noise heard beyond the occasional pop of a gunshot in the distance. Neither one said it, but they were both starting to regret volunteering for tower duty despite how safe it was. "Hey Luth? Take a look at 10 oh clock, by the bushes. Luther walked next to Don and looked at the same location with his binoculars. Most of the area around their base had been cleared, and they had a good one hundred fifty yard clear zone from the fence to their surroundings. Despite their best efforts however, the area had gotten slightly overgrown. It was pretty had to convince people to mow the area, especially in light of the constant attacks. Guards there or not, they would be looking over their shoulder the whole time. It didn''t help that most of their equipment, lawnmowers included, had stopped working that morning. The idea of burning down the forest around them for more clear space was being floated around base. After focusing in on the woods for a while, he began to see movement between the trees. A moment later a small green figure walked out of the brush clutching something in its hand. Luther let go of the breath he had been holding in relief. A lone goblin was better than the Gnoll pack they had to deal with the other day, then he shuddered as he remembered the trolls that tried to wander in afterwards. That had been an ugly fight. "Is that another goblin?¡± he idly asked, already knowing the answer. He continued to watch the lone figure approaching the base. "Yeah. I thought those guys gave up attacking on the second day. You would think the body pile we have outside the base would clue them in." Luther reached down to the microphone attached to his uniform, clicking the device on. "Ground this is tower. I''ve got a goblin approaching the western edge of the base by the wood line." Luther paused and waited while the green figure slowly made its way through overgrown clearing. Occasionally tripping and looking back towards the woods nervously. "Just one?" Mick''s voice crackled through the radio. Luther leaned towards his microphone while watching the green figure, hesitating. "Hey Don, can you make out what that thing is holding?" Luther watched as Don squinted with his binoculars. "I''ve got nothing. Could be anything." Luther looked at the figure and a thought crossed his mind. "Maybe a bomb. Lone goblin blows up the fence. Others charge in. Grab the rifle." Don quickly sat down at the table in the corner of the tower and got into position with the rifle that was sitting there on a tripod, cradling it into his shoulder. Shrugging his shoulders slightly as he formed up on his scope, he sighted quickly onto target, giving Luther a thumbs up. The lone goblin hadn''t reached a third of the way there. "Ground this is tower. It¡¯s just one goblin. I cannot confirm additional hostiles but it¡¯s been looking back at the tree line and clutching something in its hand that we cannot make out. Recommend moving additional assets to the western fence line. Permission to fire?" "Tower, Ground. Fire when ready. Sending assets to the western side. I''m on my way up. ¡°Hit''em Don¡± Squaring his shoulders for a moment Don slowly pulled the trigger, the rifle rocking back gently against his shoulders. Luther watched in his binoculars as a large portion of the goblins chest disappeared and the little goblin fell backwards into the thick grass, Green blood exploding outwards from the impact. ¡°Confirmed hit. Nice shot Don.¡± Donnie gave him the thumbs up in response, scanning the tree line for any other targets. Luther pulled the binoculars from his face, giving him a broad view of the field again. He squinted as he watched the tree line looking for any additional contacts. Thudding footsteps sounded behind him and a few seconds later Mick popped up from the stair well, taking offered binoculars from Luther. ¡°You get it?¡± ¡°Yes Sir. Don pegged it a third of the way here.¡± ¡°Was it an I E D?¡± Mick asked as he pulled the binoculars to his face, playing around with the focus. ¡°I couldn''t confirm, body''s tough to see in the rough grass.¡± ¡°Hrm¡± Luther watched as Mick chewed the inside of his mouth awhile before looking back at him. ¡°Better to wait awhile before we head out there to check it out, for all we know this is just the start of it. I''d bet we start seeing more of those bastards in a little while. They won''t get to far this time though.¡± A vicious grin splitting his face. Mick clicked his radio on, binoculars still scanning the tree line. ¡°Bravo. This is ground. You in position?¡± The mic crackled back a moment later. ¡°Bravo reads and is in position. Ready to light them up ground.¡± Mick looked back at Luther, who had been watching the slightly crazed ground commander as he became more and more vicious looking. After the fall, some people broke down, others... turned into people like Mick. Mick caught Luther''s stare. ¡°Eyes on the tree line gentlemen. I have a feeling this is going to get exciting. Ilovekilling those stupid green bastards.¡± he said, his vicious grin even wider than before. **** Gans blinked, his eyes wide as saucers as he watched his goblin die. It had happened so quickly it was almost magic. One second blue face was nervously walking along like an idiot, ignoring his instructions on how to wave the white cloth around, and then the next moment the goblin almost disappeared he hit the ground so quickly. The green blood and viscera instantly exploding off the body before it fell was only evidence that it had been killed. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. ¡°Were they supposed to do that?¡± He asked, dumbfounded. Cutter shrugged. Suddenly the quiet base he saw in the distance didn''t seem so quiet anymore. He saw figures in fatigues moving into position in sandbag pits alongside the fence line. He knew the base would be on alert, but it seemed a little extreme to him. He felt himself involuntarily shrink a little bit further down next to the tree, putting himself below the bush in front of him. ¡°Well... I can always do it over a few times¡± he muttered to himself, eyeing Arms darkly. Arms, like a kid trying to escape his teachers notice, shrunk back a little bit while looking at the other goblins for support. Arms and cutter both took steps away from him. ¡°Arms,¡± he spoke softly. Knowing it unnerved them, he presented a broad, genuine smile to the small muscled goblin who started to pale and gibber underneath its breath. Reaching to his belt he pulled the second white tee shirt, freeing it from his waist before handing it to the frightened goblin. Arms was still on the shit list for hiss back at him when he looked at his pack of shit valuables. Blue face was still the lowest of the totem pole, but he felt like Arms needed the point emphasized more. He didn''t need a fight on his hands whenever he looked at the possessions his own conjurations had. It didn''t hurt to use them as an example for the goblins either. Plus Red was too stupid to betray him correctly, or even march to the base with the white flag either. Cutter struck him as being just intelligent enough to be useful, and just useful enough to not toss towards danger casually. It didn''t hurt that Cutter was the only one of the pack that could answer him cohesively. Returning his mind to the task at hand he stared at Arms. ¡°You understand what to do right. All you have to do is hold that white thing in your hands and wave it in front of your face. Don''t hide it in your hands like Blue Face did.¡± ¡°yeach,¡± The muscular goblin croaked in reply. Gans sighed, noticing that the goblin was clutching the white cloth the same way Blue face had. Reaching out he forced the goblins hand open, then unrolled the shirt, putting it back in its hand, this time, the white clearly visible. ¡°Remember,wave, it in front of you and you will be fine. Right?¡± ¡°yeach.¡± He rubbed his forehead, the feeling of a headache coming on as he idly wondered if he had brought enough white cloth. ¡°Well get going then.¡± He grabbed at the goblin and threw him towards the clearing. Arms was shaking as he walked past the bush. Unlike Blue face however, he actually managed to keep the white t-shirt out and visible in front of him. Gans held his breath as he stated to count, watching the small goblin slowly make his way down the clearing. Ominously, he took the same exact path as Blue Face, and was walking the same way as well, nervously stumbling and looking back towards him for any sort of reassurance. He felt himself release his breath when Arms made his way past where Blue Face had fallen, relief flooding into him. At lease the base hadn¡¯t started shooting on sight like he feared. The diminutive goblin jumped slightly when it took a look at the corpse of its fellow goblin before slowly continuing his way towards the fence line. About twenty yards away from the fence line the men sitting covered positions began yelling orders to the goblin who looked around confused, like a small child lost at a grocery store. It tried to look behind him, looking for any hint of orders or what it was supposed to do. Without thinking it took a step forward. The shouting stopped and a single word order barked out. Snapping sounds of gunshots followed and Gans watched as the small goblin was slapped down into the grass like the hand of god had put him there. He involuntarily gulped at the sight. Crouching by the bush, he rested his back up against the tree he was using for partial cover and took a minute to think. Blue Face and Arms had been terrible choices. He glanced over at Red who was scraping at the dirt, shoving a bug into his mouth. Red wouldn¡¯t be much of a choice either. He could send Cutter, but part of him worried that if he kept sending failures out the base would simply shoot on sight instead of giving them a chance. That would normally leave him, but there was a good chance they might have already decided to shoot on sight anyway. Anxiety crept into his chest as he sat there wondering if he should take care of it himself. Then he remembered why he picked warlord in the skill tree. Why do it myself when I can rely on others? If he died that was it. There was no do over, there was no respawn. He would die and that would be the end of it. It wasn¡¯t like the games he played where he could come back with a penalty, this was real life, even if it imitated a fucked up game system. He looked at Cutter. The yellow eyed goblin looked back at him, and reached a hand out, wiggling his fingers in a ¡°Give it to me motion.¡± He couldn¡¯t help but feel gratitude to the older goblin for volunteering, unlike the other two. Gans pulled the last white t-shirt from his belt and handed it to Cutter, who promptly unrolled it and walked out of the clearing, confidently waving it in front of his head as he advanced towards the fence line. He should have given it to Cutter from the start. It was all well and good to be nice to the one goblin who had half a brain, but he had been foolishly holding back one of his most useful conjurations. Worst case scenario he could always just conjure the old goblin again. He even got the feeling that Cutter wouldn¡¯t mind as much as the other two goblins, who Gans had been giving shit duty for punishment. He wasn¡¯t sending Cutter towards the base as punishment, he was sending Cutter because it was the smart thing to do. He could replace cutter. He couldn¡¯t replace himself. If Cutter failed, he would know that there wasn¡¯t much hope of him succeeding either. If he wanted to survive in this world he needed to lean on his subordinates as much as possible. Taking a deep breath to calm the feeling of worry in his stomach, Gans watched as the old goblin made his way towards the fence line. If Cutter failed, then that was that, there would be no going into the base for Gans, and he would have to somehow survive outside of the safety of the base. He wasn¡¯t too thrilled at the idea. Reaching the same mark as Arms, Cutter calmly paused and raised his hands above his head in response to the shouting from the men. It was strangely anticlimactic to watch as the hunched over goblin simply nodded in reply a few times and spoke back to the men guarding the fence line. It wasn¡¯t long before Cutter motioned behind him and made a waving motion with his hand. Lifting himself out of the bush in response, Gans felt his anxiety rise as he walked out from the cover of the trees. Putting one leg in front of the other, he slowly walked across the clearing, hoping that some trigger happy solider didn¡¯t accidently pull the trigger on his walk over. Passing the bloodied body of Blue face reinforced his caution that he could be killed by accident. Goblin bodies and Goblin blood, despite being green, smelled roughly the same as a red blooded human. An awful copper iron tang hung in the area around the body. It still struck him as odd that he wasn¡¯t bothered by it despite his heightened sense of smell. Reaching Cutter and the dead body of Red he slowly raised his hands in the air. ¡°That¡¯s close enough!¡± one of the soldiers yelled from behind a sandbag pit, rifle still tucked into his cheek and pointing towards him. ¡°I¡¯m looking for Mick Johnson or Luther.¡± He shouted towards the soldier, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible. Gans watched as their expressions turned into confusion. ¡°If it helps you find him. He¡¯s the asshole that led a patrol from the city to here. Should have gotten here yesterday or the day before. Alex says hi. Also, Alex says thanks a lot asshole for leaving me out there. Those words exactly.¡± The soldiers continued to look at him in confusion, a few of them squinting at his face, one of them chuckling when Gans mentioned ¡®asshole.¡± Eventually one of them stood up and fingered his radio, speaking softly into it before a reply was heard. It wasn¡¯t too soon after that he saw the short, surely form of Mick approaching the fence line, cursing as he walked. The closer he drew to Gans, the wider his eyes peeled open. Ignoring the surprised exclamations of the men around him, Mick threw open the gate and walked right up to Gans. Cocking his head to the side, Mick made a show of examining him before a flicker of a grin appeared on his face. ¡°You look a lot uglier than I remember Alex.¡±