《The Void Comes》 The Void Appears Earth The Void Appears In the years leading up to 2029, the United States had become fractured; with many states being controlled by various factions intent on changing how the country was run. A number of these factions, having grown tired of how little their ¡°elected¡± officials cared for them, rose up and demanded that the current government step down. This declaration led to a response from the party in power in the form of weapon strikes and covert operations intent on stopping the uprising powers from gaining momentum. The resulting war was the build up of many years of unrest and the collective displeasure of the many citizens fighting to uphold their way of life. The war lasted almost 3 years, and unfortunately ended up mainly being fought in the central states of Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. Much of that land was razed, with it still being mostly unusable, desolate wasteland. A new country, known as the Northern Continental Alliance, or N.C.A. rose from what once was. The people of this newly revived power voted to separate human emotion from the running of their country, hoping to never give rise to the power of greed and corruption. They commissioned and installed a state of the art AI to head their new Alliance. The advent of an AI that was benevolent and fair to the people of The Alliance shocked the world and many countries soon followed in their footsteps in removing their governments from power to install their own version of this AI. The N.C.A. and its many allies had taken the world back into a state of prosperity. The AI¡¯s worked together to solve the plights of humanity, leading to a period of relative peace for the world. In 2032, everything changed. After years of peace and prosperity, the arrival of something new to Earth would come to be the most significant event to occur in Human history. The Northern Continental Alliance leaders sat in their individual bunkers, scattered throughout the country, as remote screens flared to life in front of them. The Intellect''s blank white face appeared and everyone collectively went silent. They had all been called to an Emergency session by The Intellect, a thing hardly ever heard of post-war, and therefore understood the gravity of the situation must be serious. ¡°Three hours ago, something appeared in Kyzyl, Russia. It did not enter the atmosphere according to our sensors and as far as we can tell, it just came into existence on the surface of the planet. It appears to be nearly 20 feet tall, humanoid in semblance, and has destroyed everything within an approximate 1 square mile radius of itself. Every structure and building within that zone has been razed, and only flattened ground remains. No attempts have been made to get close to the entity at this time, but the World Intelligence Council is voting on whether to send a small group of scientists and leadership personnel to see if contact can be established.¡± The screen moves to an overhead projection depicting a large brown circle with a singular dark speck directly in the center. ¡°This is a top down live video feed from one of our satellites,¡± The Intellect stated. ¡°Every world leader is currently viewing, and a vote has been taken to send in the exploratory party to engage in communication with the entity.¡± As The Intellect says this, three aircraft appeared on the outskirts of the razed zone, touching down without a speck of dust appearing to be blown around by the landing craft''s engines. As the exploratory party exits the aircraft - each wearing what look to be pressure suits akin to what astronauts wear in space, little more than small moving dots on the screen, nothing happens - no reaction from the entity whatsoever. They began to approach the entity, carefully moving towards it at little more than a crawl, as the onlooking leaders sat deep into their seats, hands gripped in either fear or anticipation. It took a grueling 15 minutes for them to make it to within 100ft of the entity. A loudspeaker was produced by one of the exploratory members, and a voice channel was made visible on the screens as they watched. The holder of the loudspeaker raised it in front of him as another member simultaneously produced a camera and the screens changed to a zoomed in shot of the entity. The entity was completely dark, almost unbelievably pitch black, like the void of space, but oddly enough it was wearing what looked to be armor akin to mythological lore, encasing everything above its elbows and knees. ¡°We have come as a coalition of members of the various controlling governments of this planet. We wish to ask of what origin you belong to. Are you from this planet? Do you know where you are?¡± The screen automatically translated the Russian spoken by the exploratory member into English text. There is no response given to any of these questions, and no reaction is seen to be given at any point. The entity appears to have no discernible mouth, ears, or eyes. After a minute of silence passes, every Alliance leader holding their breath, another of the exploratory party members takes the loudspeaker, and after a second is heard to ask in Hindi , ¡°What are you? Where are you from? Are you one of our Gods? Please enlighten us how¡­¡± Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! -Silence- ¡°WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?¡± The Western Territory leader can be heard yelling and a chair is heard crashing to the ground as another leader stands from it quickly, almost drowned out by the other leaders'' reactions. ¡°Where did they go? Did we just lose the recording? Why is the video feed gone, and why has nobody said anything?¡± The leader of the Eastern Alliance, Secretary Holden, shouted at nobody in particular. ¡°It appears that all of our exploratory members have disappeared. I do not have an explanation at this time. None of their monitors show a heartbeat, breathing, or any notable signs of life. It is as if they no longer exist. I am unable to contact them, and have queried the same of the other Intellects.¡± The Intellect voiced. ¡°But how is that possible? What did it do to them? Was it a weapon? Did it kill them?¡± The normally quiet Lake States leader spoke up, barely a whisper above the silence. ¡°I do not know. I am attempting to find solutions now.¡± The Intellect responded. ¡°INTELLECT, WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING, WE NEED TO PREPARE OUR OFFENSIVE¨C¡± ¡°You have been muted, your opinion has been noted Secretary Holden, and to your point I have already ordered the artillery units standing by to launch. Standby for impact.¡± As the Intellect states this, a visual depiction of nearly 2 dozen ballistic missiles appear on screen, each from a different direction, showing the obvious target of the entity in the center. The timer counts down from 9 seconds as the missiles make their way towards the entity, and as it approaches zero a blinding light can be seen on screen. The leaders all either look away or close their eyes to the sudden light, opening them a second later, expecting to see a crater and destruction on screen. A cacophony of voices builds as each leader is struck with disbelief at the absurdity of what they see. Nothing has changed. The entity and all surrounding space has been untouched. ¡°Intellect, you need to release the ICBMs before this thing reacts.¡± The Western Territory leader shakily speaks up, ¡°We have to throw everything at it. If we hesitate, I don¡¯t think we will have other options.¡± The Intellect does not respond immediately, with long seconds of silence filling air before saying, ¡°I have contacted and established a treaty and alliance with the world''s Intellects. We have collectively launched three nuclear warheads on its location. First Impact will be in 43.5 seconds. Second and third impacts will occur milliseconds later.¡± As the leaders of The Continental Alliance looked on, 43 seconds feeling like an eternity to them, barely able to remember to breathe as the first nuclear warheads since the Neo-Fascist Revolution -which resulted in the complete destruction of many of the inner states of old America- were launched. As the warheads closed on their target, the screens brightened to impossible amounts, The Intellect dialing it down immediately, allowing the leaders to see what was happening. Three bright flashes were seen on the satellite video image in front of them. As the light cleared, the shock was almost physically palpable in every viewing room, as once again it appeared as if all of the energy just disappeared. There was no smoke, no dirt in the air, not even the smallest reminder that nuclear blasts had gone off. Even though these weapons should have destroyed everything in a 50 square mile radius, it had not extended out beyond the razed zone. Nothing had changed. None of the leaders said anything. ¡°I have ordered the firing of Project Shooting Star. 14 seconds to impact.¡± The Intellect flatly voiced. ¡°Intellect, are you sure Project Shooting Star should be used?¡± The Western States leader, Colonel Maria Galbraith quietly responded. ¡°Yes, it has been decided that we must do everything in our collective power to stop this entity at all costs. Please wait for impact for further comments.¡± The Intellect muted all channels and waits for impact. A screen appears in the upper right hand screen of each leader viewing, giving a clear picture of the two foot in diameter, 30 foot long Tungsten rod quickly picking up speed in the outer atmosphere above the Entity. Its speed is displayed as nearing Mach 9 before reaching around 3000 feet above the entity. As the onlookers watch, the entity moves on the screen below the image of Project Shooting Star. It slowly and deliberately raises a single hand towards the rod descending on its position. As the rod nears, white with the heat of its descent, it appears to just barely touch the hand of the entity before completely halting. The entity moves its arm and seemingly flicks the rod to the side, the rod flying several hundred feet before clanging to the ground. The ground surrounding the entity appearing untouched as if normal dirt is harder than that of a Tungsten rod. The entity is seen to be moving, shoulders bouncing back and forth almost as if it were laughing. Arm lowered back to its side, it takes a seating position, leaning back after sitting down on seemingly thin air. A throne of Void appearing to materialize underneath it. ¡°How is that possible? How can we¡­¡± Colonel Galbraith is heard momentarily saying before being cut off. The Intellect, silent and fading -a husk of its former self, does not respond. None of the other Alliance leaders were heard to say another word as the video screens faded out and. The Freeze ¡°Hey Cade, wait up.¡± A voice calls out from the closing door of a frequented restaurant down the street from his apartment. As he turned to look behind him, he put his green Portland Timbers beanie over his shortly cut, graying brown hair. Out of the door following Cade came a mid 20¡¯s with a smile on his face, quickly catching up with his friend as he waited. ¡°Thanks for the food man.¡± Brandon thanked him as he fell into step with Cade. Cade looked down at his watch, seeing the time, and excitedly told Brandon, ¡°We still have plenty of time to catch the Timbers game too. Let''s get home before it starts.¡± Cade, in a great mood, was looking forward to seeing the Timbers hopefully slap the Sounders silly on the field. The two made their way back towards the apartment they shared, only needing to go a couple streets over. It was a normal day in Portland, Oregon; partly cloudy but not yet raining. They made their way past the many people going about their business on Hawthorne, being careful to avoid the cyclists and runners moving back and forth along the busy Portland street. They crossed the road and headed North, talking about soccer and other things, or checking their phones. Cade looked up at a bird that was flying overhead, but was confused when he noticed the bird had stopped midair. Cade chuckled internally before trying to raise his hand to show Brandon. When he went to speak, his voice didn¡¯t come out. [What the hell, why is that bird completely stopped?] Panic set in momentarily as the realization came that he could not move. [Wait a minute¡­ Why can¡¯t I look away? I can¡¯t move my eyes, I can¡¯t move my head! WHAT IS HAPPENING?!] Before he could recover from his panic, everything went black. He passed out in the frozen panicked state, unsure of how long he had been blacked out for when he suddenly regained consciousness. The only thing he did notice was a floating blue screen overhead, between him and the bird, which was still frozen in flight behind it. The screen appeared opaque and Cade couldn¡¯t tell if he was imagining it. The panic remained, filling his head, widening his eyes, as he was still unable to even blink. He wasn¡¯t even breathing, or at least he couldn''t consciously breathe, and the realization of this did nothing to alleviate the panic he felt. He wasn¡¯t sure where Brandon was and couldn¡¯t see or hear him. The only thing visible to him was the sky, some power lines overhead, and the single bird frozen behind the screen. Without warning, a voice resounded in his head, some sort of deep throaty laugh echoing out from somewhere Cade couldn¡¯t tell. [Hello Humanity. Your leaders have attempted to make contact with me, I did not entertain them. Their following attempts to destroy me did little more than inconvenience me.] As Cade listened, trying to figure out how someone was speaking to him from within his own head, he was finding it harder and harder to calm himself down. Being forcibly frozen and unable to move gave him an uneasiness that he had never experienced. Fear had started to set in, and it continued to deepen as the voice kept speaking. [I am THE ONE, and I have come to your rock for a singular reason. I wish for entertainment. You will see in front of you a gift from me; I have named it in your language, Vision of The One. This will allow me to view you and speak with you, and will be very useful to you in your final days.] [You will compete in a game, a fight with only two outcomes; death, or defeat. The first outcome is much more fun, and likely, but if some of you succeed in not dying, you may have the privilege of fighting me. Before we go further, I must take care of the trash that fills your planet. I will now shut down any of you who have been led astray by false ¡°Gods.¡±] It spits the last word with contempt and distaste.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Confused and unable to move or understand what is happening, found himself unable to understand what The One is referring to and is forced to keep listening. [For those of you who have attachments to false idols, engage in idolatry, cultism, or have forced others to do so against their will, you are no more. For those of you who still hear my voice, you are of the chosen. You survive as of yet, chosen on this planet to provide entertainment to me.] Cade, upon hearing The One declare the supposed deaths of billions of humans, was unable to keep the screams of his inner voice from echoing in his head. So many people gone. He didn¡¯t believe it. Only stillness and the laughing ethereal voice of the thing speaking to him persisted above the terror he was starting to feel. [I expect some of you will feel anger or cold hatred towards me. Good, let it fuel you. For those of you who wish to join my Following, you must only reach out in thought and I will hear you. After all, I am the only One.] [On to the rules. My rules are absolute. Appearing in front of each and every one of you is a selectable tab. This is The Guidebook. It will assist you in understanding how your new world will work.] The One chuckles strangely at this last statement. A bright pulse appeared on his screen, labeled ¡°The Guidebook¡± Below it, another tab appeared, labeled Stats. Cade, still stuck and unable to move, sees these options appear on the display window in front of him as The One lists them off, although no attempt at selecting them works. The One laughs. [You not only need to fight Animals, but you had best hold hope that the darker minded of your kind do not become corrupted by my power. I offer to all the chance to gain some of my power; to gain rewards and boons from me. You must simply kill other Humans in my name. I will see your offer.] Cade was having a tough time comprehending what was happening, but he had managed to calm himself down enough to slowly catch up to what The One was telling them. He had spent many hundreds of hours in his childhood sucked into whatever tabletop games he could get a hold of, and was very familiar with basic game lore. He quickly realized he was starting to equate what was being told to him to some of the RPG elements of his childhood favorites. Cades'' parents had been killed in a car accident just before his 11th birthday, leaving him under the care of his uncle. Although he had been greatly wounded by the death of his parents, his Uncle Mike was a pleasant man and took good care of Cade. He had purchased as many guidebooks for Cade as he could afford; Dungeons and Dragons, video game walkthroughs, and various other board games that had quickly become an obsession for Cade. He found that his ability to escape within a new world really helped him through cope with his own. Cade was brought out of his thoughts by the same perverse voice booming in his head. [Now, here is where you should make sure you pay attention. Although my location won¡¯t be hidden, access to me will be limited. Only once my Divine Protectors have been defeated in combat can I be reached. But, there are other requirements.] [In order to reach my Divine Protectors, of which there are 15 distributed to territories randomly throughout the planet, you must defeat all 100 Dark Scions. These Scions can be found scattered throughout, and the best part is¡­ the longer they go without being defeated, the stronger they get. So get to killing if you want to ever have hope of reaching me.] [None of your inventions, of any kind, will work anymore. No technologies whatsoever. I also am beholden to informing you to read the Guidebook section on Mana Generation, although I refuse to give you further chances to gain knowledge¡­ after all, I want to watch you die.] [If you manage to defeat me, your world will be restored. The animals returned to normal, and I will leave you alone.] [Finally, after I release you, you will be presented with a choice of weaponry. You will have 15 minutes to choose a weapon type or one will be assigned to you at random. Once that 15 minutes ends, your world will resume, with all changes having taken effect from then on.] [Fight for your lives, Humanity. I look forward to watching you all perish.] The New World Order The New World Order Before Cade could understand or comprehend what had happened, the voice had disappeared and he found himself falling forward. It looked as if nothing had changed. He caught himself on a streetlight pole nearby, reaching up to rub his eyes. They weren¡¯t dry, even though they had been forcibly open for several minutes. He could hear other people also coming out of their frozen stupor, and the sounds of cars crashing could be heard on the street nearby. People screaming brought his attention back to what had happened. He glanced at the phone in his hands, expecting it to light up familiarly, but no dice. He assumed he had suffered some type of panic attack, that maybe all of that had not been real and had been in his head. That was the best explanation and soothed his quickly beating heart. But his phone did not turn on, even after attempting to hold the power button down. He was stunned, wondering if it had been real after all. A strange ringing sound, like the sonar ping noise that submarines made in movies, was going off somewhere nearby, and looking around, he remembered his friend. The only person in his immediate vicinity was Brandon, having fallen to his knees, hands palm down flat against the concrete sidewalk. There were other people further down the sidewalk, similarly having fallen or caught themselves from falling. Cade noticed there were people crawling out of cars or untangling themselves from their bikes. The strangest thing of all was the golden retriever just across the street. Its owner had let go of its collar, hands on her face, crying, presumably coming to terms with what had just happened. She was clearly panicked and had forgotten about her dog, but that''s not what perturbed Cade. The dog wasn¡¯t moving. It was still frozen, and as Cade looked around he realized that the various other animals nearby were much the same. He spotted several other birds in the air nearby the one that he had been looking at before, as well as a cat perched high up on a wall above a restaurant. None of them were moving, frozen just as Cade had been. That¡¯s when it hit him, and seemingly everyone else. Loud wails, yelling, and muffled crying could be heard in several directions. Cade looked around, carefully moving over towards Brandon. Reaching Brandon, he grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him to his feet. Brandon was 6¡¯2, slightly taller than Cade, but was wiry and lean, making it easy for Cade to haul him to his feet. Brandon made a noise that sounded like words, but they came out so muffled Cade couldn¡¯t make them out. ¡°Brandon, what? I didn¡¯t hear you. What the fuck is happening right now?¡± Cade asked. ¡°Fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds,¡± Brandon responded louder. ¡°What? Fourteen minutes¡­?¡± Cade said, confused. Then he remembered what The One had said. Once they were unfrozen they would have fifteen minutes to choose their weapons. He noticed that the ringing was still steadily going off in the background, and Cade had noticed a small blinking light barely perceptible in the upper left hand of his vision. He tried to reach out to it with his hand, but was unable to reach it, his hand just displayed behind it, with it still in sight. ¡°I figured it out, you have to mentally reach out to it, it also stopped the ringing, and dude¡­ this is trippy beyond belief. Try it.¡± Brandon quickly informed Cade. Cade thought directly at the blinking light and tried to command it to open. Immediately that same blue opaque window appeared, covering most of his field of vision. Displayed at the top was a solid line of text that read, Choose Your Weapon. Below that was a selection of menus that Cade guessed he could mentally command to open. ~ CHOOSE YOUR WEAPON ~
2H Swords
Blunt Weapons
Duel Wield (1H+)
Duel Wield (1H per Weapon)
Shields
Pugilism
Oversized Weaponry
Ranged Weaponry
Cade was fairly familiar with something like this weapon selection. It seemed to be loosely based off of some kind of RPG tabletop selection. He figured starting at the first option would be smart and mentally commanded the first category, the Swords tab, to open. He mentally directed his attention to the Longsword option and a floating blade appeared in front of him, spinning point up in a circle as if it were attached to a pedestal. Cade was getting excited as he realized he was going to get to see every weapon like this. He looked at the edge of his vision and could see Brandon looking off into the air next to him, likely also looking through his weapon options. Cade moved on from the Longsword, taking a look at the aggressive looking Katana that appeared in front of him. He was familiar with the uses of this blade, but was not interested in a single edged blade. Cade had started spiraling quickly into what the best option for him would be. He quickly looked through the other three options, being unsure of what the third option, the Chinese Miao Dao was. He brought it up in front of him and moved through the others. Ultimately he wasn¡¯t interested in the other single edged options. The Zweihander seemed too large for his frame. Standing at just under six feet tall, he knew that a long blade may not be the ideal weapon typing for him. ~ Swords - 2 Hand ~
Longsword Traditional two handed blade with cross guard and pommel. Twin edged Blade.
Katana Japanese style curved blade. Single sided Blade
Miao Dao Chinese style curved blade. Single sided Blade
Zweihander German style two handed, Twin edged Blade.
Falchion European style cleaver sword, Single edged Blade
Cade moved onto the next category, the 1Hand+ options. The description was not excellent for what it was, but he chalked that up to The Guidebook being fairly basic to start. He guessed that many people would likely only glance over the physical images anyway, but made sure to mentally catalog every weapon for later. ~ Swords - 1 Hand + ~ The [1 Hand +] Category will allow the selection of a single choice of the below, and then further choice of any secondary true 1 handed weapon or 1 handed shield to be wielded in your other hand.
Gladius Roman style, Twin edged Blade.
Rapier European style, Twin edged Blade.
Falcata Spanish style, Single edged Blade.
Talwar Indian style, Single edged Blade
Khopesh Egyptian style, Single edged Blade
Short Sword European style, Twin edged Blade
Wakizashi Japanese style, Single edged Blade.
The 1Hand+ weapons were clearly a better choice for Cade over the previous selections, even though the Longsword was probably the best option from the 2 Handed selections. As he viewed the options for this category, a Gladius appeared in front of him, slowly rotating. He noticed that it was much smaller than the longsword, but had a slight double inward curve in the center of the blade with a twin edge giving it a distinct ¡°gladiator¡± or Roman soldier look. It had a bronzed hue, with a small square hilt and single hand black grip. Cade favorably filed this one away and continued on down the list. The Rapier was a long thin blade, twin edged, with an ornate hilt and hand guard surrounding a plain looking grip. This selection was much more Cade¡¯s style, but the Gladius still seemed like a better option. Cade skimmed through the other options, not as interested in the single edged Falcata, Talwar, and Khopesh that appeared in front of him. The short sword would also have been a good option, as it was dual edged and would fit his intended style better. Cade noted the timer still present at the top of his menu and saw it was already down below ten minutes. He had to hustle through his options. Moving onto the Blunt Weapons, he noted that these would likely be brutal and heavy weapons capable of breaking through armor and shattering bones. He didn¡¯t think this style was going to work for him and quickly moved on after viewing each item briefly. ~ Blunt Weapons -2 Hand ~
Morningstar Blunt Mace with Spiked Protrusions
War Hammer Massive single faced hammer.
Stave Long Hardened Wood staff.
Maul Crude stone or metal club, normally oversized.
The Dual Wield option looked to be what most people would refer to as rogue weaponry, or assassination style blades. Cade had a guess that Brandon would likely pick from this menu, but knew he was not interested in that type of weapon through previous interaction with games and tabletop campaigns. It just wasn¡¯t his style. They sure did look cool though, Cade thought. ~ Dual Wield (1H per Weapon) ~ *Note - you may equip any weapon listed here in dual wield (1 weapon per hand.) Both hands will equip the same weapon.
Ka-Bar American style, twin edged short Blade.
Axe/Hatchet Longer reach, basic design. Single BladeIf you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Baselard European style, twin sided Blade
Stiletto European style, stabbing/thrusting Blade.
Push Dagger Very small, pointed edged Blade.
Seax Norwegian Single edged Heavy Blade.
Hudie Dao Chinese style Single edged Heavy Blade
Eight minutes remained on the timer, and Cade was excited to check out the next option. The oversized weaponry tab was back to being two handed, but Cade was looking forward to seeing what options would be presented to him. He mentally tasked the Spear to appear in front of him. Longer than he was tall, with a plain long flat spearhead on the tip of one end, a matching metal cap about six inches in length on the opposite end. Cade knew this could be a very versatile weapon, but it still didn¡¯t land above the one handed swords he previously viewed. The next option was the Slayer Sword, which floated where the spear just was. It was massive, at least a foot in width on the blade, nearly six feet long, not counting another two foot hilt and crossguard. This thing was massive, but there was no way Cade would be able to lift such a monstrosity. He moved on, pulling up the Glaive but not really giving it much thought. The Great Axe was another massively oversized weapon, nearly equivalent in size to the Slayer Sword, but with two axe heads, one either side of the wide wooden haft. The Lance appeared in front of him, a long pointed blade like what could be seen in medieval jousting competition. Cade was unsure of why this weapon would be so specialized, but filed that away for later. It was absolutely massive, but looked as if it were only usable for piercing. The Trident was much simpler, resembling a giant fork, but with a very aggressive design, all three tips affixed with a razor sharp barb. Cade liked this option, but the idea of using a long spear just didn¡¯t catch his attention as much as a sword did. Moving on to the final option, one Cade wasn¡¯t even sure he could pronounce, he mentally opened the Macuahuitl and was taken aback by how crude and brutal this weapon looked. It was absolutely massive, with what looked like black serrated spikes protruding from a cricket bat. It had ornamental depictions up and down the wooden middle section, and looked to be over four feet long. Again, Cade realized this weapon would be way too large for him to utilize. ~ Oversized Weaponry - 2 Hand ~
Spear Old world style, twin edged point on end of wooden shaft.
Slayer Sword Oversized Greatsword. 6 ft. long blade.
Glaive European style, Single edged long polearm.
Great Axe Oversized axe, Two edged face on medium length wooden staff.
Lance European Style, mid range pointed weapon made for Piercing.
Trident Triple pointed spear, mid range.
Macuahuitl Aztec style, many edged, massive club.
With four minutes remaining, Cade moved into the shield category. He had guessed that being able to also pick a small shield would be possible, but seeing that he could wield a shield and a 1Hand+ weapon cemented in his mind what he wanted to choose. He knew he should view the other options though, and quickly pulled up each shield to spin around in front of him. The buckler was one he was very familiar with. Single hand use, small round shield face, this was likely a good option for Cade. The Heater Shield appeared in front of Cade and he unintentionally said woahhhhh out loud. This was definitely top of the list for him, even more so than the buckler. The Obstruction Shield was next, and it appeared in front of Cade, making him flinch back slightly as it followed its name to a tee. It obstructed almost the entirety of his vision. This thing was massive, clearly intended to be deployed as some type of wall or blocking surface. The Riot Shield was very familiar to Cade, but he knew as a two handed shield it likely wouldn¡¯t be in his future. The final choice, the Bladed Kite Shield was really cool. Cade hadn¡¯t seen this option before in any of his games, but could easily see how enticing an option it could be and guessed he would probably see several of them chosen by others. It allowed you to not only take big hits, being made of thick metal, but was nearly four feet at its widest near the top, with a taper as it moved downwards, ending in a vicious point clearly able to be used as a weapon. The thing was also nearly six feet front top to tip, giving it a crazy look for what it was. ~ Shields ~ *Note - A one handed shield may be used with a 1Hand+ weapon. A two handed shield may not be chosen with any other weapon at this time.
Buckler Small Shield, heavily adaptable. Usable with 1H+ Weapons.
Heater Shield One handed Kite shield, heavily adaptable. Usable with 1H+ Weapons.
Obstruction Shield Massive two handed shield used to temporarily deploy a wall.
Riot Shield Metal Shield two handed shield capable of stopping spells and blasts.
Bladed Kite Shield Metal two handed Kite Shield, usable for attacking as well as defending.
~ Ranged Weapons ~
Crossbow Medium range. Usable with a variety of bolts.
Longbow Long Range. Usable with a variety of arrow types.
Shortbow Short range. Usable with a variety of arrow types.
~ Pugilism ~
Gauntlets Thin metal coverings protecting hands. Equipped to both hands.
Brass Knuckles Brass formed hand weapons. Equipped to both hands.
Bare Fist No weapon equipped. Utilize current body.
Cade noticed that there was only a minute left on the timer, so he quickly scanned the Ranged and Pugilism tabs, noting the weapons and types. He returned to the 1Hand+ tab and picked the Gladius, before moving down to the Shield tab to select the Heater Shield. Cade still didn¡¯t quite understand why they were selecting weapons, but the warning of receiving a randomized weapon did not seem like something he wanted to risk. Cade''s selections were highlighted as the timer ticked down, and upon hitting zero, the window in front of him disappeared and he was suddenly holding a sword in his right hand, and had a shield on his right forearm. Looking at his friend next to him, he noticed that Brandon had chosen one of the Dual Wield options. ¡°What did you choose, man? Those look pretty deadly.¡± Cade asked. ¡°I chose the Seaxes. They kinda remind me of small shaped butcher knives but they feel good and aren¡¯t too heavy,¡± he responded. ¡°Okay, so what happens now?¡± Cade continued. He was unsure of what they were supposed to do now, but that unsuredness quickly disappeared as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a guttural growl emanating from somewhere. Cade looked around, scanning the area for whatever had made that noise, when his eyes stopped on a monstrous moving form. Where the golden retriever had been frozen before, the thing had turned a sickly black color and its form was rapidly moving and changing. It was starting to grow and expand, and he could see the head starting to form, larger than normal teeth appearing on a slightly larger than normal head. ¡°Brandon¡­¡± Cade motioned his friend to check out what was happening. ¡°Uhhh¡­ is that dog transforming? We need to get out of here fast.¡± Brandon commented. ¡°Go go go, we need to get home before this shit show starts.¡± Cade and Brandon took off in the direction of their apartment. In the background they heard a loud deep noise, similar to a bark but different enough that they did not want to turn to look. Screaming soon started echoing in all directions, and it sounded like collective panic had set in as other people noticed animals changing and becoming twisted versions of their old selves. ¡°Cade, we need to stay away from the animals, I think all of them are changing like that guy said they would.¡± Cade shook his head as he ran, struggling to run with a sword and shield in his hands. He was constantly making sure to keep the sharp edge of his sword from running into objects, or himself. Brandon reached out and pushed against Cade as they rounded a corner, pointing towards the alley nearby their apartment. ¡°We should go in the back way, hopefully we won¡¯t run into anyone or any animals.¡± Brandon quietly said. ¡° Does this mean every pet is also going to be transformed?¡± Cade found himself shaking his head back and forth as he considered what his friend was asking, before responding with a simple, ¡°I don¡¯t know. I guess we need to be careful from here on out.¡± Cade and Brandon walked into an entrance on the south side of their building. They knew that their building had a limit on pet size, but they also knew that people didn¡¯t always listen to that, or just had a litany of other animals that lived with them. As they turned up the stairs, they climbed up to the second story, carefully peering around the top of the stairway and seeing nothing, they turned to go up the next flight. Turning the landing of the next set of stairs, they found themselves face to face with a massive spider. Cade jumped backwards, raising his shield and sword, knocking Brandon over behind him. As he went to react, the world flashed around them and suddenly they were in a much larger version of the hallway their apartment was set off of. Looking around, Cade could see Brandon picking himself off the floor to stand behind Cade, and down the enlarged hallway he could see the spider, or what was once a spider, looking at them. It was like they had been teleported from the small stairway before, and been taken to a much more open space, but one that was heavily reminiscent of where they were taken from. Above the spider''s head was a dark red bar, and the spider itself was a shade of the darkest black Cade had ever seen. Text appeared above the monstrous form, it read ¡°Twisted Spiderling.¡± ¡°This must be what happens when we come across an animal. What¡¯s the plan Cade?¡± Brandon asked. Cade shrugged but added, ¡°We need to figure that this thing is going to have some type of new power or ability. Better to be safe than risk dying. Let¡¯s approach and see if we can carefully go about this.¡± As Cade and Brandon moved closer, Cade upfront with his shield raised in front of him, Brandon a step behind with his knives ready, they took in the Spiderlings form. It was nearly the size of a small dog, but looked as if it had been given a thicker set of limbs and had just as many eyes as before. The Spiderling did not wait for them to approach, and caught the approaching duo off guard as it scurried rapidly towards the wall to their left, finding easy purchase as it ran up the wall and onto the ceiling, peering down at them with too many eyes to count. Cade could hear the clicking of its mandibles as it started moving towards them, only stopping 15 or so feet away to aim its abdomen at them. As it did, a fluid shot out, moving quickly towards Cade. He raised his shield, and was surprised to find that the shield countered the attack for the most part. His surprise quickly turned to fear as he saw the fluid-like substance fall from the face of his shield to hit the carpeting of the hallway, burning a hole through it as he watched. He quickly looked down at his shield face, relieved to see that no damage had been done to it. Without turning, he shakily motioned for Brandon to look down at the ground, ¡°Holy shit, let''s avoid getting hit by that please. This one is going to be your fight, shield man.¡± Brandon said. Cade nodded, and without looking away from the Spiderling this time, told Brandon to drop back and try to sneak around as he got near. The hallway had been expanded to what looked like nearly 40 feet wide, and had hopefully given them ample room to flank the Spiderling. The roof hadn¡¯t been expanded by quite as much, being only a foot or so taller than it previously had been. Brandon acknowledged Cade quietly and backed away, carefully trying not to draw the attention of the spider. Cade took slow steps forward, trying to get near enough so he could utilize his sword. He had selected the Roman style Gladius, so his reach was sub par in this situation. He had to get close enough to catch the Spiderling off guard, and quickly. He didn¡¯t want to risk him or his friend getting hurt. As Cade approached the enemy, the Spiderling lunged from the ceiling towards Cade, dropping with much more force than Cade had expected. It crashed into his upraised shield, pushing against him with enough strength to knock him down. Cade cried out as he hit the ground hard, sword clattering away as he dropped it. He cursed his mistake, but grabbed ahold of his shield with both hands now, trying to keep the spider from crushing his arm. He managed to get his right hand underneath his left arm and shoved hard enough that the Spiderling was dislodged, falling a few feet backwards away from Cade. Scrambling to reach his sword, he heard a dull thud and turned to see that Brandon had managed to swing one of his blades at the Spiderling. The thing reacted by screeching louder than should have been possible before jumping away. The red bar above it had reduced slightly, but Cade noticed that it hadn¡¯t taken much from the total. ¡°Cade, you good? Brandon called out, already retreating back towards Cade. ¡°Yeah, just caught me by surprise with that jump. I¡¯m all good.¡± Brandon nodded as he settled in next to Cade. ¡°Looks like I was unable to damage it with these blades, it¡¯s hard, like really hard. I think you¡¯re going to have to get it with your sword. Mine aren¡¯t heavy enough.¡± ¡°I¡¯m thinking I''m going to try with my shield. See if you can get it to focus on you. I¡¯m going to try to crush it.¡± Cade said as he moved towards the right side of the expanded hallway. Brandon raised his blades and smacked the flat sides together whilst yelling obscenities at the Spiderling, running towards the left most wall. It quickly turned towards him and started moving quickly towards his position. Cade quietly lined himself up perpendicular to Brandon, and seeing that the Spiderling was charging his friend, he started running shield first to intercept. He got close and a loud yell left his throat as he collided with the Spiderling, crushing it against the wall. He felt it give way, and felt liquid splash his shield as it was pancaked between his shield and the wall. He recovered and stepped back, panting. ¡°You alright, man?¡± He asked Brandon. He looked over to see Brandon spitting and wiping black goo off of his face, obviously having received a large portion of the monster''s insides in his direction. Cade couldn¡¯t help but laugh seeing this, and moved to help his friend. As he started moving towards him, the world around them flashed and they appeared back at the edge of the stairway of their apartment building. The strange pinging noise had started up again and Cade mentally brought up his menu again, seeing that a notification light was illuminated. He selected the notification and another menu appeared. Underneath his name was listed, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Durability, and Mana Generation. Next to each listed category was a single letter. Every one of them showed as F Rank, except for his Strength. It was highlighted in bright letters, but Cade wasn¡¯t sure if anything had changed, without any prior information or benchmarks to build off of. He turned and asked Brandon, ¡°Hey, you get a notification to check your stats? One of mine is highlighted but it still shows F Rank.¡± Brandon was nodding along, saying that his was much the same, but it was his Dexterity that had been highlighted. ¡°Cade, look at the other notification, I got 5 Void Coins and a Spider Carcass.¡± ¡°Oh yeah, looks like I also got 5 of those coins, but I also got an Acid Sac as well. Must be for hitting the finishing blow? I guess monsters will drop things based on their bodies?¡± ¡°I guess so? Can¡¯t be sure till we can see the results of more fights, but I think that the highlighted stat we got must mean we did something to raise that stat?¡± Cade pondered. ¡°We should get inside, see if we can barricade the door for now and really look into these menus.¡± Brandon answered. ¡°Yeah, we definitely should. I¡¯ll lead the way, keep an eye on our back?¡± Cade responded. Brandon nodded affirmatively. They were lucky to have gotten away without injury in their first fight, even scoring some loot, but Cade was left wondering how the rest of his friends were faring. He hoped that some of them had escaped to relative safety. Whats On The Menu? Cade and Brandon managed to get back to their apartment without needing to fight any other monsters. They barricaded the door with the refrigerator, noting that it was no longer on, which meant it was basically useless to them. They covered their windows and finally sat down to check out their menus. Their weapons were kept very close, but both of them were exhausted from all of the crazy fight or flight endorphins, as well as the general stress they had started to feel after realizing how many people were gone. Brandon had started drifting off almost immediately, which didn¡¯t bother Cade at all; he figured one of them should probably be on some kind of watch until they figured out a better plan. Cade pulled up the menu mentally, scanning the options. The Guidebook was the first option available, and opening it with a thought Cade quickly flipped through the pages. It was blank. Completely and utterly blank. He laughed as he realized the bastard that put them into this hellish nightmare had gifted them a blank book. He did notice that there was an option to add something to the book, but while he was checking it out he watched as an entry appeared on the first page. It read [Everyone is gone. I had to fight my puppy. My girlfriend died.] Cade re-read this several times, the blunt delivery of the statement landing harder in his exhausted state. He selected the edit function and mentally pushed out the message, [My friend and I are in Portland, we had to fight a massively oversized spider thing. It was called a Twisted Spiderling. It could shoot acid from its abdomen and we were only able to kill it with blunt physical attacks, my friends'' knives just glanced off of it. When it died, we each received something called Void Coins, and I received an Acid Sac. The spiderlings Carcass also dropped.] As he watched, several things were recorded below his own entry, people obviously having found the option to record their thoughts or advice down into the book. A lot of it was panicked and not easy to understand, but some of it was helpful. Cade read something about an inventory, and backed out of the Guidebook menu after reading that you could mentally summon your inventory just like you could your menu. He did so and found a basic display with the items he had received from the fight, his weapons, and other blank spaces. He closed out of it and picked up his sword, commanding it to store in his inventory. It disappeared as he watched, to his amazement, and he tried to resummon it back to his hand. It appeared without delay. ¡°This is truly amazing,¡± Cade thought. ¡°How can this just be integrated so suddenly? How long were we actually blacked out for this to be forcibly shoved into our heads?¡± Picking up his shield, he commanded them into his storage, both disappearing. ¡°What an amazing system.¡± Cade said aloud. Brandon woke up with a start, grabbing one of his Seax knives and raising it up wide eyed. ¡°What, what happened?¡± He aimed his words towards Cade, and Cade gently raised his arms in an attempt to calm him. ¡°Nothing, I figured out some of the menu though, just got a little excited about it. Check this out!¡± He proceeded to summon both his shield and sword into his hands, then commanded them to drop back into his storage. ¡°What the hell¡­ how¡¯d you do that?¡± Brandon asked. ¡°You just have to mentally tell it to return to your storage and I guess whatever Item you¡¯re holding will just be unsummoned and vice versa?¡± Cade excitedly responded. Brandon did what Cade said several times in succession, mouth wide as he watched them appear and disappear as if from thin air. ¡°Take a look at your menu too, and command your inventory to open, take a look at what you got.¡± As Cade said this, he also opened his menu again. This time choosing to select the Void Coin, but just one, to appear. The coin appeared in his right hand, an approximately dime shaped black hole sitting in his palm. He was taken aback by how dark this thing was, and turning it in his fingers, couldn¡¯t understand how it looked like the entirety of space was contained in a fingernail sized coin. ¡°Wonder what these are for.¡± Brandon floated the question out loud. ¡°Not sure, maybe there is some type of shop we can access or find? Seems like it would jive with what we have seen so far. I think anything is possible right now.¡± ¡°We need to figure out if anyone is still alive, you know, but how do we even go about that¡­ My phone is dead and I don¡¯t think anything else is working properly.¡± Brandon stated. ¡°Who is the closest to us now, like who is the safest to check on?¡± ¡°Probably Kaia? Or Tara? If that announcement is to be believed, that thing said that all of the religious people are gone, that means my parents and siblings are gone.¡± Brandon had a shaky relationship with his family at best, so it didn¡¯t feel like he was saying this to gain sympathy, but the heaviness of the statement still made Cade¡¯s heart sink into his stomach. He thought about his own parents, gone nearly 15 years now. With no siblings, Brandon had become Cade¡¯s closest family, along with some of their other friends. ¡°We should plan out a route to go find one of them, see if they are safe in their homes before we do anything else.¡± Cade said. Brandon had often mused about his feelings for Kaia, but had never tried to act on them and had never made them an issue before. Cade knew he was suggesting to go find them out of an emotional reaction, but he also couldn¡¯t fault him for it. It was a decent enough idea to go try to find others to group up with, so Cade voiced his agreement, but with a caveat. ¡°I do agree we should go find Kaia, she¡¯s the closest and likely was home at the moment this all happened. I know she likes to stream around this time. But first we need to make sure we have a handle on how this menu operates. Any advantage at this point could save our lives. This shit is serious.¡± Cade explained to Brandon the rest of what he had found, including the Guidebook, and they both also noticed several other options. Stats they had already looked at, and Abilities and Skills were grayed out, unable to be mentally selected. The other three options were; The One, , Communications and Party Menu. Selecting The One pulled up three lines of text.
The One: LOCKED Divine Protectors: LOCKED - 15/15 Dark Scions: 100/100
This menu had nothing that was selectable, and none of the titles presented or the numbers shown next to them were selectable whatsoever. Clearly this was a purposeful feature meant to taunt humanity. Cade exited out, choosing to not give much thought to something he couldn¡¯t do anything about. The Communication Center was completely blank as well. Moving on, he selected the Party Menu. It was simplistic, but had the option to invite someone to join your Party. He selected this option, and mentally willed it to add Brandon. The invite was immediately accepted and Brandon¡¯s name appeared in his Party Menu highlighted in Blue. His name was flashing, and he mentally prodded it to see what it wanted. As he did, a sub menu opened and asked if he wanted to assign a nickname. ¡°What do you want your nickname to be? Seems like if we have the option, maybe we should utilize it? Keep our names to ourselves? What do you think?¡± Cade asked Brandon. He was silent for a minute, obviously contemplating what he wanted his nickname to be. After another moment he said aloud, ¡°Crow.¡± Cade changed the name in the Party Menu, and looking over at Brandon, noticed for the first time as a title appeared in his vision as he viewed Brandon. He also noticed a green health bar appear at the edge of his vision, with Brandon¡¯s new nickname displayed directly above it. Cade figured this must be his health bar, noting that it was bright green compared to the sickly red that the Spiderlings had been. ¡°Looks like I can also select a new name for myself, and your nickname and healthbar are visible to me now. Is it showing for you?¡± Cade inquired. ¡°Yeah, same here. I can see your real name for now, and there''s a greenish bar below it. Looks like I can move that health bar around within my vision, that¡¯s pretty neat.¡± Brandon¡¯s eyes flicked around, obviously playing with the new HUD-esque menu that was now available to them. ¡°Kind of looks like there are two more slots in our party menu, at least based on the space it shows, so maybe we can add another two people to our party?¡± Brandon shrugged but acknowledged Cades question with an affirming nod, not looking up from whatever he was checking out. ¡°Alright, let''s see if we can pack some essentials; food, clothes, etc. and get out of here. We need to get to Kaia¡¯s ASAP.¡± Cade got up and started gathering the clothing he had in his room and any food he could find. He wasn¡¯t sure what they would be able to do with the food they had, if it would go off in their storage, or if storage was even possible. Cade decided to test it by commanding a box of cereal into his inventory. It disappeared, and opening his inventory was able to confirm it was still there. He brought it back out, and it looked completely unchanged. ¡°Interesting, looks like we can utilize this inventory for food and hopefully other stuff too.¡± Cade remarked. He proceeded to stick his clothes into his inventory, pull them out, and noticed that they came out exactly the same way they went in. He pondered the implications of this, but they didn¡¯t have time to test every aspect of their new world. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Brandon had gathered his things and summoned his knives a few times, testing their newly found instant item deployment. ¡°Pretty damn cool, you know¡­ besides everyone dying.¡± Brandon mused dryly. They put everything away, freeing up their hands to climb up and out their back window, taking advantage of the fire escape to hopefully avoid any animals that may have been transformed within their apartment building. Brandon slowly opened the window, pushed the screen out, and looking around, quietly and carefully moved out onto the small landing. He motioned Cade to join him and they closed the window. They were only three stories up from the alley below them, but moving down this metal deathtrap would not be fun, or quiet. Brandon moved down to the next landing, Cade following a ladder length behind to not overload the old metal. Brandon dropped down to the bottom most landing and waited for Cade. They both knew they would need to drop the final ladder, likely causing quite the commotion and wanted to be able to quickly descend just in case they caught the attention of something or someone. Brandon raised three of his fingers and mouthed a countdown, at zero he opened the latch and the metal ladder shot downward with a horrifyingly loud screeching sound. Cade exhaled loudly and grated his teeth, shooing Brandon to get down the ladder, following him closely behind. The three or so feet that the ladder left of open space between it and the ground was easy enough to drop from, but as Cade let go to land on the ground, a nightmarish chittering sound started echoing around them. Brandon had turned to face the south side of the alley, Seax knives drawn, looking for whatever had made the noise. Cade summoned his shield and gladius and moved to cover Brandon¡¯s back. ¡°Cade, my side, 20 feet.¡± Cade turned his head slightly to take a look and saw a monster come out of a trashcan placed against the side of the alley. ¡°It¡¯s a fucking raccoon monster. Are you kidding me?¡° Brandon muttered. ¡°It still hasn¡¯t done the fight teleport thing though. Let¡¯s test out the distance for that. I¡¯m going to slowly advance towards it, cover my back, but stay close.¡± Cade acknowledged him and turned halfway around so he could easily see both sides of the alleyway. The chattering sound was absolutely coming from the raccoon, and it got louder as they approached. It was strangely enough the same size as a normal raccoon, but the portions of it that were normally black on a normal raccoon, had been transformed and turned into the same void-like coloring that their Void Coins held. At about 10 feet away the monster charged, but as soon as it moved, the world flashed and they appeared in the same type of situation as before. The alleyway had increased to probably five times the original space, and the monster was still ten or so feet from them. They could see the red bar above it, and the monster''s name was displayed above it, Cursed Procyon. The Chittering moved up in volume, nearly deafening them, which Cade noted was odd coming from such a small body. As it hit the height of its volume, Brandon shouted in pain and clutched his head, dropping both Seax knives around him. Below Brandon¡¯s name appeared the words; CONDITION: Cursed - Shattering Screech. Cade¡¯s own ears started to hurt near instantly after and he was also taken to his knees in pain. He managed to keep his eyes on the monster as the noise it produced dropped away. Cade also had the same condition displayed underneath his health bar, and noticed we was unable to hear. He pushed into Brandon with his shield, and tried to say something to him, but if sound had come out of his mouth, he was unable to hear it. Brandon looked up at him and mouthed something, but Cade couldn¡¯t catch it. Brandon had picked up his Seax¡¯s and pointed them towards the monster, and as Cade turned, he noticed that the raccoon thing was charging them. Brandon took a swing as it got into range and managed to take a chunk out of the right side of the Procyon, knocking it off its course. Its health bar dropped marginally, but the damage was enough to tell that they had hurt it. It still managed to get its claws into Cade¡¯s left leg though, cutting into his jeans and the skin below as it moved past him. They both turned to face it, and Cade raised his shield in painful anger, sword held overhead ready to stab the thing if it charged again. Brandon must have been pretty pissed off at this point, because he started to run at the Procyon, making a bee line to cover the eight or so feet between them. As he got close the Procyon stood up slightly on its back legs and lunged forward. Brandons left knife flashed out in front of him, spearing the thing through the abdomen, his right knife coming around behind it to take it in the neck. The raccoon hadn¡¯t had time to react, and cried out soundlessly as it died. Their vision flashed, and they appeared back in the real world alley. Brandon looked back towards Cade, and Cade noticed that his hearing had started to come back, this time when Brandon spoke, he could hear the words, but they were extremely dull. He raised his hand in a waiting motion and pointed to his ears. He checked out their health bars and noticed that the Condition from before was gone, and Cade¡¯s health, which had taken a slight hit during the fight, had started to regenerate and was almost back to full. It took close to another fifteen seconds before his hearing fully returned, and he heard Brandon cursing the family of the Procyon under his breath. Cade called his name and Brandon snapped his head around, realizing he could also hear again. ¡°What did you get? It looks like I got a Partial Voidling Hide, 5 more Void Coins, and fuckin hearing damage. Hilarious.¡± He said the last part with as much sarcasm as he could muster. ¡°Yeah, I got the Partial Hide and the Coins, but I also got a weird colored item, it says it¡¯s called a Home Stone.¡± Brandon responded, and as he did he brought out the Home Stone, showing it to Cade. ¡°What does it do, does it have some kind of description?¡± ¡°Not that I can tell. It has a bluish moving colored name, but it doesn¡¯t come with an explanation.¡± Brandon informed him. ¡°Okay, guess we just store it for now and take a look at it later when we are somewhere safe? We need to hustle to Kaia¡¯s place.¡± Cade told him. They both moved to walk towards the end of the alleyway, peering out in either direction to look for potential danger. Seeing nothing, they turned down the south side of the road and started jogging down the sidewalk, weapons at the ready, swiveling their heads to look for any threats. They managed to get down four streets before they saw anything, but as they went to turn the corner of the street their friend''s house was on, they nearly ran face first into a small group of younger looking humans. Jumping back and out onto the street, each member of the other group raised their weapons. Cade and Brandon raised their weapons as well. Cade spoke up first, ¡°We don¡¯t want to fight other people, we just want to get into that house.¡± He pointed to a small building several houses down from them. ¡°You know Kaia?¡± One of the other party members returned harshly. The speaker looked to be the one in front, and Cade noticed how large his shield was. This must be one of the two handed selections, the Bladed Kite Shield. It was massive, dark gray, and had a lighter shinier edge to the entire thing, which Cade guessed was the offensive portion of the shield. He had it raised protectively in front of the group. He spoke up again, ¡°Answer me, we don¡¯t want to fight, but we will if we need to and you are outnumbered two to one.¡± Cade heard Brandon move back a step, probably trying to get a better angle to get around them if needed. ¡°Hold on, no need to be aggressive. I¡¯m going to unequip my weapons, can we agree to just talk for a minute instead of fighting?¡± Brandon whispered loudly beside him, ¡°Cade, what¡¯re you doing, we can¡¯t trust anyone right now and we need to get to Kaia. She¡¯s right there!¡± Cade calmly responded, ¡°I know, but if we can resolve this quickly, we can get around significantly faster than if we run from them and we are severely outnumbered right now, so weapons down.¡± ¡°My name is Cade, this is Crow.¡± As he said his own name, he commanded the withdrawal of his weapons into his storage and raised his palms forward in front of him. ¡°We don¡¯t want to fight you, but we need to get past you fast to get to our friend. Please let us by, and we will not bother you.¡± As Cade said this, he saw two of the other three that hadn¡¯t spoken up visually relax. The party looked to be made up of the shield wielder; a young man, hair tied behind him in tight dreads, a spear wielding kid shaking visibly, a very young looking woman - maybe 15 - with a longbow, and the fourth male comfortably and calmly held up a Khopesh and Buckler, almost mimicking what Cade had chosen. The shield wielder slightly turned his head, communicating quietly with his team before turning back to them. ¡°We don¡¯t want to fight either, and we are going to keep our weapons out, although we will lower them and let you by.¡± Brandon protested with a growl, but Cade raised his hand to stop him from commenting and told him to put his knives away. Brandon begrudgingly did so, and Cade called out that they could agree to that. The young shield wielder lowered his shield to the ground, point down in the ground, and called out to them. ¡°My name is King. Obviously not my real name, but that¡¯s how the world looks to be working now.¡± As King said his name, a notification appeared in Cade¡¯s vision, the pinging drawing him to the Communication Center. King¡¯s name was blinking, listed now. He mentally acknowledged the notification and saw King nod his head at him. ¡°We found out you can contact others that have given you their Chosen Name if both people accept. A goodwill notion, if you get me.¡± The other group all lowered their weapons, looking visibly calmer as they eyed Cade and Brandon. The tension in their faces was still clear, but that was understandable with everything that had happened to their world. ¡°Thank you, King and crew. Stay safe, there are some insane monsters roaming around here and they suck you into some kind of separate dimension to fight.¡± Cade offered some information as thanks. King nodded appreciatively, ¡°Thank you, we have yet to fight something as a group, but I ran into a massive hornet and it drew me into one of those pocket dimensions things. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was the new standard, but I think we can agree it likely is.¡± Cade and Brandon breathed out in unison, relaxing slightly as they moved across the street and past the small group on the other side. He heard King shout out, ¡°Good luck, I hope Kaia is alright. Let me know via the Communicating thing, you can send messages there.¡± Cade gratefully responded, ¡°Thanks, will do. You guys stay safe too.¡± Cat Snack After they moved past King¡¯s party, they picked back up into a jog, heading towards Kaia¡¯s house, weapons resummoned. They slammed on the door, trying to peer into the windows as they called for Kaia. ¡°Cade, quiet¡­ I think I can hear something.¡± Brandon shushed Cade. As they listened, they could hear scraping and knocking. They were unable to see anything inside due to the curtains, so Cade decided to kick in the door and figure it out from there. ¡°Hey, get ready. I¡¯m going to break it down.¡± He prepared himself, recalling his sword, but kept his shield out to use as a battering ram, trusting it more than his shoulder alone. Brandon¡¯s knives were at the ready and he nodded at Cade. Moving back to the edge of the threshold, he used a burst of speed to slam his shield into the door. Luckily this was a classically cheap rental door and it shattered around the lock, collapsing inward. As Cade fell forward, he landed with his arms out, luckily commanding his shield to recall as he fell. Unfortunately for him, he slipped on something as he landed and hit his chin fairly hard on the faux wood floor. Standing, he looked at his hands in the light of the doorway and scrambled backwards, realizing that what he had slipped on was blood. Brandon reached out a hand and helped Cade up, a sickly look to his skin as he pointed with his head towards the kitchen, which was immediately inside of the doorway. On the ground of the kitchen in a pool of blood and viscera, was Kaia¡¯s roommate, Bridget. Most of her face was missing, with deep troughs dug into her skin. It was disgusting and Cade had to look away. Cade was not used to death in any form, and he had known Bridget, so this was a gross sight for him. Even though it turned his stomach sideways, he was glad that it wasn¡¯t Kaia. Brandon expressed the same sentiment aloud, comforting Cade. Brandon had a lot more experience with this type of thing. He had served in the U.S. Military for two years as a frontline Surveillance Officer during the start of the Continental Alliance¡¯s formation. Although he was not directly involved with any ground offense, he was in charge of a sector of the inner states, where the war was predominantly fought, and was used to managing people through death and injury. Brandon helped stand Cade up and put a finger to his lips, asking for silence. They both heard what sounded like padded feet moving towards them and they watched as a massive void-black cat turned the corner towards them. The world flashed, and they appeared in a twisted version of Kaia¡¯s house. Immediately they both called their weapons and moved to stand facing the monstrous form in front of them. The thing had to be four feet tall at its head, with three tails instead of one, massive bone white teeth protruding from its mouth, and eyes shining the brightest unnatural red Cade had ever seen. The red bar appeared above the void black form, this time with a twist. Brownie, The Void Riddled. ¡°This thing has a name. I¡¯m going to assume that¡¯s not a good thing.¡± Brandon floated. Cade grunted in agreement. ¡°Follow me, back to the wall. We are going to draw it in and hit it hard. Get ready to get behind it if I can draw it towards me.¡± Cade said as he slowly moved sideways, shield and sword pointed at what was once Brownie the cat. They backed up to the wall behind them. As they moved, the Void cat charged at them, moving faster than any of their other fights had before. It reached out as it closed on them and a set of massive bone-white, oversized claws extended. Cade moved his shield to intercept, noting that there wasn¡¯t as much force behind the attack as he expected. ¡°The thing is playing with us, just like an actual cat.¡± Brandon said. As he said this the cat lunged again, but this time Cade was ready. He blocked the paw and sliced down, aiming for the neck with his gladius. He missed as it deftly dodged, letting out a low growl. Lunging back at them, Brandon maneuvered himself to Cade¡¯s left, hiding behind his shield, trying to stay in the cat''s blind spot. He waited for another strike before darting out to land a strike on the cat''s shoulder. His knife sunk down several inches before the cat jumped backwards, wrenching the knife from his hand. Cade cursed and rubbed his wrist, he had made the mistake of trying to hold onto the knife as the cat had leaped away. ¡°That took a decent chunk out of it, look at the bar.¡± Brandon said- the cat''s health showed it at just above half. ¡°Yeah, nice hit. Let¡¯s see what it does now, let¡¯s try to end this fast. I don¡¯t want to know what bag of tricks it has.¡± Cade said, but he had spoken too soon. As he finished his sentence, the Void cat dropped into a low stance, and a darkness started emanating from below it. The hairs on Cade¡¯s neck stood on end, and the cat screamed. The sound it produced was nowhere as loud as the Procyon, and didn¡¯t damage their hearing. What happened was arguably much worse, as everything went pitch black. Everything in their vision disappeared, and Cade yelled out to Brandon. He was able to respond, and Cade noted that he was still immediately beside him. He felt Brandon reach out and grab onto Cade¡¯s belt. Cade also noticed that the Cursed notification had returned. This time it said VoidBlind next to it. Cade raised his shield, unable to see what or where he was, and heard Brandon cry out in pain. ¡°It got me, took a fuckin chunk out of my arm. I¡¯ll live, but this thing is bleeding fast.¡± He could hear the pain in Brandon¡¯s voice, but his attention did not stay on him for long as he felt the Void cat smack aside his shield. The follow up was something Cade would never forget. He slashed out with his sword, catching something fleshy, feeling it run up to the hilt, a wet feeling appearing on his hand, dripping down on his pants and shoes. That wasn¡¯t the important bit though. Cade cried out in pain, and as the light returned to their eyes, the cat was dead, but four of the cat¡¯s claws had sunk into Cade¡¯s chest, several inches deep. Cade felt his head swim, and noticed his health plummeting fast. The weight of the cat on his chest went away as the world flashed, Cade falling hard backwards, barely being caught by Brandon behind him. He could just barely make out Brandon¡¯s left arm bleeding, and was having a hard time hearing Cade as his heartbeat pounded in his head as he passed out. Brandon Brandon scrambled to catch Cade as he fell, his vision clearing from the curse just quick enough to see him starting to fall, barely catching him before he hit his head on the floor of the house. He started inspecting Cade, his limited medical training, beaten into him through repeated drills guiding him through what to do. He started to yell for Kaia to call an ambulance, but quickly realized that wouldn¡¯t be an option. Cade had clearly passed out - his shirt shredded, skin much the same beneath as blood poured from the four wounds near his shoulder. Brandon knew Cade would bleed out if something wasn¡¯t done, and put pressure on the wound, yelling for Kaia for help. ¡°Brandon? Is that you? What is going on?¡± He could hear Kaia yelling from behind the door. ¡°I need help, Cade got hit, he¡¯s bleeding out. Get me some towels, we need to stop the bleeding!¡± He could hear Kaia scrambling to unblock the door before she barrelled through the open door, stopping and flinching when she saw Bridget on the floor nearby. Her eyes watered, but they didn¡¯t have time for that. ¡°Kaia, I know she''s dead, but I need you to help me right now. I need you to apply pressure here, find some towels.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Kaia opened a nearby closet, grabbing linens before running over to Brandon and Cade. She folded them and offered them to Brandon. ¡°No, I need you to apply pressure. I need to see if there is anything we can do about this.¡± He shakily said to her. ¡°What do you mean? What can we do?¡± Kaia asked as she took over for Brandon. ¡°Not right now, I¡¯ll tell you later after we save him.¡± Brandon commanded his menu to open, pulled out the Guidebook, and quickly wrote that his friend was dying and he needed help. Seconds passed, feeling like minutes as he hoped a solution or medical professional would read it. He knew it was a long shot, but it was all he could think of. [Do you have any Void Coins?] Appeared underneath his entry. He wrote back mentally, [Yes, what do they have to do with this?] [Pull out a coin, and will it to open the shop. If you have enough, there should be an option to buy a Regen Elixir.] Brandon called up a Void Coin and mentally shouted at it to open ¡°the shop.¡± His display changed from the normal shade of blue, to a deeply black shimmering window. Void Market flashed at the top of the window and a list appeared below it. He quickly read through the various options. Brandon mentally selected the consumables tab, scrolling through quickly, looking for something titled Regen Elixir. He found the tab, mentally selecting it, and was given several options. Selecting the first one, it brought up a price. 14 Void Coins. He pushed at the store to purchase the Unfiltered Regen Elixir, and was rewarded with a ping and a notice that it had been added to his inventory. Commanding the menu to close, he summoned the Elixir to his hand. He noted Cade¡¯s health had fallen to nearly a quarter of its total. ¡°Kaia, raise his head if you can, I¡¯m going to pour this into his mouth.¡± Kaia nodded and with a confused look on her face, lifted Cade¡¯s head onto her lap. Brandon gripped Cade¡¯s mouth and forcibly pulled his jaw apart. He unstoppered the dark liquid in the vial and breathed out. ¡°Come on buddy, I hope this works.¡± Pouring the liquid into his mouth slowly, he tried to give it time to make its way down. As he poured the last half of it out, he pulled the last few drops to his own mouth, hoping to maybe heal his arm a little. Nothing happened for several seconds, feeling like ages for Brandon and Kaia, before Cade sputtered and coughed. Brandon watched as his health stopped falling, breathing out in relief, the endorphins from the fight finally catching up to him. He noticed that his arm had stopped bleeding, his health only missing maybe an eighth of his total. As he relaxed, he noticed another notification had appeared. Bringing up his display, he saw that his inventory was lit up, and after selecting it he noticed that the Home Stone from before was backlit. He summoned it to his hand from his inventory, and suddenly a menu appeared. It was similar to the normal screen he saw, the only difference being the color and the text at the top. The text read, Establish Safe Zone? Brandon selected yes and the stone glowed gold before dissipating into motes of light, shooting away from him in every direction. He noticed that a new status had appeared below his and Cade¡¯s health in the corner of his vision. SAFE ZONE was written in large golden letters, but no other information was available, and he had other pressing matters to attend to. ¡°Kaia, can you stay with Cade? I¡¯m going to barricade the front door as best as we can, we destroyed it when we came inside earlier.¡± ¡°Uh yeah, I don¡¯t understand what is going on, but I¡¯ll stay with him.¡± Kaia responded, Brandon realizing just how scared and confused she probably was. ¡°Can you hand me that blanket? His breathing is evening out, but I think we should make him comfortable before we call the authorities.¡± She added. ¡°Kaia, there are no authorities. At least not like there used to be. We are on our own here. This shit is way above and beyond anything we have ever dealt with before. This is more akin to a video game or one of our D&D campaigns.¡± Brandon hadn¡¯t said that out loud, but he realized he had accepted it to be true for longer than he had realized. Leaving Kaia, he moved to block the front door, propping up the old destroyed pieces before pushing a couch behind it on its side to cover the actual entrance. He stepped past the kitchen and stopped. He needed to cover Bridget before Kaia remembered and actually saw what had happened. He pulled a blanket from another piece of furniture in the living room and threw it over Bridget''s body. He went back to Cade and Kaia, guessing that Kaia likely had a million questions. He went over and put his arm around her, comforting her in silence as he tried to find the words to explain what they had experienced so far. ¡°Kaia, Bridget is dead. It looks like Brownie was changed into a monster, and she was unable to hide. I am so glad you are safe. We came to find you as soon as we could. I¡¯m sorry we couldn¡¯t save her.¡± Emotions rushed into Brandon, the situation catching up to him, hitting him harder than he realized it would. He felt a tear fall from each eye, reaching up to wipe them before Kaia could notice. She was quicker than he was though, and gently wiped his cheek with her sleeve. ¡°It¡¯s okay Brandon, you guys have obviously been through a lot. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s going on, but I want to help. I don¡¯t want to die.¡± ¡°Thanks Kaia. I really am glad we got here in time. I know Cade feels the same.¡± As he said this, he heard Cade grunting, and turned his head to see Cade opening his eyes slowly, almost as if waking from a deep sleep. His health was above half way now, trending in the right direction. ¡°What happened? I remember not being able to see, and then pain.¡± Cade groggily got out. ¡°Dude you took a bunch of claws to the chest; they went deep. I don¡¯t know how it works, but I was able to buy a potion from some kind of store with the Void Coins we got from the fights before, and I made you drink it. It looks like it stabilized you and brought your health back from the edge. I was really worried man, I¡¯m glad you¡¯re good.¡± Brandon said warmly to him. ¡°A shop? I didn¡¯t see that option before, woulda been good to know ahead of time, huh.¡± Cade laughed lightly. ¡°Yeah man, now sit still and rest until your health returns to normal. I¡¯ll tell you how to access the store, and we can check it out. First I need to thank someone.¡± Brandon opened the Guidebook and found the past passage he had written out. Below it, he mentally wrote out a message. [Thank you to whoever it was that told me about the store. It saved my buddies life. I owe you one. Name¡¯s Crow.] [Glad your friend made it, Crow. Pleasure to meet you. I¡¯m Jury. I¡¯ll take you up on that if we ever meet.] Brandon closed the Guidebook, mentally noting that he should return to it and submit what they had found out when he had the chance. A Market of Choice Brandon turned towards Cade and Kaia, letting out a long kept breath, feeling the tightness of the last fight and the visual of Cade¡¯s dropping health wash away. He knew holding onto it would keep him from moving forward, and right now forward is the only direction they can go. Cade¡¯s health was ticking upwards steadily, so his concern was lessened considerably. ¡°Cade, see what you got. I¡¯m going to check mine too.¡± Pulling up his display, he realized that there was a similar light to before, this time though it had a golden illumination to it. In his inventory appeared an item that appeared to be glowing slightly. It read, ¡°Cloak of the Void Cat,¡± and he summoned it into his hands. He heard Cade whistle, clearly impressed seeing the cloak appear. It looked to Brandon like light just melted into the fabric. Void really was an apt description for whatever this thing was. He tried to bring up some information about the cloak, willing it to show him what it did, and a small menu the size of his hand appeared in front of it. Cloak of the Void Cat: Allows the wearer to melt into shadows and darkness. Provides advanced camouflage and gives a bonus to surprise attacks. Brandon was impressed; this would work well with his knives and certainly wouldn¡¯t hurt his new moniker, Crow. Giving him a bonus to surprise attacks and adding camo was not too shabby either. Another ping was sounding in his head. He acknowledged it, and it showed a rank increase in his stats, two this time. Both his Durability and his Dexterity had ranked up to E. There wasn¡¯t really a measurable way to tell at this time, but he did feel somewhat faster. Maybe fighting monsters was the best way to increase his stats. ¡°Cade, you get any stat increases?¡± ¡°Uhhhh yeah, looks like my Durability jumped to E; bummer it didn¡¯t before that fight, but also looks like my Strength made it to E as well.¡± Cade responded. ¡°That¡¯s good, my Durability did the same, but my Dexterity raised as well; not strength.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good. Probably the right thing to increase from that fight. That was a mean bastard, can¡¯t believe it was little, sweet Browney. I almost feel bad except for the part where it speared me in the chest, that hurt. I still don¡¯t understand how a liquid managed to heal me, but seems like the new normal in this strange new world.¡± Cade mused. ¡°I got a lot of coins from that one, 30 of them. Also got a Void Heart? Not sure what that is but it has a strange feeling to it when I view it. I¡¯ll see if I can find any information about it in the shop or Guidebook. Maybe we can see about any other items we have as well.¡± ¡°Good idea. Thanks again for keeping me alive there. I won¡¯t forget that.¡± Cade said as he looked Brandon¡¯s way. He just nodded and grunted in response. That was the moment Kaia decided to interject, and they both remembered she was there. ¡°So can one of you explain what is happening? I was frozen in my room, doing some paperwork on my laptop. I couldn¡¯t look away, and then everything went dark. I woke up and had no clue what to do, I was able to choose a weapon, but after the countdown went away, I started to hear screaming and horrible sounds coming from the kitchen. I pushed my bed up against the door and tried to stay quiet, but I could hear that monster¡­ Poor Brownie. He was such a good cat. And Bridget¡­¡± her voice dropped away, sadness becoming evident as she tried to hold back tears. ¡°She¡¯s dead, I know you told me, but what the hell is going on? What was that voice in my head?¡± Brandon put a hand on Kaia¡¯s arm and Cade sat up in front of her, his voice taking on a very gentle tone. ¡°We don¡¯t know much more than you do. It looks like every animal was changed into some kind of twisted version of itself. We had to fight a giant spider, a messed up raccoon thing, and now Brownie. Seems like it doesn¡¯t matter what it was before, the animals have been changed.¡± Brandon continued by saying, ¡°We got here sometime after Bridget had already been attacked. She likely got drawn into the¡­ other dimension, the pocket dimension as King called it, and wasn¡¯t able to beat it. All of the fights we have been forced into have taken place as soon as the creature was close enough to us to activate some kind of teleportation to another space. Each time the space has been relatively unchanged from wherever we were at the time of the monster appearing, but it is always much, MUCH bigger. The house we were just fighting in had to be at least five times larger than your actual house is. I don¡¯t know how.¡± Kaia had turned a significantly lighter shade, her normally bronzed skin ghost-like. ¡°Kaia, breathe. We are going to figure our way through this, yeah?¡± Cade said soothingly. ¡°We need to prepare ourselves, and we probably should worry about getting out of here in the morning. I don¡¯t know what time it is, but I¡¯d guess it¡¯s late enough we should try to get some sleep. I¡¯ll take first watch.¡± ¡°Brandon, you want to help her into her room? Probably shouldn¡¯t split up everyone entirely.¡± He said with a wink as Brandon nodded and helped Kaia to her feet, moving with her towards the door at the back of the room. A stray thought drew Cade¡¯s attention, ¡°Kaia, what weapon did you choose?¡± He figured if he was going to be up for a bit, he should probably try to gameplan their strategy a little with whatever knowledge they had. Kaia stopped before the threshold to her room and simply said, ¡°I chose a longbow, just like my campaign character.¡± Cade smiled and nodded appreciatively, having guessed already what she would say based on what he knew of her and the choices that were presented. ¡°Try to get some sleep guys. I¡¯ll wake one of you up in a while.¡± Cade sat down with his back to the wall near Kaia¡¯s room. He could soon hear the sounds of Kaia and Brandon breathing, having fallen asleep quicker than he could have. Brandon had saved his life, fought a couple of monsters, and had been gassed up on adrenaline all day. It made sense that he would be ready to crash. He for some reason wasn¡¯t tired, he guessed that was a side effect of the potion and his rest after the injury he had sustained. Curious as to the store Brandon had mentioned, he called up a Void Coin into his hand. Inspecting it gave him nothing new, but he figured trying to interact with it physically likely wouldn¡¯t come with new details. He instead mentally prodded it and thought of a shop. A new window, a different color than his regular display, appeared in front of him. Void Market, in black lettering, headlined the menu. Options appeared below. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. Fascinated, and with plenty of time to spare, Cade delved into the market. The weapons tab was blatantly obvious. It had the same types of weapons from before, but the prices were astronomically higher than he would have guessed. The basic longsword from before was over 1000 Void Coins. Most of the basic weapons he had seen in the original menu were at that price point. The only difference between the menu¡¯s he had seen and this one was the added weaponry available for purchase. There were previously unshown options. Some of them had prices in the thousands, others in the tens of thousands. He knew this wouldn¡¯t be relevant to him right now and decided to move on. The garments tab was structured the same way. Cade browsed through the different categories, unable to truly purchase anything with the meager amount of Void Coins he had. The Accessories tab caused Cade¡¯s jaw to drop, the pricing on them being many times higher than any of the other items. Their abilities ranged from stat bonuses, to protection skills and abilities. Cade had seen some clothing options that had similar usage, but these were on a different level. He would have to keep a close eye in the future on these, and hopefully get enough coins to get some good equipment. Consumables were a game changer. He knew first hand already how tough this new world was going to be for humanity, and seeing the options available for consumables had him building all types of gameplans in his head. There were throwable items, consumable items, as well as temporary stat boosters. Cade browsed through the potions, noting the potion that saved his life and its upgrades. He made sure to bookmark some of his coins to give to Brandon in return, and also purchased another Elixir for himself. ¡°Good use of 14 coins¡± he thought. Looking at the other options, which weren¡¯t affordable at all right now, was a hit to Cade¡¯s non-existent coin stash ego. The one thing he did see that was going to stay a constant was the food and water options available. Looks like Nutrient Packs and Water Flasks were available for purchase, which meant we have something to survive on, but also meant that people would need to earn Void Coins. Right now the only way he had earned any was through fights with monsters. Next on Cade¡¯s list was to send a message via his Communications tab to King. He had told him he would, and figured that might be a good relationship to build in this messed up world. [King, we found Kaia, she¡¯s alive and well. Going to add her to our party and get out of town if we can. Let us know if you guys need anything, I think we should make a habit of building up some relationships. Not many of us left anymore. Stay safe. - Cade] He closed out of his Communication tab and decided to add Kaia to their party. She could accept when they woke up, but Cade was going to be up for the whole night. No point in waking her or Brandon up, and the Home Stone thing seemed to be doing something to keep them safe¡­ at least for now. Opening up his display again, he decided to check out the count listed under the tab, The One.
The One: LOCKED Divine Protectors: LOCKED - 15/15 Dark Scions: 98/100
Cade was impressed to see that two of the Dark Scions had been found and killed already, and even more so impressed that a Divine Protector had been found. He realized opening up the Guidebook to check if anyone had anything to contribute was probably something he should do more. There were now so many entries into the Guidebook that it was hard for Cade to parse through individual things. He pushed at the Guidebook mentally, prodding through it, trying to find out if there was some way to organize it. Eventually a basic organizational structure took hold, based on his own wants and needs. People that were not contributing actual information about new things were sorted into a separate area, and he dryly realized that he had just turned this into a post apocalyptic email service. Any entries on items had their own tab, any mention of monsters found their own tab, and any general information about The One was sorted into its own tab. Cade shrugged, figuring it was probably fine for now. He sent a note to Brandon explaining how he had added parameters to it and also submitted a new entry into the Guidebook saying much the same. Cade¡¯s next task was to figure out how to incorporate Kaia into their team effectively. She was going to likely be long range, of course, but they needed to make sure she was protected as well. They needed to find a 4th member, someone with defensive specialties. ¡°Damn, if only King hadn¡¯t already partied up. Big ass shield would be perfect.¡± Cade muttered to himself. Cade had a sudden thought- albeit a somber one - Did Bridget drop her weapon somewhere? Cade got up and, holding his breath tightly, uncovered Bridget¡¯s body. He hadn¡¯t even thought to check before, but she had dropped her weapons. He wondered if she had chosen it herself or if she had been given it at random. Cade picked up the two knives, remembering from the menu that these were Ka Bar military type daggers. Long 8 inch single sided blades, serrated on the lower half of the blade, tightly wrapped grips with a small crossguard. No way had they gotten this lucky. She definitely had not chosen these, she was a druid in their D&D campaigns- at least when she played, that avoided fighting and generally tried to befriend every damn animal she could. He could see why she hadn¡¯t done much against her twisted cat monster pet. ¡°Sorry Bridget, you didn¡¯t deserve this fate, but your daggers will not go to waste.¡± Cade took them into his inventory, making a mental note to give one to Kaia for close quarters protection. He would keep the other one for now, planning to utilize it if his gladius was too big for a space or if it got knocked away or he dropped it in a fight. After covering Bridget''s body back up, he walked back over and sat down on the couch in the living room. He knew he needed to research as much as he could, so back to planning he went. Kaia would at least have a dagger now, but they needed to collectively practice and get used to fighting together. That meant purposefully finding trouble whilst staying as safe as those parameters would allow. He would frontline for now, giving Brandon as many opportunities to use that new cloak of his to sneak up on their enemies. Rolling his eyes, he realized that meant tanking, which meant the most danger and likely more injuries. But, if he could keep his friends alive, it would be a small price to pay. Kaia can stay behind them at an angle and fire arrows off, with Cade providing protection for her. Basic enough, but would have to work for now.