Author: Tom Larcombe
Date: 2021-07-30T18:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Science Fiction; Young Adult
Description: What do you do when the world as you know it changes dramatically with little notice? When the Natural Laws no longer apply in all cases and the only thing to explain why is a “System” that seems to have access to everyone in the world? Marc's home from college on break, spending his time laughing about some of the crazy news stories he's found online, and gaming. When a message appears in his line of sight, blocking out absolutely everything else, he nearly freaks out. The message warns that the world has been in a variant Natural Laws beta test for millennia and that it's about to revert to
Publisher: TML

Enter System

Natural Laws Apocalypse #1

By: Tom Larcombe

Text copyright © 2021, Thomas Larcombe

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, businesses, places, and events
are the products of the author’s imagination.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
or actual events is purely coincidental.

Cover by:

SelfPubBookCovers.com/ Viergacht

Dedicated to my wife, Heather, who keeps me writing, one way or another.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter One

Marc gasped as he took a hit to his armor. The creature had managed to strike around the shield Marc held and caught him in the side with its club. He returned the strike with his own weapon, sinking the thin metal tip of his pilum into the creature's chest. Marc's weapon was designed as much to foul an enemy's shields as it was to damage them, but these creatures didn't have anything but makeshift clubs so the party was using the pilums as short thrusting spears.

Robert was beside him, fighting with the other pilum they had. He wasn't armored, but he did have a makeshift shield that was more than adequate to defend against these creatures. The hobgoblins were nearly the size of a human and as strong as them as well, if not stronger. Fortunately, this was a small group of them and both the real and makeshift equipment wielded by Marc's group far outclassed that of the hobgoblins.

Jeff came out of nowhere from behind the enemy, sinking their best weapon into the back of a hobgoblin. The creature slipped off the gladius that Jeff had used on him, falling to the ground. That left only a single hobgoblin, but Felicia was already engaged with that one. She had a makeshift shield, like Rob, but only a tire iron for a weapon.

Marc, having volunteered to tank for the time being, stepped over and intercepted an attack the hobgoblin had aimed for Felicia. As he thrust with his pilum, she slipped to the side and brought her tire iron down on the back of the hobgoblin's head, laying it out. Unsure if it was dead yet, Marc stabbed his pilum down carefully, thrusting it into the hobgoblin's heart.

As they looted the hobgoblins' bodies, Marc shook his head, knowing that just a few days ago he would never have imagined something like this in his future. Up until a few days earlier, everything had been normal, or as normal as the world got during some of its crazier times. Then all this went and happened. As the corpses shimmered and disappeared after being looted, he couldn't help but flash back to the start of the massive changes that had occurred.

* * *

Marcus Aurelius Cavanaugh was Marcus to his parents, Marc to everyone else who knew him. His parents were Roman history buffs and, as a result, he'd ended up with a name he despised. The only people not family who knew his full name were those who'd read it on paperwork he'd been required to fill out, otherwise he kept his mouth shut about it.

Marc was sitting back in his chair, scanning the news on the web. The past six months, ever since the beginning of the current year, had been crazy. UFO sightings had increased tenfold and the jokes about streetlights had been old and stale before that, now they almost hurt to hear.

Then there was the Prophet. Somehow, some graffiti artist somewhere had figured out how to graffiti subway stations and the interior of apartment buildings without ever being seen. Then he must've spread that knowledge to others because it was happening worldwide.

The Prophet starting hitting the papers when a graffiti message appeared on a subway station during rush hour. The message appeared on the wall while people stared at the painted letters materializing out of nowhere: 'The System shall return!'. The graffiti had been signed 'Prophet' and that was all anyone knew about the artist. All the copycats had been signing theirs the same way too, probably in order to unnerve people even more in Marc's opinion.

Marc shook his head as he skimmed five new articles about the sightings of UFOs. Personally, he thought that the military had just developed some incredible new technology and not told anyone. As for the Prophet? Well, the guy was obviously disturbed, but subways got really warm during rush hour, so something like invisible ink, just with paint instead of ink, sounded reasonable to him.

It's all just like the rest of this year has been. Everyone's going crazy so the media thinks that they need to share some peoples' psychoses, Marc thought.

He shut down his browser and opened the MMORPG he'd been playing for a while now. It was more in-depth than a lot of them, offering more than just combat. The crafting options were insane and there were all kinds of things to do in the game that didn't involve fighting. He was logging in for a fight though. His guild was about to try one of the newer bosses that had been recently discovered and they wanted him there with his high level Mage for the attempt.

Logging in and joining the group, they proceeded to teleport to somewhere close to the new boss, then move in and start the fight. Things were going just fine at first, then Marc's vision blacked out, or more accurately, blued out. At first he thought his computer had crashed, but then he realized it wasn't just the monitor but his entire field of vision covered in blue. The white text on the blue background had fooled him at first and he'd just ignored the text thinking it was a standard BSOD. Now, he started reading the words, wincing as he noticed the horrible offenses against the grammar and syntax of the English language.

* * *

System Message:

We thank inhabitants of Sol-3 for participation in our extended alternate natural laws beta test. For the past 6237.3 Sol-3 years you developed under alternate natural laws, showing that even with harsher conditions humanity still develops planet destroying weapons, given enough time. We have removed weapon after it was successfully constructed and you now return normal natural laws. In three days, Sol-3 time, the alternate natural law beta test will terminate and original natural law conditions will return in conjunction with the System.

Marc blinked, several times.

It's almost as bad as reading those overseas instructions that are allegedly written in English, but that only have English words, not grammar or syntax, he thought.

About then he realized that the message screen was still covering his entire vision. He tried to wave it away, with no luck, then found himself wishing that it would go away. The screen flickered and finally disappeared when he mentally clicked on a small icon in the upper right corner. His cleared vision revealed that the party had crashed and burned, wiping to the boss.

I guess it wasn't just me then? Marc thought. I'd worry more about that, but I've never done any hallucinogens so it shouldn't be a flashback. I haven't been out of the house yet today, so no-one drugged me, and my computer isn't nearly powerful enough for someone to be messing with me that way. Hell, most of the people I know are in the guild and wouldn't have timed it so we'd wipe, so what's that leave?

* * *

Across the world, everyone had been affected by the screen. For many it was more of a nuisance than anything else, word eventually spreading on how to get it to go away. For others it was a breaking point. Unable to move the screen or do anything about it, they snapped. For a large subset, it was fatal. For drivers and passengers in vehicles at high speed, airline pilots and passengers, and many others, the screen was the last thing they saw.

* * *

Marc was disgusted with himself and started cursing out loud.

“Damn it, I should've left the screen up. Maybe it would've taken input somehow? It took mental input to clear it away, so if I'd left the screen open I might've—”

He stopped dead. When he'd said the words 'screen open' a smaller blue box had opened up in the upper right side of his vision with a cursor blinking in the upper left corner of the box. He quickly tried thinking at it, but nothing happened.

Well, it was a verbal command that opened it, so maybe verbal input?

“Test,” he said.

The word appeared in the box and when he hadn't spoken for a second, the cursor dropped a line, paused for a millisecond, and then the second line of the box showed the word “error”. The cursor dropped to the next line.

Marc took a deep breath, then spoke slowly and plainly.

“Help,” he said.

The word appeared in the box and a moment later the cursor dropped a line, then text appeared beneath it, the cursor plummeting down the screen, leaving a series of lines containing single words or phrases. Marc had caught the first line before the screen started scrolling. It had read: “Help is available on the following:”.

The last two entries caught his eye. They were 'waiting period' and 'verbal'.

“Help verbal,” Marc said, wincing again when he saw the mangled grammar of the help file.

Verbal:

The system may interacted with directly in three ways. Mentally, verbally, or in a hybrid fashion. You current settings: hybrid. You can 'set system' to verbal, mental, or hybrid.

Marc wasn't too worried about it at the moment. There was no-one else home since his parents were at a conference. If they were home, he probably would've set it to mental right away, but as it was he didn't care. There was no-one to think he was crazy and talking to himself.

“Help waiting period,” he said.

Waiting Period:

This is the span of time between announcement of System commencement and actual System commencement. It is good time to prepare by building stats or gathering equipment. Limited equipment may be converted to System at commencement of System rule.

Marc shook his head again. He thought he understood what the messages were saying, but they were poorly constructed with horrible grammar and sentence structure. He should know, he was minoring in English in college. His teachers would have a stroke just trying to read these messages.

Okay then, training stats. So, is the system like a gaming system? he thought.

He zipped through help file after help file, finally making a plan.

So, either I've gone insane, which is entirely possible and seems more likely than the alternative, or the world is about to be governed by some sort of system that functions a lot like a video game. I want to check one more thing though.

He looked for help on ways to report things to the system, unwilling to suffer through the horrible system messages any longer. Once he'd found a way to report it, he pulled up his logs, which were something else he'd discovered from his help searches, and mentally typed in corrections to all the messages he'd read.

My replacements may not be perfect, but they're going to be a damn sight better than what was in there before. Assuming, of course, that the system pays any attention to my attempts at editing, Marc thought. Alright, now on to training.

* * *

Marc had been on the treadmill for almost an hour, and already received two System messages.

Endurance: +1

Endurance: +1

The doorbell rang and he gratefully shut down the treadmill, grabbed a towel, and headed for the door.

“Guys,” he said after opening the door. “What's up?”

“Like you have to ask?” Jeff said.

“Good, then I wasn't going crazy,” Marc replied. “I was wondering, but didn't want to waste any time.”

“Waste time for doing what?” Rob said.

“Didn't you explore the system help at all?”

He was greeted by three heads shaking no.

“Quick then, say 'screen open' and watch what happens,” Marc said.

Three voices chimed in, then two hands went up to poke at the air, right about where the screens should be if they hadn't been adjusted. Felicia, the only female in the group, mumbled something under her breath.

Adjusting the positioning and size of the screen was another thing Marc had discovered how to do and as he watched Felicia pinch the air in front of her, he realized that she'd been right on top of things. As soon as she'd gotten her screen open she must've mumbled her way into the help screen and then started adjusting and repositioning it.

“Just say help followed by whatever you want help with, or just help for a list of things with a help topic. Use your mind to scroll back up the screen, just like you did to close the first one,” Marc said. “Oh, and all of you come on in before someone thinks we're going nuts here.”

The three managed to enter the house while still working with their screens.

“Damn Marc, have you been working out?” Felicia asked. “You're drenched and it smells like sweat.”

Marc blushed.

“Uh, yeah? Try 'help waiting period' and you'll see why.”

* * *

They spent the three days trying to improve their stats. Marc's dad had some weights in the room with the treadmill since he kept himself fit, working out religiously as a holdover from his days in the military. With four of them, they couldn't all work on their physical bodies at the same time, so Marc had brought down a laptop and hunted down some mental puzzle pages. They seemed to help increase the mental half of their stats.

Charisma and Luck were the only two stats that they couldn't figure out how to work on. Jeff had suggested chatting some ladies up in local bars but that was vetoed. First, none of them were twenty-one or older and second, they didn't want to waste time like that. Maybe Charisma could be worked up like that, Luck too according to Jeff's theory, but it seemed more important to work on the physical stats.

There'd been a mention of spells in the descriptions for Willpower and Intelligence, so they were working on those stats too. Given his preference Marc would go for a Mage build, or something that allowed him access to those spells plus the ability to defend himself and others in melee, so he split his focus evenly between the physical and mental portions.

Endurance, stamina, even mana all seemed to increase relatively easily, but the main stats were more difficult. In three days, Marc had gotten only one point to Strength, one to Constitution, and one to Willpower. Strength was when he managed to lift more than he had been lifting on his prior sets. Constitution was when he felt like he'd pulled a muscle. He'd stopped the physical training for the rest of the day after that and when the muscle felt normal far faster than he'd thought it would, he'd gotten the message on his Constitution bonus.

The Willpower increase had come after he'd managed to force himself to continue training, going straight from the physical to the mental with no break in between. Aside from that, he'd gotten himself seven points of Endurance, an extra twelve stamina points, and ten additional mana points. Strangely enough the additional mana was from working on advanced math puzzles. With his minor in English, he was also majoring in Mathematics, not any of the branches of it, but pure math, so he found that encouraging.

The rest of the group hadn't stayed right through, at least not at the start. After a trip back to their respective residences, they'd returned with bags that contained clothing changes and the like for a couple of days. From that point they had stayed, and the four of them took to training as though their lives might depend on it. During their breaks, they posted to forums online, telling people about how to use the screens, how to train to increase stats, and anything else they could think of that might help the others survive.

Marc had also sent his dad an email trying to describe what was happening but was very discouraged that he'd never received a reply. He was worried that his dad was going to think he was going nuts, but if the message everyone had received had gone to his father as well, then at least Marc had given him some clue as to what was going on.

Then the countdown started. Ten minutes before the shift a countdown timer showed in everyone's vision, counting down the final time before the change.

* * *

System Message:

Welcome inhabitant Sol-3, to the System.

You natural laws are now being reset to norm. You are allowed to select three items that convert to System grade. These items will be restricted by power level, so you can find some that will not convert now. Try again later when you are more powerful and you may succeed.

Marc groaned in pain from reading the start of the message and immediately pulled up another screen to report the grammatical errors as he kept reading.

Sol-3 is granted a period of one Sol-3 year to adapt to the system. At that point travel will be allowed to and off of Sol-3. Expect a period of turbulence on Sol-3 until this time period expires. The System will be make changes, additions, and subtractions to the world during this time. New creatures will challenge personal skills, old creatures may change to do the same. Collect resources and experience to gain strength and ensure survival.

Some will be strong enough to form Safe Zones. Within these Safe Zones you may find shops to help you acquire additional System equipment. This is encouraged if you wish to survive and thrive. New and mutated creatures will not spawn in these Safe Zones, but as a human once said, humans are the most dangerous animal. While creatures will not appear in these Safe Zones, beware your fellow man within them.

Your planet is now linked to the entertainment network of the System and you may find yourself watched and gaining renown or notoriety. Infamous subjects are even more interesting to watch than those who are famous, more unpredictable and more entertaining.

Good luck on your adaptation to the System!

Marc hit return on his laundry list of corrections to the world-wide message that had just gone out. Even if it wouldn't go out again, perhaps his corrections would increase the quality of future messages from the System, or at least he hoped they would.

* * *

He turned to the other three, just as a new screen popped up. He'd set his to mostly translucent, located in the upper corner of his vision so he could still see just fine. From the way the others' eyes flickered he knew that they'd moved theirs to the various corners of their fields of vision as well.

The new message caught his attention as soon as he started reading the text. It had already become a habit for him to open another screen when receiving a notification and he didn't even think about it as he corrected the text and reported the corrections to the System.

System Message:

You can now claim your three items to be upgraded to System. You are allowed one clothing/armor, one weapon/tool, and one miscellaneous item to upgraded. You will receive a disallowing message if you try to upgrade something stronger than allowed at you current power. You are given two hours to complete these claims. Any unclaimed claims at the end of this time period will be lost.

“Shit, only two hours? I hadn't given this a lot of thought yet,” Rob said. “I figured we could just claim them whenever.”

“Well, I know what I want to claim,” Marc said. “Felicia, you still up on your shotgun skills?”

Marc knew that Felicia's family were also hunters and her dad had taught her how to fire and maintain a shotgun. Marc's own father had given him a more intensive firearm instruction course, covering long guns, shotguns, and pistols. Because of this, his first thought for the weapons was to raid his father's gun safe. When Marc had turned eighteen his dad had showed him where the spare key to it was hidden, in case of emergency.

And if this isn't an emergency, I'll deal with him being pissed off later on, when he gets home, Marc thought.

Then he swallowed.

If he gets home, Marc added mentally, but he and mom are such ancient military buffs, plus he knows his guns, so if anyone would make it back it would be them. I'm sure they would've returned already if the government hadn't locked down travel after the first message. They claimed it was to prevent rioting and unrest, but why that would prevent those things, I don't know. It sounds more to me like locking down travel would increase them.

Felicia turned to him and nodded.

“The Mossberg?” she asked.

Marc nodded. The Mossberg 500 pump action would be a fine weapon for her right now. The one in his dad's gun safe had the shorter barrel, which was better with buck and bird shot, allowing it to spread faster although reducing the accuracy at longer ranges. Since Marc was planning on taking a rifle, which would be much better at long range, they'd have both distances covered for firearms. Jeff and Rob hadn't had the same training in firearms, their families not sharing the interests of his and Felicia's, so they'd have to find something else for them.

He headed across the hall from the workout room they'd all been in.

“Wait here a second,” he said, then slipped into the room.

After a moment's fumbling he opened the fake electrical outlet where his dad hid the spare gun safe key, then called the others in once he'd concealed the compartment again.

“Alright, let's get some weapons,” Marc said.

He popped open the gun safe, grabbing the Mossberg first and handing it to Felicia. She grinned as she grabbed it, then he took out the tricked out AR-15 with a high quality scope that was his dad's pride and joy.

He'll understand why I took his instead of the spare, Marc thought, I hope he will anyways.

Felicia's face took on a look of displeasure, but Marc ignored that for the moment, calling up a screen and trying to claim the rifle.

This weapon is stronger than allowed to be converted to System at your current power level.

“Shit!” Marc cursed, then looked over at Felicia.

“Denied?” he asked.

“Stronger than allowed,” she replied.

“Well, keep them with us. We can still use them even if they aren't System enhanced. I hope anyhow, but System stuff will probably do better if I were to guess. Ammunition is in the cases over there, they're labeled with marker on tape. The top of each one should say what's in it. Take as much as you like, or at least as much as you're willing to carry,” Marc said.

He, himself, took five spare magazines for the AR, each holding thirty rounds. Along with the one that was already in the AR, he had one hundred and eighty rounds of ammunition. Thinking back to his dad telling him that there was no such thing as too much ammunition unless you couldn't carry it all, he also grabbed a couple of extra boxes of ammo, shoving them in his pockets for now.

He slung the rifle on his back and held the magazines in his hands as he turned to leave the room.

“Um,” Jeff said, staring at the other guns in the safe, “how about us?”

“Jeff, what are the four rules of gun safety?” Marc asked.

Jeff looked confused and shrugged.

“I don't know.”

“And that's why the rest of the guns are going to stay in the safe,” Marc said, turning and locking the gun safe again. “Besides, the System wouldn't let us upgrade these to System level, so we need to find other weapons, and I know just where we can find three more.”

He left the room with the others following, keeping the gun safe key on him for now. He hoped that he'd figure out how to claim and upgrade firearms to the System and if he did, he'd want the rest of those guns later.

Marc led the other three to his dad's home office.

“In here,” he said.

The other three had never been in his dad's home office before, so they stopped dead when they got a look at the mannequin that resided there, and what it was adorned with.

“Is that armor? And spears and a sword?” Jeff asked.

Marc nodded.

“It's replica stuff, but I'm hoping claiming it with the System will make it more functional. I mean, the armor is functional already, but the gladius and pilums aren't sharp at all.”

“Pilums?” Rob asked.

“The javelin type spears sticking up over the back of the armor. That's a mock up of a Roman Legionnaire's getup. We'll need to be careful of the spears. The originals had a soft iron tip so they could be thrown and foul an enemy's shield. I don't know how well they'll convert. They might get soft iron tips like the originals, or they might just stay like they are. The replicas used a harder metal for the tips since they're mostly ornamental.”

Jeff had walked up and pulled the gladius from the scabbard.

“Can I?” he asked. “I'm going to try for a rogue style class and this would be perfect for back attacks.”

Marc looked from Felicia to Rob. Neither of them seemed to mind.

“Go for it, but I'd take the whole belt and scabbard too. I bet it registers as a single item, and a scabbard will be useful.”

Jeff nodded, sheathed the sword, and started unbuckling the sword belt. Once he had it off, he got a look on his face that Marc knew meant he was messing with his screen. A moment later, the belt, scabbard, and parts of the sword they could see flashed briefly with a gold light.

“There we go,” Jeff said, then drew the gladius again. It had looked pretty good before, but now it looked perfect. The blunt edges and point had been honed down and sharpened, enough that Jeff winced when he ran his thumb over it.

“That'll do,” he said, then sucked at the drop of blood on his thumb.

“Spear?” Rob asked.

“Sure, grab one. Do you want the other Felicia?”

She shook her head.

“No, I want something blunt, like a baseball bat or a tire iron or something. I've had some training with blunt weaponry.”

“Okay, we'll finish up in here, then find you something,” Marc replied.

He grabbed the other pilum before he and Rob both claimed them. The shafts grew heavier as the wood altered somehow, becoming more solid. The tips also changed. They weren't as soft as the original pilum used by the Romans, but they also weren't quite what Marc had expected from a spear head.

I see, because they changed them to something closer to javelins, not spears. Still, we should be able to use them like short spears and have a single ranged attack with them. Not that throwing our System weapons away like that would be a good plan, he thought.

“I'm going to take this also,” Marc said, gesturing towards the armor. “Lorica Segmentata, some of the best armor of its time. I bet it converts over well.”

He laid a hand on the armor and claimed it. He was surprised when the shield that was attached to the armor also glowed.

“Well then, I guess I'll tank for now. I've got other plans for later, but I can't do anything about them yet. So I'll tank for the moment.”

Felicia looked at him curiously, and he waggled his fingers. A look of understanding crossed her face. She knew that he preferred playing a Mage in most of the games they'd played, so it made perfect sense to her.

“Alright, let's see what else we can find to claim,” Marc said.

* * *

Chapter Two

Marc told them they were welcome to anything that they wanted to claim, if they could. So they started hunting.

In the garage they found a tire iron for Felicia. She was happy with it since she could use it for either blunt or piercing damage, swinging the socket end for blunt, or thrusting with the other end that narrowed to something like a thick screwdriver blade for piercing.

They also found a pair of trash can lids. Not knowing what else to try to claim as armor, Rob tried one of those after stringing it so it would fit on his arm better. It glowed and changed. Obviously his attempt had gained some cred with the system since he now had a shield as opposed to a jury rigged garbage can lid. Felicia duplicated his efforts, but Jeff looked at Marc greedily.

“You still got that old leather coat you grew out of?” he asked. “I bet it would fit me and work as light armor.”

Marc hadn't wanted to get rid of the coat. He'd been sure that if he just lost fifteen pounds he'd be able to fit into it again. So he sighed and led them up to his room, tossing the coat to Jeff.

“Here you go, all yours,” Marc said.

“What do we want for our miscellaneous claims?” Felicia asked.

“Quality of life stuff?” Jeff replied.

“Sure, why not,” Marc said. “I know what I'd like, but I don't know if the system would classify it as a single item or not.”

“What's it hurt to try?” Jeff asked, ogling the coat he'd just claimed.

Marc shrugged, then grabbed his MP3 player. He'd gotten a lot of shit about having that as opposed to just using his phone, until he pointed out that his MP3 player took a microSD card and while his phone worked, he couldn't put his entire music collection on it, not enough storage. With the microSD card in his MP3 player, he could have his entire collection with it at all times. The ribbing had stopped eventually.

Now he picked up the player, his Bluetooth speaker and headphones, and the flash drive that held his collection. The player and accessories used minimal charge so he normally charged them on a solar unit in his window. He plugged everything in, connected the Bluetooth accessories, then tried to claim the whole setup as a single item.

“Damn, didn't work. I got everything but the solar charger though,” he said. “Not gonna be of much use without a charger.”

“The electricity is still on,” Rob said.

“Yeah, but for how long?” Marc asked.

“Oh, yeah, that might happen,” Rob said, nodding as though he hadn't thought of that.

He's a great guy, but Rob isn't exactly the sharpest cookie in the box, Marc thought.

Felicia had wandered over to the window.

“Hey Marc, can I have your solar charger?” she asked.

“What? I mean, I can still use it to charge this, I hope, for now at least.”

She just looked at him.

“Alright, fine,” he said.

Felicia could wrap Marc around her little finger. He'd been crushing on her for years, but never worked up enough nerve to ask her out on a date. She was a really good friend as things were and he was scared of losing that, so he'd never asked. She knew she could pretty much play him however she liked, but resisted using that most of the time.

Now he realized that she hadn't been playing him.

“Here, I'm giving it back to you,” she said.

“Huh, what was that all about?” he asked.

“The system wouldn't let me claim it, said it wasn't mine. Once you gave it to me I claimed it, now I'm giving it back.”

Marc blinked.

“You shouldn't have done that. You should've claimed something for yourself?”

“I did, remember a good chunk of your music collection is stuff I recommended to you. I saw you got the external speaker claimed, so now we can keep it charged and all listen to it,” she said.

“Oh, well, thank you anyhow.”

Jeff was shaking his head.

“Gotta be something worth claiming as miscellaneous. It's good to know that you have to own it to claim it though. So, two of us still have to claim our miscellaneous. Any ideas?”

“Maybe a folding knife? Something that would be as much tool as weapon? Or would that only fall under the weapon/tool category?” Felicia asked.

“We can try,” Jeff said. “Hey Marc, got a folder around anywhere?”

“Only a small one. I don't think that's what you're after.”

He reached over to his desk and pulled out a small folding knife, with maybe a two inch blade. He tossed it to Jeff.

“It's yours for the test,” he said.

Jeff concentrated for a moment then tossed the knife back to Marc.

“Nope, counts as a weapon/tool according to the system.”

He fell into thought for a moment, then his face brightened.

“I've got it! How much time do we have left?”

Marc checked the time.

“About an hour and twenty minutes.”

“Good, ten minutes to get home, that leaves me an hour to find the stuff. I'll be back guys.”

Then he dashed out of the door. A few seconds later they heard the front door close.

“Well, that happened,” Marc said.

“I guess he remembered something he owned that he wanted to claim,” Rob said. “I can't think of anything myself though.”

“You want us to help?” Felicia asked.

“Please,” Rob replied.

They sat there in thought for a few minutes. Marc was thinking back to some of the tabletop dice RPGs he's played.

“You know, in the role playing games I've played, there's a few things you always want to have when you go out adventuring. Think we ought to work through those?”

Rob nodded eagerly.

“Well, a ten foot pole is out. I'm sure we'd be able find something like it wherever we are,” Marc started. “But rope? Or maybe a waterskin? I suppose canteen would be more appropriate here, not likely to find a waterskin around, but I think there might be a canteen in our camping gear. The camping stove needs fuel and would probably be considered a tool anyhow, if cooking will be a craft for the System.”

Rob was nodding along.

“Probably rope then,” Felicia said. “I imagine if things are going to deteriorate, then rope would fall apart faster than a metal canteen, yeah?”

Marc shrugged.

“When I checked the help on initial claims it said that more complex things would deteriorate faster, some things wouldn't deteriorate at all, and others at a moderate rate. So pretty much as useless as most of the help files have been.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Felicia said. “Some of them, like the preparation ones? I'm glad we found and read those.”

“Okay, I'll give you that one, but the help files are all hard to read and even if you understand them some of them aren't actually that helpful.”

Felicia nodded.

“You've got a point, but let's get Rob set up, okay?”

“Good plan, we can talk later. Rob, you want rope, or a canteen, or would you like to look through the camping stuff and see if there's anything else you'd like to claim? If it's all going to deteriorate anyhow, you're welcome to any of it you like,” Marc said.

“I think the rope, like you said. But you put a bunch of stuff together to claim and it let you. Is there a climbing hook or other climbing gear that we can attach to the rope before I claim it?” Rob asked.

Marc blinked. He hadn't actually expected Rob to add a useful idea to the process, but he had.

“Yeah, I think we've got carabiners and there are some pitons from when dad used to rock climb, maybe a few other things. I don't know how many the System will allow though.”

“Well, let's go find out,” Rob said, standing.

Marc led him out to the garage where they rummaged through the camping gear. They ended up with a fifty foot section of rope, five carabiners, and seven pitons along with the tool used to drive them in. That was a small pickax on one side and a hammer on the other. Marc was pretty sure the System wouldn't allow the tool, but maybe the other stuff.

Easy enough to drive the pitons in with a rock if we need to use them, he thought.

“Go for it, Rob,” Marc said after they'd tied the rope to the pitons and tool, then slid all the carabiners onto it. “The stuff is all yours.”

Rob concentrated and a glow flashed off most of the gear they'd assembled. As Marc had feared, the tool wasn't claimed, but all the pitons, carabiners, and rope were.

“Well, that's done,” Rob said. “Now we just wait for Jeff to get back and find out what he got?”

Felecia and Marc looked at each other, then both shrugged.

“Sure, let's see if the System changed my MP3 player at all, we can listen to some music while we wait,” Marc said.

* * *

The rest of the claim period passed without Jeff returning, the System giving a ten minute warning, a five minute warning, then a countdown for the last minute. Jeff still wasn't back at the end of the sixty second countdown when a new message appeared.

System Message:

Common spawns now commencing. Increase power by destroying spawns or other means. Good Luck!

“Well, I hope Jeff gets back here soon,” Felicia said. “Because we've got no idea where things are going to spawn.”

Her sentence was punctuated by a loud noise from down in the basement.

“Uh, here maybe?” Rob said.

“Grab your weapons and let's go check it out,” Marc said.

He'd put on the Lorica Segmentata while they waited for the countdown and now he grabbed his pilum.

At least Jeff took the gladius with him so he's not weaponless, Marc thought as they walked down the stairs.

There were noises audible from the room they'd done most of their training in. The clank of weights carried through the door, not like they were being lifted, but like they were being kicked around.

“Ready?” Marc asked, hand on the doorknob.

He got a pair of nods from the other two and threw the door open. Unfortunately, as he did so the door ran into some of the weights and came flying back at him. He'd caught a brief glance of small green creatures inside the room, poking and prodding at the weights.

Which explains why there was a dumbbell right behind the door, he thought.

Rubbing his nose and having no way to relieve his hurt dignity, Marc pushed the door open again, more slowly this time. The small green creatures shrieked as they saw him, then rushed towards the open door. Marc was sliding through the opening at the time so they ran into him. He was pushed into the door frame but not over, the small creatures were knocked backwards though.

“Come on, I don't know what they are but they're definitely hostile,” Marc cried as the small green creatures bared their teeth and started approaching him again.

He lowered his pilum, now glad that it was shorter than a full spear. He never would've been able to manipulate a full-sized spear in this room.

Rob slipped in next, holding his own pilum point forward as he came through the door. Felicia stayed in the doorway, crouched down with her makeshift shield blocking the opening and her tire iron in her other hand.

The first of the little green things leaped for Marc and he interposed his shield, knocking it away. With a loud shriek, all five of the small creatures attacked.

The next few minutes were chaos, with Marc using the shaft of his pilum to club the creatures away more often than he got to stab them with the pointy end. The creatures weren't very tough at all, only managing to score a pair of wounds on Rob with their claws. The few times they'd made it past Marc's shield, the armor had kept them from damaging him.

Somewhere in the middle of the fight, in a lull filled with everyone involved in combat breathing heavily, Marc heard the front door open and close, then Jeff call out for them. The small creatures took that as an opportunity to attack again, hoping their opponents would be distracted. They were right, since that's when Rob took one of the claw slashes.

Marc thrust his pilum carefully, worried about the metal used in the blade. The thrust impaled the last green creature soundly.

“Down here, Jeff,” Marc called out.

A moment later Jeff showed up in the lower hallway.

“Damn man, goblins spawned down here in your house?” he asked.

“Goblins?” Marc asked.

“Yeah, you can tell what stuff is, sort of anyhow, by focusing in on it for a minute or so. Well, the first time. After that it only takes a second or so. Right now it's showing me that these are goblin corpses, unlooted.”

“Loot?” Rob asked, his eyebrows shooting up.

“Go ahead,” Marc said.

Rob knelt down and started looking for items on the goblin, it wasn't until he actually touched the corpse that he had a reaction.

“Oh, touch it and it asks if you want to loot it,” he said.

Rob looted them, but the corpses remained. Marc stared at one of them for a minute before a smaller screen popped up with a single line of text.

Goblin Corpse – partially looted

Marc knelt and looted the goblins, receiving a few coins and some other items. Then he stared at the corpse he'd looted first again. He got the same message, only more quickly this time.

“Can I try?” Jeff asked.

Felicia, who had been moving towards the corpses, stopped and waved a hand towards the corpse, gesturing Jeff forwards. When Jeff knelt he shook his head.

“No message for me, must only be the people who killed them.”

Felicia knelt and looted the corpses, one by one. By the time she finished with the last corpse, the first one was starting to look a little mushy. Marc poked it with his foot, hoping it wasn't going to explode or stink and the corpse firmed back up. Meanwhile the second one Felicia had looted was collapsing in on itself.

“Ah, I get it,” Marc said. “Once you loot they start to decompose, but if you want to stop it for some reason you can just interact with it again. Maybe for hunting and stuff like that?”

“What did you find on them?” Jeff asked.

“Well, it told me I found a bunch of coins and a couple of other things, but where are they?” Rob asked.

“Inventory, dude,” Jeff said.

“And we access it by—” Marc started, then stopped himself. “Wait. Inventory,” he said.

“That'll work,” Jeff said, “but you can just think it too.”

While Jeff was speaking Marc was looking at his inventory. When he'd said the word with the intent to examine his inventory another full vision screen had opened up. He quickly shrunk the screen, then examined it.

At the bottom of the screen there were ten small squares. Eight were blocked out, while two held what he hoped were components for some sort of crafting since they were goblin parts. Above that, on the left, was a stick figure drawing with several portions of it filled in and showing the equipment he was wearing.

The right hand side held something he'd been looking for since the first announcement. He'd decided that the stats simply weren't available. He'd hoped that they just weren't available at that time, but now he was looking at his own so he'd been correct.

Stats, he thought.

A new, smaller, screen appeared, showing him what he was after.

Marcus Aurelius Cavanaugh

Class: none

Level: 1

Experience: 67/250

Health: 39

Mana: 44

Stamina: 57

Endurance: 18

Body: 5.3 (Strength:5, Constitution: 6, Agility: 5)

Mind: 6.3  (Intelligence: 7, Willpower: 6, Aptitude: 6)

Social: 5 (Charisma: 5, Personality: 5, Allure: 5)

He thought there would've been more to it than that, but that was all he was being shown at the moment, and it was enough for him to work with for now.

“You can pull stats now,” he said. “It looks like fives are average for humans.”

“Hey guys?” Jeff said, “Um, I kind of heard something on my way back. When the countdown timer finished I was just passing the high school and I heard a bunch of screams. Didn't sound like people, so I didn't say anything sooner, but I thought I ought to let you know.”

“So, check out the high school?” Rob said.

“Are we going the full-fledged adventurer route?” Felicia asked.

“Well, what other options do we have? At least for now,” Marc said. “I know there were some mentions of crafting, but does anyone have any crafting skills yet? Or equipment for it? I know I just got some stuff from the goblins that I hope are for crafting, but I don't know enough about the System yet to figure out what to with them. Plus, I don't have a class yet, so maybe we try to figure out classes first, then decide what to do?”

“Sounds good to me,” Jeff replied. “So, back to the high school? Damn, I can't believe I just said that. When I graduated I swore I'd never go back to that place.”

“Look at the bright side,” Felicia said. “This time, if someone gives you a hard time you can just stab them with your sword. Assuming that they aren't human, of course.”

“Hell, I'm pretty sure half my graduating class wasn't human,” Jeff replied.

“Well, we probably ought to go check it out anyhow. The school is close enough to us here that if there are critters in there, we should try to take care of them, or at least be aware that they're there and what they are,” Marc said.

“Plus, that system message said we can get stronger by destroying the spawns and that sounds like what you probably heard,” Felicia said.

“Screw the System,” Jeff replied. “It's the System's fault that I've got to go back to high school.”

* * *

Once they left the house, Marc thought he should be a bit more panicky than he actually felt.

As a matter of fact, this whole mess ought to be freaking me out more than it is, he thought. It probably ought to freak the rest of these guys out too. I wonder if the System has anything to do with that? It obviously has some sort of access to my body and brain if it can give me a listing of my stats, so is it doing something to us that lets us deal with the change more easily?

If that was the case, it hadn't worked for everyone. On the short walk to the high school, they saw at least two human corpses. There might have been more, but they weren't willing to leave the clear sight path of the middle of the street and venture into peoples' back yards in order to check.

“Alright,” Marc said softly. “There's the school. How do we want to do this?”

“We just go in and check, right?” Rob answered at a normal volume.

Marc squeezed his eyes shut.

“Probably we want to be a bit more careful than that, Rob. If there are things in there, they'll probably be like the goblins and want to kill us,” Felicia explained.

“Oh, yeah, but the goblins were pretty easy. I only got scratched up a little.”

“Rob,” Marc said, “there were only five of those goblins. How many of them do you think could fit in the high school?”

Rob looked over at the two story school building. It was the high school for several other smaller towns in the area as well and normally had a hundred to a hundred and fifty students per grade.

“Oh yeah, well, how do we want to do this then?” Rob asked, now lowering his volume.

Jeff grinned, a wide smile that left Marc a little nervous.

“I'll go scout it out,” he said. “Just through the windows anyhow. I'll check the front and see if we can get in there without being seen.”

Then he started moving towards the school. His initial movement was a short dash that got him out of reach of the other three. Marc didn't dare call out to him, afraid that if he did his voice would be heard by anything in the school.

“That idiot,” Marc said. “I know he's after a rogue build, he even said so. Hopefully he doesn't screw us over by not being any good at it.”

Felicia just grunted in agreement. Rob was watching Jeff as he tried to move stealthily, using the cover of trees, vehicles, and anything else that might provide concealment.

Even before Jeff made it to the school Marc had a harder time keeping track of him.

Did that son of a bitch somehow manage to learn Stealth skills already? he wondered.

From a few feet away from the doors of the school, hiding behind a large trash can, Jeff was obviously looking inside the building. A minute later he started back towards the rest of the group.

“Yup, there's a couple of goblins in the front, but they're being beaten on by some larger critters. They look kind of like the goblins, but they're about twice again as big and they've got a lot of brown mixed in with the green of their hides,” Jeff said.

The data was important, but Marc's mind was focusing elsewhere.

“Jeff, did you pick up a skill on the way over there?”

Jeff grinned again.

“Sure did, I got Stealth. The message said that I'd learned by doing or something like that.”

“Okay, so we can pick up skills by doing the actions associated with them,” Marc said. “That means that maybe we'll get lucky and pick up some weapons skills while we fight. You don't want the notifications blocking your view though, so make sure you minimize them. The little flash of a new notification might be a bit distracting, but nowhere near the distraction that losing all your sight lines would cause.”

It looked like Jeff had already done that since he just stood there while the other three fiddled for a moment.

“I think I got it,” Rob said.

He stared at nothing and blinked a couple of times.

“Yup, just stared at it and thought about clicking on it and it opened back up, closed the same way too, just thought about minimizing it.”

Marc glanced at Felicia, who gave him a nod.

“Good, I think we're ready then. Jeff, how many of the brown and green guys were there? Plus you said two of the goblins?”

Jeff nodded.

“Five of the bigger guys, two of the gobs. I tried to identify the bigger guys, but they weren't close enough for my current skill level.”

“Okay then, should we go in on a broad front, in a line? Or an arrowhead? Or what? Getting through the doors quickly enough for any of those will suck,” Marc said.

“I'm gonna take 'em from behind,” Jeff said. “I can get up the front of the school and there are broken windows up top. I'll come down the staircase into that entry hallway and hit 'em from behind. You guys all have shields, so you ought to be able to keep those things busy until I get there, right?”

Marc groaned.

Of course he wants to make the very first battle plan we're trying to make more complicated, Marc thought.

“Fine. We'll give you two minutes from when you head up the wall. Then I'll go in first since I've got the armor and a shield. Rob, you and Felicia come in behind me and move to either side of me. We'll see what we can do and hopefully Jeff will disrupt them when he comes in from behind.”

They moved closer to the front of the high school and Jeff broke off, swarming up the wall like it was a staircase.

“Figures he can climb it easily. He gets to be a rogue like he wants, but here I am. I want to be a Mage, but what am I doing? I'm tanking,” Marc muttered under his breath.

“Well, it's not like we've found any way to learn magic yet, is it?” Felicia replied, just as softly. “I want to learn some too, healing spells mostly, but I'll want a damage spell or two also.”

“Well, hopefully we figure out how to do that soon,” Marc said.

The countdown expired and they burst into the front foyer of the school. In front of them were five creatures, Marc focused for a moment and discovered that they were hobgoblins. Then he noticed that one was carrying a feathered staff, and trying to back away from the others.

“Oh hell no, caster!” Marc called out.

He advanced quickly, as the other two moved to either side of him. Despite them moving into the middle of the hobgoblins in pursuit of what Marc thought was a caster, Rob and Felicia were doing okay, fending off strikes from their opponents' makeshift clubs. Marc thrust forward, hard, driving his pilum into the body of the hobgoblin with the staff.

The hobgoblin started chanting and doing something with the staff, so Marc pulled his pilum back and thrust again, driving the sharp point into the hand holding the staff. It let go and whatever spell it had been trying to cast seemed to snap back at the caster. That hobgoblin dropped, the staff it had been holding clattering to the floor.

Marc turned back to the rest of the fight, focusing first on one of the ones attacking Felicia. After he'd dropped it, he turned to help Rob. The creature he was attacking struck around his shield hitting him in the side and Marc let out a gasp of pain. Then Jeff turned up, successfully attacking from behind, and the rest of the fight was just cleanup.

* * *

Chapter Three

As soon as the fight was over, Marc clutched his side. It hurt where the strike from the club had gotten through his defenses. Jeff was leaning over and starting to loot the corpses and Rob joined him on that. Felicia, surprising him, stood guard over the others. She was keeping an eye on the doors out of the foyer, the stairs leading down into it, and the outside doors.

Marc went over and slid the locks on the outside doors. They were the old fashioned style that set into holes in the floor and ceiling.

“There, you can ignore the outer doors unless you hear something there,” he said.

Felicia looked over and saw what he'd done with the doors.

“Good, I never could get the hang of those things. Not enough body weight to get them to move all the way.”

Marc moved over and looted the caster he'd killed, he also picked the staff up off the floor. He tried staring at it but didn't get any information right away.

But it feels kind of like it did when I was trying to get information on the corpses, so maybe if I keep trying? he thought.

After a minute or so of staring, he got a listing with the very minimum of information.

Staff of Minor Healing

Item type: melee staff/wand

“Well, this isn't for me, but maybe you'd like it?” he said, handing it to Felicia.

“What is it?”

“Staff of Minor Healing. Can be a weapon or wand. So I think you can use it to heal if you figure out how. Not the type of magic I was after though, so it's all yours if you want it.”

“What about those two?”

“Jeff? I think we both know he's going for rogue, Rob is probably going to be a front liner. I'm pretty sure they'll both agree to need before greed terms. I probably should've given Rob this suit of armor even, but...”

Marc shrugged.

“Yeah, I feel safer with you tanking for now,” she said. “He'll learn though and then he'll be good at it. You got hit that last fight, didn't you?”

He nodded.

“It feels like it's almost all the way healed now though, so don't worry about it. Experiment with that staff though, would you? It'd be nice to not have to wait for it to heal next time.”

“I'd love to tell you that there won't be a next time, but I think we both know better,” she replied, then started her own looting as Marc took over standing guard.

Jeff and Rob were finished looting by now. They left the makeshift clubs behind since they all had better weapons, but there'd been an assortment of coins on the hobgoblins as well as a few minor items, mostly crafting components.

“I sure hope someone wants some of this stuff,” Jeff said. “I really don't like carrying a hobgoblin spleen around in my inventory.”

“Hey, I bet that's an alchemical thing,” Felicia said. “I remember that the spleen has something to do with blood cells, so maybe it's a heal or a cure component or something.”

“You want it?” Jeff said.

She shrugged.

“Sure, I'm not carrying much yet. I'll take it and we can always ditch it later if we need the room.”

Jeff produced the fist sized purple organ from his inventory. It was clean, which took Marc off guard for a moment before he realized that it had been looted, not cut out of the corpse.

Said corpses were in the process of flaking away now, so Marc looked up.

“Should we keep going in here? I'm thinking it might be a good place to hole up. It's all brick work, not like the local houses, and just seems more solid than most of the other buildings in the area.”

“Kind of large for four of us to keep an eye on though, isn't it?” Jeff asked.

Marc grinned.

“Who said it would just be the four of us here. I figure we clear the place, then see if we can find more people to help populate it. Some of them might even be useful to help keep it spawn free. We can't be the only ones that have started figuring things out, right?”

Jeff opened his mouth to reply, but Felicia cut him off.

“I think that's a good idea. Who knows what skills there are to be learned? I bet the four of us wouldn't be able to cover all of them ourselves and maybe this way we'll have access to the other ones we can't or don't learn.”

“Yeah, let's help the others out,” Rob said. “It'd be a good thing to do.”

Jeff sulked quietly for a moment, then the look on his face lightened up.

“Alright, sure, yeah, it's probably the right thing to do so we can do that, but first we're clearing this place, right?”

“Right,” Marc said. “Now Jeff, you want to keep working on your Stealth skill for a bit?”

* * *

They worked their way through the corridors, checking the classrooms. The majority of those were empty, although they did run into goblins in a few of them. The small green creatures were even easier to defeat in the larger rooms than they had been in Marc's basement.

When they got to the cafeteria it was a different story. There were ten hobgoblins in there.

“Damn, I wish I had a missile weapon,” Jeff said.

“If only our track team did javelin,” Marc replied, “but they don't, or didn't, so what else do we have options on?”

“Well, the chemistry labs don't keep any dangerous chemicals either, or at least not enough of them to matter,” Felicia added.

“Hey, chemicals,” Jeff said. “Follow me.”

The maintenance crew had their own room and Jeff led them there right off.

“Quick, look around at the labels on the cleaning agents. Find me something with ammonia in it,” Jeff said.

He went over and pulled out several industrial sized jugs of bleach. Then started rummaging around the rest of the room.

“Jeff, should we ask why you know where stuff is in here?” Marc asked.

“Hey, where did you think I went when I blew off class? I used to come down here, sometimes. The maintenance guys are normally pretty cool, at least all but one of them. The one that wasn't ended up on night shift, so since I got along with the rest I'd disappear and come down here. Hmm, I wonder if Bobby was still up to his old tricks?”

Jeff moved over to a refrigerator on one wall. After opening it, he pulled out a bottle. Sniffing the contents, he proceeded to tilt it back and chug it.

“Ah, that's just the ticket,” Jeff said.

Rob looked at the bottle.

“What the hell, Jeff?” he asked. “Why are you drinking solvent?

“It isn't solvent. Bobby has a beer that he likes and the bottle resembles one of the ones for solvent. So he prints up fake labels and stashes some in here in case he wants to drink at work. Well, he used to anyhow. Don't know if he's even still alive now.”

“Wait, drinking beer at school?” Rob said.

Jeff laughed.

“Yup, and Doug likes to take naps during the day. He's got a recliner back in the materials closet over there. Alex, well that man's a perv. He's got a stash of porno mags in the ceiling tiles, you know the one with the girls who are barely eighteen? Then he spends lots of time staring at the girls in the school. Guy's a freakin' pervert.”

“Why didn't you tell anyone about this stuff before?” Felicia asked.

“Why? They weren't hurting anyone. Alex never did anything about his fixation, Doug would wake up if maintenance was paged and it'd take more than a beer or two to get Bobby drunk. They weren't hurting anything and they let me hide out here. I wasn't about to say a word.”

He pulled out another bottle and was about to chug it.

“Wait, that one is solvent,” Jeff said, recapping it and setting it down.

A third bottle he pulled out and sniffed satisfied him.

“Anyone want a beer? I need the two empty bottles for my plan and this stuff is too good to just dump out.”

He waited a moment.

“No? Okay.”

He started to tilt the bottle back before Rob reached out and grabbed his arm.

“I'll have one,” Rob said.

Marc relaxed a little.

I was worried that Jeff was going to get drunk, Marc thought. I've got no idea what his alcohol tolerance is. Rob, on the other hand, is a solid dude with a lot of weight to him. A beer shouldn't do much to him except maybe help him relax. I think he's been tenser than the rest of us.

“Here ya go, buddy,” Jeff said, handing over the bottle.

Rob didn't chug it, but he did finish it quickly.

“Anyone find something with ammonia in it yet? The higher up the ingredient list, the better,” Jeff said.

“Yeah, this one has it as the third ingredient,” Felicia replied, holding up a bottle of window cleaner. “Now what are going to use it for?”

“Well, you know what happens when you mix bleach and ammonia, right?” Jeff asked.

Marc figured his face was as blank as the other two as they stared at Jeff.

“For Pete's sake. What did you guys learn in school? One of the things I learned, from the maintenance crew here, was not to mix bleach and ammonia. It makes something called chloramines. Really messes you up if you inhale it. So we get the mix into the cafeteria, then bait the hobgoblins. They'll be all messed up and trying to fight, should make it a lot easier.”

“All messed up?” Marc asked.

“Yeah, like coughing, watery eyes, wheezing, chest pain, that type of all messed up,” Jeff said.

“So, how are we going to mix it?”

“We'll dump the bleach out, the whole mess. That's bad enough to breathe in, but then we'll fill the two beer bottles with the ammonia stuff and smash them into the bleach. That ought to mix it well enough for the chloramines to form. Then we just wait on the hobs to breathe it in and kick the crap out of them.”

“Um, Jeff? How are we supposed to do that without breathing it in ourselves?” Marc asked.

“Jeez, you expect a guy to have all the answers?” Jeff said. “These will do it, but I'd rather draw them out after they've all snorted a bunch of the stuff. Pull them into the hall and take them on there. They can't have all ten on us at once that way.”

He turned and tossed a package of masks to Marc.

Huh, N-95 masks. Not perfect protection, but ought to do for a short while, Marc thought.

“Jeff, tell me again what you were majoring in?” Rob asked.

Jeff folded his arms in front of him.

“Engineering, why? I was thinking about maybe switching to chemical engineering, but hadn't decided yet.”

Rob just nodded.

“Makes sense you'd know some of this stuff then,” Rob said.

Marc just shook his head. He caught Felicia's eyes and noticed that she was barely keeping herself from laughing. He felt the same way himself, but he knew that he shouldn't be. He knew that things were serious enough that laughter ought to be the last thing on his mind. Marc's idea that the System had something to do with how they were all reacting and feeling took on more credence in his mind.

* * *

“Well, let's do this,” Jeff said.

He'd poured the bleach containers he'd grabbed into a large metal trash can that he put a lid on, then he tossed it on a hand truck, tying it in place so it wouldn't fall over. Marc and Felicia were carrying the two glass bottles filled with the cleaners containing ammonia.

“Here, give me that bottle. You'll want to be ready to tank, won't you?” Felicia said.

Marc handed over the bottle and shifted his gear so that he was ready to fight.

“Ready?” Jeff said.

At a nod from the others he dumped the hand truck over, forward through the double doors leading into the cafeteria. The lid came off the can and the gallons of bleach that he'd poured into the can went spilling out all over the floor.

The hobgoblins stayed still for a moment, heads swiveling towards the door, then let out a howl and started trotting for the door.

“Masks!” Felicia said, pulling her own up.

She tossed the first glass bottle high up into the air to ensure that it would shatter and spread its contents. Before the first bottle hit the ground she'd tossed the second one also.

Everyone else had masked up also, but instead of trying to hold the doorway, they stepped back a couple of paces. Even with the masks, they didn't want to risk inhaling the mix that they'd created.

The bottles slammed down, shattering and spreading their payload out. For a second or two there was no reaction and Marc began to think they were screwed.

Crap, did the System alter chemical reactions somehow? he wondered.

Then, a moment before the hobgoblins started walking into the liquid bleach where it spread out over the floor, areas of it started foaming up, bubbling almost like a baking soda volcano. Fumes began to rise from the bleach, gray and iridescent.

“Shit, that's not supposed to happen,” Jeff said pointing. “The reaction isn't supposed to be this strong.”

“Back up more?” Marc asked.

“Hell yeah,” Jeff said, running back another five steps. “I don't want to breathe that shit in, who knows what it is.”

“An alchemical reaction,” Felicia said.

“How do you know that?” Jeff asked.

“Because I just got the Alchemy skill from tossing those bottles into the bleach,” she said.

“So what's going on?” Jeff said.

He wasn't going to get an answer any time soon though since the hobgoblins, coughing and wheezing, came through the door. They were limping too, whatever alchemical creation that had been accidentally created having damaged their feet.

Marc leapt forward again.

“Let's try to keep them in the cafeteria,” he called, voice muffled by the mask. “Whatever it is we made doesn't seem to be coming into the hallway and if we can keep them in it, they'll be in worse shape if and when they get out here.”

Marc tried rushing a hobgoblin and slamming it with his shield. The hobgoblin, feet damaged already, had no luck in trying to resist the attempt and it slammed into the hand truck and garbage can still partially blocking the doorway.

Rob came along and thrust his pilum into the other hobgoblin who'd made it past the blockage.  Once Marc reset his stance he thrust at it a well since the one he'd bashed wasn't getting back onto its feet very quickly.

With the blockage in the doorway the hobgoblins weren't able to make a concerted attack and those that were still in the cafeteria were standing in the ammonia-bleach mix. One of them realized that it was causing them a problem and started screaming at the others, backing up and moving out of the wet area.

It started chanting and waving its hands around, although the first couple of attempts were interrupted by it doubling over and coughing. Then it managed to finish its spell and Marc cursed as several bolts of glimmering energy shot from the hobgoblin, through the doorway, and into his body.

“Damn it! We have another caster,” Marc cried.

“I'm on him,” Jeff said, sprinting down the hallway.

Marc was pretty sure that Jeff was headed for another cafeteria entrance in an attempt to get behind the caster, but if the caster had many more spells in him, then it might not happen quickly enough.

He continued thrusting his pilum, but kept an eye on the caster.

Because I'm hoping that my shield can block those missiles if he shoots them again. Damn, it feels like it took half my health with that. I wonder if there's way to check just health?

The result of his thoughts popped into the lower right of his field of vision:

Health: 20/38

Good, I'm glad that works. Two more of those and I'm a goner though, or even just one more plus a hit from one of these hobgoblins, Marc thought.

There were only two hobgoblins left standing in the liquid now, three of them had fallen, never making it out of the liquid trap and they'd taken down four as they tried to make their way around the hand truck and garbage can in the doorway. The caster was chanting again now though, and a moment later Marc found that his shield could partially block the missiles, but not entirely.

He mentally requested his health total again.

Health: 11/38

“Crap, I hope Jeff gets there soon,” he said, moving his shield to block a strike from one of the remaining hobgoblins. The action gave the other hobgoblin time to clamber over the blockage and engage Rob.

“I think I have it,” Felicia called out.

A moment later a flood of warmth washed over Marc's body. He felt better and the wounds he'd taken from the missiles started to close.

“Awesome,” he called. “Got another?”

“I can do one more before I'm out of mana, or at least won't have enough for any more heals.”

“Hold onto it for now then,” Marc said.

He lunged forward with the pilum as the last of the hobgoblins tried to clear the blockage. The hobgoblin had jumped to try to clear it quickly, but Marc caught it in the air with his pilum, driving it deep into hobgoblin's body.

He angled his pilum to the side a little, letting the body of the speared hobgoblin strike the one still fighting Rob. When Rob's opponent staggered and slid to the side, Rob was quick to take advantage of it, dropping the last melee combatant.

The caster was chanting again, but it was cut off with a gurgling scream as Jeff came from behind and struck it in the back with his gladius.

The caster didn't fall though and Jeff backpedaled quickly as it turned to swipe at him with its claws.

“Hey Rob, these things were originally intended as missile weapons,” Marc said, hefting his pilum.

He hurled it towards the caster, his throw going a little low but taking the caster hobgoblin in the leg. Rob's throw followed a moment later and was nearly a bullseye, lodging in the caster's body immediately adjacent to the wound Jeff had given it.

The last pilum throw was enough to take out the caster and it slumped to the ground.

* * *

Marc's attention was grabbed by the flashing dot in the corner of his vision. His notifications light was flashing, so he opened it up.

You have gained a level (1->2)

You have two ability points to distribute.

You have one new skill point to distribute (skill point banked due to lack of class).

“Yes!” Marc cried. “Ding, ding!”

“Me too,” Rob added.

“And here,” Felicia said.

Jeff was already absorbed in looting and didn't look up.

“Yeah, I like leveling, but it's banking my skill point because I don't have a class yet,” Marc said.

The others agreed, claiming that they were in the same situation.

“But...” Felicia said.

Marc cocked his head.

“But what?”

“Well, when I healed you during the fight my notifications light flashed then too. I've qualified for a class according to that one.”

“What class?”

“Healer, that's it's entire name, so I don't know anything about it,” she said. “When we looked at the class help before we couldn't pull anything up about it, so I've got no idea if it's a decent choice or not. Yeah, I want to heal, but is straight out healer my best option?”

“We didn't even find out the names of classes from the help file on classes, right? Have you tried help on healer specifically? Maybe knowing the name will let you access the help,” Marc said.

Felicia's eyes went unfocused for a moment, then she broke into a grin while staying unfocused.

Guess I was right, Marc thought. Kind of a dick move to hide help files though.

His notification light started flashing again so he pulled up the message.

You've discovered a important fact about the System. Due to overwhelming number of help files, many help are restricted until the information in them can be actively used.

Exp+100

With a groan he popped open a window and reported the errors in the message he'd just been given. It was becoming second nature by now. He counted on any longer message from the System to be loaded with errors and anytime he got one he immediately opened a window and started reporting them.

I wonder if that's actually the best plan. Yeah, maybe it'll improve its English, but maybe I'll just piss it off, too. Guess it's a risk I'll take. Because if someone doesn't understand some of these files due to the poor English it could mean their life, he thought.

“Guys, I just got an experience bonus for discovering something about the system,” Marc said.

This time even Jeff was paying attention.

“It told me that help files on lots of things only become available when you can use the information in them, that there are too many help files otherwise.”

Marc shook his head before going on.

“Anyhow, there goes planning stuff out thoroughly. Looks like a lot of things are going to be seat of the pants style,” he said.

“Sucks,” Jeff called, “but the loot isn't bad. You going with the build you normally prefer, Marc?”

Marc's preferred build was a Mage with some health to them and a combination of offensive and defensive spells so he could survive a hit or two if he ended up in melee and maybe help out with the defense for the rest of his group.

“I'd prefer it, yeah,” Marc said.

“Then you might want this.”

Jeff held up a rolled piece of thick paper in his hand.

“I think it's a spell scroll,” Jeff said.

Marc looked at the liquid on the floor between him and Jeff. He didn't see any more of the vapors coming up off it and the hobgoblins that had collapsed in it didn't seem to be dissolving or anything.

He took a deep breath and held it as he quickly made his way across the wet floor to where Jeff was standing. Then held his hand out.

“Here you go, need before greed, although if there were a place to sell it that scroll would probably be worth a few golds,” Jeff said.

“Call it even on the coat then,” Marc said, looking over the scroll.

He was about to open it when Felicia's excited words interrupted him.

“Shit, I wish I'd taken the Healer class before I leveled. I only got two attribute points on a non-classed level. With healer, I get two to select and two automatically applied. One to Willpower each level and the other alternating between Intelligence and Aptitude.”

“Okay, we all need to get classes ASAP,” Marc said. “Jeff, you're going Rogue?”

“Gone Rogue,” Jeff replied.

“Huh?”

“Got my class with that backstab earlier on. So, yeah, I leveled also right now. Got two attribute points to select, plus one to Agility and one to Charisma.”

“And you didn't tell us?”

“Hey, I didn't want to piss you guys off because of my awesomeness in getting a level so fast, I figured I'd tell you when someone else got theirs, and Felicia just did, so...”

Marc mock growled and shook his head.

“Well, let's see what we've got here,” he said.

Then he took a seat at a table far from the remainder of the alchemical mixture and opened the scroll. As he read it, his hand went to his head. A massive headache formed as information filled his mind. He sagged forward, head in his hands. After staying that way for about thirty seconds, the headache started to ease and Marc found that he had all the knowledge he needed to cast a spell called Mana Dart.

When he finally straightened up and opened his eyes, he noticed his notification light flashing. He'd thought it was just part of the lights that were flashing behind his eyelids when he'd been bent over. He opened the notifications window.

You have qualified for a class or classes.

You have three choices:

Warrior

Mage

Arcane Bulwark

Marc quickly opened another window and looked at the help on the Arcane Bulwark class. He'd been correct and now that he qualified for that class, he could get the help on it.

Arcane Bulwark:

The Arcane Bulwark class is combination of  Warrior and Mage classes, with certain abilities taken from each. The Arcane Bulwark focused on defense to a major degree, both defense of individual with class and those nearby. They allowed light armor, shield, and single-handed weapons up to four feet in length. Their fighting skills lag behind Warrior, but exceed those of Mage. They are granted spells on odd-numbered level progression and granted spells are defensive. The Arcane Bulwark can learn offensive spells, but will have to get them themselves.

The Arcane Bulwark gains two selectable attribute points with each level as well as one point to intelligence and one point to constitution.

Oh hell yeah, he thought. I'm not going to say it's custom built for me, but it's about as close as I've found to a class that's exactly what I want.

He selected Arcane Bulwark for a class, and once again doubled over as information was forced into his head. This time it was a combination of shield skills and a new spell, Arcane Armor.

When he stood, he started taking off the Lorica Segmentata armor. It was partially metal and classified as medium armor, so he wouldn't be able to use it.

“Hey Rob, think you can fit into my armor?” Marc called out. “I'm not going to be able to use it any more, my class can only use light armor, not medium.”

“We'll make it fit. I really want to be a warrior, but I was worried about finding armor. That makes it easy,” Rob said.

He took a step towards Marc, then stopped cold, his eyes going vacant for a moment.

“Hey, that was easy. I wanted to be a warrior, but wasn't sure. As soon as you offered me the armor I was sure and it offered the class to me,” Rob said. “So now I guess we all have classes.”

“Glad you got your Mage class, man,” Jeff said, patting Marc on his shoulder. “You're good at it.”

Marc grinned up at him.

“Well, not exactly.”

“I thought you said you got your class?”

“I did, I had three choices even. I just didn't choose the straight Mage class.”

Jeff closed his eyes and sighed.

“What did you get?”

“A class called Arcane Bulwark,” Marc replied. “Kind of a warrior-mage hybrid class focused on defense.”

* * *

Chapter Four

As soon as Marc had his armor off, he started pulling up help files again. He remembered he'd read something about spells, mana, and their relationships to spellcasting in all of the help files on mind related stats.

“Okay,” he said aloud, since Felicia was there with him, working on assigning her own stats. Rob had taken the most obvious route for him. One point to strength and the second to constitution. He'd get one in each of those at each level from here on out, plus two to assign as he would. They all seemed to get a single skill point per level, or at least had on their non-classed level. Jeff had claimed to only get one also, but Marc wondered at the smirk on his face when he'd said it.

Yeah, Jeff would lie about something like that, then claim that we were so much luckier than him later on when we got more than one, use the pity to get more of a share of party loot or something, so we'll have to wait and find out later on, Marc thought.

“Here it is,” he said. “It's the aptitude stat. It controls a bunch of stuff. The more powerful of the spells we can learn need a higher aptitude score, the number of spells and skills we can have are controlled by it, and if you get it high enough it gives a bonus to experience earned.”

“Well, I'm glad I get a point of that automatically every two levels. Willpower too since that controls the strength of Healer spells,” she said.

“I'll need to keep my intelligence going up, that controls the power of my spells,” Marc replied. “So, two points to spend. Constitution for survivability? More health is always good. Intelligence to boost the damage on my Mana Dart spell? Aptitude for later on?”

He shook his head.

“I've always hated learning new systems, less so as I get used to them, but...”

“Well, we got more health for going up in level, right?” Felicia said.

He nodded.

“So, don't worry about that for now. Intelligence also gives you more mana per level, doesn't it? So maybe go with that? If it increases damage and increases total mana, then it's a good investment, right?”

“With the guys we've been fighting so far, sure. But I remember it said it was initializing the common spawns. What happens when it goes to uncommon, or worse?”

“Worry about that when we get there. I'm only a couple hundred experience away from another level, so we'll have more options then.”

“Alright, I'm going to sink the two points into Intelligence, then I'll check what I want to put my banked skill point in. I'm thinking maybe Shield Bash, but I'll need to spend a point on Short Spear to use my pilum any more effectively than I have been.”

That had him bothered. He'd wondered when the System change had altered the length of the pilums as much as it had, now he had a four foot weapon that was exactly the maximum length he could use.

But there's no way the system could have known I was going to choose Arcane Bulwark. I think it just shortened them to the least effective spear category so as to give us less powerful items, he thought.

However it had happened, things were working out, sort of.

We need to make a Safe Zone so we can sleep and so others have a safe spot to be in. I wonder...

Intent seemed to play a fair bit towards what the system allowed, so now he started talking out loud.

“I know we want to set up a Safe Zone, right? I think the school would be a good choice for that. Sturdy building, lots of room. I wonder if the System will allow us to access the help files on Safe Zones since we're working on making one,” Marc said.

He was staring at the ceiling as he said it, having no better idea of where the System might be, assuming it even had physical components.

Then he tried to pull up the help file on Safe Zones.

Safe Zone:

A Safe Zone is created area where spawns do not happen. Required is sturdy structure as base, materials needed as well. Power needed also. Temporary Safe Zones are available at lesser cost, twenty-four hour intervals.

Structure must be cleared of opposition before converted to Safe Zone.

Potential materials: stone, wood, metal

Potential power sources: cores, System tokens

“Well now, that was informative. Not... I can get help on Safe Zones now, but it isn't much help,” Marc said. “I mean, I can kind of make it out, but it could be a lot more clear. If what I'm understanding is right, then there's a lot of stuff needed for a Safe Zone.”

Felicia's eyes unfocused.

“I see what you mean. Especially the stuff. Power sources? Cores and System tokens? What are cores?”

“I'm assuming Monster cores, which we may need to wait for less common creatures to find, or just kill enough common ones. System tokens?” Marc asked.

Marc shrugged.

“I have a System token,” Felicia said. “It showed up in an extra slot in my inventory after I got my class. I still don't know what it is though. There's no help file on them even after I got one.”

Marc quickly checked his own inventory.

“Hey, I've got one too. If we all did, then we have at least four. Maybe that would be enough?”

She shrugged.

“We've got to finish clearing this place to find out.”

“Well, let's see if the others are ready then, shall we?”

Deciding that better weapon skills were more important than a shield bash at this time, Marc went ahead and selected the Short Spear skill with his skill point. Then they stood and headed over to where Rob and Jeff were raiding the kitchen.

* * *

“Of course he got a class like that,” Jeff muttered as Felicia and Marc approached, “Thief, Warrior, Healer, and Arcane Bulwark. Nothing like feeling outclassed right off the bat.”

Rob patted him on his back.

“You wanted a rogue type class, you got one. Felicia and I wanted the classes we got, too. So what if he got a fancy one? It's just going to let him do what he always did in our games, keep us as safe as he can.”

“You know Rob, you aren't the smartest, but sometimes you come up with some serious gems of wisdom,” Jeff said.

Marc waited a moment before clearing his throat. Jeff spun around guiltily, but Marc was pretty sure Rob had seen them sooner.

“Did you guys both get System tokens when you got your class?” Marc asked.

Jeff nodded and Rob looked confused.

“Check your inventory, Rob. There should be an extra slot now with a token in it.”

“Oh yeah, I got one. Why?”

“The System says we'll need power to create a Safe Zone. It suggests cores or System tokens. So, there's four tokens between us. We haven't found any cores on the goblins or hobgoblins yet, right? So, we might need to do tokens,” Felicia said.

Jeff got a disgusted look on his face.

“I know, Jeff. It sucks to let go of stuff that everyone can use, but think of it this way. If we make a Safe Zone then that means you won't have to worry about waking up to a Hobgoblin Mage spawning on your chest.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeff said. “I'm just thinking about you wanting to invite everyone in. We ought to charge them rent or something.”

“Well, they'll have to pull their weight if they come in and we'll make that clear right off the bat,” Marc said. “If that makes you feel any better.”

“A little bit,” Jeff said.

“First, though, we need to finish clearing this place. Everyone ready?” Marc asked.

Rob and Jeff stood up.

“Ready as I'll ever be,” Rob said.

“Let's do it,” Jeff added.

They spent the next forty-five minutes exploring the individual classrooms. Some things had changed a bit, but they didn't find any more of the hobgoblins until they got to the auditorium. There were just a few goblins here and there in the classrooms, who were quickly killed. Marc had been holding off on checking the auditorium for a while since the last group they'd found had been in one of the larger areas also.

Because the foyer is bigger than the classrooms and had hobgoblins, he thought, The cafeteria was bigger also and had them. That just leaves the auditorium and gym as the areas that are noticeably larger, so if they're going to be around, that's where they'll probably be.

Marc paused to check out the last classroom before the auditorium, it was empty of goblins of any sort, so now they had the auditorium and gymnasium to look forward to.

At least we took out a bunch of goblins though, now they can't back up the hobgoblins. Assuming they would in the first place. The hobgoblins are pretty violent with the goblins, so the goblins might not bother to back up their bigger cousins, Marc thought.

“I think we'll probably find another group in here,” Marc said. “It's a bigger area and the other bigger areas have been where we found them before. Although I've got no idea how many there might be.”

“Let me go check it out,” Jeff said with a grin.

He didn't wait for a reply, just started moving down the corridor. He faded somehow until he was barely visible. Marc was pretty sure he could only see Jeff because he knew the rogue was there.

A minute later the rogue was back.

“So, there's at least eight of them in there, but you know how the auditorium is laid out. I couldn't check the upper seating area from here, so there could be more.”

“Go for the high ground?” Marc asked. “The aisles should make it so they can only get to us a couple at a time if we work it right. We'll need to take down any enemies up top first though, so we're clear behind us.”

“We're going to charge up the stairs?” Rob asked.

“Yes, I've got my Mana Dart spell so if there's only one or two, I can at least wound them before we get to them. Oh, and speaking of spells, one moment.”

Marc had checked the help on his Arcane Armor spell and it would provide the same protection as hardened leather armor for about twenty minutes, the duration and protection would go up as he leveled the spell higher. The description had also mentioned that it provided higher protection against magical attacks, more along the lines of medium armor. He cast the spell and had the sensation that the air had thickened around him somehow, not inhibiting his movement, but wrapping him in a cocoon of protection.

“Okay, I'm armored up for the next twenty minutes,” he said.

“I thought the scroll I gave you was a Mana Dart,” Jeff said.

“It was, I got a spell along with the class. Arcane Armor, self only defensive spell,” Marc replied.

Jeff rolled his eyes.

“We ready then?”

Marc checked quickly. The Arcane Armor had cost twenty mana, but he'd already regenerated three points of that. His mana, at level two, had gone up to a maximum of eighty-six, so he could cast several of the Mana Darts if they were needed since it only cost twenty-five mana to cast.

“Sure, let's go. Everyone spin to face up towards the back of the auditorium, except you Felicia. Keep an eye on the other eight and let us know if they have missile weapons at all, okay?”

“If I think I can do it, I'll fade out when you guys start rushing up the stairs,” Jeff said. “Then take the others from behind when they go after you up top.”

“Well, be careful if you do that. Eight on one sounds like pretty cruddy odds,” Rob said.

Jeff rolled his eyes again.

“Don't worry, I can get away from them if I have to. Agility is a focus for me.”

“Let's go then, the duration is ticking down on my armor spell,” Marc said.

He gritted his teeth as he hefted his shield and pulled open the auditorium doors.

* * *

They rushed forward until three of them could spin and look up towards the back. As they did, they saw another four hobgoblins up along the back wall of the auditorium. Unlike the majority of the hobgoblins they'd seen so far these had makeshift spears instead of makeshift clubs.

“No missiles on this side,” Felicia said, “but there might be a caster or two. I see feathers.”

“Rob, you and I need to rush the top. Shields out in case they throw their spears,” Marc said.

He matched action to word, starting to run up the stairs, shield covering his torso as his eyes roved over the potential opponents. He had his pilum clutched in the hand holding the shield, so he had to be careful not to snag it on the seats, but he needed his other hand free.

As they ran, Marc started to cast Mana Dart, aiming it at the hobgoblin closest to the top of the stairs he was on. A single shimmering dart flashed out and struck the hobgoblin. He didn't drop, but he did stagger back a step, leaving the top of the stairs clear.

Rob and Marc made it to the top of the stairs and Rob spun to face the two hobgoblins coming at them along the top aisle. Marc immediately followed up his Mana Dart attack with a thrust of his pilum.

Now that he had an actual skill in it, the pilum was much easier to use. He also knew that the blade was made of a medium grade, lightweight but strong, metal. He was no longer worried about bending it when attacking so he thrust forward hard and fast. The hobgoblin tried to parry with his makeshift spear, but it was too long for easy combat in their current area.

As Marc sank his pilum into the hobgoblin, he caught sight of motion to his side. The last of the hobgoblins was over there and he'd wound up and hurled his spear. The hob was running along behind the spear as it flew and Marc had no time to spin and interpose his shield between himself and the flying spear. He was wresting his pilum back out of the hobgoblin he'd stabbed when the spear came close. His eyes closed and he winced, anticipating the rush of pain that was about to occur.

There was a dull thump, then a clatter, and he opened his eyes again to see the spear still bouncing on the floor.

Hah! Arcane Armor for the win, Marc thought. I'd completely forgotten about it already.

The hobgoblin he'd stabbed was down now, the damage from his spell and his stab combining to drop it. He spun and faced the one who'd hurled his spear. With a swift kick, he made sure that the spear was unable to be recovered easily, sending it clattering farther down the auditorium where it lodged in the seats, pointing upwards.

He heard a clatter behind him and knew that Rob had engaged the enemies on his side, then Felicia yelled.

“Rob, step right so I can join you.”

As his Hobgoblin shied back from a thrust, Marc spared a glance to his own side, not seeing Jeff there, or anywhere in the aisle below.

Damn rogues, always disappearing when you could use the help. At least he'll thin the bigger crowd down below, I hope.

His attention back on his own fight, Marc thrust again, barely slicing the hobgoblin's side. It was trying to come in close enough to use its claws to attack him, so he used a move that he wouldn't have even tried before learning the Short Spear skill.

He choked up his grip on the pilum so he was holding it closer to the bottom of the shaft, leaving about a foot of the base of the shaft protruding out of his grip, then spun it and used the short section of the shaft beyond his grip as an impromptu club, hitting the goblin and driving it back several steps.

A flick of his eyes showed the hobgoblins from the bottom of the auditorium were just past the halfway point of the stairs.

I could probably drop this one with another Mana Dart, but there are lots more of them coming up from down bottom so I probably ought to save that, he thought.

With another spin, he slid his grip back to the middle, driving the blade down towards the hobgoblin at speed. There was only a little slicing edge on the side of the blade, so he had to be careful to gauge the distance correctly. He did, and the two inch section of sharpened blade ran down the hobgoblin's chest, opening a heavy wound.

The hobgoblin tried to rush forward again and Marc just dropped to the ground anchoring the base of the shaft under his foot. The hobgoblin had tried to push the pilum out of the way, but with the additional anchor point Marc managed to snap it back in front of the rushing hobgoblin, only for it to impale itself.

He angled the base of the pilum up so the unmoving hobgoblin slid back off the weapon, then spun to face the others that were rushing up the stairs. Two steps took him to where he could guard the stairs up. Felicia and Rob were now ganging up on a single hobgoblin on their side, the corpse of another lying in front of Rob.

Two of the hobgoblins had stopped just past the area where Marc had seen them before and one was gesticulating while the other simply pointed their staff towards Felicia and Rob's opponent.

“Casters!” Marc yelled. “Target the healer first.”

He had a few seconds until the hobgoblins reached him so he took his own advice, launching another Mana Dart, this time at the hobgoblin pointing its staff. Just before he finished his casting a shimmer of green energy raced across the intervening space between the hobgoblin healer and the hobgoblin currently fighting Rob.

Marc shook his head, he'd hoped to interrupt that casting, but his Mana Dart was too late. It went racing out and struck his target, but they'd already finished their cast. As soon as it struck the caster a line of text ran across the bottom of his vision, fading quickly.

Your spell, Mana Dart, has increased in skill level (1->2).

Then he had to pay attention to the hobgoblins still on their way up the stairs. They were almost on him now so he crouched a little, bringing his shield down to the stairs so they wouldn't have an easy way to attack his feet and ankles. He brought his other arm up over his head, his pilum ready to thrust downwards towards his opponents' heads and faces.

Just as they were about to reach him a strangled scream came from farther down the stairs. Marc didn't hold his thrust, but the hobgoblin in the front of the charge had glanced backwards as the pilum drove towards its face. Marc adjusted at the last moment, moving the thrust down and to the side so it took the hobgoblin in its unprotected neck while it was turned to look behind itself.

Another line of text flashed across his vision.

Critical strike. Damage X3.

Although it faded quickly, he made a mental note to check his notification settings after the fight, assuming he could find them. He needed to turn those off or reposition them if he could to avoid the distraction.

He pulled his pilum back into striking position, the hobgoblin having already slid off it due to the angle. Now he had five angry hobgoblins on the stairs beneath him, although several were just recovering from looking back towards the scream.

Marc risked a momentary glance himself. The healer was down and Jeff was down there going sword to claw with the other caster. He had to blink as a triple bolt of energy raced from the other caster, striking Jeff. Then he tore his attention back to the fight he had in front of him when the hobgoblins continued advancing up the stairs.

“Pick a side, Marc,” Rob called.

Marc shifted to his left and Rob slid into the space that was created with his movement.

Rob glanced over at Marc and shifted his own grip to the one Marc was using.

“Oh, that's nice. Easier to strike down like that, isn't it?” he said.

“Yeah, so let's do this,” Marc replied.

He struck forward again, but this time the hobgoblin he targeted was on guard and deflected the strike. Rob's pilum flashed out as well and a hobgoblin let out a yelp as he scored a scratch on the top of its head.

Taking several strikes on his shield from the hobgoblin's claws, Marc altered the angle of his pilum, choked up towards the blade, and then struck almost straight down, driving the blade of the pilum right into the hobgoblin's shoulder.

Rob jostled him then, his shield was rounded on the bottom so he couldn't ground it on the stairs and had to move and dodge. His latest dodge had him bumping Marc, which pulled the edge of his shield up. A hobgoblin claw slipped into the gap and drew across his shin. This time the attack wasn't blocked by his Arcane Armor, although he thought it might've been slowed by it.

The pain hit, and it was worse than the Mana Darts that had struck him earlier. The claws left a series of three open slashes across the front of his shin. His instincts had him slam the shield back down and there was a grisly sounding crack as it connected with the forearm of the hobgoblin.

“Ow! Shit!” Marc screamed, then thrust downwards with his pilum again.

The hobgoblin had stopped for a moment after it got its arm unstuck, cradling the wounded arm with its unwounded one. Marc took advantage of that brief moment and drove his pilum straight down into its chest. Then he pushed with his shield, sending the body sliding off his pilum and back into the hobgoblin behind it that had started trying to move into the aisle between the seats.

There was an opening in front of Marc, so he went down two steps with a hop, swinging his pilum towards the other side of the aisle and catching Rob's opponent in the upper arm with a painful sounding crack. As he pulled his pilum back, he made sure that it wasn't the shaft of the weapon that had cracked. It wasn't, and he watched as Rob drove down with his pilum again, dropping the hobgoblin.

Marc quickly moved back up the two steps he'd gone down so he and Rob were side by side again.

“Three more,” he said.

Rob gestured with his pilum.

“That one won't be much of a problem.”

Marc looked over and saw the hobgoblin he'd driven the corpse into. It was sprawled out, one leg bent at an unnatural angle where it had caught in a seat while the rest of its body had tried to continue its movement.

“Still two then.”

“One on one we can take,” Rob said.

The hobgoblins had backed off a bit when Marc sent one of them flying, now they were coming back up the stairs. Marc spared a glance down to where Jeff was fighting, only to see him flash with green light and seem to regain some of his wind.

He launched his last Mana Dart at the caster Jeff was facing, then dropped his shield to the floor again.

“Heal?” he called out.

A moment later a green light flashed over him and his shin stopped throbbing. He glared at the hobgoblins advancing up the stairs, now much more cautiously than they had before.

“Bring it,” he growled.

The hobgoblins paused for a moment at that, then started moving up the stairs again.

“Rob? Advance?”

“Sure, one step at a time?”

“On three. Then one step per second after that. One... two... three.”

The two of them started advancing down the steps at a slow place. The hobgoblins in front of them hesitated for a moment, then turned to run, only to find Jeff partway up the stairs.

“Now,” Marc cried as he jumped three steps down and thrust his pilum forward. Rob was right with him and the two managed to lodge their pilums in the backs of both hobgoblins.

“Hey, I got a crit,” Rob called out as his hobgoblin slumped and slid off his pilum.

Marc hadn't gotten a critical hit, so he pulled his pilum back then thrust forward again. Rob thrust towards it at the same time and the hobgoblin squealed as it threw itself down to avoid the attacks. That was its last move as Jeff came sprinting up the steps and administered the coup de grace with his gladius.

Marc looked around the auditorium, but didn't see anything still moving other than his party.

“That sucked,” he said.

“I second that,” Jeff added. “Whose bright idea was it for me to attack the casters?”

“Uh, Jeff, I think you volunteered for that,” Rob said.

“Yeah, well, maybe I'd better rethink my life then,” Jeff said, “Cause that hurt, bad!”

He moved away from the hobgoblin corpse before sagging into a sitting position on the stairs. Marc saw the multiple holes in the jacket Jeff was using for armor and realized that Felicia had probably had to heal him more than once.

“I swear, your health going up and down like you're on a see-saw sucks big time,” Jeff said. “Thanks, Felicia.”

“You're welcome,” she said, having come up behind the rest of them.

“I'm just sitting here for a few minutes before I do anything else,” Jeff said.

“Okay, we'll take care of looting, then join you. I bet Felicia needs to regain mana and I know that I do,” Marc said.

Marc bent over and looted the hobgoblin at his feet, Rob and Felicia following suit. Jeff pulled himself back to his feet with a melodramatic groan.

“Alright, maybe I've a little more energy,” he said. “I'll help with the looting, then rest.”

Felicia caught Marc's gaze, then rolled her eyes towards Jeff and Marc barely managed to stifle a laugh.

* * *

Chapter Five

“So, what do we have left to clear?” Rob asked, bending over to loot another hobgoblin. “I know you said the gym will probably have more of these guys in it, is that it?”

“The gym,” Marc replied, “plus the office and the basement. We've gotten all the classrooms and the other spots I can think of.”

Felicia shuddered in distaste.

“I hate the basement. The few times I've been down there I always felt like I was on the set of a creepy movie.”

“It's not that bad down there,” Jeff said. “Really, lots of great hiding places.”

“That's the problem, Jeff,” she replied. “Even more great hiding places when you think of the size of the things we're fighting.”

“Yeah, the goblins would have lots of spots to hide, but the hobgoblins would probably need the ones that are big enough for us and I know where most of those are.”

“Jeff, did you go to any of your classes?” Marc asked.

“Hey, I went to classes when I had tests at least. The rest of the time they were a bore, you know?”

“Mine weren't exactly sparkling examples of interesting either, Jeff, but at least I went to them, even if I normally did other things during them,” Marc said.

“So, you blew off your classes mentally, I just blew mine off physically,” Jeff said. “What's the difference?”

“Um, maybe the fact that I got good grades and you barely graduated?”

“Didn't matter in the least, I still got into college. I told them the truth, that my classes bored me. They gave me a couple of tests and then were happy to have me go to their college.”

Marc shook his head.

“Well, at least you got some good info we can use out of it. Not that anyone would've ever thought it would be useful info.”

“Yeah, it's great, isn't it?” Jeff said. “It's like pulling that perfect bit of trivia out of your ass that no-one thought anybody would know.”

Alright, Jeff is definitely still Jeff, Marc thought. And he'll keep going on and on if we let him.

“Well, enough of that. We've got to head out again, try to make this place a Safe Zone before dark,” Marc said. “Everybody check their notifications and then we'll go.”

He pulled up his own now that they were done looting.

You have gained a level (2->3)

You have two ability points to distribute.

Your Intelligence has increased (9->10)

Your Constitution has increased (6->7)

You have one new skill point to distribute.

You have learned the spell: Phantom Shield (1)

“Cool, I picked up another level,” Marc said. “Give me a minute to assign some stat points.”

Okay, if it's anything like what I'm used to, he thought, Agility will help me hit more, so I'll put a point there. Aptitude is a new one, but if it controls skills and spells, both number and efficiency, then I'm going to need to increase that also.

He quickly placed a point in Agility and the second one in Aptitude, then checked his stats after using his skill point to get the Shield Bash skill he'd been considering earlier on.

Marcus Aurelius Cavanaugh

Class: Arcane Bulwark

Level: 3

Experience: 7/1000

Health: 132

Mana: 138 (+2)

Stamina: 141 (+3)

Endurance: 18

Body: 6.0 (Strength:5, Constitution: 7, Agility: 6)

Mind: 7.6  (Intelligence: 10, Willpower: 6, Aptitude: 7)

Social: 5.0 (Charisma: 5, Personality: 5, Allure: 5)

Skills:

Short Spear (melee weapon)(1)

Shield Bash (1)

Spells:

Mana Dart (2)

Arcane Armor (1)

Phantom Shield (1)

“Did anyone else level in that last fight?” Marc asked.

“Nope, I'm just shy of a hundred points to go for level three,” Felicia said.

Rob and Jeff were shaking their heads also.

“Me neither,” Jeff said, “although I'm only about twenty experience away, not a hundred.”

“Another fight like this would put me over,” Rob added.

“I guess discovering information about the System was what pushed me over, I've only got seven experience towards level four,” Marc said. “Anyhow, everyone ready?”

He was greeted by a bunch of nods and they headed out into the hallways.

“Which first?” Marc asked. “The gym will probably be another fight, but we don't know about the office or the basement.”

“Office?” Felicia said. “I'm kind of equating the office to another classroom, so maybe some of the goblins, but nothing big.”

“Sure, we can do that,” Marc added.

He turned and headed for the office, the other three in tow.

* * *

The office complex had a single goblin in it. Amusingly enough it was trapped in the principal's office, unable to open the door. So when they heard noise in the room and opened the door, the goblin was sitting in the principal's chair, spinning around in circles.

They killed the goblin, Jeff snickering as they did so, then cleared the rest of the office, finding nothing else living in there.

“Okay, basement or gym?” Marc asked. “I'm pretty sure we'll have to fight in the gym, but the basement?”

He shrugged.

“Let's all make sure we're fully regenerated, then head for the gym. Get the fight we know we'll have out of the way, then we can scout the basement, maybe send Jeff down there if he wants to practice his Stealth some more,” Felicia said.

Jeff rolled his eyes.

“Sure, I can check it out. Maybe I'll take a nap if that comfy hiding spot is still down there,” he said.

They were sitting in the main office, just off the hallway, and Jeff was fidgeting horribly.

“I can't believe we're sitting in the office to regenerate,” he said. “The last time I was sitting here was when the principal felt the need to lecture me on blowing off my classes, even when I was getting B's or better in all of them.”

He shook his head.

“I'm going to go scout out the gym. It has those doors with the little glass panels in them so I can look through and see what's in most of the area in there.”

He stood and reached the door before anyone else managed to reply. They were just sitting there, staring at him.

“Wait,” Marc said as Jeff reached for the door. “I'm full up, how about everyone else?”

“I will be by the time we make it to the gym,” Felicia said.

“I'm good,” Rob added.

“So let's all go,” Marc said.

He cast his Arcane Armor again, knowing it would only take a minute or two to get to the gym.

Your spell, Arcane Armor, has increased in skill level (1->2).

He grinned, but didn't say anything to the rest of the group, not wanting to disrupt them now that they were on target again.

Jeff would probably be upset if it slowed us down at all, Marc thought. And I'm not sure if anyone else has leveled skills or spells up, they haven't said so if they did. So I'll just keep my mouth shut.

When they got close to the gymnasium, Jeff held up a hand.

“I wasn't kidding. Let me go scout them so we have some idea of what we're facing, okay?”

Marc nodded and the other two voiced agreement. They stopped, ducking into a pair of classroom doorways where they'd be mostly hidden by the lockers along the walls of the hallway. Jeff sort of shimmered out of sight again as he moved towards the gym. Marc could keep track of him by the shimmer even though he couldn't see the rogue clearly.

Jeff was back two minutes later, speaking in soft tones once he'd returned.

“Okay, this is worse than the others, there's about fifteen in there, three goblins and the rest hobgoblins. Looks like there might be a boss type in there as well since one of them stands a head taller than the rest.”

“How are they arranged?” Marc asked.

“Well, the bleachers are all up against the walls, so they've got most of the area open. There's a bunch of crap piled up against the far wall. It looks like they were looting, but most of it's just junk as far as I can tell. Most of the hobgoblins are in the central area, but there are two standing near each of the doors leading into the school, guarding them or something. The doors leading outside have been tied shut with ropes.”

“Well, crap, so we're just going to have to tank them out?” Rob said.

“Maybe we can draw the hobgoblins on guard duty out into the hall? Thin them out a little first.” Felicia said.

“Worth a shot,” Marc replied, “at worst they all come out into the hall, but then we'd have a limited front to fight them on that would make it easier too.”

“I grabbed those spears from the guys in the auditorium,” Rob said. “So, we can get some missile attacks in first. Me with those and Marc with his spells.”

“If you're going to tank, I got a new spell with my last level that might help, Rob,” Marc said. “It's a Phantom Shield spell. I can cast it on anyone, it tries to interpose itself between incoming attacks and the target, and it increases the armor value against anything that tries to strike the target of my spell.”

“Cool, you can toss that on all of us then,” Jeff said.

Marc shook his head.

“Fifty mana per cast and I've only got a hundred and forty max. I'm almost back to max after casting arcane armor, but even so I could only do two of us. Short duration too, four minutes plus one minute per point in the spell. So just five minutes for now. If I cast it at all it'll be on Rob since he's tanking.”

Jeff grumbled something, but quieted quickly.

“Then, pull out the guards? Swarm them? Or make a defensive line if they all follow the guards out into the hallway?” he said.

Marc nodded.

“That's the best I think we can do for the moment since I'm pretty sure that you don't want to go try to eliminate any from the middle of the gym.”

“No, but if they come out into the hallway I will,” Jeff said. “Oh, and one of them has one of those healing staff things and another is wearing feathers on his head, so...”

Marc shook his head.

“More casters, that sucks. Hey, did we get the staff from the second healer type we killed?”

Jeff nodded.

“Got it in my inventory. I had Felicia tell me how to use it and I can provide a couple of extra heals if needed. Thought about giving it to you, but figured you had better things to do with your mana.”

He's got a point, but I wish I'd known he claimed that. We're going to have to make some rules about looting, but later on, not right now, Marc thought.

“Alright then, how do we want to do this?”

“Failed Stealth,” Jeff said.

Marc cocked his head.

“I'll pretend to be in Stealth where they can see me through the door, make a loud noise to make sure they spot me, then I'll run, and hopefully they'll follow.”

“Want a spear? Then you can kite them properly,” Rob said, holding out one of the rough spears towards Jeff.

Jeff started to say something, thought better of it, and accepted the spear from Rob.

“Not that I'm liable to do more than piss them off with it. I'm decent with the sword, I got the skill for it, but a hurled weapon?”

“If you're Agility focused like you said, that might make up for not being proficient with it,” Felicia replied.

“Hey, you got a point there. So I'll go try to get those guys to follow me,” Jeff said, turning and moving down the hallway.

* * *

Marc was lost in thought as he waited. A glance through the window had shown that the sun was almost down.

So even if we manage to make a Safe Zone today, we won't be able to go tell everyone about it and invite them back here, he thought. How many more people will be lost overnight? But there's not a lot we can do about that right now, is there? If we can get the Safe Zone made, then we can go out and start saving some others, I hope. So for now, we're doing what we can.

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of something metallic rattling across the floor down the hallway in the direction that Jeff went. A moment later, he heard the gym door slam open and the sound of footsteps running.

Hobgoblin grunts carried down the corridor to him and, a moment later, a scream from the same deep voice followed. Then the running footsteps increased and a moment later Jeff came barreling around the corner in front of them.

“Rob, let's set up,” Marc said, moving into position a few feet from the corner.

As Rob approached him, Marc cast his new Phantom Shield spell on him and a shimmering patch of air formed in front of the tank.

“Brace your pilum like this,” Marc said.

He was crouched down, bracing his pilum under his foot again, hiding behind his shield. Rob quickly tried to duplicate the position, just as the first of the hobgoblin guards came rushing around the corner. He skidded on the floor, sliding across the hallway, and Rob came up out of his braced position, lunging forward to score a solid hit on the sliding hobgoblin.

The following hobgoblin came around the corner then, at a slower speed, probably having learned from the first one. This one was already wounded, a hole in its arm showing where Jeff had hurled the spear somewhat accurately.

It was focusing on not sliding, so when Marc slid himself across the floor a ways, keeping his pilum braced, it was slow to react to the signs of an enemy and ended up skewering itself. The blow, even with the previous wound, wasn't enough to kill it, but when Marc pulled the pilum out and struck again as the guard was swinging its club, that blow was enough to kill it. Marc caught the return blow on his shield, pushing it to the side.

Rob was in melee with the other hobgoblin, thrusting repeatedly to keep it at bay and out of range of its club, so Marc simply launched himself, the three steps he had to take to reach it letting him build up some steam before hitting it with his shield and sending it stumbling back into the wall it had struck earlier.

Rob reacted quickly, getting another stab in on the hobgoblin while it tried to regain its balance. A moment later Marc struck as well and the hobgoblin went down and stayed down.

Rob shimmered in green light for a moment and Marc realized that he must've been struck by his opponent before Marc's shield bash took the hobgoblin off guard.

“Just the two?” Felicia asked.

Jeff's voice answered from a little farther down the hall.

“That was all I saw, should we try it again with the other guards?”

“Only if we go the long way around,” Marc said. “They might see us if we walk down that hall.”

“Do we have the time? Will they react to the guards leaving and staying gone?” Jeff asked.

Marc just shrugged.

“Let's double time it. I think we're all pretty good on stamina, right? Let's loot these guys and go.”

He leaned over and looted each of the corpses before heading down the hallway that would eventually allow them to come up on the gymnasium from the other side.

* * *

By the time they made it around to the other gymnasium doors, or at least just around a corner from them, Marc could see that it was totally dark outside and gave up any hope of helping anyone else tonight.

“Same thing?” Jeff asked.

Rob handed him another spear.

“Worked last time, why not?” Rob said.

Jeff shook his head, then took the spear and headed off down the corridor. This time Marc wasn't lost in his thoughts, he was eager to get the fight over with so they could create a Safe Zone. He knew they still had the basement to clear, but hoped that that would go more quickly than this. He'd been down there before and there weren't really any wide open, clear areas, so he expected only goblins down there, if anything.

“So, the point of that position you showed me is to lunge out of it?” Rob asked.

Marc shook his head.

“No, but that was a good move on your part. The point was to brace it and try to have your opponent run onto your weapon.”

“Oh, like horses and pikemen?” Rob asked.

“Yeah, a lot like that, Rob,” Marc answered.

Rob remembers the weirdest stuff. I told him about mounted riders and pikemen years ago for a tabletop RPG we were playing and he remembered that, but if I ask him what his last college lecture was about, he probably couldn't tell me without checking his notes, Marc thought.

Just then Jeff made his noise to attract the guards' attention. This time, Marc didn't hear the gym doors slam open, didn't hear any footsteps, either. Then he heard Jeff shouting, insulting the guards' mothers, and the sound of a fist pounding on a door.

A moment later Marc heard running footsteps, and then Jeff shouting.

“Um, guards didn't respond, so I went a step further. There's a bunch of them on my tail this time.”

Marc quickly checked his mana. It was close to full, so he put another Phantom Shield on Rob.

Didn't work well last time, but every little bit helps, he thought.

His own Arcane Armor was up, but he knew he could cast it again and reset its duration, so he did that since by his count he only had a minute or two left on the first one.

Just under seventy mana left. If I get a few points regenerating during the fight I can use three Mana Darts, he thought.

Jeff came screaming around the corner.

“Five inbound!”

He kicked off the wall to corner, then tried to stop, but ended up sliding down the hall all the way past Felicia before coming to a stop.

Rob, who was on the far side of the hallway from where the hobgoblins were approaching, pulled out one of the long spears from his inventory, sliding the pilum into his inventory as he did.

“Better bracing for more damage?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess, why?” Marc asked.

Rob took two steps out to where he was visible to the hobgoblins racing down the corridor, then shoved the butt of the long spear against the wall behind him, holding it standing straight up in the same hand as his shield. Then he looked up at the incoming hobgoblins and flipped them off.

He quickly switched hands with the spear, crouching behind his shield so it covered him better and dropped the point of the spear towards the charging enemy.

The hobgoblins tried to stop, but quickly found out that they couldn't. Jeff had only managed to corner by kicking off the wall, and these guys were sliding straight towards Rob's spear.

Well, at least one of them will hit it, but there's four more of them, Marc thought.

He stepped forward as the first goblin slid past the corner, Rob adjusting his spear so the hobgoblin hit it with the center of his torso. Marc thrust at the next one sliding past, almost losing his pilum as the hobgoblin kept sliding after he'd stabbed it deeply. He managed to recover his pilum from the hobgoblin as it hit the one lodged completely on Rob's long spear, taking the first six inches of the spear into his chest.

Marc stepped out. The other three hobgoblins had collided with one another when they couldn't stop, sliding into the wall at speed. Rob was dropping the long spear and pulling his pilum out of his inventory again when Marc struck at the back of one of the healthy hobgoblins. He wasn't too worried about the two impaled on the spear, if they weren't dead, they were going to need to make an effort to get off the spear before they could do anything else.

Critical strike. Damage X2.

Marc grinned as he recovered his pilum from the hobgoblin's back. He'd been ready to toss a Mana Dart to finish these guys off more quickly, but the critical should help almost as much as a spell would. He thrust again, quickly, before the hobgoblins had recovered and turned to face him. The pilum sank deep into the hobgoblin's back, but he didn't get a critical on that strike.

Meanwhile he saw the effectiveness of his Phantom Shield spell. One of the hobgoblins had dropped their club, clawing at Rob and his shield, but the attack was stopped several inches in front of Rob's shield even.

Huh, I probably ought to tell the people I cast the Phantom Shield on that they should anchor their flank against something solid. Looks a lot more effective like that, Marc thought. That hobgoblin couldn't attack from one side due to the wall and the Phantom Shield was guarding Rob's other side.

Then he stopped thinking about other things and just focused on the fight. Felicia had stepped up as well, her tire iron striking into the melee. Between the three of them, they took out the remaining hobgoblins. Jeff had made it back to them and killed off the one pulling itself off the long spear. The first one that had struck the spear was dead by the time he got there and the last three had fallen rapidly to the strikes of the group.

“That sucked,” Jeff said.

“You banged on the door?” Felicia said, sounding like she wanted to shout but knew that it would be a bad idea.

“Well, they were ignoring me otherwise. They looked out, saw me, and then turned back to facing inwards,” Jeff said.

“So you went ahead and banged on the door,” Felicia said, shaking her head.

“Hey, it worked. And now all that's left in there are the little guys, the boss, and the casters,” Jeff said. “Let's go get 'em!”

* * *

“Wait,” Marc said. “Check your notifications first. If you guys were as close as you said to leveling up, you probably have now.”

Rob and Felicia's eyes unfocused. She nodded but didn't come back into focus as both of their hands started moving.

I wonder if I do that when I'm using the mental interface. I bet that's them selecting options and the like, Marc thought.

He looked over at Jeff.

“Don't look at me,” Jeff said. “I advanced and selected skills and stuff after those first two hobs from the gym.”

“Good. We have to remember to do that as soon as possible all the time. Who knows when we'll find something a lot more powerful than these. I'm betting that if we'd waited a few days, this would've been a lot harder too.”

“Maybe, depends on how fast these guys spawn,” Jeff said.

“Or how fast they level,” Marc added. “If they sent groups out hunting people or animals or whatever, they'd be getting experience as well.”

Jeff nodded.

“So, we need to clear all of it tonight then, yeah?” Jeff said.

“Only if we want a safe place to sleep. Assuming we can even make a Safe Zone just by clearing them out.”

“It's like playing a damned RPG without any of the rulebooks, doing it just by what you already know from other games,” Jeff said, looking disgusted.

“And where we can get the rules, they're obtuse and difficult to read due to the grammar,” Marc added.

Jeff snickered.

“Somehow I knew that would bother you more than the rest.”

“Hey, I've been reporting all the errors I find. I'm hoping that the reports help them reformat everything to be more comprehensible.”

Jeff just kept snickering.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he said. “You'd need at least one person working full time to fix it if there are as many help files as were suggested.”

“I'm sure it's a computer type of thing, maybe an AI or something like that, that's in charge of everything. So they could do it easily with the proper databases,” Marc said.

“Well, we can hope, but I wouldn't count on it,” Jeff said. “Hey, looks like they're about ready.”

Rob and Felicia were following the conversation now, when Jeff and Marc turned to them Rob cleared his throat.

“Guys, I'm getting a point each in my main stats with each level. Where do I want to use the others?”

“Are any of your stats lower than the rest?” Jeff asked. “Ones that you wouldn't want to use as a dump stat?”

“Umm, I don't know. My physical are all pretty good, especially now after leveling some. My mental stats are kinda low though, four intelligence, four aptitude, six in willpower though.”

“Aptitude,” Marc said. “That controls how many skills you'll be able to learn and I think it also controls how quickly they advance. I'd put at least one point in there for now and another point every couple of levels.”

“So, should I bring intelligence and aptitude both up to five then?”

“You might not have a use for mana, I don't know if your class gets anything that needs it, but having your intelligence at average, which I think is a five, is not a bad idea,” Marc said.

“Hey, does this mean I'm dumb?” Rob asked.

“Well, just because the most common intelligence attribute is five doesn't mean you're dumb,” Marc said quickly. “I bet there's a range and a four would just put you on the low end of average intelligence, not dumb.”

Jeff had been about to say something when Marc had cut him off. Now he clamped his mouth shut and glared at Marc.

Don't tease the tank, Jeff, Marc thought. That's just a bad plan all around. If he gets distracted in this next fight all of us could suffer for it.

He didn't say anything out loud, just returning the glare. After a few moments Jeff kind of reddened, then dropped his head.

“There, now I've got a five and I'm right at average instead of the low end of average. I put the other one in aptitude like you said. I also chose the Shield Bash skill because it looked handy when you used it,” Rob said.

“Felicia, are you set?”

She nodded.

“I picked up a couple new spells, too. I already have a healing spell, but it's cheaper to use the staff so I've been doing that. Now I've got a single person attack buff. It doesn't last long, only about the same as you said your Phantom Shield does, but it's only five mana to cast, so I can put it on all of us before we go into a fight.”

“So, what are we waiting for?” Jeff said. “Let's go kick some hobgoblin ass.”

“Whoa,” Felicia replied. “My mana is still regenerating.”

Marc checked his, it was almost full, but he hadn't used all of his in the last fight, so that wasn't surprising.

I've got to remember to use my Mana Dart more, I bet it gets better as its skill level increases, he thought. That could explain why they're getting three darts, but I only get one.

“As soon as Felicia's mana is full, we'll go,” Marc said. “I'm probably going to need to refresh my Arcane Armor again before then also, so I'll do it now and hopefully have my mana back to full by then too.”

He cast Arcane Armor. Once again the duration didn't stack, but it did reset itself to the full twenty minutes. As long as they were moving within ten minutes, he thought it would last through the fight.

Felicia slumped into a sitting position against the wall, closing her eyes. About three minutes later she stood up.

“Okay, let's go. I'll be full in another minute, so we'll stop and I'll buff everyone before we head in.”

“Rob, you're tanking the three hobgoblins for the start. Just try to not get hurt as much as you can. Jeff, Stealth in for back attacks on the casters?”

Jeff nodded.

“I'll take the three little guys down first. Felicia—”

She cut him off.

“I'll be keeping an eye on Rob and healing. I've got a feeling he'll need it.”

“Good, then let's go,” Marc said.

* * *

Chapter Six

When they paused to buff up before the doors, Marc felt as though he were forgetting something. Checking his inventory, he quickly pulled out his rifle.

“Hey guys, game changer here. Well, maybe at least. I don't know how well it's going to work without being System adapted.”

“It sounded like they should still work some, just deteriorate faster,” Felicia said, pulling out her shotgun. “I think you're right though and they can be a game changer for this fight at least. It's only been less than a day, they can't have deteriorated much yet, right?”

Marc took a moment to look over the rifle and it didn't appear any different than he thought it should.

“Well, let's give it a shot. Really, they're fairly simple machines. The most complex thing is the chemical reaction when the gunpowder ignites. That worries me a bit,” he said, flashing back to the chemical mix Jeff had planned for the cafeteria.

“Only one way to find out,” Felicia said. “So, let's plan on leading with the firearms, then toss them aside if they aren't working correctly.”

“Okay, then the only change to the plan for now is that Felicia and I will lead off. Rob, you're right behind us. If the guns don't work right, then you'll need to step in front of us right away and we'll drop back to the old plan.”

Jeff rolled his eyes and pointed to the door.

“Okay, we're going,” Marc said.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside, leveling the rifle at the hobgoblin he thought was an offensive caster and sighting through the scope. When he squeezed the trigger gently, the shot came as a surprise, just the way it should.

Rifle and scope are kind of overkill for an area this small, but I didn't bring a pistol, he thought, squeezing the trigger a second time as he stepped to the side for Felicia to join him.

His ears were ringing from the sound of the shots in the enclosed area, so he hoped no-one was trying to say anything as he continued to fire.

The caster he'd been aiming at began to gesticulate and move its mouth as he fired again. Just as he got a fourth round off, the caster finished his spell and three shimmering darts raced towards him. The fourth round dropped the caster, but the three bolts hit him hard, leaving him out of breath and in pain for a moment.

He faintly heard the roar of the shotgun firing over the ringing in his ears. Felicia, loaded with buckshot, had chosen to fire at the three goblins.

She's probably hoping to remove them with a shot, or two at most, so we can focus on the others, he thought.

He was positive that the offensive caster was down for good then. The healer beside him had been casting when the last round dropped the hobgoblin caster, and when the heal went off, the body glowed green for a moment, but stayed still.

Aiming at the healer next, he lost his sight line when Rob pushed past him. His eyes flickered over and he realized that with his ears ringing as badly as they were, he hadn't heard the boss hobgoblin roar and begin to charge. Rob had been watching though, and now he set himself to receive the charge, bracing one of the long spears against his foot as he crouched and kept his shield in front of him.

Reacquiring his target, Marc squeezed the trigger again. The round raced out, but something felt wrong about the recoil. He looked down to see that the casing the rifle was ejecting had stovepiped, jamming in the mechanism as it was ejected.

Damn, is that just a normal stovepipe or is it something to do with the deterioration? I don't think I should try to figure it out now. I'll just clear this later and check things then.

He willed the rifle back into his inventory, removing his pilum in its place. Holding the pilum in the hand that held his shield, he started casting instead, still aiming for the healer.

The healer was healing itself at this point and just before Marc's Mana Dart went off, a green light shimmered over the healer's body, starting to close the wound the bullet had left in it. As the Mana Dart raced out of his hand to strike the healer, text flashed across the lowest portion of his sight.

Your spell, Mana Dart, has increased in skill level (2->3).

He began to cast it again since the healer was also still casting. This time the green shimmer of healing silhouetted the boss that was fighting Rob. It had taken the braced spear in the stomach before snapping the shaft of it off. Now the portion of the spear trapped in its stomach was ejected as the wound it had created began to heal.

None of that, Marc thought. Come on Jeff, take down the healer.

His Mana Dart spell raced out, striking the healer, and he was mildly surprised to see that there were two of them now.

So that's what controls the number of darts, the skill in the spell itself does it, he thought.

Jeff shimmered into being behind the healer as his gladius sank into the healer's back. Marc spun and moved over to Rob to assist him with the boss. Felicia had fired a second time at the goblins and they were all down.

Rob was doing a fairly good job with the boss. Not damaging it much after the initial strike with the braced spear that it ran onto, but keeping himself from getting hit. Now, with Marc beside him, they started to do some damage. There was no more healing coming in on the boss. Although the healer was still up, it was more concerned with defending itself from Jeff than anything else. Felicia had already used a heal on their rogue, and now she did so again. The staff of healing disintegrated from her off hand, where she'd been carrying it along with her shield, and she looked disconcerted.

“Crap, my healing staff is dead,” she yelled.

Marc barely heard her over the ringing in his ears.

“You have a regular healing spell though, right?” he yelled back.

She nodded, evidently realizing that there was some trouble with his hearing and probably having the same with her own.

Mental note, if we get back to my house, we need to grab some of the hearing protection if we're going to use the guns. I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier, Marc thought.

He was thrusting with his pilum right along, but even with the skill he'd gotten from the System to use it, he was only damaging it with about one in five of his attacks, the boss either ignoring or blocking the rest.

Your skill, Short Spear, has increased in skill level (1->2).

With that message in his sight, he started attacking with a renewed vigor, hoping the added skill level would help him land more strikes.

Sure enough, with the higher skill he was damaging it more frequently, probably two out of five strikes now. The boss seemed only mildly irritated though, the stabs drawing blood but closing quickly.

Well, I've got enough for another Mana Dart, let's see if that helps, Marc thought.

He cast the spell, the two darts flying forward to strike the hobgoblin boss' neck. Then, the boss turned slightly and started focusing his strikes on Marc instead of Rob.

“Shit!” Marc called, backpedaling as he caught a strike on his shield and it almost knocked him over. He braced himself and got his shield in front of him and ready to move. Being ready made a difference, but now he understood the problem Rob had been experiencing. You had to brace against these attacks, and the position for that didn't lend itself to an easy return strike, at least not one hard enough to do much damage. Even with all his efforts, the boss managed to land a couple of hits that had him breathing hard and hurting.

“Yeah baby! Critical hit,” Rob called out from behind the boss.

The boss started to turn again, but instead of focusing on Rob, it took a step back away from them so it could keep an eye on both of them at the same time.

“Rob, Marc, get down,” Felicia called from behind them.

Marc realized that his ears weren't ringing as much any more, then realized that he ought to listen to her. Rob was all the way down on the floor, kneeling behind his shield, by the time Marc moved. He did the same and a moment later his ears started ringing again as Felicia fired a load of double ought  buckshot into the boss from nearly point blank range.

He leapt to his feet and interposed himself between the boss and Felicia as it tried to advance on her again.

“Failure to feed,” she called out. “No more firearms this fight.”

Rob stepped over and the two of them formed a tiny shield wall as Marc felt a warmth wash over him. There was a golden glow accompanying it this time instead of a green one and he started feeling much better in the couple of spots that the boss had hit him earlier on.

“We're screwed, aren't we?” Rob asked.

Marc realized that the healing had also removed the ringing from his ears.

“Hell no, we aren't. We're missing someone here, but their healer is down.”

Rob looked around and almost got hit for his trouble.

“He'll be here,” Rob said. “We've just got to keep this big guy distracted.”

“Well, that's what we're doing.”

It was getting harder to talk now. Even without looking at Rob it took a little bit of effort to talk to him and the boss looked like it was working up to something, its strikes coming quicker and a little harder.

Finally the boss roared and raised its arms in the air. It glowed red for a moment before it started to slam its hands down towards the two shieldmen.

“Brace spear and move,” Marc yelled, standing his own pilum up under the descending fist and backing as far away as he could while holding it in position.

He hoped Rob understood what he was saying this time because Rob's normal habit of watching something first could get him seriously hurt this time.

Then the boss roared its displeasure and arched its back. The hands coming down slammed into the pilums, tagging both Rob and Marc lightly before sending them spinning. The boss tried to reach behind itself but between the pilums stuck in its fists and the rogue with a sword driven deep into its back, it didn't manage it.

Do I have the mana for it? Marc wondered. Mana.

Mana: 27/140

Knowing he had the mana for it, Marc hurled a Mana Dart spell at the boss again, the two bolts taking it in the face this time. It started swaying to and fro, then began to fall forward.

“Watch out, Rob,” Marc called, leaping back away from the boss.

Rob threw himself to one side of the falling hobgoblin, then just stayed laying on the floor as he looked around the gymnasium.

“Is that all of them? I'm wiped,” Rob said. “Stamina's almost out.”

“I think it is, Rob. Awesome job there holding the boss while we took out the others,” Marc said.

“Thank Felicia too, she had to heal me a couple of times until I got the hang of it,” Rob said.

Marc turned to Felicia, who had also sat down on the floor. She was trying to clear the chamber of the shotgun though.

“Thanks, Felicia. Did I hear you say that you lost the staff of healing?”

“Yeah, it kept getting flimsier each time I used it. I guess they aren't designed for the amount of usage I gave it, or the hobgoblin had already used most of it.”

“Well, I think Jeff had one, and another might drop here, so we should be able to replace it.”

“We'll want to, but I think I'll stick to my own heals. The very first time I used my own, I leveled it up one,” she said. “It takes more mana per point than the staff right now, but the description says it'll get better than that as it increases in level. Even numbered increases raise the healing by a point and every fifth level it increases, the mana cost decreases by one, down to a cost of only ten mana anyhow and that's how much it takes to use the staff.”

“Sounds like a good one then. I got a second dart on my Mana Dart spell for getting to level three in it.”

“So it looks like the system takes the skill level in a skill or spell to see how powerful it is as opposed to the level of the person using it?” she said.

“Well, in some cases at least. We can't be sure, but it's a working theory.”

“Hey, research geeks, how about we loot?” Jeff asked.

“Jeff, knowing how the system works is important,” Felicia said.

“Yeah, it might be, but no-one told me how good a job I did, so I'm a little irked,” Jeff replied.

“Awesome job on the healer and that backstab on the boss, Jeff,” Marc said.

“A little late with that, aren't you?”

“Hey, I didn't see you until just now. What, you want me to call it out to the whole room?”

“Sure, letting the world know just how awesome I am is never a bad idea,” Jeff said. “But, pro tip? Seriously, go loot the boss. I know you'll want what you get, assuming you get some of the same stuff I did.”

* * *

Marc went over to the boss, which was still lying on its front. He touched it and thought loot. Then he blinked, staring at what he'd received.

Holy shit, a core? he thought. Did Jeff get one too? That might have been what had him so eager for us to loot it too.

Then he continued looking down the list. A handful of silver coins, a larger handful of copper coins, and another System token.

Wait, it might've been the token, too. I guess I have to ask him, but we definitely all need to loot this one.

“Rob, Felicia, he's right. Come loot this corpse. I bet you get a System token too.”

On hearing what it was that they might get, Felicia was over in a moment, Rob took a bit longer since he took his time standing up.

Marc was checking his inventory now, the new System token showed up in its own slot, so he focused more closely.

“Hey, evidently that first one we got was a lesser System token and this one is a common,” Marc said. “I wonder why the different types?”

“Obviously the common ones are going to be more valuable. I just wish I knew what we could use them for,” Jeff said. “I know, you said Safe Zones can use them, but I bet that's not all they're good for.”

“Yeah, I got a common one now, too,” Felicia said a moment later.

Rob was just looting the boss now and he nodded once he'd finished and taken a moment to examine what he got.

“So, the System token was what had you excited?” Marc asked.

Jeff nodded.

“Yeah, they've got to be valuable, right?”

“I think so, but I got something else too.”

Marc pulled out the core and held it out for the others to see. It looked like a reddish-black gemstone, cracks running throughout it.

He looked at it closer now.

Monster Core

Item grade: common

Item quality: poor

Marc just stared for a moment, trying to get more data from the item.

I've got to work that up, get the skill for it or something so I can get more information when I do that. Charges, or uses, or anything.

“You got a freakin' core?” Jeff said. “I want to bitch about that, but maybe now we can save our System tokens for something other than a Safe Zone.”

“Yeah, I got a core. It's a lousy one though apparently. Grade of common, quality of poor.”

“Yeah, but the Safe Zone help didn't say anything about grade or quality, so it ought to do, right?”

“We'll see, in just a few minutes, we'll see. Meanwhile, let's loot the rest of these guys, alright?” Marc replied.

A few minutes later they were done looting and the corpses had all sloughed into nothingness.

“One more thing and then we'll try the Safe Zone construction,” Marc said. “Does anyone have their notification light flashing? I checked my stats and I'm only forty-six points away from level four. Also Jeff, please go check the basement so we know if we need to clear it first?”

Jeff blushed.

“Um, I went up to level four while you guys finished up the looting. I made it by like thirteen experience points only, so five is going to be a while I'm guessing. I'll go check it out now.”

Jeff beat a hasty retreat, hiding his embarrassment at not telling them sooner by dropping into Stealth.

“Maybe not. If we manage to make a Safe Zone, we'll want to get others here. If the rest of the town is like this at all, then we may well find a lot more monsters to take care of. I don't think getting experience will be the problem,” Felicia called after him.

Jeff was back in just a few minutes, reporting that he'd found no sign of goblins or hobgoblins in the basement. They'd run through the classrooms on the top floor earlier on and found none there, so evidently the spawns had been going to fill the ground floor before expanding their area.

“Okay then, shall we try to make a Safe Zone?” Marc said.

“Go for it,” Rob replied.

“Now, how do we trigger it? The help didn't say anything about that,” Marc said.

“You stumbled on the screen command right? Let's just try a bunch of combinations. If anyone but Marc opens it, just close it and tell him what you used to get it to open the screen for it,” Felicia said.

All four of them started trying commands, but it was Marc himself who found it.

“Create Safe Zone,” he'd said when a screen popped open in his vision.

He raised his voice.

“Got it guys, let me read. It was just create. I tried to think of the simplest ways to do it, make, construct, then create.”

The other three went quiet, but Marc heard two of them, at least, mutter the command.

I guess they wanted to see the screen themselves, he thought.

Then he read the screen himself and groaned.

Insufficient resources to create Safe Zone this area.

Resources required:

Wood: 1000/1000

Stone: 1000/1000

Metal: 783/1000

A temporary Safe Zone may created in this area for monetary fee of: 10 silver coins.

Your temporary Safe Zone lasts 24 hours and include this room. Add additional room and their  functions for additional 1 silver coin per room.

There was also a small map showing the area the permanent Safe Zone would encompass. It included all of the school building, plus some land outside of it.

“There isn't enough metal to make this a Safe Zone,” Marc said. “But we can make it a temporary one for ten silver coins. I got a few of those from the mobs in this room, I'll check how many, but we can probably do a twenty-four hour Safe Zone for tonight at least.”

“Functions? Room functions?” Felicia said. “We need twelve silver.”

“Twelve? Why not just ten?” Marc asked.

“Because the locker rooms are attached to the gymnasium, and their functions should include the showers. Look at us,” she said.

Marc looked around, seeing everyone looking bedraggled and blood spattered.

“Yeah, so we need twelve silver. Three each? We can also find a bunch of containers and get a bunch of water if the faucets are working too.”

Jeff grumbled, but was the first to produce three silver coins. The others followed suit.

“Create Temporary Safe Zone,” Marc said.

He was relieved that the command worked. In the screen that was produced, he added on the two locker rooms, thinking for a moment that they should just do one and take turns, then just adding both.

Not worth fighting over, he thought.

This room and two adjoining rooms, locker room (m) and locker room (f) now Safe Zone for next twenty-four hours.

This means no monsters will spawn in them, may still enter through other means.

“Well crap, no monsters will spawn in here, but they can still enter through other means,” Marc said.

Jeff shook his head.

“Not if I have anything to say about it. Give me a minute.”

Jeff crossed the gymnasium to the hated rope climb. Marc had only known a few students who liked it when he'd been in school and he hadn't been one of them. So when Jeff swarmed up one rope and used the gladius to cut the other two down, he barely resisted a mild cheer. Rob and Felicia didn't resist at all, so Marc gave in and joined them. Once Jeff was back down the rope he started cutting the other two ropes into sections, then moved to the doors and began to tie shut the ones the hobgoblins hadn't.

“Hey, good idea,” Marc said, joining in the effort to secure the entrances.

Once they'd finished tying all the doors closed, Marc grabbed a few of the thin pads against one wall of the gym and made himself a makeshift bed. A few minutes after that, he was asleep.

* * *

He woke in the middle of the night and immediately sat bolt upright. It wasn't anything he'd heard or seen that did it, but that he'd gotten a whiff of himself. He quickly grabbed his pack and headed for the men's locker room, not even undressing before walking into the shower. His clothes took a few minutes in the steaming hot water to get mostly clean, then he shed those and started scrubbing his body.

When he got out of the shower, twenty minutes later, he felt mostly clean. He pulled on one of the spare pairs of underwear he'd packed, then realized that he hadn't brought extra pants. Rummaging through the lockers got him what he thought was a clean pair of shorts and a t-shirt. After putting those on, he went back out to the gymnasium, leaving his clothes hanging to dry.

When he got out, he noticed the dim light in a corner he hadn't been in yet, then saw shadows moving there. Going quiet, he tried to sneak his way over there, only to find Jeff sitting in front of a podium style construction. The top was a display and that was what was creating the light.

“Hey Marc,” Jeff said, without even turning around.

Marc groaned.

“Was I that loud?” he asked.

“Nah, but the other two are still asleep, the shower shut off a few minutes ago, and your feet are still damp so they make a plopping sound as they hit the wood of the floor.”

Marc just gaped at him.

“Yeah, rogues get some nifty skills, don't they?” Jeff said, grinning. “Better yet, we can buy more, right here.”

“What is it?”

“A shop, lots of stuff for sale, both coins and tokens as payment.”

“Cool, but you know what? I'm still half-asleep and I know better than to do anything when I'm like that. We've got this place until after dark tomorrow, so I'm going to get some more sleep. I'll look at it after I get up. If you see anything any of us might like, make a note and we can look tomorrow.”

With that he turned and headed back for his mats.

“Spoilsport,” Jeff said, then turned back to the shop screen.

Marc flipped the mats, not wanting to sleep on the same surface he'd been on with his gross clothing. Then he laid down and went back to sleep, hoping for more rest. It wasn't to be had though.

System Message:

Due to multiple reports from user, the System offers a bargain.

That was it, nothing else. Marc seemed to be relatively lucid in his dream so he simply thought.

What bargain?

System requires user knowledgeable in English language to translate messages.

Bargain requires user consent to translate ongoing basis.

Bargain offers remuneration to user to offset ongoing efforts.

At this point, Marc didn't even much care what effort he had to put in if only the messages would be fixed. He was tired, exhausted even, and knew that he should be freaking out over the past day, but wasn't. Nothing seemed to bother him much at the moment so he agreed almost instantly.

Done, bargain made, he thought.

Initializing translation link...

Marc felt a portion of his brain go into hyperdrive right before it seemed to segment itself off from the rest of his mind.

Uh oh, he thought. This might have been a mistake.

Remuneration offered:

Secondary (hidden) class: English Major

Bonus to all mind stats.

Accept? (y/n)

Since it appeared that he was already doing the translating, he saw no reason not to take the payment for it. He selected 'y' and then felt himself gray out.

* * *

Chapter Seven

Marc lay where he was, eyes still closed. He'd woken up to a pressure in the back of his head, one he associated with the coming of a headache very quickly thereafter. But the headache wasn't coming and he'd been lying here for at least five minutes, listening to the others move around the gym.

Okay, so if it isn't the prelude to a headache, what is it? he thought.

As he finally opened his eyes, his notification light started to flash. That brought back the dream sequence he'd had last night.

Yeah, like the System would bother to fix itself due to our complaints. If that were the case I'm sure it would've removed itself already since I'm sure even more people complained about its existence than its help files.

He popped open his notifications, then stopped dead. He'd been about to sit up, but now he just stared at his screen.

You have gained the hidden class: English Major (American English) (Unique)

Your Intelligence has increased (10->11)

Your Willpower has increased (6->7)

Your Aptitude has increased (7->8)

You have learned the skill: Research (1)

It took him more than a few moments to recover before he reacted.

Help English Major, he thought.

English Major:

It seems that in every nation there is a person who cannot stand to see their language butchered. The English Major is one such who has been enough of a pest that the System has reacted. In exchange for the use of a small partition of their mind they have received the unique class English Major.

Marc took a moment to goggle at the help file. The properly written, easily understandable, help file. Then he checked his new skill.

Help Research.

Do you mean generic research or the skill Research? The response read.

Help Research skill, he thought.

Research (skill):

The Research skill allows the user to acquire in-depth knowledge on one topic. It will not be complete knowledge, but the knowledge base for the selected topic will expand dramatically. The user must specify a topic at level one in the skill. For every third level in the skill they can either select a new topic or select an existing one and receive additional knowledge on that topic.

“Yes!” Marc cried out, attracting the attention of the other three. Felicia was the only one that came over to him though.

“Marc, are you okay?” Felicia asked. “We couldn't wake you earlier.”

“I'm better than okay, I'm awesome,” he replied

Felicia stared at him.

“Um, did someone switch your personality with Jeff's?” she asked.

He shook his head, grinning.

“Nope. Pull up a help file, any help file.”

She looked confused, but her eyes took on the blank look he associated with her looking at her screens. Then she broke into a grin.

“Wait, they fixed the help files so they're understandable?”

He nodded again.

“Looks like it.”

I wonder if I should tell her how they did it? Honestly, I'm still not sure how I feel about this myself, so maybe I'll wait on that, he thought.

“So, what's up?” he said. “Sorry I wouldn't wake up, I was utterly exhausted, then up in the middle of the night to shower too since I woke up and couldn't stand my own stench.”

“Jeff has something he wanted to show you, that's why he tried to wake you up.”

“Where is he?”

“At the store podium, he said you saw it last night.”

“In the middle of the night, yeah. Not that I remember much of it. Like I said, I was totally wiped out.”

She pointed and he headed off in that direction.

Marc headed off towards the corner where Jeff was. As he walked across the gym, he started giving some thought towards what he should use his Research skill on. By the time he got to the podium, he still hadn't decided.

“So, Felicia said you wanted to show me something?” he said.

“Yeah, I kinda found a clue here on the Safe Zone stuff. We don't have enough metal, but evidently that's a common occurrence. Here, look.”

Jeff scrolled through the display quickly, pulling up a listing.

System Dwellers,

Need a Safe Zone, but don't have the materials? Don't bother bringing in scrap and the like that will only give you half credit towards your Safe Zone requirements. Purchase our processed basic materials that count for full towards your Safe Zone needs.

Below that there were listings for wood, stone, and metal, each with their own price.

“We can't afford that stuff though,” Marc said

Jeff just grinned at him.

“Now I know you don't wake up quickly. Don't look at the items for sale, look at the description.”

“Oh, scrap that gives you half credit?”

Jeff nodded.

“I bet if we find a bunch of cars that are more metal than plastic, inside and out, then push them in close to the school, we can use that metal for your Safe Zone.”

He's a lot more eager for a Safe Zone now, Marc thought. I bet it's because we have a core so he won't need to use his tokens.

“Yeah, we can do that. I'll pull up the Safe Zone creation screen again. I think it showed what areas would be included, so if we push them into that area, they'd probably count,” Marc said.

I wonder how they process the stuff that they're selling though, he thought, because being able to do that would be handy.

“So, let's go get some cars and get this place built,” Jeff said.

“What's the rush, I barely woke up.”

“Once we have an actual Safe Zone built, as opposed to a temporary one, the shop has more functionality. It can deliver small things currently, but a shop inside a full Safe Zone can deliver things of any size, plus it unlocks the functionality to do our own sales once it's a proper Safe Zone.”

“Ah, so you have something you want to buy or things you want to sell?”

“Both. Come on, let's get moving.”

“Yeah, well, I need to get my real clothes on first, plus have something to eat.”

“Oh, food? What do you have?”

“The same stuff you have. Energy bars, some canned stuff, some chocolate bars, that type of thing.”

“Got some to spare?”

“Jeff, we split the food up evenly, where's yours?”

“Well, I stayed up all night long. I can do that, but it takes extra food, so I pretty much ate everything but the canned goods. No can opener and no way to heat it.”

“Alright, I can spare something. Let me get dressed first though.”

“Yeah, and the other thing? Once the shop is upgraded to the full Safe Zone style? I can get food delivered. They've got a selection from all of the restaurants that did the most business across the whole world. Burgers, fries, pizza... I can't wait,” Jeff said.

Aha, now I understand, Marc thought. I bet that's the real reason he wants us to get the Safe Zone completed. The man eats more than anyone ought to be able to eat without putting on lots of weight.

He dressed quickly, his clothes dry from hanging overnight. Then he returned to his mats and pulled out food.

“Hey Jeff, here,” he called, tossing an energy bar and a chocolate bar at the rogue.

“Marc too?” Felicia asked. “You already got some food from me.”

“I'm a growing boy,” Jeff said around the energy bar he was shoving into his mouth.

“Hey, I gave him some too,” Rob said, coming over.

Jeff shrugged, swallowed, and tore open the wrapper on the chocolate bar.

“So, Jeff thinks if we push a bunch of cars in here that the System will give us partial credit for those towards the metal we need for the Safe Zone,” Marc said. “But....”

He turned to Rob.

“I think you've got the highest strength, so you'd be doing the actual pushing.”

“Okay by me,” Rob said.

Marc turned to Felicia.

“You'll need to do the steering, maybe help push some on the door?”

“Sure, what about you and Jeff?”

“Jeff and I will stand watch. I have a ranged attack with my Mana Dart and Jeff can Stealth and come in from behind anything that wants to attack us. Is everyone okay with that plan?”

“Works for me,” Jeff said, swallowing the last of the chocolate bar.

“When do we do this?” Rob asked.

“Well, there's no time like the present. If we see anyone while we're out there, we should probably tell them what we're doing and that there'll be a Safe Zone here when we've finished,” Marc said.

“Good plan,” Felicia added. “Two birds with one stone is a good thing since I don't fancy walking around and yelling out for people in the current situation.”

“Well, we may need to do that later on if we want to get as many survivors as possible. Plus, if something does attack us while we're doing that we might get more loot and experience that way,” Marc said. “I agree, getting attacked by surprise would be a bad thing, but if we can control where we are so they can't get close without us seeing them? That's a different story entirely.”

* * *

As soon as they made it outside of their temporary Safe Zone Marc was on guard again. The outside air, which should've seemed fresh compared to the inside of the school, held scents that he wasn't used to. They weren't ones he wanted to get used to either since the only thing he could compare it to was when he'd found a dead, decaying rodent in the basement of the house and had to get rid of it.

“Heh,” Jeff said. “This might be easier than I thought.”

“Why?”

“Well, you remember when you tried to make the Safe Zone yesterday?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“There was a map in there, one that showed the area it was going to create. That map didn't include that section of the parking lot,” Jeff replied, gesturing towards the farthest reaches where there were still a number of cars parked.

“We just need to get those cars into the area it had designated and I bet they count,” Jeff finished.

“I didn't realize you could see that,” Marc said.

Jeff nodded towards Rob and Felicia.

“They probably couldn't, I've got a skill that allows me to see non-shared screens of others if they're of my level or lower.”

“And you didn't think to mention this before?”

“Hey, be glad I'm mentioning it now. It might save us some work. But I think we'll probably need to go down to the shop before we move cars. Unless there are keys in them, of course. Most of those are late enough models that the steering wheels will lock with no key,” Jeff said.

“Well, let's go check and move the ones we can. Then to the shop? What's there to help?”

“Wheeled ramps. Push the cars up the ramp and then the ramps can do the steering. It's something they have for the mechanic courses they run sometimes.”

Marc wasn't even going to ask how Jeff knew all of that.

Probably he was blowing off his real classes to hang around the shop too, Marc thought. I've got no idea how he managed to graduate, never mind make it into college.

There were eleven cars in the area of the lot that Jeff had pointed towards. Now they moved out there and started looking them over. A few of them had keys still in the ignition and those would move easily, although they wouldn't start. Marc shuddered and then refused to look at the bloodstains on the pavement near some of those cars.

I don't want to know. There's nothing I can do about it now, he thought.

“Hey, I'll go get the ramps while you move these, okay?” Jeff said.

“No!” Marc replied. “First off, we need you to keep watch along with me out here. Secondly, do you really want to be going into the school on your own? We only made the gym and locker rooms a Safe Zone.”

“Hey, I can Stealth.”

“While dragging those ramps you were talking about?”

“Oh hey, why don't I just stay out here on watch, then we all go for the ramps later on?” Jeff replied as if he'd never suggested otherwise.

Marc nodded and moved his gaze back out to the open areas beyond the parking lot. There were trees and bushes that might offer some cover out there, so he didn't want to ignore it. Felicia got the wheels set before Rob started pushing and then things started moving more quickly.

They managed to move five of the cars before they needed to retrieve the ramp. Marc wanted to check and see if the cars were actually counting towards the metal they needed, so they stopped back in the gymnasium before heading for the shop.

“Create Safe Zone,” he said.

Insufficient resources to create a Safe Zone in this area.

Resources required:

Wood: 1000/1000

Stone: 1000/1000

Metal: 883/1000

A temporary Safe Zone may be created in this area for a monetary fee of: 10 silver coins.

Your temporary Safe Zone lasts 24 hours and includes this room only. Add additional rooms and their  functions for an additional 1 silver coin per room. Creating a Temporary Safe Zone in the location of an existing one will simply reset the counter to 24 hours.

“Yeah, it's working. It looks like we get credit for about twenty metal per car we get into the area so another six and we're good.”

“We'll need to get one from somewhere else,” Felicia said. “There are only five left in the lot.”

“So be it, that's better than having to get all of them from elsewhere,” Marc replied. “Heck, maybe we'll even find one that will start.”

They'd tried that with the ones that had keys in them, but none of them had even turned over. Jeff had opined that maybe it was like a strong EMP and only the older cars that didn't use computers would still start. Marc personally thought that the internal combustion engine had been classified as complex enough that the System immediately started them deteriorating. Even if that were the case, an older model with a carburetor instead of fuel injection might still run a little bit, enough to get it to the parking lot at least. So that's what they'd look for when they moved out to get the last car later on.

Heck, if we get an older one it might even count for more than just twenty metal, Marc thought. Most of those older cars used a lot more sheet metal than the newer ones.

They didn't run into anything as they went to retrieve the wheeled ramps. Once they had them to the parking lot, they discovered that they'd work for the purpose, but they were a royal pain in the ass to use. By the time they got the last of those cars to the correct area it was nearly lunch time.

“Alright, quick break for lunch, then let's get that last car,” Marc said.

“Easy for you to say,” Rob said, slightly out of breath. “You're just standing watch.”

“True, you're putting the most effort in, but it'll be worth it,” Marc said.

“I hope,” he added, under his breath.

A half hour later they headed out into the town. The school was at the edge of the town, slightly separated from the rest of it.

“Hey look,” Jeff said. “There's one of the older ones. Maybe we can get it started?”

“Only if there are keys in it,” Felicia said. “Unless hot wiring cars is included in your skill set.”

“I'm offended,” Jeff said.

“Sorry,” Felicia hastily apologized.

“Let me finish,” Jeff said. “I'm offended that you could possibly believe that I would not have the skills to hot wire a car.”

He slipped into the old junker.

“Nope, no keys. Give me a second here.”

He pulled a long screwdriver out of his inventory, placed the end of it in the ignition, then slammed it home with a solid hit to the handle. When he turned it, the engine sputtered, black fumes coming from the exhaust pipe.

“Damn, you really can start a car with a flathead screwdriver,” Rob said.

Marc just shook his head.

“I think Jeff had a secret life that he never told any of us about back in high school. I always thought he blew us off because he was antisocial, but now I'm starting to think it was because he had more exciting things to be doing,” he said.

Felicia nodded.

“It does make you wonder, doesn't it?”

“Hey, this thing has crap for power right now. You mind walking back, guys? I'm not sure it won't stall out if we put more weight in it,” Jeff called.

Marc just waved him off and started walking.

At least he can't make the Safe Zone without us since I have the core. Wait, I do still have the core, don't I?

He checked and found it still tucked into his inventory. After Jeff had revealed that he'd seen the Safe Zone screen the day before Marc had been a lot less sure of some things he'd taken for granted.

“Alright, as soon as we can get back, we can make the Safe Zone. I hope,” he said.

“I had an idea. None of the monsters can read, right? Why don't we put some signs on the telephone poles telling people to come to the high school for a Safe Zone,” Felicia said.

“Let's do it. Jeff got to ride, so he can just wait a few more minutes for the rest of us. Let's not take too long though,” Marc said.

“Anyone got paper and something to write with?” Rob asked.

Felicia pulled out a small stack of paper and several pencils. Things she'd taken and stashed while they were clearing the school.

“Here, write fast,” she said.

* * *

Marc only finished two signs, and brief ones at that. He spent most of his time on guard. They hadn't even seen any people, but that might be because they were all hiding.

At least I hope that's the reason, he thought.

Felicia had run off eight signs in the same time, and Rob had done six. They spent a couple more minutes putting them up in various easily accessible areas, then headed back towards the school. Jeff was still in the car he'd driven, although it wasn't running any more.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“We put up signs directing people here to the Safe Zone,” Marc said. “We figured the monsters wouldn't be able to read them, but people would.”

“Oh, well, never mind then.”

Marc could tell that Jeff had planned on giving them shit about going so slow, until he actually found out why.

He was the one opposed to others showing up before though, it looks like he might've changed his mind now, Marc thought.

“Well, let's go see what we can make now,” Jeff said, getting out of the car.

Back in the gym, Marc pulled up the Safe Zone creation screen one more time.

You have sufficient resources to create a basic Safe Zone in this area.

Resources required:

Wood: 1000/1000

Stone: 1000/1000

Metal: 1000/1000

Designate power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

Lesser System Token

Common System Token

Marc focused on the line with the monster core on it and the whole screen flickered and changed.

Due to core usage in creation process, you have two Perks added to your Safe Zone.

1 – General power will be supplied to Safe Zone. This may be used with purchased items or System altered items. Power slots will still be needed for some buildings.

2 - You have your choice of guardians for your Safe Zone. This Perk will require additional resource expenditure.

Gargoyle – Stone 100/100

Wooden Golem – Wood 100/100

Metal Golem (insufficient resources – Metal 17/100)

Hell yeah, I'll take a flying guardian, Marc thought.

He focused on the line that read 'Gargoyle' and the screen flickered, only this time the screen disappeared after flickering.

A small table rose from the floor in front of him. Once it reached waist height it stopped rising and a wire-frame diagram appeared on top of it, one that looked a lot like the school, except with a wall shown around the outside of the Safe Zone area.

“Crap,” Marc said. “Hey, Jeff? How many of your engineering classes did you actually show up to?”

“Why?” Jeff asked.

He'd been over at the shop podium again, but when he turned around and saw the wire-frame diagram in front of Marc he practically charged across the room.

“All of them,” he said. “They weren't boring like high school was.”

Jeff was practically drooling.

“Want to make some alterations?” Marc asked. “We're looking for safety first, everything else can come after.”

“Well, it ain't 3D CAD software, but I think I can handle it. Any other requests than safety?”

“Ummm, see if we can alter the footprint to include some grassy areas? I doubt we'll either want to, or be able to afford to, eat out of the shop all the time. So maybe some room for growing stuff?” Marc said.

“Can do,” Jeff replied absently.

He was already reaching into the wire-frame image, pushing, pinching and altering things. As Marc watched, Jeff raised the outer walls by a few more feet. They'd looked to be about six feet previously, now he had them up to ten feet. Then he started drawing in platforms on the inside of the wall, with stairs going up to them.

He stopped abruptly.

“Hey, this says it'll take more resources to do this. Do we have more?”

“I think we have more wood and stone, but hardly any metal. Go ahead and do any alterations that take wood or stone, hold off on ones that need metal. Hopefully we can upgrade more later on,” Marc said.

“Okay, cool, let me get back to this then.”

Marc headed over to the shop podium, starting to browse on his own. A few minutes later, Jeff interrupted him.

“I think I got it, but there's a symbol I don't know. Take a look?”

Marc headed back over and took a look. Jeff's alterations had the place looking more like a medieval keep than a high school. He noticed the symbol Jeff pointed at.

“Oh, that's our guardian. Extend a stone ledge over the main entrance and place it there? He's a gargoyle.”

“A what?”

“Yeah, because we used a core instead of a token we got Perks. We'll have power and a guardian. I assume the water is included since it was with the temporary one.”

“Well, it looks like it might not be too bad here then. Let me get this finished up.”

Jeff made a few more gestures in the wire-frame drawing before turning to Marc.

“It wants you to authorize it since you initiated the construction,” he said.

Marc reached down and touched the wire-frame.

This design will use an additional 83 stone and 137 wood beyond base cost.

Safe Zone design complete? (y/n)

He focused on the 'y'.

Initializing Safe Zone construction. Inform current inhabitants to beware of alterations underway. Alterations starting in: 60 Sol-3 (Earth) seconds.

Marc put his thumb and forefinger in his mouth and whistled. Felicia and Rob came running over.

“What's the problem?” Rob asked.

“The Safe Zone is starting construction and it told me to warn the current inhabitants that alterations would be underway. Do we want to go outside for this?” Marc asked.

“Probably a good idea,” Jeff said. “There are a fair number of internal changes that are going to occur, fewer outside though and I know what areas I left clear.”

“Well, let's get out of here then,” Marc said. “Hopefully it won't take long. Thirty more seconds until it starts.”

The four left quickly, headed out to a patch of grass that Jeff said he hadn't altered at all.

“But watch out, we'll have a wall building back behind us and I don't know how the materials get there,” he added.

As they watched the school morphed into a new shape, one almost reminiscent of a small keep, if not quite as fortified. They did have to move once as the stone and wood swept out past them, floating an inch or two off the ground, then assembling into a ten foot high stone wall with a firing platform on the inside of the wall.

It might've taken ten minutes total before Marc received a message.

Safe Zone construction complete. Would you like to name your Safe Zone? (y/n)

Marc focused on the 'y'.

Safe Zone name:

Well hell, Marc thought, I've never been good at naming characters or anything else. Let's go with something everyone should recognize.

The blank area filled in with Marc's choice: Any Port

* * *

Chapter Eight

“Really? Any Port?” Jeff scoffed.

“Hey, any port in a storm, right?” Marc replied.

Felicia snickered, but Rob nodded vigorously.

“I agree with Marc,” Rob said. “It's a good name.”

Jeff just muttered under his breath.

“It's not a bad name,” Felicia said, “but maybe next time you should talk it over with the rest of us?”

Marc hung his head, slightly embarrassed that he hadn't even considered that.

“Well, next time something needs a name, I'll try to remember that,” he said.

Felicia patted his arm.

“Like I said, it's not a bad name, but I think we all could've done better if we worked on it together,” she said.

I already said I'd try to remember next time, Marc thought. What's she trying to do? Embarrass me enough that I have no chance of forgetting?

Then he felt bad for thinking that since he did have a tendency to forget things like that occasionally. When he got excited about doing something, he tended to push through until he was completely done with it, much like he had when naming the Safe Zone.

“Well, it's done. Let's go inside again and see what it looks like,” Marc said.

“You wanted other people here, so I turned all the classrooms into individual apartments,” Jeff said. “So we should probably go pick ours before anyone else shows up.”

“Actually, I want to check the shop. You got a chance to look through it, but I didn't, not really,” Marc said.

“In that case, I'll get my apartment later,” Jeff said, sprinting towards the door.

Marc entered the gym to find it hadn't been changed much. The bleachers were all gone, and he was pretty sure he knew where. There had been excess materials when they made the Safe Zone and once it had finished he'd seen stacks of wood and stone out in the parking lot. He guessed that that was the excess from the creation of the Safe Zone and if he looked near them he'd find a much smaller stack of metal as well.

The shop was now plainly visible since the bleachers were gone and as Marc approached it, Jeff turned away from it. There was a bag visible in his hands, the logo one of a well known fast food chain. The scent of burgers and fries caught Marc's attention as Jeff opened his bag.

“Cost you much?”

“Only a silver,” Jeff replied.

“And how many of those do you still have?”

Jeff looked around and shrugged.

“Enough for now, you?”

“No clue, but I'm going to look through the shop for a while. Maybe there's something we can use in there, something to help boost our power levels a bit. I'm still feeling a lot like a noob.”

Jeff frowned.

“Yeah, me too. It's like we're doing the starting zones of one of the games we used to play. You know, the zones where you either dominate your opponents or get your butt kicked right away?  I don't want to find the ones that'll kick our butts, so you've probably got a good plan. I'll check the shop myself later on. Just...”

He looked at the bag in his hands, pulled out a fry and practically inhaled it.

“Just later on, after I eat,” Jeff finished.

* * *

Marc spent about an hour exploring the shop, discovering several things that might be of use. He decided to wait, though, and discuss it with the others before he did anything about them.

Because I'm still stinging over Felicia's comments about naming this place, and if I just jump on everything right off, I'll start looking like Jeff. That's not something I want to do, so let's plan this out first, he thought.

He'd stopped using the shop and started looking for the others when he was interrupted.

System Message:

Uncommon spawns are now commencing. Increase your power levels by destroying spawns or other means. Good Luck!

That had unnerved him somewhat, and made him realize that if they wanted others here they'd better get them here soon, before all the different levels of spawns had been introduced to the world.

He found Felicia sitting in the cafeteria, eating.

“Hey Marc, I made some food. Go grab some if you like, it's next to the stove in the kitchen,” she said.

She gestured back towards the kitchen and Marc headed that way. He'd been sorely tempted to get something for himself like Jeff had, but he'd managed to resist, wanting to save his coins for more important things.

After grabbing some food and drink, he headed out and sat down with Felicia.

“Where are Rob and Jeff?” he asked.

She shrugged.

“Rob was going to take a nap, said he was sore after pushing all the cars earlier. I haven't seen Jeff. Why, what's up?”

“Just a few options in the shop that might help us out. If you're willing to spend one of your tokens, the lesser one, you can probably use that to Systemize the shotgun. I'm thinking I'll do that for the rifle as well. From what I can tell, the ammunition won't need it, and if we give samples to the shop we'll be able to purchase more later on. It can recreate some basic, small things just from samples. No clue how much that'll cost us though.”

“The ammunition will stay good?” she asked.

“If we're using it in the Systemized weapons it should fire fine, I think. There was a section on Systemizing items in one part of the shop, along with the option to Systemize items through it.”

“Good, well, I think that's going to be an important thing to get taken care of. Melee weapons are all fine, but I'd much rather be able to shoot stuff before it gets close to us,” Felicia said.

Marc nodded his agreement and started eating. After a few mouthfuls, he took a break.

“There's a few other things in there that might be important now or soon,” he said. “I'm thinking about dropping a bunch of my silver on an instruction manual about managing Safe Zones and how to do it.”

“What's it cover?”

“Um, I don't remember it all, but it deals with expanding them, creating things inside of them, and all sorts of stuff like that. It was only five silver and I almost bought it right then, but I decided I should wait and talk to the rest of the group about it first.”

Felicia graced him with a happy looking smile.

“Well, I'm glad you did. That sounds important and I'll be willing to put a silver or two of my own towards it.”

“Oh, um, that's not necessary,” Marc said. “I just thought you were right earlier and I should discuss things like that with you, or the rest of the group.”

“If it's for something personal, feel free to just act, but if it affects all of us? Then yes, you should talk it over with me, or the group as a whole,” she said. “Besides, it makes me feel better to actually be able to give input towards this type of thing.”

“I'll try to keep that in mind,” Marc said. “Hell, I might even talk to you about it if it's personal too, I realized that I'd been acting almost as impulsive as Jeff, or at least I came close to acting that way. So a sanity check might be in order from time to time, just in case, you know?”

Her smile grew, if anything, wider still.

“I'm always happy to talk to you, Marc. You know that, right?”

“Um, yeah, I do,” he said. “So, Systemize the firearms after we finish eating? I can grab that Safe Zone manual at the same time.”

She nodded and Marc focused his efforts back onto the food.

* * *

Marc was surprised at the manual when he'd received it. He'd expected some sort of actual book, not something that was more like a tablet. It was referred to as a pad in its documentation and when he read the introduction he was even more surprised.

The introduction apologized for the price of the manual, claiming that it was increased by the cost of translation into the reader's language if they weren't from the planet Gerin.

So, I guess I'm doubly glad I signed up to be the System's translator. I bet stuff like this gets run through my brain too, Marc thought. Although the System keeps the added cost for translation. I suppose I bargained that away, though, with my new class. Speaking of which, I need to determine my Research subject.

“Hey Felicia?” he said.

She was cleaning the shotgun after Systemizing it, although apparently the System took care of cleaning it as well since she wasn't getting any of the normal detritus or oil from the barrel while running swabs through it. He'd Systemized his rifle as well, but had wanted to take care of other things first before cleaning his weapon.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering. What would you say is our biggest current problem that knowledge could help with?”

“You just said it yourself: help. If we knew what was in the System help files, or could access them more easily without having to do whatever it thinks is necessary before we could access them, then we might be able to plan things out, or even figure out things we haven't thought of by what there are help files for,” she said.

“Hm, that's a good point. I wonder how this will work?” Marc said.

“How what will work?”

He was about to just trigger his research, but paused at her question.

“Oh, I guess I didn't mention it. I managed to pick up a skill that will allow me to obtain knowledge about anything. Just basic knowledge, really, but you know, a grounding in that subject.”

“You what? That Arcane Bulwark class gives you a skill like that?” she asked.

“Um, no... My other class.”

“Alright, give Marcus. What other class? What have you been up to?”

“I don't know if I'm suppose to talk about it. It's a hidden class. You know how I woke up and the help files were fixed? That was me, indirectly, and I got the class because of it. But the skill doesn't say it's hidden, so I can tell you about that. It's called Research, here let me share the help on it with you.”

He quickly pulled up the help file from the skill and shared it with her. She read it and got an odd look on her face.

“So, you fixed the help files and got a class for it. The first skill you got for the class was this? Research?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, that's about it. It doesn't seem to give me stats or anything on leveling like the Arcane Bulwark does, but it does give me extra skills. No idea how it goes up in level or anything though, it might slow my other class growth a lot if it splits experience or something.”

“What class is it?” she asked. “I'm sure if the System didn't want you talking about it it would be a secret class or it would prevent you from talking about it.”

“Um,” Marc said, hemming and hawing. “Well, it's called English Major and it has a really snarky help file. Here, look.”

He pulled that up and shared it with her as well.

Felicia started smirking as she read it, then laughed as she finished.

“You were enough of a pest to the System that it recruited you?” she said. “How many typos and grammar errors did you report?”

“Uh, all of them? All of the ones I saw at least,” Marc said.

Felicia went back to laughing for a few more seconds.

“Well, persistence paid off in this case. I stick with my answer to your earlier question though. I think you ought to research the System help. If it gives you as much data as this suggests, we'll be in a much better position.”

“Let me take a quick look in the shop first. If there's a manual for that, then maybe just buy the manual like I did for the Safe Zone one? Then use the Research on something else?”

He flipped into the shop and looked through. There wasn't anything regarding the System help files that he could see in any of the sections and an idea slowly grew on him.

He started looking for the pads that the Safe Zone manual was installed on and found blank pads available in bulk for about two silver a piece. Skimming through the description on them, he broke into a grin.

“Yup, I'll use my Research skill on the System help, definitely. Then I'm going to make a manual out of what I learn from it and sell it in the shop. We can't be the only ones having this problem, right? So maybe we can make some money off of it as well as benefiting ourselves and anyone else who shows up to the Safe Zone?”

“What, how? Are you going to write a book?” Felicia asked.

He pointed to the spot in the description of the master pad that he'd just been skimming and Felicia leaned over and looked at it.

“Direct mental acquisition of desired contents? Is that what you're talking about?”

He nodded.

“Yup, the information I get from the Research skill? I'll just download it into the master pad that I get with a bulk buy and it'll disseminate it out into all the others. I just need to figure out how to afford a bulk buy on the pads and we're good. Maybe I'll send them a message and ask if I can finance it?”

“Nah, don't do that. Can you download to individual pads? Or maybe buy the master pad and a smaller number of the others, maybe ten if we can afford it? Then when those sell, you buy a larger batch. Repeat as necessary until you have as many as you want. Then you don't pay interest in order to finance the whole mess.”

“Well, from the looks of things, that would cost about twenty-five silver to start with a master pad and ten normal ones. Can we do that?”

He took stock of his own coinage, finding that he had seven silver and five hundred and thirty-seven copper after having bought the Safe Zone manual.

“I guess it's a hundred copper to the silver?” he said.

“Yeah, I saw that somewhere when I glanced at the shop,” she said.

“So, I've got about twelve silver worth of coinage left.”

She nodded.

“Because you spent the five on the other manual?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I can make up the difference, or we can offer Rob and Jeff a chance to invest also. Then we split the profit later on? You get the majority since it'll be your knowledge we're selling, but we should get some also if we help you finance it at the start.”

“Sure, we can do that. If you want to go find them, I'll use my Research skill right now. Then we can get that underway.”

She nodded and turned to leave.

Use Research skill for System Help, Marc thought.

Then he dropped to his knees in agony. Someone was screaming somewhere and he wasn't sure where until he noticed that his throat hurt and the noise stopped.

A massive amount of knowledge was forcing its way into his brain, and it hurt like nothing he'd ever experienced before. He felt arms around him and was glad for it, sure that he'd be falling down otherwise.

Slowly the pain grew more and more distant as the data flow slowed. Then it stopped and he just knelt there, panting, tears streaming down his face.

“That hurt,” he managed to gasp out in a hoarse voice. “Fuck, that hurt!”

“That bad?” Felicia asked. “I mean, I saw you almost collapse and then you nearly went comatose for a couple of minutes.”

“That was all only a couple of minutes?” he asked.

She nodded.

“It really hurt that bad?”

“Imagine doing all your cramming for all the grades of high school, simultaneously, and to the point where you would remember it all, and doing it all in two minutes.”

She shuddered.

“Good, now multiply that times a hundred,” he said. “Literally thousands, actually I think tens of thousands, of help files were downloaded straight into my brain.”

He shook his head wearily.

“Well, I won't have to go get Rob and Jeff now, I think I hear them coming,” she said.

* * *

“So, let me get this straight, you screamed your head off because you learned a bunch of stuff?” Jeff said.

“Hey Jeff, how thick was your engineering text book?” Marc asked.

“About this thick,” Jeff replied, holding his hands about five inches apart.

“Good, now get all that information crammed into your brain, in a way you cannot forget it, in about two minutes...”

“Oh, well, never mind then,” Jeff said. “Forget I said anything.”

“Are you okay, Marc?” Rob asked.

“I am now, but I need to be careful with that skill in the future. Felicia was about to go look for you guys though, we've got an opportunity here.”

Jeff motioned for him to continue.

“So, I want to take all this knowledge I just got and make a book of it. It's all a bunch of System help, you know, the stuff that we can barely get to come up on its own? So, I want to sell it, to everyone. Pretty cheap, but enough to still make a profit. We need a starting stake though, I don't quite have enough to do it on my own, even starting slow. So I wanted to give you guys an opportunity to get in on the ground floor.”

Jeff laughed.

“And now you're trying to sell us on a Multi-Level Marketing type of deal? Are you sure you're okay?” he said.

“How much do you need to start it up?” Rob asked.

“Twenty-five silver,” Marc said, ignoring Jeff. “Felicia and I could cover it on our own, but she thought we should give you guys a chance to get in on it too. She thinks it'll do well, I'm not sure because you'll need access to a shop to purchase it, but I'm sure it'll at least pay for itself.”

“Put me down for five silver,” Rob said. “That'll leave me a little in case I want to buy something myself.”

Felicia elbowed Jeff.

“What, you want me to sponsor Marc to write a book? How long will it take before we see any profits?” he said.

“No, not write, simply download it from my brain and collate it. I'll have them up for sale a few hours after I purchase the master pad and pads to go with it. I download to the master pad and it downloads the end result to all the other pads, which get sold,” Marc said. “We're starting small, so I'll need to pay attention to it for a few days until we have our money back, then we can just grow it at whatever rate they sell at.”

“Fine, here then,” Jeff said, handing over five silver. “But I want my five silver back and ten percent of the profits.”

“Done,” Marc said.

Rob coughed up his five also. Then Felicia came over.

“You good with fifty percent in return for your efforts and your own investment?” she asked.

Marc nodded.

“In that case, here's ten more silver. I'll get twenty percent, these two will get fifteen percent each. You get the rest. That's from net, not gross.”

“Okay, well let me go make the initial purchase and see how painful filling the master pad with the information is going to be,” Marc said.

It was actually surprisingly painless. As soon as Marc made the purchase, the silvers were taken from his inventory and a door slid up on the shop pedestal. The eleven pads he'd purchased were inside the door so he removed them.

It took less than an hour to figure it all out, and then he made up a shop listing of the pads filled with the basic System help files. He'd indexed them by types, then alphabetically, the master pad making that an easy thing to do. So now the people purchasing them could go through a table of contents that showed them types, then sub-tables with sub-types, all the way down to specific named files. They could also search the pad directly if they had a better idea of what they wanted.

The information barely fit in the pads' memory and Marc knew that he'd only gotten a fraction of the help files from the System.

Which means it may actually have been truthful regarding why it didn't allow direct access to all of them, he thought.

He did his best to write the blurb for the pads, but after Felicia had read it, she'd elbowed him out of the way.

“Yeah, what you put in was all truthful, but there was no hook, it was just a basic description. Didn't you have some creative writing classes? They should've taught you better than that,” she said.

“I was trying to stick to being factual and not dramatic.”

She finished typing.

“Use that instead. I trimmed your listing but kept it at the end since it does list a lot of valuable information.”

Marc stared at the listing and blinked.

“Hey, that's good. It almost makes me want to buy one and I've got all the stuff on it in my head still.”

She smiled at him.

“I was helping pay my way through college with online auction sales. Gotta know how to write those blurbs up to get the most out of the sales.”

“Well, thank you.”

He set the auctions to active, instant buys, feeding in the pads one by one as he listed each of them. The System would take care of delivery and take a ten percent cut of the sales themselves. He'd listed the pads at five silver each, figuring that if someone had managed to build a Safe Zone, they ought to be able to afford five silver one way or another.

Hell, it's only half the price of a twenty-four hour Safe Zone. I hope anyone who buys it thinks it's worth the price. If not, well, hopefully we'll at least make our money back, he thought.

Marc was surprised when less than an hour later his notification light started blinking. He'd gotten something to eat, chatted with the others for a bit, then started looking for an apartment to claim. He wanted the one next to Felicia, but caught himself wondering if that would bother her.

Shop Message:

You have sold an item, the funds will be credited to your shop account and may be spent or withdrawn at your leisure.

“Well, it looks like this might work,” he said.

He was standing in the hall in front of apartment he wanted, and Felicia's door was open. She'd apparently heard him, because she came out into the hallway.

“Oh? You're going to claim the one next to me?” she asked. “I'm glad that works for you, it'll be nice to have you close.”

Marc's eyes widened.

“You like that idea? Yes, I was thinking about it, but that isn't what I was talking about. Apparently we've already sold one of the System help pads. I just got notified of it.”

“I told you they'd sell,” she said. “Now, are you going to take that apartment or not?”

He looked at her, standing there and smiling at him, and his brain froze.

“Um, I will if you want me to, do you?”

“You're a grown man, you ought to be able to make your own choices. But, yes, I'd love having you living next to me,” she said.

“Good, then I'll take it.”

She smiled at him, then shook her head and went back into her apartment, closing the door this time.

He headed for his own new apartment to check it out more thoroughly, then stopped in his tracks when he heard the screams from somewhere outside.

* * *

Chapter Nine

Marc broke into a run towards the front of the building, which was where it sounded like the screams were coming from. He burst out the front door to see a group of people on the other side of the gates in the outer wall. They were pointing at the top of the wall to one side of the gate, so he looked that way.

Ah, crap. The gargoyle. I never set any of the options on him, he's still set to default, he thought.

He quickly searched for the appropriate entry in the knowledge he'd picked up from the Research help. When he didn't find it, he pulled the pad on Safe Zones out of his inventory.

There it is, he thought, skimming the table of contents.

Pressing the link he skimmed it quickly, then pulled up an interface that represented the Safe Zone. A moment later the gargoyle returned to his position over the front door, instead of looking threatening next to the gate.

“Come on in,” Marc called out, moving out to the gate and unlocking it. “Sorry about that, just got the Safe Zone set up this morning, I hadn't given the guardian any orders yet so I guess that's his generic response.”

More than one of the crowd were still staring at the gargoyle, now perched over the entry into the building.

“I've got it set so he won't bother you now, at least for the moment. Once I list you as residents of the Safe Zone, he won't be any trouble for you. He's set to guard against non-humans at the moment. I'll change that later on though.”

Meanwhile, Felicia and Rob had also showed up at the front door, coming out a few seconds behind Jeff. Marc turned back to them.

“Um, either of you feel like talking to them? You know how I am talking to people I don't know,” Marc said.

Rob shook his head silently and Felicia just rolled her eyes and stepped up to him.

“I'll take care of it, this time at least, but don't think I'm going to be our official greeter.”

Jeff came sauntering out now, looking as though he hadn't been worried at all.

“What was that?” he asked.

Felicia turned towards the gate, where the people were still standing outside the Safe Zone, so Marc turned back to Jeff.

“Just a bunch of people freaked out by the guardian, is all,” he said.

Jeff raised his eyebrows and Marc pointed to the gargoyle, who was perched several feet above their head.

“Just seeing a gargoyle freaked them out?” Jeff asked, chuckling. “Morbid fear of architecture or something?”

“You're such an ass, Jeff.”

He pulled up the interface and had the gargoyle fly down to him for inspection. When it first moved, Jeff didn't seem to notice, but he certainly did when it landed in front of him. Jeff practically jumped out of his skin and dove back into the hallway then.

“What the hell? Where did it come from? I couldn't feel it moving,” Jeff said.

Marc cocked his head.

“Feel it moving?”

“Yeah, I've got an awareness style skill that tells me when someone is in movement within ten feet of me or so.”

Marc grinned.

“Someone? What about constructs? I don't think the gargoyle is technically alive, so could that be why you didn't notice?”

“I sure as hell hope not, but it would explain why I got the skill while we're still fairly low level if it only does living things,” Jeff said.

Now he came back out and stared at the gargoyle. It was made from a black stone that had speckles of an almost white color in it. There were cracks crazing the surface although they looked more cosmetic than anything else since none of the cracks were more than a tiny fraction of an inch in depth.

The gargoyle's face was animalistic, with an extended snout and fangs. The body was mostly humanoid looking when it was standing, but crouching, as it did by default when it was resting over the door, left it looking more like a canine about to leap on a victim.

The wings that extended from it were reptilian in looks, although made of the same stone as the rest of it. Its limbs ended in hands and feet that were armed with claws nearly as long as Marc's fingers.

All in all, there was a good reason these people had been screaming in fear from it showing up and trying to prevent entry to the Safe Zone.

It seemed as though Felicia had calmed the people outside the wall now and the first one ventured into the Safe Zone gingerly, as though ready to dart back through the gates at the first sign of problems. When nothing happened, others started in as well. Marc turned to Rob to tell him that it looked like there wasn't a problem after all when the screaming started again.

Marc snapped his attention back to Jeff, sure that he'd somehow found a way to screw with the gargoyle and make it look threatening to the others again, but he was just standing there staring at it. Jeff's eyes snapped up towards the crowd and Marc followed his gaze.

A band of short, scaly humanoids were behind the crowd, advancing on them with weapons in hand. The front row held shortswords that looked almost too large for them, but the ones behind that were only armed with their claws, which looked dangerous enough to qualify as weapons on their own.

At the very rear of the group were a pair of the scaly creatures that were larger than the others. One was in armor and the other in robes.

Marc snapped back to the menu to try to instruct the gargoyle to attack, but realized that with the opponents so far outside of the Safe Zone, the gargoyle couldn't do anything at all. He left it set to attack non-humans and dropped the interface, casting his Arcane Armor spell on himself.

“Rob, armor up. We need to get those people in here and out of harm's way,” Marc called.

He turned to Jeff, only to find no-one there, a quick glance showing that Jeff had obviously dropped into Stealth mode.

Felicia was still out near the gate, motioning the people in. More of them were streaming through now, although some had already been under attack. Felicia had her healing staff in hand, having replaced the original with another from the final fight for the school. Little beams of green light kept shooting out towards the people at the rear of the crowd who were under attack.

Rob's armor shimmered and appeared on him, his pilum in one hand, shield in the other.

“Hah, I figured out the auto-equip,” Rob called out as he ran for the gate.

Before he was out of range, Marc cast the Phantom Shield spell on the tank, then ran after him. As he ran he called out to Felicia.

“If we get those things inside the Safe Zone, the gargoyle will attack also, so get the people in as quickly as possible. Rob and I will protect them as best as we can.”

Marc thought he'd have a problem getting through the crowd but they somehow managed to part for him and Rob as they moved towards their opponents. As he was moving, he stared at the little reptilian creatures.

Kobold Warrior

Hostile

You have learned the skill Analyze (creature) (1). Learning is best done by doing.

“They're kobolds, warriors in the front row at least,” Marc said, loud enough for Rob to hear them.

“Shouldn't be that bad then, right?”

“I hope not, but if we draw them back through the gates the gargoyle will help us fight.”

“Got it,” Rob said, then set himself in a defensive stance as they reached the rear of the crowd of people.

Rob's pilum lashed out, striking one of the warriors that had been trying to stab the people in the crowd. Marc was eyeing the two kobolds in the rear though, worried that the one in robes might be a caster.

Because most of the other casters we've run into have been wearing robes, he thought, and feathers, but I can't tell if this guy has any right now.

There were about ten armed kobolds in the front row and he didn't think Rob could handle those odds, so instead of attacking the robed kobold, he thrust with his own pilum.

For a few moments his thoughts were all locked down in attacking, defending, and dodging. Then he was struck with a tiny dart of fire. It looked like a flaming Mana Dart, but he had no idea how to do that himself. It had been mentioned in the description of the spell, though, that elemental variants were available.

He shook his head. The dart hadn't hurt that much and it had been a single dart, so the caster was low level, at least in that spell.

“Clear, the gate's clear,” Felicia yelled.

“Rob, let's fall back,” Marc said.

They tucked in closer to one another since the fight had put some distance between them. The gate was only about ten feet wide when both sides of it were open and now they were close enough to go through it at the same time.

They settled into a routine, one attack, three steps back, all the while defending as well. They'd both been hit several times, but Marc had felt Felicia heal him at least once and he had to assume she was healing Rob as well.

Finally the wall appeared in his peripheral vision. Another few steps back and they should have some help.

There was screaming back in the Safe Zone again and when Marc took another step back, he ran into the gate. It wasn't locked though and swung open, allowing him to back through, Rob at his side.

They continued to back up, fighting while retreating, and the moment the kobolds entered the Safe Zone the gargoyle let out a screech and took to the sky. A moment later, it was diving down, claws extended, towards the first intruders.

Rob and Marc formed up about ten feet back from the gate, far enough back to allow the gargoyle to move as it wanted, and set themselves to defending.

Now I can probably do something about that caster, Marc thought.

He turned his eyes to the back of the kobolds and found another flaming missile coming towards him. Gritting his teeth he took the hit and, once he was sure he'd hold his concentration, started casting his own Mana Dart with the kobold caster as his target.

Two darts launched out from his hands and raced into the distance to strike the caster. The kobold stared at him after they struck, then turned and spoke to the armored kobold beside it. The armored kobold shook its head, then the one in robes pointed towards Marc and then towards the gargoyle.

The armored kobold shook its head again, but pulled a horn out from somewhere. After a trio of short blasts on the horn, the kobolds not yet in the Safe Zone began to pull away, going back to their leaders.

The ones already inside were also trying to fall back, but Marc, Rob, and the gargoyle took advantage of that, dropping another five before they left.

Once the kobolds were out, they fled towards their leaders on all fours, scurrying along almost as fast as though they were at a full out sprint.

Felicia shut the gates and locked them in the closed position.

* * *

Marc noticed that his notification light was flashing, but before he could pull it up he saw Felicia whirl, a furious look on her face. She was glaring at the crowd of people.

No, she's glaring at that one guy in the crowd of people, not all of them, he thought.

“What the fuck did you think you were doing?” she screamed, stomping towards the man she was glaring at.

“Are you crazy? I didn't do anything,” he said.

Marc noticed the people near him starting to back away from him, looks of horror on their faces.

“I'm not stupid, I looked you right in the face when I caught you trying to close the gates. My friends went out there and risked their lives to save yours, and you tried to lock them out of the Safe Zone,” Felicia said, her voice cold.

“You're crazy, I didn't do anything of the sort,” the man said.

“Really? Why are you clutching your hand then? Because I gave whoever it was that tried to close the gates a solid crack on their hand to stop them,” Felicia said, an unpleasant smile spreading across her face.

“I saw it too,” a disembodied voice said.

Marc recognized Jeff's voice, but the accused seemed to have no idea who was speaking.

“What did you expect me to do? I heard you talking about letting those... those... things in here. Of course I tried to close and lock the gates. What was I supposed to do?”

Well shit! Marc thought. I never thought it through. Of course there'll be people like this that survived. I don't want this guy in the Safe Zone, but if I toss him out it'll be just like I murdered him.

“Obviously you're too incompetent to take care of people if you were going to let those monsters in here,” the man sputtered. “Just turn this place over to me now and no-one needs to get hurt.”

He was now holding a pistol in his hand, obviously taken from his inventory. Even from here Marc could tell that it hadn't been taken care of very well. And that was before whatever the System was doing to firearms to deteriorate them. The man's aim point kept wandering from Marc to Felicia and back.

“Really?” Marc said. “You think I'm just going to walk over to you and give you possession of this Safe Zone?”

“If you know what's good for you, you will,” the man said, sneering.

Marc sighed and looked around. Rob and Felicia were just gawking at him as though he'd gone insane. Looking back at the man with the pistol, everyone in the crowd had backed well away from him.

Okay, I hope this works, otherwise I'm going to be in a world of hurt, Marc thought. But it's supposed to increase the defense which means it should provide at least a little resistance, and with the condition of that pistol that's probably all that's needed.

Marc walked directly towards the man, casting a Phantom Shield on himself as he did so. Once he was within arm's length of the man he was sure he could sense the location of his shield. Right now it was only a few inches in front of the barrel of the man's pistol. He took another half step forward, stopping when the shield was as close to touching the front of the pistol as he could manage. Then he looked at the man's face.

“I don't think so. If you'd been in control of this place, you would've never opened the gates and all the rest of these people,” he said, gesturing towards the rest of the crowd, “would've been dead and kobold food by now.”

“I'm warning you, I'll shoot.”

“You'll regret it if you do,” Marc said.

The man pulled the trigger. The pistol fired, but the bullet couldn't make it all the way out of the gun quickly enough. Marc was pushed back several steps as the barrel exploded. The Phantom Shield caught most of the explosion and forced Marc backwards, but it also reflected a good amount of the force back towards the pistol's wielder. The man's hand and arm were shredded and bits of shrapnel embedded itself in his torso and face.

A roar from behind him left Marc's ears ringing and he wondered what it was until he noticed blood spraying from the torso of the man whose pistol had exploded. A quick glance showed him that Felicia was holding her shotgun and had moved to a point where there was no-one else behind her target before firing.

“Marc, are you alright?” Felicia called.

“Fine, except for my ears. Two gunshots and and an explosion all back to back has them ringing something fierce.”

A warmth washed over him as Felicia came closer and laid her hand on him. His hearing returned to normal almost instantaneously.

“Thank you. Now I'm fine, yes.”

“What were you thinking?” she asked.

“His pistol was in crap shape, obviously not Systemized. So I blocked the barrel with my Phantom Shield and caused a catastrophic failure with his weapon.”

She stared at him for a moment, then wound up and slapped him across the face, hard.

“Never do anything like that again!” she said.

Felicia turned and stomped away towards the front door.

* * *

As the door slammed behind Felicia, disembodied laughter rang out.

“Jeff, knock it off you ass. You're scaring people,” Marc called out.

Jeff kind of shimmered into view. One moment he wasn't there and the next he was standing over near the gates.

“Sorry, forgot I was in Stealth. Good thing I wasn't behind that guy,” he said, gesturing towards the corpse at Marc's feet. “I think she probably would've shot him anyway even if I had been.”

Rob was just staring at Marc.

“That was crazy Marc, why'd you do that?” he asked.

“Because if the gun was able to fire he had a lot of targets, people to take hostage and the like. I didn't want to just toss him back out, that would be like murdering him, but once he pulled a gun on us? I had to do something and that was the only plan I could think of,” Marc replied.

“Well, now what do we do?” Rob asked.

“Me? I'm going to wait until I stop shaking and then go change my underwear,” Marc said. “You? I'm hoping you'll take all of our guests here into the building and show them the apartments, cafeteria, and everything. I'll come along later and talk to them if I can't convince Felicia to do it.”

“Um, maybe you should let me talk to her? I don't think she wants to talk to you right now, Marc,” Rob said.

“Would you do that, please?”

Marc's legs finally gave way beneath him and he ended up sitting on the concrete walk he'd been standing on. Jeff went back to laughing, although now it wasn't nearly as creepy as it had been when he wasn't visible.

“You know, I blew you guys off a lot because I thought I could find more excitement on my own,” he said. “I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have dragged you off with me though, Marc. You're a lot more exciting when the pressure's on than I ever guessed you'd be.”

Marc just stood back up, wobbly legs and all, then made his way back into what was once the school building and now looked closer to a medieval keep.

He stumbled back to his apartment. He didn't actually need to change his shorts, but he desperately needed to sit down and not think about anything for a little bit.

Maybe a shower? Jeff said the apartments had their own bathrooms, I hope that includes showers.

Spotting the door on the side wall, Marc went through it to find a small, but fully outfitted, bathroom. It had a sink, toilet, and a shower that was on the small side, but that he'd fit into just fine. Dropping his clothes, he stepped in and turned the water on. The chill stream that hit him was just right for snapping him back to reality. Once he felt a little more grounded he adjusted the water until it was hot enough to take some of the knots out of his back.

As he stood under the steaming water, he finally remembered his notifications and pulled them up.

You have gained a level (3->4)

You have two ability points to distribute.

Your Intelligence has increased (9->10)

Your Constitution has increased (6->7)

You have one new skill point to distribute.

Shop Message:

You have sold an item (X7), the funds will be credited to your shop account and may be spent or withdrawn at your leisure.

Thinking quickly, he decided that he wanted a bit more strength. He was still at a straight average five and if he was going to be doing a fair bit of melee fighting, and it looked like he would be, he wanted to be stronger.

Also, if I'm going to be trying to talk to people, maybe a point or two in Charisma? Would that even help? It can't hurt and I'm thinking that in real life, I don't want anything I use as a dump stat. Maybe Allure? But... Well, probably not. There's at least one important thing that I'm sure that's related to.

He stopped and tried to figure out just why Felicia had been so pissed at him. The man had kept aiming his gun at her and Marc couldn't just let that go. If someone were going to get shot, it ought to be him, not her. And that reasoning was before he added in the fact that she was the healer and if he were wounded she might be able to heal him, but that if she were wounded, it would be a lot more difficult to heal her.

Speaking of which, Jeff said he had one of the healing staffs. We need to see if anyone can use that, or just a healer type, Marc thought. Plus, really? Seven more System help pads sold already? I'm going to need to get a bunch more of those pads to program tonight, get more of them listed and available for sale.

He sank his points in as he'd planned, one to Strength and one to Charisma, then shut the water off.

Well, time to go talk to some people. Hopefully the extra point in Charisma makes that easier.

Before he went looking for the newcomers he went back to the Gargoyle's settings. Looking more thoroughly he found an option for it to attack anything hostile that entered the Safe Zone. He chose that one, then closed the interface and headed out.

Marc found the newcomers in the cafeteria. Several of them were back in the kitchen and Rob was in the main area.

“Don't worry, we've got enough food for a while for everyone,” Rob was saying. “I'm sure the others won't mind in the slightest.”

“I know I don't,” Marc added.

The group looked over to them, several of them looking rather fearful.

“I'm sorry for the way we were introduced out there,” he said. “We just got the Safe Zone up and running so I hadn't yet had a chance to interact with the guardian at all. That should be fixed now. For the moment he's set to guard against those with hostile intent as opposed to anyone who doesn't live here. I wish I'd noticed that option earlier, it would've saved us all some unpleasantness.”

Marc was looking around and he recognized several of the people in the room. Not all of them, even in a small town there were too many people for him to know all of them, and he'd never been the most sociable type either, but he knew some of them.

“First off, yes, you're welcome to food. We will ask you to pitch in eventually, but you can take a day or two to get used to things. Second, I wanted to ask if anyone else has figured out anything about the System?”

He mostly got head shakes, but several hands went up.

“Go ahead.”

“It's almost like a video game,” the man said.

Marc looked closer at the person responding. He was probably in his late teens and had the pale skin of someone who didn't go out much.

“Gamer?” Marc asked.

He nodded.

“Good, if you're willing to pitch in I'll probably ask you to help explain the System to everyone else. I've got some additional knowledge that I'll provide for you too.”

“I can do that. I want to train some other stuff too, though. Name's Al,” the gamer said.

“Well, the extra stuff I can give you does contain some help on training, so maybe you can work through it? Share that with us? Then we can help everyone train.”

Al's face broke into a grin and he gave thumbs up to Marc.

“Okay, you?” he said, pointing towards the second hand up.

“Like he said, it's like a video game. You get experience for making stuff, or killing stuff,” she said.

“Crafting?” Marc asked.

She nodded.

“Oh, and I'm Lisa. I was repairing a pair of jeans when everything went funky. I finished fixing them and got a seamstress crafting skill, plus some experience. So, yeah, crafting to some degree at least.”

“Another gamer?” Marc asked.

“Once upon a time, but I didn't have the time for it the last few years. Real life and all that.”

“Well, you might be able to help out Al over there with his lessons, if you're willing.”

Lisa looked over at Al, who grinned. Then she shrugged.

“Sure, I'll do that. Plus, if we have materials I can make clothes or patch up the ones we have. I wouldn't mind working that crafting skill up a bit.”

He turned to the last person, an older man, maybe in his mid thirties.

“You?”

“Gary, but she mostly covered mine if I'm understanding correctly. You can get the System thingy to assign you skills. When things went wonky, I went out to board up my windows and was given a carpentry skill because of it.”

Marc nodded.

“Okay then. Now, and I'm sorry if this is a sore subject, did anyone know that other guy from earlier?”

Only a single hand went up.

“Who was he?” Marc asked, pointing at the owner of the hand.

She was in her mid to late twenties and rather pretty.

“He said his name was Tim and he was trying to get into my pants. He was staying at the motel where I work and kept telling me how grateful he'd be to me after he came into his own or something like that. I tried to get away from him, but he kept following me around. He finally laid off it a bit when I saw a group of people and went over to join them. They were headed here.”

“Okay, so it sounds like he wasn't planning anything and his actions were more of a spur of the moment deal. Alright, okay, well for now just eat since it looks like the food is almost ready. Were you all shown apartments already?”

“Yeah, Jeff did that before he disappeared again,” Rob said.

“Well, in that case—”

“I'll take it from here, Marc,” Felicia said.

He was happy to see that she wasn't glaring at him.

“Go put some food in your fool stomach, and don't forget that you've got a lot of corpses to loot out there or they'll all disappear and you'll miss out,” she said. “Same goes for you, Rob. But the two of you should wait until you've got someone to stand watch before you loot out beyond the gate.”

Then she turned back to the crowd. Making her voice loud enough to even be heard back in the kitchen, she started to speak.

“Welcome to Any Port. As you can tell, the person in charge is crap at naming things, but the sentiment is accurate. Here's what we're planning and where you might fit into it...”

Felicia was still talking a minute later as Marc tugged on Rob's sleeve.

“Come on, let's go do some looting,” he said.

* * *

Chapter Ten

It was apparent that Jeff and Felicia had already looted since the corpses decayed as soon as Marc and Rob had done the same. They stood guard for each other as they looted, taking Felicia's advice to heart. Once they were done, Marc headed back to his apartment.

What the hell is going on? Marc thought. Why is Felicia pissed at me? He was planning on shooting either her or me, so it's not like I put myself much more at risk by taking care of it. But she slapped me but good and doesn't want me to do anything like that ever again? I don't get it.

Having already had his shower earlier, he was just lying back on his bed. He had his headphones on and his MP3 player running since he always thought better to music. The player, at least, had been changed subtly. The menus looked mostly the same, but the back lighting was a different shade and it looked like the player wasn't loosing charge as quickly as it normally did.

As a matter of fact I ran it for hours last night and another half hour right now and it's still only down one percent. I guess Systemizing it changed more than I thought? Maybe makes it the closest System equivalent or something, or just changed the battery tech? I don't know and the help files for that don't go into much depth.

Finally he shut down the player and pulled his headphones off. When he did, he realized that the walls must be really thin.

Because I swear I'm hearing something from Felicia's room. It sounds like she's crying, but that's not something I'd expect out of her. Should I go check on her or was Rob right and she'd rather not talk to me now? Marc thought.

Having found his courage once already today, it was easier to do so a second time. He left his room and took the five steps to get to her door before knocking. He waited a while before knocking a second time.

Either she's not going to answer the door or she needed a moment to gather herself. Either one seems a viable alternative knowing what she was just doing, he thought.

A moment later the door opened and Felicia stood in the gap it had created. Marc could barely tell that she'd been crying. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and a little puffy, but otherwise there was no evidence.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “It seems that Jeff made the walls a little thin.”

She blushed as she realized what he was saying.

“I'm fine,” she snapped, then moved her arm as though she were going to close the door.

Gritting his teeth, Marc slid his foot into the opening.

“Please, not yet. Just tell me why you're angry with me?” he asked.

She stared at him, her eyes widening in disbelief.

“You don't know why I'm mad at you?” she asked, her pitch rising towards the end of the sentence.

He shook his head.

“No, all I did was draw his attention to me when I was pretty sure I could survive it. He kept moving the pistol from you to me and back and I wanted to make sure his attention was on me, not you.”

“Wait, that was all to protect me?” Felicia asked.

“I mean, yes, but there were a lot of other people around he could've hurt also, so I had to draw his attention to me. I knew his pistol was in shit shape just from seeing it, so I figured my shield pressed against it would protect me and blow up his weapon. It's what I was hoping for, at least, and that's how it worked.”

“So, you risked yourself to protect me and wonder why I'm mad at you? How would you feel if I'd risked myself to protect you?” Felicia said.

“Uh,” Marc said. “I don't know. If you came out of it fine? I'd still think you'd unnecessarily risked yourself. I've got spells to provide protection for myself and you don't. At least, I don't think you do? You know that I do. I wouldn't be mad at you though, maybe just a little upset? I don't know.”

Felicia just shook her head.

“I'm sorry Marc, you don't get it and I don't think I can explain it better, at least not right now.”

“Felicia, I just couldn't think of any other way to take care of that without getting other people hurt and I couldn't bear the thought of him shooting you, so I did what I did.”

Her face broke into a smile, a small one, but still a smile.

“Well, maybe you understand a little. Give me some time to calm down and maybe we can talk about this somewhere other than the hallway,” she said, glancing from side to side. “But for now, I'm almost ready for bed. Good night, Marc.”

* * *

Marc went back to his own apartment and settled in on the couch. He had some thinking to do. When he'd seen the fire version of the Mana Dart earlier on, he'd flashed back to some of the helps he'd read. Evidently magic in the System was based on esoteric mathematics and he had samples of that from each of his spells, so he was going to try to work out some basic magical math from his samples.

I might not have enough to do it yet, but I bet I can at least figure out how to trigger the elemental versions of the Mana Dart if nothing else. Especially if it's the way I think and it'll just take substituting one variable for another in the spell itself. I just need to break it down a bit and see what parts of the spell are responsible for what results.

He sank into his own mind, breaking down the parts of the spell a piece at a time. The part to summon the magic was first, then there were portions that shaped it, that set its range, determined its effect, determined the type of damage it would cause, and so on.

Slowly he tried altering bits and pieces here and there. He couldn't change the initial portion, the one that summoned the magic, and have the spell still function. Evidently it needed a precise amount of mana to function as intended, but after that he discovered that the spell was relatively malleable. He was sure that, given enough time, he could figure out how to alter the mana input as well, but that might change some of the other effects.

He could change its shape from a dart to almost anything he could imagine, he could send it out farther than the spell was designed for, but would lose damage from it if he did. He could also change the effect, in essence changing what the spell actually did. It could be a carrier for other spells that he wanted to cast beyond their normal range, although he wasn't actually sure how well that would work.

Although Felicia can use the staff to heal at range, I wonder if it's similar to that? I'll have to try it at some point, although my Phantom Shield is the only spell I could use that way so far.

The next portion was the one that had intrigued him originally. The spell had variables that set the type of damage and the way he cast it. Right now it seemed to just use a simple default value. There was a sort of mental trigger designed into the spell that determined that value, but it wasn't one he'd been using, it was something designed to be added in as the user got more proficient with the spell.

But the kobold was only generating one dart and it was flame, so I know that it can be done before that point. It must have done it instinctively with flame, but not be that good at the spell, so I ought to be able to trigger the other damage types. I just need to figure out how, Marc thought.

Finally he opened his eyes, determined to first check his help files to see if they dealt with anything of the sort and then to go down and purchase pads from the shop so he could set up more System help pads and sell them. His notification light was flashing when he opened them though, so he pulled that up first.

You have discovered the skill: Mana Manipulation (1)

You have discovered the skill: Meditation (1)

Your Aptitude has increased (8->9)

Your skill, Mana Manipulation, has increased in skill level (X2) (1->3)

Your skill, Meditation, has increased in skill level (1->2)

Shop Message:

You have sold an item (X2), the funds will be credited to your shop account and may be spent or withdrawn at your leisure.

Marc blinked when he realized that the auctions he'd created earlier were now out of stock entirely. He quickly decided that he needed to turn off the shop notifications or he was going to be inundated with them the way things were going. A quick mental flip and they were off, he'd try to remember to check on them every few hours since they wouldn't show in his notifications any more.

Well that was incredibly productive, he thought, even if I don't end up figuring it out right away. I can always try again later and maybe pick up some more points in the skill. Let's see what Mana Manipulation does. Help Mana Manipulation.

Mana Manipulation:

For many, magic is simply plug and play, perform a spell by rote and receive a desired effect. There are those who want it to be more though, and these are the people who receive the Mana Manipulation skill. With this skill, magic can be dissected down into its component parts and the parts reassembled to perform spells for almost any occasion. A true master of Mana Manipulation will create new spells at the drop of a hat. Beware though, experimentation with magic and mana can be dangerous in the extreme.

Marc shook his head, grinning.

That's a much better help file, even if it doesn't tell me a lot of specifics, he thought. It gave me the gist of the skill and was easily understandable. Speaking of help files though, I really do need to get more of these things listed.

As Marc headed down to the gym to access the shop, he skimmed through a few of the help files, trying to see if he could get more in-depth information to use with his efforts to allow his Mana Dart spell to perform other types of damage. He didn't find anything that would be directly useful, just a few references that alluded to knowledge that could be learned that would help him out.

So basically, I need to get some spells that deal with the elements. Then I can probably figure out how they access their element and swap that out? I hope so, anyhow.

When he got to the gym a few of the new people were in there. Giving them a quick wave, he moved over to the shop pedestal, only to find two people in line at it already.

Huh, I wonder if we can upgrade the shop so more than one person can use it at a time? If we can, we ought to, especially if we're going to try to get more people here, he thought.

The two in front of him in line didn't take long though. It looked like they were putting items up for sale since they came away with nothing in their hands. Then Marc was there. Checking his balance, it registered as forty-five silver.

Looks like the shop automatically takes its ten percent, he thought. Should I pull the money to pay everyone back their original investment now or wait? I'd only be able to do another three pads if I did that since their base price is two silver a piece, but I'll make note of what I owe for their percentages and get another twenty pads to set up and sell off. I'll get them back their initial investment after this run, then start paying percentages and back percentages on the one after that.

He nodded, figuring out the math that would allow him to keep increasing how many pads he was putting up for sale while still paying back his friends for their initial investment. After that he could worry about profits, but since it was net not gross, he wasn't worried about it yet since he was reinvesting the coins so far.

Marc leaned back against the wall and pulled out the master pad, linking it up to the others, he downloaded all the data into them, then went back to the shop pedestal.

Only nineteen for sale, I need to give one to Al like I said I would, he thought.

A few momenta later he had nineteen pads up for sale on the shop again.

After tracking down Al and dropping off the pad with him, Marc headed back for his room. He was feeling a little overwhelmed at the moment and starting to feel a little groggy. He needed to clear his mind and the best way he could think of to do that was to get a good night's sleep. Hoping that he'd be feeling more on point in the morning, he locked his door and turned in for the night.

* * *

When he woke in the morning Marc was feeling much refreshed. The grogginess that had begun to cloud his thinking the day before had cleared away completely and he realized that they had a few problems.

First, we'll need to do something about those kobolds. If they're in town somewhere then anyone that hasn't come to the Safe Zone is in a lot of danger and I'm sure we haven't gotten all the survivors yet. Second, they can actually attack the Safe Zone apparently. I wasn't sure yesterday, but they did follow us in through the gates so it won't keep them out completely, just prevents them from spawning in here. So we need to upgrade some, at the very least maybe higher walls and maybe a watch post or something so we can tell when we're going to be attacked. The very least we'll need is to get some guards on the walls.

He pulled on his clothes, his mind still working as he did so.

So, we'll need to figure out where the kobolds are, if that's the whole group or if there are more of them, and determine a way to attack them that'll provide the least danger to ourselves. They fled east yesterday when they ran away, so probably we should start looking on the east side of town. That's mostly residential, but not entirely.

Now he pulled up his notifications, remembering that he wanted to check his shop notifications frequently.

Shop Message:

You have sold an item (X11), the funds will be credited to your shop account and may be spent or withdrawn at your leisure.

He'd been heading for the door, ready to get something to eat down in the cafeteria, but he stopped dead in his tracks.

Already? There's only eight left there now. Should I go drop more into the shop now or wait until later? he wondered. At the very least I can pull out some of those funds and give the others back their initial investments. I'll do that and make a few more pads to increase the total available, then figure out when to start giving the others their percentages also.

On his way to the cafeteria he noticed that the people who had come in yesterday had settled in some. Twice he saw people exiting from apartments and when he got to the cafeteria there were a number of people already at the tables, eating breakfast. Looking over to the kitchen, he saw it was staffed and operating, so he headed for what used to be the lunch line. Now it was manned by a pretty young woman while an older couple were back in the kitchen itself, cooking.

“Marc, right?” the young woman asked. “What would you like?”

“What's available?” he asked.

“Oh, we can do some things to order, or dad can just put you together a breakfast burrito from things he's cooked and has staying warm back there.”

“Breakfast burrito sounds great.”

“Okay, one minute. Drinks are in the cooler down that way,” she said, gesturing farther down the line.

Huh, there's only milk, juice, and bottled water. I need to track down the vending machines and grab a bunch of cokes or something also, Marc thought. I wonder if that milk is still good, even?

“Oh, dad reminded me that we've got coffee also. That's back in the kitchen though since there's no easy way to keep it warm out here.”

“Please?” Marc said. “Gotta get my caffeine however I can. I think maybe we should do some foraging today. I'm sure someone has already hit the grocery stores, but I bet they had to leave a lot and I'm sure we can use any of it.”

The young woman nodded.

“I'm sure dad would like more to work with than he has here. The school has a limited selection of things for him to work with.”

“Well, we'll see what we can do. What was your name again?” Marc asked.

Just about everyone had introduced themselves yesterday, but Marc was shit with names and he knew it. He'd remember their name after he'd talked to someone for a little bit, but if it was just introductions and no conversation with another person, the name went in and out of his head in a flash.

The young woman smiled at him.

“Alice, I imagine you lost a lot of people's names yesterday?”

He shook his head.

“I'll remember them sooner or later, it's just that yesterday, heck everything since the System showed up, is kind of a disorienting blur.”

“I get that,” she said. “We just locked down in our house, down in the basement. Then dad saw the signs you guys put up while he was out foraging and decided we'd be better off with others. It's amazing what you did with the school, I didn't recognize it when we got here, it looks more like a medieval fort than anything else at this point.”

“Yeah, you get to alter things when you create a Safe Zone, so we did that to try to make it more defensible.”

“Order up!” came a cry from back in the kitchen.

“I'll get your coffee and burrito,” Alice said. “I imagine you've got a lot planned for today.”

Marc just nodded. He had ideas for the day, but no plans as of yet.

* * *

Marc saw Rob at a table, with a few other people around the same age. He didn't actually recognize them but evidently Rob knew them, or had quickly made friends with them since they were engaged in an animated conversation.

Felicia was at a table, in a spot all by herself, and when she saw him looking for a seat, she smiled and waved him over.

I'm not sure, but I think Alice might've been flirting with me? Marc thought idly as he made his way over to Felicia. I don't think I would've noticed before all this, is that the point I dropped in Charisma getting her to flirt with me, or telling me that she was? Damn it, I much prefer the solidity of dealing with mathematics to the vagaries of negotiating social situations. Social situations involve all kinds of variables that I don't know how to solve for. I suppose it doesn't really matter though, unless I wanted to respond to Alice's flirting, which I don't.

He slid into the seat beside Felicia and started to eat.

“Morning, Marc,” she said.

He nodded, then finished chewing and swallowed.

“Good morning, Felicia. How are you?”

He'd asked tentatively, remembering their conversation of the night before when she'd seemed less than stable.

“Much better, thank you for asking. How are you?”

“Oh, well, I was feeling kind of groggy last night, but that's all cleared up now. I was thinking we should get the group together and maybe a couple of volunteers and work on cleaning out one of the grocery stores today. If we're going to have a lot of people here, we'll need to be able to feed them until we can produce our own food, or have enough things to sell to buy some through the shop.”

“That's a good idea,” Felicia said. “Should we plan that for today?”

“I'd like to, but I was also thinking that we need to track down where those kobolds are at. If it's another lair thing then they might be a threat to the Safe Zone. Things might not spawn here, but now we know for sure that they can attack here.”

“Yeah, you're right. I think the grocery store should take precedence though. The kobolds fled once, so maybe they won't be back right away? Maybe we should send Jeff out to skulk around town and see where they're coming from. While he does that, we can lead some people to the grocery store and start clearing it out?”

“He'll bitch about it,” Marc said, “but if we phrase it right, I bet he'd do that. He's pretty proud of his Stealth capabilities as far as I can tell and that'll give him a chance to use it and maybe increase his skill in it.”

Rob came over a few minutes later.

“Hey guys, is there any way we can get some starting equipment for some others? I was just talking to some people, casual gamers, that really want to start up their own adventuring group. They want to go out and do stuff. Evidently most of the people we got yesterday just want to settle in and feel safe. They're happy to help out around here, but want nothing to do with the spawns or anything else.”

“I get that,” Felicia said. “I'm sure there'll be more people that just want to feel safe than there are that want to do anything else.”

“We've got some of the stuff we looted from the goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds, right?” Marc said. “I know I had to dump some due to space issues, but I've still got some. Maybe we can offer that to them?”

“I'd love to give them the other staff of healing if they're going to have a healer type,” Felicia said. “But Jeff has it and he's a pack rat. I'm sure he won't want to give it up.”

“Well, we can go take a look at the shop also,” Marc said. “I need to pull some funds to pay you back your initial investments since the help pads are selling like hotcakes. While we're there, we can see if there's anything they can use that's available for cheap. Did they say what types of classes they want?”

Rob shrugged.

“At least one of them wants to tank, was asking about my armor. A couple want to be casters, and the last one didn't say anything about it.”

Felicia snickered.

“Send that one to Jeff. Sounds like they want to be a thief, but didn't want to say it out loud. The casters can come talk to Marc and I, maybe we can help?” she said.

Marc thought about it for a moment.

“I think I can explain my Mana Dart spell well enough for someone else to learn it,” he said. “I spent some time picking it apart last night. I was trying to alter it for elemental damage like that kobold used on me.”

Felicia stared at him.

“So, did you manage it?” she asked.

“Yes and no. I know what I have to do to alter the damage type, but I don't know the actual symbols to plug in for it, I have to find them or see them or something.”

“Symbols?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, one of the things I found out is that magic is very much like math, so I'm just using similar references.”

Rob groaned.

“Good thing I didn't want to be a caster. Math and I never got along very well,” he said.

Felicia shook her head.

“Don't tell Jeff, okay? We all know you're a math whiz, but if you tell him magic is based on math he'll start complaining again about how easy you've got it now. He was already doing that because of your class.”

“I overheard some of that,” Marc said. “I won't mention it to him on purpose, but with his skillset I'd never know if he was lurking nearby, so he might overhear me.”

Marc glanced around as though he expected Jeff to pop out of Stealth and shout 'Boo!', then settled back down.

“So yeah, send the ones that want to be casters over. I can probably hook them up with the Mana Dart spell if they want. I don't know if Felicia could manage something to get one as a healer though.”

“Actually, I could,” she said. “I got offered the class after using the staff of healing, so if there's anyone wounded around here, I could let them use the staff to heal them and they'd probably get the offer also.”

“Good plan,” Marc said. “We should probably think of ways we can get people offered as many different classes as we can. There are class listings in some of the help files, so we ought to make lists and try to brainstorm how people could obtain the classes.”

“I've got paper and pencils, shall we?” Felicia asked.

“No, first the grocery store. Why don't you make up some more signs directing people here. We can put them up at the store and along the route we take to get there. Might get some more people with motivation if they're going to the store on their own and see them.”

“That could be good or bad. Good, if they're just desperate, bad if they like the idea of looting.”

“Well, if they get hostile while in the Safe Zone, then I'm pretty sure the guardian will turn on them. That makes for a fairly easy method to sort out people we don't want here. I just wish I'd had the time to turn that setting on before yesterday's shenanigans,” Marc said.

Felicia just nodded to that.

“Let's go to the shop first, like you said. We'll bring the others that want to adventure with us, show them what we have available to give them, see if we can boost them at all with stuff we can afford to buy, then teach them some spells,” Felicia said.

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Marc replied.

* * *

Chapter Eleven

In the end they didn't buy much from the shop, most of the items that would be useful were priced higher than they could afford. They did purchase a suit of light leather armor and a small shield for the other group's tank. They'd been asking about spears like Rob and Marc had, but there was nothing similar in the shop. Rob had taken all the longer spears from the hobgoblins though and the other group settled for those along with an assortment of short blades that had been retrieved from the goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds.

Marc took a few minutes to cash in the help pads that had sold since the last time, then immediately purchased and programmed new ones to list. After that, they were ready for their plans for the day.

“So, we want to hit the grocery store, the nearest one, and get more food for the Safe Zone. I'm sure we can produce at least some of our own, but I'm guessing that'll take some time to come online,” Marc said.

“Yeah, with all the new people we have, that cut down the length the food stuffs that were in the kitchen will last,” Felicia said. “So we need to add more and get our own production underway ASAP.”

“When we get a few levels, we can probably go out hunting. We can add some meat to the diet,” Jack said.

Jack was the person from the other group that Marc had assumed wanted to be a thief. Marc had been wrong there though, Jack actually wanted to be a ranger type. He just hadn't seen any of the original group in a similar class so he'd determined to forge his own way into what he wanted.

“Hey Jack, you want the ranger class or whatever they have that's like it, right?” Jeff said.

Jack nodded.

“Well, if I remember right there's an outdoors store a block or so past the grocery store. Hunting focused, so they might have some bows and arrows. Why don't you and I go there while the rest of these guys hit the grocery store. See what we can find you. If you can get the class quickly enough you'll get a System token from that, one you can use to Systemize the bow you get so it doesn't fall apart.”

“Why you and me?” Jack asked.

“Hey, it's outdoors mostly. Don't ranger types get the Stealth skill or something similar to use when outside? I can maybe train you in it, just turn down the Thief class they offer if you manage to learn Stealth. Once you have the bow, we can hunt some small game and then maybe it'll offer you the class you want,” Jeff said.

“Oh, that makes more sense than I'd expected. Yeah, let's do that if it's okay.”

“Go for it,” Marc said. “Not that you need my permission. We're bringing you guys along to pick up some experience if we happen to encounter anything.”

Felicia's plan worked. She loaned the healing staff to the other person who wanted to be a healer. Then they went to the other people who'd arrived the night before and found a couple with minor injuries. After healing them, they had a new healer. Jeff even temporarily gave up the other staff of healing to the new healer, albeit reluctantly.

Meanwhile, Marc spent some time with the other group's potential Mage, Douglas. They discussed how the magic system seemed to be based on esoteric mathematics and Marc explained some of them. After Doug grasped the basics of what Marc was saying, Marc spent a half hour teaching Doug the Mana Dart spell. Once he'd learned it, which Marc had been sure would take longer than it had, Doug was offered a simple Mage class, no other qualifier to the class title, just Mage.

“It works for me,” Doug said. “I'd much rather have spells for any situation as opposed to being focused on just one thing. Well, assuming we can find more spells.”

“We found the Mana Dart spell on a scroll from a hobgoblin caster type, so they are out there,” Marc said.

“Good, maybe we can trade spells if we both end up with some the other doesn't have?”

“Yeah, assuming they're tradable. My class isn't strictly Mage, so some of mine might be class specific stuff.”

They fell into a discussion of Marc's class and what Doug was hoping to do until the others returned.

“So, they've got their Mage and Healer,” Jeff said. “Rob couldn't exactly figure out how to get their tank to a Warrior class, and we'll need other items for the Ranger class. I think we're set for now, yeah?”

“Sounds about right, let's head out then. We had a few volunteers to help bring stuff back, so we need to pick them up first,” Marc said.

They headed to the gymnasium, which people seemed to have picked for the general spot to hang out in, added in the others who had volunteered to act as pack mules, then headed out of the Safe Zone.

* * *

As they left the Safe Zone Marc looked around with interest. There weren't any cars right nearby or they would've taken those before, but the houses he could see seemed to be holding up okay. They looked a little neglected, something that shouldn't have happened as quickly as it had, but they looked better than the large buildings downtown that he could see from here. Some of the larger ones were already precariously leaning to one side.

Fortunately the largest building in the town was only five stories, so even if the taller ones crashed down they wouldn't destroy much else.

Even so, I know we can enlarge the Safe Zone, Marc thought. We just need the materials to do it. Once I can get it close enough to the town we can start using the materials from existing buildings downtown and get expanding rapidly. Until then, we need to make sure we can feed everyone and figure out a way to get more materials in order to expand far enough to use the ones from existing buildings.

Something had caught his eye when he was looking through weapons in the shop. Nestled in among the listing for actual weapons had been a machine, a fairly large one although it was also portable. It was listed as being able to produce metal to make your own weapons with and that was why it showed up in his search.

Mounted on wheels and able to be pulled by a couple of people, or slowly move on its own, he was pretty sure it was what the people who'd been selling building materials were using. Place it up against an item to be broken down, or load the item into it if it was small enough, and it would break down the item and yield processed materials for building on the other side. The listing he'd seen for it focused on it being able to break down metals to make weapons out of, but it had also said that it would process all types of appropriate materials as well.

The only problem was that it had been listed at five gold. Five gold was five hundred silver, or fifty-thousand copper, so it was well out of his current range.

Although if the help pads keep selling well, it might not be out of range for long, he thought. Plus, I happened to mention to Jeff that there was a Cash for Gold shop near that hunting store he wanted to go to and that if he happened to visit it that would be a good thing. I know he won't turn over all the gold from it, assuming there is some there, but he'll turn over a lot I think. I wonder how our standard troy bullion ounces will convert to System gold. Also, how would they convert gold jewelry? Are we better off selling it as jewelry or should we melt it down or what?

As they moved down the road, his head was on a swivel, looking in all directions for spawns. When they passed the first road leading east, he took some extra time to look down it since that's where the kobolds had fled when they left. He didn't see any of them out on the road though, not that that meant a whole lot. Instead he made sure to let everyone know that that's where they'd headed when they ran away, then continued on. That way, everyone else would probably also keep an eye on that area when they were passing it.

The store parking lot was loaded with cars, all of them in poor shape by this point. He could tell from the variety of fluids that had leaked out onto the slowly crumbling pavement.

So yeah, internal combustion engines deteriorate quickly, asphalt goes more slowly. The asphalt in the parking lots back at the school is back in good shape though, so if we can claim the whole town, then maybe we can keep the internal roads intact and functional? It's going to make going from town to town incredibly sucky though.

The front windows of the grocery store had all been smashed in. The doors had fallen off their hinges, lying shattered on the walk in front of the doorway.

“Alright, Jeff, now's the time for you to split off if you're going to do so,” Marc said.

Jeff faded from view and it looked like the potential Ranger was trying to do the same, just with much less success.

“No, like I told you before, you're trying too hard,” Jeff's voice said from nowhere.

A moment later Jack faded from view also.

“That's them taken care of, now it looks like something's been in here,” Marc said, “so let's be on our toes going in, shall we? You folks here just to carry? You can stay out here if you like, or you can come in with us. You might pick up some experience if you come in and we have to fight, but be careful if you do. We don't want to lose anyone.”

Marc gestured to Rob. As the tank he'd be going in first. Rob kicked some broken glass out of the bottom of one of the windows then stepped in. He looked around then took several steps forward. Marc and Felicia followed in behind him. Marc waved to Doug, Jayden, who was the tank for the second group, and Olivia, who was the healer for the second group. The three of them followed into the store, the secondary tank bringing up the rear.

“So, how are we doing this?” Rob asked.

“I think we need to work our way through the store, clear all the aisles. Then we can get everyone in here to pull the stuff we want.”

“Which is?” Rob asked.

Felicia choked off a laugh.

“Pretty much everything,” she said. “Food first though, but we'll definitely want toilet paper, hygiene items, and all that. I bet we'll be able to buy any of that stuff from the shop, but if we can go for a while without doing that then we'll be able to expand more quickly. I agree with Marc, we need to expand the Safe Zone before everything falls apart to the point where we can't recycle anything out of it when we claim it. So the quicker the better for expansion.”

Marc had shared his thoughts on that with her, but hadn't told her about the machine he'd found available yet. He'd wait until Jeff was back and see if he'd found any gold or not. If he had, then Marc would broach the subject with his group.

Alright, get your head in the game Marc, you need to pay attention, he thought.

“Okay everyone. Hold still for a moment. Listen for movement. Rob made a lot of noise coming in, so if there's anything in here, it might be moving around right now,” Marc said.

Everyone froze and listened. Marc himself only heard some scurrying from somewhere deeper in the store.

But if I'm hearing it from here then that's no normal sized rat or something, gotta be bigger than that, he thought.

“Anyone else hear scurrying?” he asked.

He got a couple of nods in reply.

“Alright then, stay alert and we'll start looking for whatever it is.”

The front of the store was lit up from the sun outside, but deeper into the store was dark, getting pitch dark towards the back.

“Hmm, I wonder if simple electronics have been deteriorating as fast as the more complex stuff?” Marc said.

“What?” Rob asked.

“Oh, they used to have some of those little LED flashlights in the impulse buy section near the checkouts. I'm going to see if they still do and if they work at all, because it's really dark in there,” Marc said, pointing deeper into the store.

He moved over and grabbed one, only to find that it popped, clicked, and let out a little puff of stench when he tried to turn it on, but there was no light at all.

“Alright, give me a minute here. Sorry, I should've thought about the power being out, but since we have it back at the Safe Zone I didn't consider that.

He found himself remembering what he'd worked his way through with the Mana Manipulation spell and came to a conclusion quickly.

Alright, I can change variables. I don't have one for damage type, but the damned things glow when I shoot them, so let's remove the damage variable, increase the packaging variable since that will probably provide the glow, and add in a duration like I found on the Arcane Armor and Phantom Shield spells. Try to boost the duration value too. It should still mostly balance out on the power levels, increasing duration and casing while decreasing damage. I'm pretty sure the damage contributes heavily to the mana cost of it, so increasing two other variables while removing that will...

A bit more thought and a moment's casting later he had two Mana Darts fall to the floor in front him, each glowing brightly.

Your skill, Mana Manipulation, has increased in skill level (3->4)

Your spell, Mana Dart, has increased in skill level (3->4).

He picked the Darts up, happy to be able to interact with them and also satisfied that it caused no more than a vaguely uncomfortable buzz against his hand as he held it, no pain at all.

“Who wants the other torch?” he asked, holding out the Mana Dart in his left hand.

Doug took it.

“I thought you said you only had some defensive spells and Mana Dart?”

“I did, these are modified Mana Darts. Should last for at least twenty minutes. I changed the spell to produce light and add duration instead of doing damage.”

“Wait, what? You can do that?”

“Another skill, it's called Mana Manipulation. I would've mentioned it earlier but you didn't seem very interested in the math behind the magic.”

“Well, if you can get something like that, then maybe I am interested. How hard is it too learn?”

Marc took a moment to form an analogy he was sure Doug would understand.

“Think of the basics I taught you like the intro to a hundred level college course. Mana Manipulation is probably like a seven or eight hundred level course.”

Doug stared at him, eyebrows raised.

“And you just got it?”

“I tried to dig into the math behind the spells. I was a math major, you know? I think math is fun. I eventually planned on doing applied mathematics, just hadn't decided what specialization. Well, now I know what specialization I'm going for: Magic.”

“Yeah, well, it you ever make formulas for your variants on spells, teach them to me. Otherwise, I think that's gonna be all you,” Doug said, emphasizing the last with a nod and a finger pointing in Marc's direction.

“You guys done with your talk? Maybe we can get on with this now?” Rob said. “It's kind of creepy in here, you know?”

“Sure Rob. Hey Doug, stick towards the back with Jayden. Hopefully we'll spread the light beyond the group that way while still giving us all enough light to work with,” Marc said.

He stepped up near Rob and they moved deeper into the store.

* * *

They moved to the back of the store where the noise seemed to be coming from. The movement was reluctant as there was a particularly bad odor that seemed to come from back there. The mix of rotting meat, sour milk, and a few less identifiable odors did not blend well and assaulted the senses almost as badly as a physical attack.

That was where they found their noisemaker though. In the darkness of the store a raccoon was up and active in the middle of the day, working his way through the meat counter, having made his way into it from the sliding doors in back of the counter used to place the meat in. When the light spilled over onto him, he froze. Then, much like Jeff, he dropped out of sight. In this case he'd rolled over through the open door to the back.

Marc went trotting up to make sure the raccoon wouldn't be a problem, but when he got there he couldn't see it anywhere.

“Oh, please don't tell me that regular animals got skills like Stealth,” he said.

“Nah, it's probably just hiding,” Rob said. “They aren't called bandits for nothing. My grandma had some get into her attic. We knew they were there, but never could see them.”

“Well, I don't think we're in any danger from it,” Marc said. “I'm pretty sure it's not hungry by this point.”

He was looking in the meat case at the numerous cuts of meat that were partially devoured.

“We don't need to be in this section anyhow, so we'll just leave him be and hopefully he'll return the favor,” Marc said.

He reached around and through the back of the meat case, nudging a couple of cuts of beef onto the floor behind the case itself.

“There you go, guy. You can eat those while we're looting everything else. There shouldn't be any light down there so you're good for that. Sorry to disturb you,” Marc said.

Then he turned away from the meat case.

“Come on, Rob. Let's go get the others and start looting the store.”

Their intention was to take most of the stuff that would last the longest, but as they were walking into the store one of the pack mule volunteers voiced an idea.

“You know, the bread and stuff should be good for a week or three, we should grab all that stuff too, use it up first.”

“Sure, we can do that,” Marc said. “Jayden, Doug, and Olivia, take a few of the volunteers over that way. This way each group has a light, a Healer, and a Mage.”

The two groups split up, Marc's heading towards the pasta aisle to grab as much of it as they could.

“Awesome,” Rob said. “Items stack up to ninety-nine in the inventory slots.”

Marc glanced over.

“What did you grab ninety-nine of?”

“Oh, I just started dumping a bunch of Crunch bars into my inventory, right? Saw them keep stacking so went and got more from the other checkout aisles. They didn't start a new slot until they were ninety-nine deep in the first one.”

“That's great, I wonder how large an item we can fit in there?” Marc mused.

The pasta aisle was cleared out quickly, the discovery that the volunteers could use their inventory in that fashion allowing them to clear the shelves much more quickly. Marc detoured for a minute before their next goal.

“Sorry guys, I was craving these recently, so I'm going to get some while I can.”

He loaded twelve pack after twelve pack of Cokes into his inventory, watching them stack higher and higher.

“Hey, twelve packs stack to ninety-nine also,” he commented, done with his own looting for the moment. Let's see, what's next on the list?”

As he left the aisle, he noted that he hadn't been the only one snagging some drinks, large swathes of the aisle were empty of goods.

“I hope you guys stuck to a single type so as not to use too many inventory slots, you can always trade later,” he said.

He got a couple of shame-faced looks and noticed people swapping goods back and forth as they continued on. Next on his list was the snack aisle, less for chips and the like and more for all the nuts and jerky.

They kept going until all their inventories were full and the bags the volunteers had brought were also full, then returned to the front of the store and waited for the other group.

“Hey, you all set?” Jayden asked.

Marc nodded.

“Yeah, we need to get going. We'll make another run today if we have the time. Any sign of Jeff and Jack?”

“Not yet,” Jayden said.

“We're here,” Jeff said, although Marc couldn't see him when they looked around. “There are kobolds out on the road back to the Safe Zone. Looks like they're doing the same thing we are, looting places.”

“How many?”

“About twenty or so that we saw.”

“Did Jack get his bow?”

The potential Ranger shimmered into view, holding a large recurve bow. He wore a pair of quivers also, one on either side of his waist.

“Good, then maybe we should get rid of the kobolds. We can start from a distance with spells and arrows, then take them on head to head. They weren't that tough the other day, it was mainly the numbers. We're closer to even on that now if all eight of us can fight instead of just me and Rob,” Marc said. “You guys up for it?”

He looked at Jayden and got a short, sharp nod.

“It's what we're signing up for. The only way to level is experience, the only way to level our classes is to fight, right? So, let's do this.”

“Okay, here's the plan. Jack, you take us to the point where you think you've got a good chance to hit with your bow. Doug and I will be on either side of you, ready to cast Mana Darts as soon as they're in range. Healers, watch the rear and heal as needed. Jayden, Rob, be ready to form a line in front of us if the kobolds charge. Jeff, do what I know you're going to do no matter what I say, Stealth and stab. Volunteers, you're welcome to fight if they get in close. If you don't want to, stay back with the healers. Everyone got it?”

He got a series of nods and they stepped back out of the store into the bright sunlight.

* * *

Jack took the lead, spotting the kobolds and trotting down the road towards them a bit. He'd put himself in the center of the road, but it was too late for Marc to tell him to space himself so they could anchor their line on a building.

I just assumed he would, can't keep making that mistake, Marc thought.

Jack dropped to one knee and, bow at a diagonal from side to side, nocked an arrow on the string and drew it back. The bow creaked slightly and Marc realized another issue with his plan. Jack's bow hadn't been Systemized yet. Marc hoped it would last the fight so the man could do that later when he got a class, it ought to be a low enough tech level to survive the deterioration it had experienced.

Unless it's one of those high tech polymer bows, a little voice in the back of Marc's head interjected.

He shook his head. There was nothing to do about it now and the creak had sounded like wood creaking, so he was hopeful. Meanwhile Jack had fired his first arrow while everyone else got into position.

“Yeah, I'll take the class later, dismiss screen,” Jack said, nocking and drawing another arrow.

The kobolds were only now reacting as a second arrow raced down the road. A couple of them went into hiding behind a wrecked car, while others were forming up into a mass. It looked like the count was close, Marc was guessing twenty-five instead of twenty, which shouldn't be a problem unless they had the leader or the caster with them.

At a yell from somewhere deep in their mass, the kobolds started trotting down the road towards them. Jack kept firing and it wasn't long until Doug and Marc had range on the little reptilian humanoids.

Marc still didn't know how to get the elemental version of his Mana Darts, so he just started casting them normally. Doug followed along, his casts a moment or two behind Marc. In the two instances where Marc's Mana Darts didn't drop the kobold they struck, Doug's hit the same target and finished it. Otherwise Doug was targeting those wounded by Jack's arrows, removing them from the rushing mass.

“Tanks!” Marc called.

Rob and Jayden stepped into the spots between the two casters and Jack, trying not to block their line of sight.

“Remember what I said about the Shield Bash,” Rob called to Jayden. “If you get that down I bet they offer you the Warrior class.”

Jayden was equipped vaguely similar to Rob, just with lighter armor, a smaller shield, and a spear from the hobgoblins that had been trimmed to where it could be wielded one-handed. So when the kobolds got in range, the first thing Jayden did was step forward, lashing out with his shield to strike a kobold. Jayden outweighed it by a factor of two or three so when he struck the small creature, it went flying back into the thinned out kobolds, knocking another pair of them off their feet.

“Yup, sure did!” Jayden said, grinning. “Accept class Warrior.”

From that moment, his movements became smoother and more powerful. Marc was so amused at watching the change that he almost forgot to cast another Mana Dart spell, but the moment passed quickly.

Jack was backing up, as was Doug. Jack was too close to fire easily.

“Out of mana,” Doug called.

Marc still had plenty, so he cast his Arcane Armor on himself, then stepped up between the two tanks.

“I'm here in the middle,” he called, so they were aware and didn't hit him accidentally.

Thrusting his pilum, Marc added to the slowly growing pile of kobold bodies in front of the tanks. Where he didn't have any kobolds in range of his pilum, he'd put it in his shield hand and target kobolds with his Mana Darts.

It wasn't long before there were no kobolds still standing in front of the tanks. Jack had pulled off to the side and continued to fire on the kobolds' flanks. Between the pressure from the front line and Jack, the kobolds had broken and run when there were only five of them left. Unfortunately for them, Jeff had already cleared out the kobolds that had hidden before and was waiting when these started to flee.

In the end two of them got away and raced eastward, Jeff having dropped the other three that tried to flee.

“Yeah, I got it!” Jack called. “Not Ranger, but Woodsman at least. Help files makes it look close to what I was after, so I'll take it. Plus, I hit level two also.”

Jayden was grinning.

“Straight warrior here, level two myself as well.”

In the end all of the secondary party had made it to level two. They'd had some experience from before the fight and what they'd just received had been enough to push them over the top.

As they led the volunteers back towards the Safe Zone, Marc dropped back next to Jeff.

“So, any gold?” he asked, softly.

Jeff grinned.

“You betcha. Lots of jewelry and quite a few bullion coins. He had it all in an electronic safe in the back, but the thing looked like it'd been run over by a steamroller, all rusty and the door hanging off. So I grabbed it all. We'll look at it more closely after we're back, okay?”

“You got it Jeff. If there's enough there, I've got a plan that's going to get us expanding quickly enough that we can make use of almost all the materials in the town before they decay.”

* * *

Chapter Twelve

“Alright, what did you find?” Marc asked.

Jeff started pulling stuff out of his inventory.

“Well, there were a bunch of one ounce silver bullion coins, some gold ones, but a lot less than the silver, and a stack of gold jewelry. I'm keeping the jewelry and a couple of the gold bullion coins, they'll make a nice start for a nest egg, otherwise, here you go.”

When Jeff had finished emptying the bullion from his inventory, Marc counted up a total of ten of the one troy ounce gold bullion coins and thirty-eight of the silver ones.

“Hey, I've got a thought,” Marc said. He pulled out a System copper and a System silver coin. They looked to be almost identical to one another aside from being made from different materials.

“Okay, I can do a simple scale with whatever items I can find around me,” he continued, voicing his thoughts.

Rummaging through his inventory he pulled out a few of the items he'd tucked away as they cleared the school. With a pencil and a ruler, he made a basic scale, shifting it so that the ruler was balanced across the pencil, he looked at a silver bullion coin.

Pulling it out of its protective sleeve, he hefted it, then pulled out a few more System silver coins.

“Looks like the ones we found are a little heavier than four of the System ones. Let me check.”

Laying the bullion coin on one end of the ruler, he held the pencil in place as he put four System silver coins on the other side. The bullion coin stayed firmly against the table. Then he started edging the ruler over until he got it close to balancing, took note of the distance moved, and started doing the math in his head.

“So, one troy ounce is a little more than four System coins. It looks like the System coins are a little under point two four troy ounces. So each of the gold bullion should be worth a little more than four System gold, assuming the System gold coins are the same weight as the System silver and copper. Let's go hit the shop, I want to check something.”

He slid the bullion into his inventory and the two headed down to the shop. A quick search showed that collectible coins seemed to be a thing in the System, a relatively popular one too from the list of underway and completed listings.

“I think it's time to try the auction function,” Marc said. “Not on the help pads, those are staying cheap, but on the gold bullion coins. Start with two at the same time, do you think? The number of bids we get on each should let us know how much interest there is in them too.”

Jeff nodded.

“Yeah, maybe even just one so we can milk them some more?”

“I think two, because if we get the System gold coins, then we can start expanding a lot more quickly and if I'm wrong, one coin might not pull in enough for what I want to buy, if they only bid based on its weight as opposed to it being a collectible,” Marc replied.

“Oh, okay. If they do well then maybe we only put one up at a time after?”

“Yeah, we can do that. I don't mind milking our sales for all we can get with this, just not with the system help pads. That's more of a small profit for a public service type of thing. Others may start listing gold coins from Earth too though, so we'll have to keep an eye out and maybe list more.”

Jeff nodded again.

“Yeah, the help pads being cheap made more sense to me after I thought about it. More money is great, but we've got some and the more people we can help keep alive, the better, right? Gives us more trade partners and more potential genetic diversity for the human race to survive. I hadn't thought about other listing gold coins from Earth though. Are all these others from different planets?”

Marc stopped dead and looked at Jeff. He was used to Jeff's damn-it-all personality and this was a far cry from that. First he was being empathic and then insightful. Jeff caught his look.

“Yeah, we weren't the first people to be be doing the sporting goods store or the Cash for Gold place, just the first ones to survive. I had to take out a couple of goblins in the sporting goods store and they'd armed themselves with stuff from there. We also found a few corpses in the Cash for Gold place too, but it looked like nothing had gotten into the back room where the safe was, I had to pick the lock to get there.”

“How'd you pick the lock?”

“What did you think I raced back to my room to get during the claiming period? I had a set of makeshift lock picks that qualified for the miscellaneous claim and a copy of the MIT guide to lockpicking. I got lock picking as a skill before I even rejoined you then.”

“So that's what took you so long?”

Jeff nodded.

“That and trying to pick up my Stealth skill by hiding from people on the way back.”

“I'd wondered, I just figured you couldn't find what you were looking for,” Marc said.

“Nope, all about getting a head start there. Little did I realize that you guys would be getting into combat before I made it back.”

“Yeah, well, I think you managed to do pretty well for yourself even missing that one. But, let's get these listed, then I need to create more help pads and list those also. The rate of sales on them seems to be accelerating.”

“That makes sense, not everyone would get a Safe Zone up as quickly as we did. They need the shop to get the pad, so they can't do it until they get access to a Safe Zone,” Jeff said.

“Well, let me make sure there are some available for them when their Safe Zones get built.”

* * *

Marc had set the gold bullion for a twenty-four hour auction, wanting to get expanding as quickly as possible and needing the proceeds from those sales to do so. He'd also made another twenty pads and listed them, then split up the leftover funds according to the percentages they'd agreed on previously.

Heck we could've managed the five gold in a few days just from the help pads, but this way the others will have some money to spend. So do I for that matter, so let's look through the shop some more.

In his search he found something that he thought would be useful. The shop pedestal sometimes had a line at it, as he'd found out recently, but for ten silver he could pick up another pad that would allow shop access. It allowed him to place bids or make purchases, but he'd still need to come down to the pedestal to pick up his physical purchases or to list items. It had other functions as well, like allowing for downloading and reading books purchased through the shop, so he thought it might be worth it.

The shop is like the System version of the Zon, apparently. Plus it wants to corner the market on everything you do like the Zon does also. So, yeah, but still worth it probably.

He picked up the pad, finding it to be a slightly larger version of the ones he set up for the System help. Other than the size it looked fairly similar and the interface matched up as well. He took it over to the cafeteria and started browsing through the shop for mathematical texts.

Because if it will translate them into English like it says it does, then it might be worth it to pick up a few. Hell, I'm even familiar with some of these titles. It looks like the shop just took anything it could find and steal then made it available. I was hoping for texts from some of the other places the System's taken over though. Mathematics from other worlds might have lots of fun stuff I'm unfamiliar with, he thought.

Purchasing an Earth mathematics text that looked like it might teach him something new, he quickly became absorbed in it, until a tap on his shoulder caught his attention.

“You wanted to do some more runs on the grocery store today, didn't you?” Rob asked.

“Shit, I totally forgot after getting more listings up on the shop. Oh, here's your percentage from the sales so far too,” Marc said, handing over a stack of silver coins.

“Thanks, Jeff and Felicia are waiting outside with the volunteers, so we ought to get going.”

“No problem. I just bought something and was getting sucked into it. Sorry.”

“It's not a problem, but if we want to get two more trips today like you said, then we really need to get moving,” Rob replied.

Marc stood and tucked his new pad into his inventory. He pulled out his shield and pilum, then checked to make sure his mana and health were full. He'd taken some light wounds in the kobold fight this morning, but Felicia had topped him off on his health before they even made it back to the Safe Zone, likewise for Rob and Jayden. Although in Jayden's case, Olivia had been the one healing him.

“Alright, let's go. Maybe I'll treat for pizza for both parties and the volunteers tonight if I've still got the coin for it,” Marc said, heading towards the doors leading outside.

“Oh, hey, I'd be willing to chip in for that if I got to pick some toppings.”

“We'll talk about it later. Heck, we could even get you your own pizza. You were always a pretty big guy, not fat or anything, just big. Now you're putting your former size to shame though, must be all those Strength and Constitution upgrades. I could easily see you putting away an entire pizza.”

“I do feel more solid,” Rob said. “And yeah, I've been more hungry recently, too.”

“See, you can pick the toppings and we'll get you your own. Now, let's see what we can find down at the store.”

The last two trips to the store went much more smoothly than the first. They took lights this time. Quite a few people had selected a flashlight as their miscellaneous System conversion item so they were easily available,. People offered them up on loan when word spread that they were needed to get more food.

With the lights it was easier to split up a bit more, and Marc remembered that there were other meats available, long-term storage meats. He cleaned out the entire stock of summer sausages, vacuum packed salami, and the like for the Safe Zone kitchen.

On their way back to the Safe Zone, they ran into a group of people who looked at them fearfully at first.

“Are you headed for this Safe Zone thing?” one of them asked, brandishing one of the signs they'd left out for people to find.

“Not only that, but we're the ones who set it up. Come on, we'll escort you back there, get you something to eat, and a safe place to sleep,” Marc replied.

They didn't look very sure of him, but then Rob stepped up next to him.

“Rob, is this for real?” one person of the new group asked.

A bunch of heads turned at his name and recognition dawned on their faces.

“Yes, Janey, this is Marc. I told you about him before all this stuff happened. He and a bunch of us set up the Safe Zone so people would have a safe place to stay,” Rob said.

“If Rob says it's okay, then it is,” Janey replied. “I'm going with them at least.”

They escorted the twelve new people back to the Safe Zone and got them settled into apartments, then showed them around.

Rob got his entire pizza that evening and demolished the whole thing, even with the mocking he received for choosing a pizza with pineapple on it. There wasn't a crumb left of his Hawaiian pizza once he was done eating.

* * *

Marc spent more time reading his new book and puzzling out the math behind the limited magic he had access to so far that evening. There were spell scrolls for sale in the store, but the least expensive started at ten gold, not something he could afford at the moment, so his magic was going to remain limited for the time being.

For that matter, if we want to keep expanding rapidly, he thought, I may not be able to afford it for a while. I got a scroll off a hobgoblin caster though, I wonder if the kobold caster might have one? Or if there's more than one kobold caster? We need to take care of them soon anyhow so they don't spread, so maybe that'll be tomorrow afternoon? After I get the recycling machine and get it in use?

He'd been slowly working his way, consciously, through all the System help files he'd obtained with his Research skill. A few entries in those help files had let him know that the spawns would breed. The more common the spawn, the faster they bred, so the kobolds would need to be taken care of soon or they'd become a major problem as opposed to the nuisance they'd been so far.

When morning came he decided to shift his plans again. The auctions weren't going to finish until around noon, so they had hours to kill before then. Finding his group, he put forth the idea that they go start working on the kobolds now.

“And, we can bring the other group along too. I think they all leveled and should easily be able to take out some of the kobolds on their own,” he said, finishing up his reasons for going now.

Felicia shrugged.

“Sure, I mean like you said we need to take them out sooner or later and sooner is probably better if they breed. Did they say how long they take to breed up?”

Marc shook his head.

“I'd rather not give them any chance for that at all, given my preference.”

“I'm ready,” Rob said.

Jeff looked around the others.

“I suppose you want me to scout them out?”

“Not until we know where they're coming from, but then? Yes,” Marc said.

“Well, then, what are we waiting for?” Jeff asked.

“Breakfast,” Marc deadpanned. “They just started cooking it, so a few minutes wait, then we'll eat and go. Most important meal of the day and all that, right?”

“I could eat,” Jeff said, “but do we really want to eat before doing this?”

“Yes, because we have no idea where they are, how long this will take, and we haven't let the other group know yet,” Felicia said.

Jeff groaned, but started moving towards the cafeteria.

Jayden and the rest of his group arrived in the cafeteria just a few minutes after Alice and her father started serving breakfast. Waiting until after they ate, Marc told them about the current plans and invited them along. Jack, at the least, was eager for it. He pulled out his bow to show Marc.

“See, after I Systemized it this is what it looks like, awesome right? I really want to try it out.”

Marc kept from rolling his eyes, barely. Evidently Jack had caught the adventuring bug quite thoroughly during their fight with the kobolds the day before.

“Well, how good is it for close range? I'm sure we'll have to end the fight inside of whatever they're using as a lair.”

Jack shrugged.

“Don't know, but I still have that short sword you gave me, so I ought to be fine.”

“Yeah, we'll do it,” Jayden said, having spoken with Olivia and Doug while Jack was babbling on. “Give us half an hour?”

“Sure, meet us near the gates, okay?” Marc said.

With a nod, Jayden stood and led his group out to prepare.

* * *

Finding the kobolds was easier than Marc had thought it would be. He led the two combined parties east along the road that the kobolds had fled down two days previously. About a mile down the road, there were a group of kobolds standing behind a pair of cars that had apparently been manhandled into a roadblock. He held up a hand to stop the group and motioned them to the side of the road, over against a building.

“Huh, they're stronger than I thought if they managed that,” Marc said.

“Might not have been them,” Jeff replied. “Didn't those both used to be police cars?”

Marc had noticed the little bits of red and blue light reflections on the ground next to the cars but had discounted it. Looking closer he could see where they might be the fragments of a police car's light bar. The flakes of paint still clinging to the vehicles themselves were black and white too.

“I think you're right. Looks like the cops tried to put up a roadblock here for some reason, then abandoned it and the kobolds took over,” Marc said.

“So, you want me to get in around behind them? They don't appear to have noticed us yet.”

“There's six of them, can you handle that?”

“Probably three kills, but the others will get away,” Jeff said.

“Tell you what, get in there and do what you can. I'll see if Jack and I can take out another one or two if they try to run away. Let the last one go though, it'll alert them, but we won't have to spend time looking for where they are.”

Marc pulled the AR-15 out of his inventory. He really didn't want to be using it on the kobolds, but he wanted to make sure they thinned them out while they could. It seemed that, far more than the goblins or hobgoblins, the kobolds were going to rely on numbers to swamp them. At least that had seemed to be their tactics the other day. He hated the thought of paying shop prices to replace his ammo, but he would if necessary.

I've got to get back to the house and get the rest of dad's guns and ammo, he thought. It looks like the ammo is just fine once you Systemize the gun, so we can use that, and maybe Systemize some of the other guns too. I'd hate to see them rot away and fall apart. Fortunately they were in pristine condition before so hopefully they're not in the same shape that Tim's was.

“Um, Marc?” Rob said. “Isn't that going to make a lot of noise?”

He was pointing towards the AR-15.

“Probably, but we're planning on letting one go so we can follow it to their lair. So they'll know we're out here anyhow. The more we can remove before we get to the lair the better though, so if there's more than one going to get away I'll take the shot. It's too far for my Mana Dart though, so I need to use the rifle.”

“Oh, okay, didn't want to let them know we're out here, but if they're going to know anyhow...”

Rob just shrugged.

“Yeah, Rob. Sorry, I just think the sooner we can get this done, the better. I'll probably even keep the rifle out. It'll be a good way to break up a charge if they make one.”

“In that case,” Felicia said.

She pulled the shotgun out of her inventory, along with a handful of shells for it.

“I'll be ready too.”

“Hey, you've got buckshot loaded, right?”

“Double ought.”

“Good, that may break up a charge even better than the rifle if you fire for a wider spread.”

She grinned.

“You know it, but we better start paying attention, Jeff ought to be in position in just a minute and didn't you want Jack watching too?”

“Crap,” Marc said, spinning.

“Hey, Jack. Jeff's going to take a few of those guys down. You want to shoot at any of them that try to run away?”

“Sure, it's about medium range so I should still be pretty accurate.”

Jack nocked an arrow and kept an eye on the kobolds behind the cars. The smaller creatures seemed to be arguing with each other now, shoving and pushing at one another. After a few seconds a pair of them came to blows. That was when Marc saw Jeff shimmer into being behind one watching the fight and drive his gladius into the creature.

Jeff pulled the kobold around the front of the car quickly, the others so engrossed in watching the fight that they didn't notice their missing comrade.

After a few seconds, Marc noticed another shimmer as Jeff removed another kobold, dragging it around the front of the other car.

I see why he said three, those two were close enough to get out of sight right away, but if he takes a third, he can't get the corpse out of sight very quickly, Marc thought.

Wanting to back his friend up, Marc took a knee and aimed the rifle. He could shift aim quickly if necessary, which would only happen if Jeff took out the one he was aiming for. Otherwise he tracked the kobold for a few seconds until it got what he assumed was a startled look on its face and started screaming.

Risking a glance away from the scope, Marc saw that Jeff had taken another kobold and was now standing behind the corpse, brandishing the gladius at the remaining creatures. One of them charged him and Jeff simply stepped out of the way of the charge, swinging his sword at its back as it passed him while keeping an eye on the other two.

An arrow went flashing down the street and the kobold Jeff had struck in the back dropped, the damage from the sword strike and the arrow combining to drop it. Marc breathed out slowly and squeezed the trigger.

The kobold he'd been aiming at dropped, its head a mess from the soft point bullet that had just made its way through it at high speed.

The last kobold looked around quickly, realized it was the last one, turned, and fled.

Jeff immediately started sprinting after it, gaining quickly.

“Jeff, no!” Marc yelled.

Jeff stumbled in mid-stride as he turned back to Marc, then let himself slow down, loping along after the kobold. The small creature slowly started pulling away from him until it turned down a side street several blocks away.

“Alright, let's go,” Marc said.

He kept an eye on Jeff as they started moving, only to lose sight of him as he disappeared into Stealth.

Now as long as he remembers not to kill it, we'll be just fine, Marc thought. He can tell us where it went after we catch up to him.

Turning the same corner as the kobold, Marc saw nothing moving in the street ahead of him. There were a number of cars in various states of decay and one building that looked close to falling over.

They began to move down the street, only to be stopped by a hiss from Jeff as they approached the third intersection.

“Stop, he turned right down this next one here,” Jeff said.

“I thought that was all suburbs out there, just houses,” Marc said.

“Close, but not quite. It's just verified a theory I've had for quite some time.”

“What, that kobolds lair in houses? If they are I can't see there being enough of them to be a problem, unless they took over an HOA or something. Probably have less restrictive rules than the original though.”

“Leave the humor to me, Marc. You just aren't that good at it,” Jeff said.

Rob was snickering under his breath and Felicia was smiling. Jayden and his group were looking away, if Marc had to guess, deliberately.

“So, what's the big deal then? Where are they?” Marc asked.

“You're forgetting something else that's out that way, not that I blame you, but still.”

“Will you just get to it Jeff, where are they?”

Jeff shimmered back into view.

“Remember when I told you that I thought middle schoolers were the spawn of Satan?” Jeff asked.

Now Marc remembered what else was out this way.

“Yeah, I was wrong,” Jeff said. “Evidently middle schoolers are actually little reptilian annoyances.”

“They're in the middle school? As if clearing the high school weren't bad enough,” Marc said.

“Yup, middle schoolers aren't goblins and gremlins like I used to say, they're a bunch of nasty little kobolds, or at least this batch is,” Jeff replied.

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

“So, what are we waiting for?” Jeff asked.

Marc sighed.

“I'm trying to remember what the inside of that place looks like. You know, to make some sort of plan?”

“They're just kobolds, Marc, we can just mow them down,” Jeff replied.

“Yeah, but the ones the other day attacked in batches of ten or twenty. How do you mow down that many at a time before they get to you?”

“One at a time? Unless you've some sort of Area of Effect damage spell you haven't told us about yet.”

Another symbol I need to track down, AoE vs single target, Marc thought.

“No, no I don't.”

“Then what are we waiting for, if you were right with what you were talking about then the longer we wait, the more of them there might be.”

Marc had found a little bit of information on lairs, dungeons, and monster encounters in his help files. He'd related most of that to the group, including the fact that on initiation of a lair, the numbers would start small and grow through spawns until they reached the lair size. After that point, they'd only increase due to normal reproduction.

“Gah! I need some eye bleach!” Marc muttered.

Jeff laughed.

“You were just thinking about what you told us, weren't you? Then tried to visualize these guys continuing to grow through normal reproduction?” he asked.

Marc nodded.

“Yeah, kinda thought through that myself too. I figure the best way to keep that from happening is to just clear them out thoroughly, right now.”

“Yeah, we'll get moving. Hey Jayden,” Marc called.

“Yeah?”

“I was thinking. Eight of us won't be able to maneuver well in the halls here, so why don't we split up? You guys go around the back and we'll go in the front. I'm sure we'll be able to hear each other in there, so if one group needs help, we just call for it, okay?”

“That works Marc, I was wondering if you were going to tuck us in the back line or something for safety. I'd much prefer this plan though.”

“Alright, head out. We'll give you a two minute head start before we head in the front. That should have both groups entering at about the same time.”

Jayden nodded, then corralled his group up and lead them down the street. They turned off before reaching the school, heading for the back of it. Marc and his group headed straight down the street after he counted off two minutes. The front door to the school was right off the driveway they were currently heading up.

“You know, Jack had a good plan with his bow,” Marc said idly. “We really need to pick up another party member or two. We've got good defense, healing, and a rogue, but no real regular DPS. Damage per second is really low for our party since most of my spells are defensive and might stay that way depending on what we find. Anyone got any ideas about that?”

“Yeah, I've got your DPS right here,” Jeff said, brandishing the gladius.

“Burst DPS, with Stealth involved. We need something a little more consistent,” Felicia said, “Marc's right. I don't know that anyone else back at the Safe Zone wants to do that sort of thing though. They're all mostly older and it seems that it's those of us who are younger that are willing to do this.”

“Then we'll just have to find and rescue more people,” Rob said. “There's got to be survivors still around the town somewhere and some of them might be willing.”

“Well, that'll have to wait. With two groups we might be able to do some door to door stuff though,” Marc said. “See if anyone's still alive out there. And if the auctions I just set go well, we'll be able to expand the Safe Zone and maybe have room for them, too.”

“We haven't used half the apartments I set up,” Jeff said. “So, there's still room for them now.”

“Yeah, but I want farm type stuff inside the Safe Zone too. If we can't feed them later when the stores run out or at least help them get where they can feed themselves? Well, it's not as bad as not rescuing them now, but almost. Now quiet, we're getting close enough for them to hear.”

They moved up the driveway without speaking, although quiet wasn't exactly how Marc would describe it. Rob's armor made the occasional sound, and weapons and shields that bumped into stuff weren't the quietest things around either. Jeff had shimmered into Stealth and Marc assumed he was still nearby, trying to keep himself undetected if anything was watching.

“Alright Rob, let's do this,” Marc said.

He cast his Arcane Armor then gave both Rob and himself a Phantom Shield spell. With his current maximum of two hundred and twenty mana that would allow him four casts of the Mana Dart spell also. He knew that his mana regenerated fast enough that he'd have another cast of it available in about half a minute.

“On three,” he said, approaching a door.

Rob was right on top of another door, ready to open it.

“One... two... three.”

Marc pulled his door open and stepped inside. His eyes were taking a moment to adjust to the darker interior, but he could still see movement if it were there and he didn't see any of that. Of course, he was just in the tiny foyer the school had, another set of doors a couple of steps in from him.

As his eyes adjusted he saw movement beyond the interior doors.

“Hey Rob, looks like they're just inside the other doors. Let me know when your eyes finish adjusting and we'll go through those together also,” Marc said.

The outer doors opened again, being held that way briefly before Felicia stepped in. Marc jumped as he heard a soft voice in his ear.

“Hey idiot, hold the next door open for a second before you go through, I'll break Stealth if I open it myself.”

“Sorry, Jeff,” Marc muttered.

“Ready,” Rob said.

“Okay, We're going to pull the doors open and wait one second before going in, see how they react, okay?”

“Got it,” Rob said.

Marc counted down again, then pulled the door open. Waiting a second for Jeff to get through, Marc watched the kobolds that were inside the second set of doors. There were seven of them and they'd built a barricade out of the miniature desks from the middle school classrooms.

“Now,” Marc called moving in through the doors. He and Rob moved closer to one another, shields in front of them as though to create a tiny shield wall.

“I think our Pilums will reach over that barricade, shall we?” Marc said.

The two strode forward together to the edge of the barricade. Gripping the ends of their pilums reduced their accuracy somewhat, but the kobolds seemed to feel safe behind their barrier. Instead of ducking down behind it they were standing with the top halves of their bodies visible, hurling small items at the two adventurers bearing down on them.

Whatever they were throwing was less than a nuisance. The majority of the items were hitting their shields and those that didn't were barely enough to sting. A decent shot with something slightly heavier hit Marc's shin, but even that was more like when he ran it into something while walking. Irritating and slightly painful, but no real damage.

Rob leaned forward, thrusting his pilum straight ahead to impale one of the kobolds behind the barricade and it responded with a cry of pain that sounded almost like a child's cry. Marc followed suit, missing with his first thrust, but quickly withdrawing the pilum and thrusting again. The second thrust struck a kobold and penetrated, but the kobold scrambled back without falling, trying to thrust its own sword back at Marc.

The barricade was too wide for the sword to make it over though. The kobold's sword was only slightly longer than a dagger and with its short arms it couldn't reach its target.

Another one of the kobolds behind the barricade began to speak, its words sounding like a chant. Marc was distracted almost instantly, realizing that the kobold was casting a spell. He was desperately trying to follow along and pick up any more information about magic that he might use in his own efforts to broaden his spell repertoire.

Right about the time he realized that allowing the caster to finish their spell would be a bad idea, the kobold finished its spell. Marc was thrusting his pilum as he felt the spell take effect.

You have been struck by a curse: Weaken.

Strength temporarily reduced by 3.

Suddenly his pilum felt heavy, his thrust dropping lower than intended and taking the caster in the gut instead of the chest. His shield pulled at his other arm, dragging him down. The kobold caster was squealing, impaled on the pilum, but Marc couldn't pull his arm back, the pilum felt too heavy to retrieve. He let go of it and dropped his shield to the ground as well.

As Marc straightened, Jeff shimmered in behind the caster, stabbing it and putting an end to its squeals. Rob had continued fighting right through, having dropped three kobolds by this point. With the  caster down as well, that only left three to go and one was wounded from Marc's earlier thrust.

Straightened up, Marc could see all the remaining kobolds. Two of them were trying to come out from behind the barricade, but Felicia had penned them in. She wasn't doing a lot of damage but her own shield was keeping her safe for the moment. Jeff moved towards the wounded kobold, so Marc turned to the two on Felicia.

A pair of Mana Darts raced out as he cast the spell, striking one of the kobolds on Felicia. Evidently the creatures had minimal health, maybe even worse than the goblins, since the one he'd cast at dropped from the spell.

With only a single opponent remaining, Felicia went on the offense, slamming her tire iron into the remaining kobold's head. Jeff had finished the wounded one off and was moving towards Felicia's opponent so Marc decided that he could reserve his mana for later.

Because if this curse doesn't wear off soon, I won't be doing anything but casting, he thought.

Once the last kobold was down, Marc pulled up his status screen, discovering that the Weakness was a five minute curse and one minute had already passed.

“Hang on guys, let's loot and rest for a moment. That kobold cursed me.”

“I do that all the time,” Jeff said.

“Yeah but not with a Weakness curse that drops my strength by three points for five minutes,” Marc said.

“Ah, I was wondering why you dropped your shield and weapon,” Rob said.

“Couldn't carry them any more, too heavy. That means I probably want to put some points in strength one of these levels,” Marc said.

“Probably a good plan for all of us,” Felicia said. “You were at what, a five?”

“A six, but I think the end result would've been the same,” Marc said.

“So, we don't know if there are stronger curses that do more of a drop, but maybe plan on getting our strengths to eight or higher? Just in case?” she said.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Marc said. “I'll be doing that one point at a time over the next few levels I think.”

The looted corpses dissolved away before they headed out again. One they got moving again, Marc decided that they should head for the larger areas.

“I don't want Jayden and his crew to end up stumbling into one of the larger open areas where there tend to be more of the kobolds. Well, assuming that these kobolds end up clustering like the goblins and hobgoblins were.”

“So, we take on the bigger groups?” Jeff asked. “I'll go scout out the cafeteria, that's the closest large room to us here.”

Marc nodded.

“Yes, please do. I'll rest and see how much mana I can get back before we get into the next fight. If they've got casters, I'll go right for them with my Mana Darts.”

“Want me to take front line all by myself?” Rob asked.

“No, I'll be right there beside you, easier to control them with two of us and my armor spell lets me have some protection, so I should be okay. Just call out if you spot a caster and I'll focus on it while we defend.”

“You're right,” Jeff said. “We really need some DPS people that can focus on just that. Dual purpose DPS and tank just isn't the best plan.”

“It's what we've got for the moment, so we'll go with it. Then we'll see if we can recruit someone for DPS later on,” Marc replied.

Jeff nodded, then shimmered out of sight. Marc assumed that he was heading out to scout the cafeteria. Marc himself just wanted to get as much of his mana back as he could before the next fight.

Because if the kobolds are curse users and I get hit with another one of those, I want to be able to cast as many Mana Darts as possible, he thought.

While he sat there, almost but not quite meditating, he worked through the spell he'd heard the kobold use. He was pretty sure he even knew what part of it dealt with the damage type too, but he couldn't quite pick out and envision the variable the kobold had used to fill in that part of the equation that formed the spell.

Although I can pick out the target portion, then see if maybe I can compare that to what I know about single target format and try to work the damage type back in the same way. What would that be? A curse damage type, or maybe a dark magic type?

He shook his head, lost in his thoughts until Jeff returned. Rob and Felicia had been standing guard in the meanwhile, so he hadn't been endangering himself or the party at least.

“About thirty of them in there. No feathers I could see, but that one that hit you with a curse didn't have any either,” Jeff said.

“Well, let's go do this. They do go down easily at least, not much health to these guys,” Marc said.

* * *

As they moved towards the cafeteria they heard a fight going on somewhere else in the school.

It's a good thing we didn't have to rely on calling for help, and that they haven't yet, because with the way the sound of the fight is echoing around, I wouldn't know where to go to help them, he thought.

Then he put those thoughts aside because they were standing outside of the cafeteria. On some of the tables, visible through the narrow glass pane of the door, there were chunks of meat, some of it still on bones, and he had to swallow the bile that rose when he identified them as human bones.

“Alright, I can't see where anyone is, so we can't plan really well. Rob and I will just interpose ourselves between the largest mass of kobolds and you, Felicia. Jeff, Stealth and try to keep our flanks clear?”

The thief nodded.

“Now we need to go in and kill these things, because I think they've been eating people,” Marc said grimly. “Be ready to resist reacting to the food on the tables, because honestly it made me want to puke when I saw it myself.”

Jeff nodded vigorously. He hadn't mentioned the meat before, but now Marc was pretty sure he'd seen it and just not mentioned it.

“Let's go.”

Marc threw open the door and rushed inside, scanning the room. His shield went up between him and the largest group of kobolds, about twenty of them, before he slowly started advancing on them.

Once Rob was alongside of him they sped up. He saw the kobolds trying to flank them to the right, but trusted Jeff to take care of them. He was only slightly surprised when Felicia turned to face the single kobold approaching from the left. He trusted her to know if they needed healing though, so he wasn't too worried about that either. At worst, she'd just hold it off until Jeff cleared the other side and came to assist her.

You have resisted curse: Weakness

The message flashed in front of Marc's eyes at the same time that Rob let out a groan.

“That's gonna suck. I lost almost all the strength I picked up from my last levels,” Rob said.

“Cursed?”

“Yeah. I'm down to a ten strength again. I think I was getting penetration and damage bonuses when I was at thirteen,” Rob replied.

“I think I saw which one did it. Stop here for a moment,” Marc said.

Rob stopped and Marc switched his pilum to his shield hand. He quickly tossed off a Mana Dart, the pair of darts both hitting the kobold he thought he'd seen chanting. It staggered, but didn't drop, so Marc followed it up with another pair of Darts. It was chanting as he cast, but his Mana Darts got to it before it finished its spell and this time, it dropped.

“Hold here, I'll thin a few more out if I can,” Marc said.

Rob nodded, keeping his eye on their opponents. The flankers on the right were down to a single kobold by this point and the sounds of combat had stopped from the left, the last noise being a triumphant grunt from Felicia, so he assumed that she was okay.

Marc had come into the room with enough mana for six Mana Dart spells, he'd already cast two, and managed to get another two off, each one dropping a kobold, before the mass of them started ignoring orders and came pouring out into the cafeteria, breaking around tables and chairs like a scaly, brown river in flood.

They had been where they could mass together, in the clear area in front of where the lunch line had run, but now they were broken up into little clumps.

“Rob, back to back, between two of the long rectangular tables.”

“This way,” Rob said, heading down the row formed between two of the tables. Marc followed him, then spun so his back was to Rob, just as the kobolds flooded into his section of the row.

“Keep an eye out for any trying to come under or over the tables. Otherwise we should only have to deal with one or two at a time each,” Marc said.

A brief shimmering golden color ran over his body at the same time as he received a message.

You have received buff: Enhanced Strike.

Felicia had mentioned the buff she'd gotten at her last level. She didn't want to use it much because it was costly mana-wise, but evidently the fact that she hadn't had to heal them after their earlier fight with the kobolds led her to believe she could be a bit more extravagant with her mana.

Marc put it to good use. He knew that the buff increased both his chance to hit his opponent and the damage dealt when he did hit them, so he started striking as soon as he thought the kobolds were within range. With his Phantom Shield dancing this way and that to intercept, or at least slow, some of the kobolds' attacks, he was in good shape. Behind him, he heard Rob fighting as well.

With the occasional side glance, he made sure that none of his opponents were trying to get to his sides, but he almost lost concentration when he received a message in the middle of his fight.

Your skill, Short Spear, has increased in skill level (2->3).

After that, things got just a little easier. When he was down to just two opponents, he used his Shield Bash to send one sprawling, immediately attacking the second with his pilum. A few moments later his fight was over. When he turned, Rob had finished his opponents as well and was looking over at the area they'd all come from.

Near where the lunch line used to run, there were still several kobolds. Three of them were corpses from Marc's Mana Darts, but the other two were looking around the room. Felicia had just finished healing both Rob and Marc back up, each of them having taken a couple of minor hits during the fight. The two remaining kobolds looked at the fighters, the healer, then each other. They broke and ran, heading for the exit.

One went sprawling as Jeff shimmered into view. He raced after the other, planting his gladius in its back. As the first one tried to get back to it's feet, Marc hurled his pilum. When Rob saw what he'd done, his pilum followed the first in flight. The first pilum to arrive went right through the kobold's gut, the second through its thigh.

Jeff turned back, saw the remaining kobold and its wounds, then went over and quickly finished it off, ending the pathetic whimpering it had been making.

“Whew,” Marc said. “That got a little intense, thanks for the buff, Felicia.”

“No problem. I've got enough mana for a couple of those plus a few heals now, plus my willpower going up increased my mana regen speed, so I figured it was safe.”

“Well, I think it helped, so thanks,” Marc said.

“Definitely,” Rob added.

“So, next?” Jeff asked.

“Loot these guys, then we work our way to the auditorium. There weren't any classrooms on the way here, just the admin stuff with a bunch of locked doors. We'll need to check those eventually, but I don't know that these guys are smart enough to deal with locked doors.”

“Unless some spawned in the offices,” Jeff added.

“Yeah, that, but if they can't deal with locks they'll either be in there or have broken the windows to get out, so no worries on that for now,” Marc said. “The classrooms, on the other hand, might. They had some in the high school and these guys have had days to spawn in.”

Jeff frowned at that.

“Well, I think the auditorium is the next closest large space. The gym is in back though, you don't suppose Jayden...”

“Well, we haven't heard them call for help at least,” Felicia said.

“Let's work our way towards the auditorium, check the classrooms on the way,” Marc said. “Then we can go check out the gym.”

Marc had been correct. Nearly every classroom had one or two kobolds in it, but as a single or in pairs they went down fast. The classrooms had all been torn apart and it looked like they'd used the scrap from the things they destroyed to build themselves little nests in each room. Checking each of the nests took almost as much time as killing the kobolds in the rooms, but it was still less than an hour later when they found themselves standing outside of the auditorium.

They had, much to Marc's relief, heard fighting again a couple of times as they moved. So he wasn't worried about Jayden's team as much now. Which was good, because there was another mini-horde of kobolds in the auditorium. Just through the glass panels in the doors they could see fifteen or twenty and they were moving back and forth some so he was sure that there were even more in there.

After a minute or two of planning, they were set to go. Marc reset his Arcane Armor plus his and Rob's Phantom Shields before he pulled open the door, letting Rob rush in first.

* * *

Chapter Fourteen

Marc followed Rob into the auditorium. There were a lot more kobolds than they'd seen through the door, but they'd expected that. What they hadn't expected was to find most of them either relaxing in the chairs or even bouncing up and down on them. They'd known a bunch were sitting since they'd seen that through the door, but they hadn't realized that most of the rest of the kobolds in there were doing the same.

The exception was five of the kobolds up on the stage. One of them was significantly larger than the rest and was armed with a sword that was almost too long to qualify as a short sword. One of those five had been speaking when they came in, the kobold language a high pitched series of barks and chortles that Marc couldn't make heads or tails of.

Rob just stood there for a moment, looking confused as the kobolds ignored them for a few seconds. Then one of the ones on the stage raised a hand and pointed towards Rob. With a few barked words, a small ball of fire raced from his claws and exploded against Rob's shield.

“Hot, hot!” Rob yelled, dropping his shield.

Felicia, coming along behind them, immediately tossed a heal on Rob.

I wish I'd been watching closer, Marc thought, that might've given me a better clue on the symbol for fire to use in my spells.

Unwilling to give the kobold another chance to fire at Rob unopposed, especially now that Rob had dropped his shield, Marc immediately tossed off a Mana Dart at the one who'd sent the tiny ball of flames at Rob.

A single spell didn't do it, nor did the second, and after his second Mana Dart Marc found himself as the target for the kobold's next spell. As the ball of flames came racing towards him he tried to shift to the side, but the ball followed his movement. He interposed his shield to catch the ball of flames, much like Rob had, then realized exactly why Rob had dropped his.

“Damn it, that's hot!” he yelled.

Dropping his own shield he started his next cast of Mana Dart, sending the two darts flying back towards the spellcasting kobold. The rest of the kobolds in the room hadn't been idle in the meanwhile either, although they had held back when the caster had been throwing his spells at Rob and Marc. Now the caster dropped and the kobolds came rushing in as Marc shook his burned arm, trying to get it to cool.

A wash of warmth ran over his body and he spun to grin at Felicia for a moment, mouthing the word 'thanks'. Then he spun back towards the kobolds racing towards them. Rob had picked up his shield again now.

“Hey, the shield cooled quickly. You can probably grab yours again already Marc,” he called.

Rob set himself in place facing down the aisle. That was where most of the kobolds were coming from at the moment. Once again, Jeff was nowhere to be seen, which Marc took as reassurance. If there were a tougher kobold out there that Jeff noticed, Marc was pretty sure it would get backstabbed.

Ignoring his shield for the moment, since there were two kobolds almost on top of him rushing down the aisle, Marc stepped into the fight. He drove his pilum ahead into one of the kobolds that was still moving towards him, his forward steps taking him beyond the point where the kobold had thought Marc would be.

At the same time, he saw the other one thrusting with its claws at his side. Wishing fervently that his Phantom Shield had been in place to stop the blow, he was amazed as the shield responded to his thoughts.

I didn't know it could do that! I wonder if Rob can move his around also, or if that's just me as the caster?

For the moment, he just tried to keep his mind on the thought that the Phantom Shield would stay attached to his arm like a real shield would, while splitting his thoughts to pull his pilum out of the corpse of the kobold and thrust at the one that had tried to claw him.

He grinned as he had a thought, then moved his arm like he would with the Shield Bash skill while willing the Phantom Shield forward. The kobold was taken utterly off-guard. Bashed with a nearly invisible shield, he went flying. As he slammed into the seats alongside the aisle Marc followed the bash with a thrust from his pilum that finished the creature off.

With no-one else coming from up top, he spun to where Rob was fighting, barely holding off five kobolds. Two of them had almost made it past him and Felicia was swinging her tire iron at the one on her side.

Letting the Phantom Shield drift away from his arm, Marc scooped up his real shield and slid it into place.

“Coming up on the right,” he called.

Rob shifted left, towards the side Felicia was on, and the kobold on that side was blocked from advancing past Rob. Marc trotted the few steps to come up alongside Rob, activating his Shield Bash again on the kobold that was trying to flank on that side. The kobold went flying back into the others behind him and Marc took his spot alongside Rob, thrusting his pilum on a kobold that was about to slip an attack past Rob's defenses.

They settled into a line battle, only interrupted when the larger kobold from the stage came down and started pushing its way through the smaller kobolds from the auditorium. Up on the stage Jeff was fighting with the last of the other kobolds who had been up there. There were three corpses on the stage with them and Marc assumed Jeff had killed two of them since the other corpse was from Marc's spells.

The large kobold swiped another small one out of the way, drew its sword, and stepped into the front line in front of Rob. It grunted something as it swung, Rob catching the blow on his shield but staggering back a step.

Marc didn't feel like indulging the kobold's whim. It appeared that it wanted to test itself against Rob alone, but the smaller kobolds it had swatted out of the way had backed off, so Marc was left alone for the moment. He quickly tossed another pair of Mana Darts at the larger kobold, who spun and glared at Marc when they impacted. Rob took advantage of his opponent's inattention and slammed his shield into its head, leaving it moderately stunned.

With that action the balance of the fight shifted. It had appeared that the two were closely matched with the advantage going slightly to Rob. While the kobold was still shaking off Rob's Shield Bash, Rob drove his pilum into it again, Marc joining him in attacking the kobold since the smaller ones were still backed off, watching.

From there it was only a few more strikes until the larger kobold dropped, its sword falling from its hand to lay in the aisle as it bled out. Marc and Rob turned and advanced on the smaller kobolds, who all broke and started running. With the loss of their champion, or whatever the larger kobold had been, they'd lost the will to fight.

There were still somewhere around ten of the smaller kobolds and they darted every which way. Some of them managed to escape despite the best efforts of the group to round them up and kill them.

Once all the kobolds were either dead or fled, the party sat down for a moment, keeping an eye on the different entrances to the auditorium.

“You and Doug oughta be happy,” Jeff said. “At least two of those guys up there were casters. I got this on my looting run and no-one else has gotten to them yet.”

Jeff handed over a scroll and Marc broke into a grin.

“I'll check it out later. This probably isn't the best time to try to learn a new spell,” Marc said.

Jeff shook his head.

“The one I got this one from was one of those curse dudes. I think he hit Rob with one before I managed to drop him.”

Rob nodded.

“They seem pretty fond of the weakness version of the curse,” he said.

“Hmm, I wonder if I'd be able to reverse it, if I just reverse the sign on the curse portion, would it change into a blessing?”

Marc was starting to drop into his meditation skill to consider that alteration when he was snapped back to reality by a slap on the back of the head.

“Hey, I thought you said this wasn't a good time to learn a spell,” Jeff said. “Probably even worse to get all analytical in the same situation.”

“Oh, um, yeah... right. Sorry, you're probably right about that, but I need to remember to check that out later on. If this is that curse? And if I can change it around to be a buff instead? That would rock,” Marc replied.

Jeff just shook his head. Felicia, on the other hand, gave him a pencil and paper.

“Write it down, then you won't forget it,” she said.

Marc smiled up at her and he started scrawling on the paper, then tucked it into his inventory and gave the pencil back to Felicia.

“Shall we finish looting here?” Jeff asked. “So we can get moving? Not exactly my idea of a relaxing break knowing that four or five of those things got away and know where we are currently.”

The rest of the group hurried up and finished looting, Marc breaking into yet another grin as he got a scroll from the caster he'd dropped with his Mana Darts. Rob had claimed the sword from the large kobold and was wearing it in its scabbard on his belt.

“I'll check it out later, but it's nice to have another melee weapon in case I have to throw my pilum,” he said. “I know it did some decent damage with the kobold wielding it. Hopefully it was the weapon and not the wielder.”

He rubbed his side where he'd been wounded fighting the large kobold. Felicia had taken care of the wound at the end of the battle though, so Marc thought it was probably just a memory of the pain that Rob was remembering.

* * *

They headed out of the auditorium and started to make their way towards the gym, checking and clearing classrooms as they went. Only a few minutes after they'd started that, they heard screams, human screams, and a cry for help.

“That's the other group,” Rob said.

“But where are they?” Felicia asked.

“Back this way, we can narrow in on it when we get closer,” Jeff replied, sprinting down the corridor.

The other three followed and within two minutes they'd discovered the problem. The other group had headed into the gymnasium to try to clear it.

“No clue how many, just lots,” Jeff said.

From what they could hear there was still fighting going on in the gym, so they rushed in.

“Standard, Rob and I up front, Felicia in back, Jeff Stealth,” Marc called out.

They got inside and found what the problem was. The other group was still up, but they were heavily wounded. Olivia was flailing about with a length of wood she was using as a club.

“Is she out of mana or something? What happened to the staff of healing?” Marc asked.

“She got the one with less durability, so she may well have used it up,” Jeff replied. “Gotta go.”

Felicia pulled out her own staff and started throwing heals across the gym, the other party shimmering green one after the other. They looked up and settled back into their fight with a renewed vigor.

Unfortunately the heals had also caught the attention of the kobolds, and now a large number of them turned to attack the group that had just entered the gym. Fortunately, Jeff had already gone into Stealth and Marc assumed the kobolds hadn't seen him.

“Backs to the wall,” Marc cried out. “Felicia take the spot between us and focus on defense and healing.”

The three of them backed up to the cinder block wall of the gym, twenty or more kobolds advancing on them. On the far side of the gym, Marc saw what the other group's problem was. With only a single defensive person, Jayden was having a problem keeping the hordes of kobolds away from the rest of his group members.

Jack was trying to make up for the difference with rate of fire, and it had worked for a while. Marc didn't even try to count how many kobolds lay dead with an arrow sticking out of them, he was too busy with his own fight.

I know there ought to be some more powerful ones in here. I haven't seen any of the congregations of spawns without some leader types. So where are they? he wondered.

He knew they were around a moment later, because a ball of fire raced towards him and Rob. This one was larger than the earlier one he'd seen.

“Problem,” he hollered, taking a split second to point his pilum towards the ball of fire.

Then he had to return his attention to the kobold in front of him or get raked by the creature's claws.

Felicia evidently took his gesturing with his weapon as a suggestion. She took a step forward, body slamming the kobold in front of her, then took a stance like a batter in a baseball game. As the ball approached rapidly, she eyed it and swung her tire iron like a short, metal bat.

As she struck the ball, it exploded, growing in size to almost three feet in diameter, but it also started to reverse its direction so the expanding ball of flame only lightly scorched Felicia. The same couldn't be said for the kobolds whose heads it had traveled over earlier. With its reversed direction and expanded diameter the kobolds that it traveled back over for a split second after its momentum was reversed were burned badly, many of them simply dropping where they stood.

“Heh, and they said softball league was for losers,” Felicia said, before groaning in pain and treating herself to a healing spell.

That seemed to be the turning point for the fight. Jeff had seen the caster and had moved over to backstab it. With that caster gone, the fight rapidly got easier. The lower kobolds were as likely to run away as to stand and fight once their leaders were killed and it looked like the leaders were all gone now.

A lot of the kobolds fled, but Marc was pretty sure they'd be able to clean those guys up one or two at a time like they'd been doing in the classrooms.

Although we'll have to go over the whole damned place with a  fine toothed comb to find all the little buggers, he thought.

Once the fight was over, he found out that Jayden had actually taken out one of the leaders first. The kobold had actually had armor, a shield, and a sword. Then Doug had spotted a caster cursing Jayden with weakness and focused on it with his Mana Darts, leaving only the caster using the fire spells. Those same fire spells had caused Olivia to use the rest of the healing staff and all of her mana to keep the group up. The yells and cries for help had come when the kobold caster had started dropping fireballs on the group after she was low on mana.

“Well, that should be all the larger groups. We'll need to clean it room by room though,” Marc said.

“Just another bug hunt,” Jeff said. “Don't worry, mostly they're in ones and twos by now. At least all the ones not in the larger rooms have been.”

“Yeah, well, we'll help. But first we're going to regen mana and health.”

“And loot,” Jack said. “Rule number one: Always loot the bodies. Besides I need to see how many of my arrows I can recover.”

The two groups settled in to loot their respective kills and then regen up to full before continuing to clear the school.

* * *

Working their way through the classrooms was monotonous and yielded little experience for Marc and his group. Individual kobolds just weren't worth that much to them any more, but the small amounts of copper that each had added up to make it worthwhile. The leader types' corpses had some silver on them and Marc had picked up another scroll from the caster in the gym. They needed coinage enough for a variety of things that it was worth it to them to continue.

Marc knew that he had the auctions for the gold bullion ending soon, but unless they did better than he thought most of that was earmarked for expansion efforts, although he did plan to split whatever was leftover after purchasing his recycling machine with the rest of the group.

I just don't think it'll be that much unless there are collectors out there that like getting the first gold coins from newly claimed System areas, he thought.

They were rummaging through another nest after clearing the kobold from the room when Jeff stopped and put a finger to his mouth.

After everyone had shushed, he nodded.

“We need to go down into the basement,” he said. “I'm hearing thumps and bangs down there. Don't know what it is, but we probably ought to check it out.”

“Well, this is our last hallway, so we'll finish clearing it then head down there,” Marc said. “That work for you? There's only two more classrooms left.”

Jeff nodded.

“Ought to do, I don't know what the noise is though and that's got my curiosity going.”

They cleared those two classrooms quickly, then made their way to the basement stairs. The door was open a crack, although normally kept locked.

“Huh, someone broke the lock off,” Jeff said. “Let me go down and scout it out.”

He shimmered and disappeared, only to reappear less than a minute later.

“Nope, nope, nope. That's a hard nope, I'm having nothing to do with those,” Jeff said.

“What's a nope?” Rob asked.

“Big insects with lots of legs,” Jeff replied.

“Big insects? You mean like the size of my hand?”

“No,” Jeff said, face pale, “I mean like as tall as you are with little razor legs running all along both sides.”

“Insects that are standing up?” Felicia asked.

“No, the legs are small, they're bent up with about two feet of their length on the ground and the other four feet lifting up into the air like they're standing. There's a kobold that looks to be in charge of them, too.”

“What about the bumps and bangs?” Marc asked.

“Who knows, who cares, we're not going down there. Serious nope down there.”

Marc turned to Felicia and Rob.

“So, no Jeff. Three on three then? Think we can take them?”

Rob grinned.

“Sure, no problem.”

Felicia turned to Jeff.

“Anything else about these bugs we should know?” she asked.

“Pincers on their faces, razors on their sides, and six feet long. What else do you need to know? Are you crazy?”

“Hmm, sounds like centipedes, except massive ones. Yeah we can probably do it. If they poison you, keep going. If I can get a sample of their poison I can use it with the Antivenom spell I got back at level three and cure you, got it?” Felicia asked.

“Got it,” Marc and Rob replied in unison.

“Okay, let's get to it. Even I heard that last bang,” Marc said.

He had a sneaking suspicion of what it was, especially after having seen the menu they were serving in the cafeteria.

He refreshed his own armor as well as his and Rob's shields, then they went down the steps. They had to go single file, but Marc moved up alongside of Rob as soon as they cleared the steps.

The cement floor of the basement was not intact. Half of it had been torn up and piled against the wall. On the revealed dirt were the two insects Jeff had reported on.

Yup, centipedes, Marc thought. And just as big as Jeff said.

He couldn't help it. Despite not having any phobias regarding insects he still shuddered at the sight of them. Then he saw the kobold that was over near a door in the wall, a door that was kept shut with a bar on this side.

Definitely keeping someone prisoner in there, more than one someone from the sound of things, he thought.

The kobold barked something and when neither Marc nor Rob answered he looked towards the centipedes and said something else in a commanding tone. The centipedes, who'd been 'standing' as Jeff called it, dropped their entire lengths onto the floor and raced towards Marc and Rob, one on each.

They were much quicker than Marc had expected them to be and he almost got struck with a pincer straight off. He'd lowered his pilum to try to flip it over or something, but he'd been too slow, the blade simply scraping along the segmented carapace along the centipede's back. He jumped aside quickly, but the pincer still managed to scrape along his Arcane Armor, very nearly penetrating it.

He scrabbled farther to the side, trying to drive his pilum into its head. The centipede pulled back as he thrust down and the blade of his pilum scored the concrete.

How do you kill these things? I mean with normal ones even if you stomp them it doesn't kill them all the time. So probably a Shield Bash isn't exactly going to help, unless it rears up again. Then I might be able to knock it on its back.

Rob grunted in pain and Marc looked over to see that his centipede had manage to drive its pincer into his ankle.

“Shit!” Rob exclaimed.

“Screw it,” Marc said, then he proceeded to dodge the attacks of his own centipede while hammering Rob's with Mana Dart after Mana Dart. It took five of them to finish it off, and that was with Rob managing to stab it once. Meanwhile, Marc was barely staying ahead of his own. He was pretty much out of mana, having used all of it he had left after the armor and shield spell by casting on Rob's centipede. If he hadn't been regenerating it right along he wouldn't have even had enough to finish off the one centipede.

Rob was staggering a bit, not heavily wounded, but the poison seemed to be causing it.

“Felicia, I'll try to keep this one busy, can you Antivenom Rob?” Marc called.

“Just a minute, I'm busy here,” she called.

Marc pulled his attention away from his centipede to see that Felicia was fighting the kobold in charge of the centipedes. He stared at it for a moment before getting a system readout on it.

Kobold Beastmaster (Lvl. 3)

He barely dodged the centipede as it lunged at him again and decided that he needed to keep his attention on his own problem.

“Rob, can you help Felicia?”

“I'll try,” Rob said, staggering across the room.

Marc's pilum drove down again and this time he scored a hit, snapping one of the pincers off of the creature's head.

Well that's half the poison problem gone, he thought.

As he stepped to the side, the centipede surprised him, whipping around him but not trying to get its pincers to him this time. Instead it whipped several of its legs against his ankle, tearing through his Arcane Armor spell and skin both.

It continued to spin around him in a circle, cutting deeper and deeper into his leg and Marc gave in to desperation. He dropped as though he were going to his knees, but leaned farther out with his shield, triggering a Shield Bash as he fell to the floor.

Your skill, Shield Bash, has increased in skill level (1->2).

He caught the centipede's head beneath his shield as he slammed it down. It kept moving, squirming around, but for the moment the area of its body right behind the shield was still. Choking up on his pilum he drove the blade portion into its body over and over.

A moment later there were a series of dull thunks one after the other and he looked up to find Felicia slamming her tire iron into it over and over. Rob staggered over a moment later and pushed his pilum straight through its body.

Finally the centipede stopped moving, but in its last efforts it finally managed to get its head out from under the shield. Marc was pretty sure he'd let up on the pressure and that's how it got out. He paid the price for it too, the remaining pincer scoring across the back of his forearm where it was strapped into the shield before he got the blade of his pilum driven into its head, stilling the insect forever.

Felicia immediately scrambled towards the other corpse, taking a drop of its venom on her finger and approaching Rob. She cast a spell and Rob seemed to immediately steady somewhat. She dropped to her knees next to the centipede they'd just killed, acquiring another drop of the venom before casting again, this time with Marc as the target.

It was good that she had. There was no way Marc had been going to manage to stand up as the poison had taken affect almost instantly. Not only was he unsteady, but he'd started to see little flashes of light in his vision, flashes that seemed to be trying to form into actual things.

He shook his head.

“I don't know how you're still standing Rob,” he said. “That thing just hit me and I couldn't stand and was starting to see things.”

“Eh,” Rob said. “Try being a linebacker sometime. Get hit hard enough to see stars a few times and you learn to tell the difference between what's actually there and what's not.”

Marc knew Rob had been a linebacker on the high school football team, but he'd never even given any consideration to what that might have taught him, except maybe crediting it to why he'd wanted to tank.

“You know Rob, sometimes you surprise me,” Marc said, “but I still like you anyhow, even if you used to be a jock.”

“I like you too, Marc. You know, just not in that way, just so you know.”

Marc stared at Rob and blinked, then blinked again.

“Did you just make a joke?” Marc asked.

Felicia was staring at Rob also, a smirk on her face.

“Yeah, I did. Just don't tell Jeff. He thinks I don't have a sense of humor just because I don't like his jokes,” Rob said.

“Don't worry, your secret's safe with us,” Felicia said.

Then she turned towards the stairs.

“It's safe to come down now Jeff. The big, mean bugs are all dead and gone.”

She waited until she heard him on the stairs.

“Well, maybe not gone yet, but dead at least,” she continued.

The sound of Jeff's footsteps racing back up the stairs set Marc to laughing as he reached over to loot the centipede he'd managed to kill.

* * *

Chapter Fifteen

You have received: Giant Centipede Venom Sac (full), Giant Centipede pincer, Giant Centipede hide.

He checked his inventory quickly, worried that the venom sac might be leaking all over it and wondering if that would affect him in some manner. Fortunately, the venom sac was just sitting in his inventory, dry and, as far as he could tell, with no sort of opening for the venom to leave it.

There had been silence for a minute or two from the room where the banging had been coming from before, but now someone hammered on the door again.

“Crap,” Marc said, then raised his voice. “We're coming, just give us a minute.”

After looting the second centipede corpse, picking up the pincer that had snapped off, and reminding Rob to loot both of them, the two giant bug bodies faded out of existence, leaving only a small pile of dust behind. The kobold Beastmaster was looted as well and once that corpse was gone, Marc moved over to the door.

“On guard guys, we don't know if these are people, bad attitude kobolds, or what.”

“Got it,” a disembodied voice said next to him.

Marc jumped.

“Jeff, don't do that!”

“Hey, on guard for me means Stealthed, so I was just listening to your orders.” Jeff said, still Stealthed.

Marc shook his head and glanced over at Rob and Felicia. They both looked ready so he slipped the bar out of the door before pulling his pilum back out of his inventory. He nudged the door open with his foot, then stepped back.

The sight that greeted him was almost exactly what he'd feared. Inside the barred off room were a bunch of people. Seventeen people, to be exact. They ranged in age from what looked like kids that would be right at home in the school they were in to an older woman whose hair was just starting to gray.

“About time! What took you people?” one of the prisoners yelled. “What are you? Cops, military? I want to know who to complain to.”

“Oh god, a Karen,” Jeff whispered in Marc's ear. “Can we just leave her here and bar it back up?”

“We're private citizens,” Marc said. “And if you manage to find any cops or military to complain to, please introduce us. As far as I know, they've both been wiped out.”

That seemed to shut the Karen up for a moment. But there was a disturbance in the back of the room before a path seemed to clear back to that area. A man in a familiar uniform, although a tattered one, was being helped to his feet.

“Not quite wiped out, damned well close enough though,” the police officer said.

The man was limping along, one leg obviously heavily wounded, blood encrusting the tattered fabric of his uniform pants.

“Felicia?” Marc said, looking over towards her.

“On it.”

Felicia began to chant and a moment later a yellow-gold glow encased the policeman's leg, the pain easing off of his face as the spell took effect.

“What the hell was that?” the policeman said.

“You guys have no idea what happened, do you?” Marc asked.

The policeman shook his head. Obviously the rest of the group in there were willing to let him be the spokesperson for the group.

“No, I got a call on all units to converge here. We knew there was something going on and that people were dying left and right. Last orders were to use the cars to cordon off an area around the school here. My partner went out with our car, but I was told to guard the school. I got jumped by a bunch of little nightmares and went down. That's what left me like this,” he said, pointing down towards his leg.

“Well, or gave me the wound I had down there, which isn't there any more?”

The policeman seemed a little confused, staring at his leg.

“We'll get to that in a few minutes,” Marc said. “What happened then?”

“Well, there were a few more people in here originally, but those things kept taking one or two a day out, and we're what's left.”

“Well, first, I'm Marc. Can I get your name? I'd rather not keep thinking of you as just 'the policeman', that just makes me keep flashing back to 70's music.”

Strangely enough, the policeman had to stifle a chuckle before continuing.

I guess we aren't the only people whose emotions the System is messing with, Marc thought. Assuming I'm correct and that's what's going on.

“The name's Conner,” the policeman said, offering his hand.

Marc dismissed his pilum to his inventory, then reached for Conner's hand. When he took it and went to shake, he realized that the other man was still staring at Marc's now empty hand.

“Don't worry about it, that's more of what we'll cover,” Marc said. “However, I think we ought to get you people somewhere safe before we start doing that.”

“I don't get it,” Conner said, looking confused again. “With what I've seen from you guys, I ought to be taking you down to the station about now, but I don't feel like that at all. Instead, I almost feel like I ought to be trying to recruit you.”

Marc grinned.

“I was just thinking the same. Well, about recruiting you at least. Wait until we get you an explanation though, then we can talk. In the meanwhile, we've got to get you all to the high school, which we've converted to a Safe Zone.”

“That the thing in that weird message we got? We all decided it had to be a mass hallucination or something. We can go there, but a couple of the kids might need to be carried. They just kinda shut down,” Conner said.

“Huh, we might be able to get them moving again. More likely with the kids than the adults anyhow,” Marc said. “Hey, Jeff, can you find the kids that are like that? Give them the basic idea that everything's like a game now? That might give them something to relate to that gets them moving again.”

“Sure thing, Marc,” Jeff said, still Stealthed.

Conner jumped, then spun to face the general area Jeff's voice had come from.

“Jeffrey O'Reilly? I'd recognize your voice anywhere. This had better not be one of your tricks or you'll be seeing the inside of a cell this time.”

“Nah, Conner. This is the real deal. Sorry, you don't get to arrest me again this time. Hell, maybe you'll even thank me later on.”

Conner shook his head ruefully.

“Good kid, lots of trouble with him though.”

“I heard that, Conner. Just because I'm invisible doesn't mean I'm deaf,” Jeff said.

He shimmered into view and started making his way into the room, looking for the kids that had been mentioned.

“He can call me Conner,” Conner said, gesturing towards Marc, “but I think you'd better stick with Officer Bailey.”

“You got it, Conner,” Jeff said before disappearing into the room.

“Any more wounded?” Marc asked.

“A few, I was the worst though.”

Marc looked over at Felicia, who nodded, then he raised his voice.

“Anyone who's wounded, please come out here and see Felicia,” he said, gesturing towards her.

Several people headed out. Before Felicia was done taking care of them, there was a raised voice in the room.

“You mean it's like an MMORPG?” a young voice said. “Shit, where do I get a class?”

Yup, sounds like Jeff is managing to get through to them, Marc thought.

A few minutes later, the entire group was out of the room, except for one person. The Karen was sitting in the back corner, muttering imprecations against the school, the world, the police, the military, and anyone else she could think of.

“Are you coming, lady?” Marc asked, already getting tired of her and pitying the people that had been imprisoned with her for days.

“Where?” she said. “I need to go home. I'm sure my husband has been looking for me.”

Jeff was not as polite as Marc, almost the opposite in fact.

“Lady, your husband, if he's still alive, is probably blessing the fact that he hasn't seen you in days,” Jeff said.

“How dare you!” she screamed. “I never!”

“I'm pretty sure that that's your problem,” Jeff replied. “But that's your husband's job to fix, not mine.”

Jeff stepped out of the room and the Karen stood and raced after him, as though she wanted to hit him. Once she stepped out of the room, a System message flashed up onto Marc's screen. Apparently on the rest of the groups' screens as well since they all went still. Jeff even stood there as the Karen hit him several times, until Conner went over and dragged her away from him.

Marc himself was still standing there, staring at the message he'd received.

For saving 50+ people you have received the title: Hero. Title bonuses are cumulative unless otherwise indicated.

Hero: When taking actions that are intended to save other individuals, all your chances at success will increase by +5%.

You have gained a level (4->5)

You have two ability points to distribute.

Your Intelligence has increased (12->13)

Your Constitution has increased (8->9)

You have one new skill point to distribute.

You have learned the spell: Crenelate (1)

You have learned the skill: Creative Writing (1)

* * *

What the hell is Crenelate? Do I get to build my very own castle? Marc thought. And Creative Writing? That's got to be from the English Major class, what does that do?

Help Crenelate.

Crenelate:

This spell is designed to provide protection for the recipient. Upon casting, a block of stone, waist high on the caster, will rise from the ground beneath the targeted point. The spell will fail if there is no solid footing for the crenelation to rise from. This spell will last for 1 minute plus 1 minute per level in the spell. At higher levels the spell will produce additional crenelations, each of which must be positioned within 5 feet of another crenelation produced by the spell.

Marc pondered that for a moment, ignoring the people around him. They were rummaging through a pile of items that had been right outside the door, recovering any of their stuff they could. Then Jeff started moving out onto the area where the concrete had been torn up. Marc had been about to pull up the help on Creative Writing, but Jeff interrupted him.

“Hey, we need to dig, right here,” Jeff said.

Marc shook his head to pull himself out of thought.

“What?”

“I just leveled up, got a new skill too, Find Valuables. Of course I used it right off, and it says there's something valuable buried here.”

“Fine,” Marc said.

He looked around for anything to use as a shovel. The closest thing he saw was some fragments of board against the wall.

“Sorry about this,” he said, directing the comment at his shield as he pulled it out of his inventory.

Using a corner of his shield, he started to dig a hole. The dirt was looser than he'd thought it would be for having been under concrete though and it went quickly. He was only down about a foot when he hit something solid, and hollow from the sound of the impact.

A little more digging revealed the lid of what looked like a chest. He had to spend another minute or two beyond that to get it uncovered enough to pull it out. It was heavier than it looked, but still easily manageable with his strength of six.

“Now what?” Marc said, looking at the chest.

“Now you get to watch the master at work,” Jeff said, pulling out his lock picks.

He bent over the chest, then grunted.

“Never mind. It isn't locked.”

He twisted the latch and threw the lid up. Inside were several handfuls of copper and silver as well as something that looked vaguely familiar. Marc reached down and picked up the gemstone looking thing as Jeff grabbed a handful of coins and let them run through his fingers.

Staring at the gem, Marc was only a little surprised when the System showed him its description.

Lair Core (kobold)

Item grade: uncommon

Item quality: common

When placed in an unoccupied area, this Core will began to accumulate mana. Once it has accumulated enough, kobolds will begin to appear and create a lair. The overall size of the lair, levels of the kobolds, and all other accouterments of the lair such as traps, treasure, and the like will increase with the duration of the Lair's existence.

“Holy shit!” Marc exclaimed.

“What is it?” Jeff said. “Just looks like a big costume jewelry gemstone.”

Marc leaned over and whispered to Jeff.

“A Lair Core. Like a monster core or dungeon core type of thing. This can produce a lair of kobolds.”

“You mean like a dungeon?”

Marc shrugged.

“It says Lair, so who knows, but we'll need to check it out. Or we could just use it to create another Safe Zone I bet. The Safe Zone help just said cores, not any specific type.”

Finally Marc realized that the room was staring at him and Jeff.

“Sorry,” Marc said. “I just found out that the System classified this as a Lair of kobolds.”

“The System?” someone asked.

“That's it. We need to get these folks back to the Safe Zone and let Al talk to them for a while,” Marc said. “Let's see if we can find Jayden's group and we can all escort them back together.”

Once back upstairs they whistled loudly, then waited for Jayden and his group to arrive. The Karen was still bitching, but when given the choice of staying in the basement by herself or actually using her own feet and walking to stay with the group, she started walking.

“Where were they?” Jayden asked when they arrived.

“Downstairs. I think it was the kobolds' larder,” Marc replied.

“Ugh, I was hoping I was either mistaken about what I saw in the cafeteria or could forget about it,” Jayden said.

“You guys went by there?”

“Yeah, we were checking for stuff to loot. You guys hadn't cleared the kitchen so we've got all the bulk stuff that was in there.”

“Looting! You're stealing from the schools? I'm going to report you to the authorities!” the Karen practically screamed.

Jayden rolled his eyes.

“A Karen?”

Marc nodded.

“Don't worry about it,” Conner said. “I'm a police officer, or at least I was, don't know if there are any of us left now. But you've got my authorization to take it if the intent is to supply the people you're bringing back to your Safe Zone.”

“His Safe Zone,” Jayden said, jabbing at thumb towards Marc, “But yeah, that's why.”

“Then you're all good. Now you said you were going to use both your groups to guard us heading back there?” Conner asked.

Marc nodded.

“Yeah, let's go,” he said, increasing his volume to be heard over the Karen who was now screaming about corrupt cops.

* * *

Conner stopped dead at the exit to the school.

“What the hell happened out here?” he asked.

“The System did,” Marc replied. “It's making everything that isn't adjusted to it decay at a hyper fast rate.”

“That explains my pistol then,” Conner said, glancing down at his holster. “I'm not sure I'd even trust it now. I was going to clean it once I got it back from the kobolds, but it's nasty.”

“Yeah, that'd be it. Someone tried to shoot me recently and a just a little pressure outside the barrel managed to make the whole thing blow up in his hand.”

“Little pressure,” Jeff snorted. “I've seen those shields take a full strength blow with a sword and not give.”

“Shields?” Conner asked.

“Long story. I'll run you through it after we give you the introduction to how things work in the new world. It'll make more sense then and it leaves me more alert for threats now. But... How are you with a rifle? Scoped AR-15, in this case. I can let you use that on the way back and increase our firepower a bit,” Marc said.

“I'm a decent shot, no marksman or anything, but good enough that I have, or at least had, my own rifle at home. I'm wondering what shape that's in though with how my pistol looks.”

“Then here, use this if we get attacked. Just don't shoot any of our people, okay?”

Marc pulled his AR-15 out of his inventory, made sure the magazine in it was full, then handed over a spare magazine as well.

“Hey, this looks like Professor Cavanaugh's rifle,” Conner said.

“That's because it is. I'm his son. He was out of town when the shit hit the fan and his rifle is better than mine so I chose to Systemize that one instead of my own.”

“Systemize?”

“Like I said, after the introduction.”

“Well, at least that explains his armor,” Conner said, gesturing towards Rob, “and your shield. They're both Roman, aren't they? A bit of a buff like your dad?”

“Not by choice,” Marc said. “But when you've got two hours to pick out armor? That's the only armor we had hanging around the house.”

“Oh, that, well, I picked my vest, but I've got no idea where it is now,” Conner said.

“It was on one of the kobolds. The big one. It went all the way down to his ankles,” Jeff said from nearby.

“Any chance of going back to get it before we get too far away?” Conner asked.

“No need,” Jeff said.

A body armor vest, looking somehow more solid than what Marc was used to seeing from those, flew over and hit Conner's arm.

“Jeff, did you steal body armor off a kobold and not tell us?” Marc asked.

“Hey, I figured we might find the owner. Besides, that one was a pain to kill, I actually had to aim for the back of his neck instead of his torso. I was afraid the strike might get misdirected by the vest otherwise.”

“Well, we did find the owner. Thanks for returning it. But really, I need to keep an eye out now. We haven't seen much but kobolds in the streets, but we have also run into a few other monsters and who knows where they'll show up,” Marc said.

Then there was mostly silence, except for the sound of walking feet, the occasional complaint, and an ongoing diatribe from Karen that Marc was finally managing to tune out.

Marc didn't see it coming. He'd refreshed all his spells though, worried about escorting this many unarmed and unarmored people through the streets. That was all that saved him when an arrow came shooting out a second story window. It struck his Arcane Armor and just dropped to the road beside him.

As Marc glanced down at the arrow to see that it wasn't anything modern, Conner stepped between him and the window that had held the archer that fired at him. The police officer dropped to a kneeling position and aimed the AR-15 towards the window, peering through the scope. A moment later another arrow came flying out and Conner squeezed the trigger, twice.

Moments passed and then Conner spoke up in a confused voice.

“Um, what's this mean? I have a message in my vision saying that I've qualified for a class. It gives me several options: Warrior, Protector, or Guardian.”

“You might want to just minimize that notification for now until you get the background lesson I've been talking about. You can minimize it like a computer window, just by thinking that you want it minimized, or saying that out loud,” Marc said. “It's giving you class choices based on actions you've taken. Since it was a fight and you used a weapon, they're warrior based choices. I think there's something to do with intent in the choices also. Warrior is a generic fighter type, Rob took that. I don't know what the Guardian or Protector classes are though. You can think of reading the help on those and it will probably be available to you. Same thing there, you can also just say it out loud if you can't call it up by thinking about it.”

The group had stopped when the attack went off, but now they started moving again. The people they'd just rescued hadn't been in any sort of rush before, but they were making better time now. The Karen kept complaining as she repeatedly fell to the back of the group, obviously not wanting to put any effort in towards keeping up with everyone else.

Jeff came trotting up a minute later and handed Conner a bow and quiver.

“You can have those if you like. You hit the thing, but it wasn't dead yet, so I took care of that and looted it.”

Conner looked over the bow and arrows.

“Got a use for these?” he asked Marc.

“Definitely in the future, if not immediately. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure. I wouldn't know what to do with them,” Conner said, handing the items over to Marc who dropped them into his inventory.

“Damn, inventory is almost full up,” Marc said. “I need to check the help on that.”

While he had all the basic help files tucked away in his head from his Research skill, he'd discovered that aside from bulk downloading them to the master pad, if he wanted to actually know what they said, he had to call them up in his memory.

“Huh, there are items that we can use to increase inventory slots,” Marc said. “I should've known, really, that's common to most of the games. The basic ones are just like Systemized pouches, satchels, and backpacks. But they've also got extra-dimensional holding items. Those are lots more expensive from what the help says, but probably worth it if we can find some. Otherwise we just need to either Systemize some packs, or get them from the shop and that'll increase the number of inventory slots on the person wearing them.”

“So, what was it that shot at me?” Marc asked Jeff in a low voice.

“Some sort of mini-elf. But the outdoorsy type, not the pale ones. All tanned and with tribal style tattoos or something like that. I didn't see signs of any others, so hopefully it was a one-off,” Jeff replied.

Marc nodded and turned his attention back to their surroundings as they walked.

* * *

When they got back to the Safe Zone he took care of assigning each of the new people as a resident first. Discovering that he could access the Safe Zone screens up to about twenty-five feet outside the wall, he just had them go by one at a time and assigned them as a resident as he got their names. Even the Karen.

Whose name is actually Karen? What kind of sick, twisted parent would name their child Karen nowadays. Admittedly, she probably had the name before it became derogatory, she's old enough, but still, did she have to live up to it? Marc thought.

Once they were all listed as residents, Marc asked Rob to track down Al so he could give them the rundown on how things were going now.

“Here, I need to give this back to you before I don't want to. Your dad knows his guns,” Conner said, returning the AR-15 to Marc.

“Yeah, I just hope I can get the rest Systemized before they fall apart.”

“Marc, did you bring them here?” Jeff asked.

Marc shook his head.

“Why would I?”

“Didn't you notice? The forced decay is absent in a Safe Zone. It won't return them to normal unless you Systemize them, but you can keep them from falling totally apart and restore them later,” Jeff said.

“Crap, why didn't you say anything about that?”

“Didn't have a chance yet. I just finally noticed last night,” Jeff replied. “Do I detect a quick run to your house coming up?”

“Assuming it's still standing, yeah. If I could've saved those and didn't my dad will kill me when he gets back,” Marc said.

If he gets back, a little voice in the back of Marc's mind said.

He ignored the voice. If anyone of the older generation would be able to adapt to things the way they were currently, it would be his dad, and his mom too for that matter. At least that's what he kept trying to tell himself.

“Yeah, let's take that big old flatbed style hand truck from the basement. We can just put the gun safe and all the ammo cases on it. Rob, would you help? If we aren't strong enough to pull it, you will be.”

“I can help,” Rob said. “Just give me a couple of minutes to grab something to eat. I don't know why, but I'm starving all the time now.”

Marc took one look at Rob and realized how much the other man had bulked out in the last few days.

“I'm guessing it's because you're a growing boy?” Marc said with a smile.

“What?”

“Rob, look in a mirror while you're in there. You're doing a slow motion version of the Hulk's change, just not going green with it,” Jeff said, obviously having noticed the same thing that Marc had.

“Oh,” Rob said. “Yeah, that'd do it. I remember having to eat a lot more during football season too, so it makes sense.”

Since they were going to be here for a few minutes, Marc went to the shop pedestal and checked on his auctions. They'd closed now and he stared at the bids he'd gotten.

Twelve gold for one and ten for the other? That's like two and a half to three times their actual weight in gold. I guess there is a collectibles market for gold coins from Earth, he thought.

He immediately purchased the recycling machine he'd been eyeing, then withdrew the rest of the gold he'd gotten from the auctions as coins. Tracking down the rest of the group he gave them each four of the gold coins, explaining that they'd picked up extra loot before and he'd sold it off and was splitting the proceeds, after purchasing the machine he needed to expand the Safe Zone.

Finding a small group of volunteers, Marc handed over the manual for the recycler and asked if they'd start with close sources of metal, wood, and stone since he had another errand to run. Since they were volunteers, looking for something to do, they agreed. The second group of adventurers were going to keep an eye on them while they worked the machine too and that made Marc feel a little safer with asking them to do it.

Finally, his group took off, the hand truck with them. It didn't take long to get back to his house, although the deteriorating asphalt slowed the hand truck down. Loading up the rest of the guns and ammo was quick, even with them moving cautiously due to the house's deteriorated state. Before they left he grabbed a few other things he thought his parents would want when they got back.

When they get back, not if. When, he thought.

The run back to the Safe Zone was uneventful and as they entered Marc got to see his recycler in action. The volunteers pushed it up to the side wall of a house that was in worse shape than his own had been and then turned it on. As it ate its way through the house, stacks of mostly wood, along with a few ingots of metal, were deposited out the rear onto a platform the machine provided for it. There was no stone, or very little, until the recycler got to the foundation and then piles of stone blocks appeared amidst the wood and metal.

Well, looks like that's idiot proof. Hopefully we don't manage to develop a better idiot that can break it, because it was pricey, he thought.

* * *

Chapter Sixteen

Once they were ensconced back in the Safe Zone, Marc sat down in his apartment.

Alright, I've still got those two stat points and a skill point, no wait, two skill points to use, he thought. Let's see where I want them. Stats.

Marcus Aurelius Cavanaugh

Class: Arcane Bulwark/(hidden class English Major)

Level: 5

Experience: 1372/4000

Health: 280

Mana: 275 (+10)

Stamina: 290 (+12)

Endurance: 15 (+7)

Body: 7.0 (Strength:6, Constitution: 9, Agility: 6)

Mind: 9.6  (Intelligence: 13, Willpower: 7, Aptitude: 9)

Social: 5.3 (Charisma: 6, Personality: 5, Allure: 5)

Skills:

Short Spear (melee weapon)(3)

Shield Bash (2)

Research (1)

Analyze (creature) (1)

Mana Manipulation (4)

Meditation (2)

Creative Writing (1)

Spells:

Mana Dart (4)

Arcane Armor (2)

Phantom Shield (1)

Crenelate (1)

He pondered his stats for a moment.

Okay, I'm not going to worry about Allure. I don't think getting handsome is going to help with much here. Not Personality either, although apparently that could use some help too, but I still haven't looked at the help on Creative Writing yet. The Lair core drove that completely out of my mind. Help Creative Writing.

Creative Writing:

This skill is used in conjunction with written orders. When the skill-holder writes out orders longhand the recipients of the written orders will have an increased chance of interpreting the orders correctly as well as an increased chance to successfully perform them as written. The chance increase begins at 5% per point in the skill. The percentage added per point begins to drop by one percentage point after five points in the skill, finally ceasing at a skill rating of twenty where the bonus will be 70%.

The Creative Writing skill also makes additional skills available to learn: Scribe, Calligraphy.

Marc stopped cold for a moment, considering how that could affect the Safe Zone.

Hey, I could post written standing orders. Or write out orders for people that volunteer for duties. That's not as useless as I'd thought it would be when it first popped up. I wonder what Scribe and Calligraphy do?Help Scribe.

Scribe:

This skill allows the user a chance to pen spell scrolls. The user need not know the spell to pen it, they may copy a spell from a scroll, but if it is a spell the user knows they receive bonuses to the attempt. Base chance of success is 50%, adjusted by spell difficulty. More powerful spells will decrease the chance of success. Various skills may increase the chance of successfully Scribing a spell scroll. Increasing the user's skill in Scribe will increase the chance of success as well.

Marc's eyes widened. It was something he'd thought might be a problem, having to rely on scroll drops and teaching spells in person, but this was a way around that.

I wonder if you can teach skills the same way you can spells? he thought.  Because having people penning spell scrolls, even if they can't cast the spell themselves, would be an incredible power boost. Get all our Mages a good variety of spells and maybe even sell a bunch in the shop? I'll be taking that one.

He quickly used one of his skill points to learn the Scribe skill, blinking as the knowledge settled into his brain. It wasn't quite painful, but very close. The discomfort faded quickly, although it once again made him conscious of the buzz in the back of his mind that had been there since he'd received his hidden class.

I'd managed to dismiss that from my mind before, so hopefully I can again. Strange that selecting a skill to learn makes me notice again, but not automatically receiving one when I level. I wonder if leveling stuff is already shoved into the mind when the class is taken and then just unlocked at the appropriate level. That would explain why adding English Major was so painful if that's the case.

Once his head had cleared, he pulled up the help on the other skill Creative Writing had offered.

Help Calligraphy, he thought.

Calligraphy:

This skill allows for writing in a more decorative fashion. The skilled Calligrapher will be able to add a hint of emotion, emphasis, and additional knowledge by use of the skill, thereby increasing the effectiveness of written skills. Those with the skill Scribe will require the skill Calligraphy in order to pen higher power spell scrolls since the additional emotion, emphasis, and knowledge imparted by Calligraphy is necessary to communicate the correct way to cast these more powerful spells.

Marc shook his head.

I'm going to want that one eventually too, he thought, but I've only got one more skill point at the moment and I think I probably ought to use it on a skill for my main class. We still don't have that additional DPS person so I need to strengthen my own fighting capability.

Leaving the choice of his other skill point on hold for the moment, he looked at his actual stats instead of skills.

Probably Agility. That's going to increase my chance to hit and it's one of my lower stats, if you don't count the social stuff. I need to increase my Charisma too, if we're going to keep expanding, but to expand we'll probably need to fight more.

Without allowing himself to think about it any more, he dropped both points into Agility. Then went back to his other skill options. There was a large range of weapon skills he could select and they even had a few weapons to distribute if people wanted them now. The weapons they had weren't of a good enough quality to attract his attention though, mostly rated poor with the occasional common, all of them gotten from the spawns they'd killed.

I could probably afford a weapon from the shop, maybe even uncommon or good quality, he thought. Should I go that way though? What other defensive skills do I have options for?

He looked through the skills offered and realized that it was sort of limited. With his particular class, he didn't get a lot of the skills that a normal warrior would. He did get most of the defensive ones though and he examined the limited selection, right now there were only three he could choose: Taunt, Shield Wall, and the Shield Mastery skill.

He'd skipped the Shield Mastery skill when he took Shield Bash since it hadn't been needed, but a look at the Shield Mastery skill told him he'd be much better off using Shield Bash after he had the Shield Mastery skill. Shield Wall was also tempting. Since he, Felicia, and Rob all had shields, if they made a line and he used the skill he'd enhance the defensive capability of all of them.

Shield Wall is for later. We wouldn't have anyone behind us to dish out damage using that right now, he thought. Taunt is good also, but I should wait until my Arcane Armor provides better protection than it does right now before I try to get the spawns to gang up on me. So Shield Mastery skill it is. It'll improve my defense as well as improving my Shield Bash.

He took the Shield Mastery skill and found himself already considering how to shift the balance of his shield just a tiny bit in order to make it less tiring and more effective to use.

Well, I didn't really expect that, not until I used it. I suppose it makes sense though if I now know how to make those adjustments. We'll see if they're automatic when I go to use my shield again.

Having used all his points, he stood back up. He was eager to do something and he was sure there was something he ought to be doing that he hadn't done yet. The sense of urgency was strong, but at the moment there wasn't a lot he could do. It was close enough to dark that he didn't want to head deeper into the city again and while the materials pile was growing rapidly, there wasn't enough metal for the next expansion yet.

That's it, I'll have them switch targets from the houses to some abandoned cars and that should get us enough metal for the next expansion, maybe even in the hour and a half before dark, he thought.

* * *

He made his way out to the front gate, watching as the nearest remaining house was recycled through the machine. There were some newer cars on the road and in driveways just a bit beyond the house that was currently being recycled. Ones that Marc and his group had ignored before since they'd wanted something older, with more metal to it, but for now they'd certainly do.

He waited and when the crew returned the current batch of recyclables asked them if they'd hit a few cars next, telling them why too. There was a power assist to the recycler's movement, which was good since it stacked all the recycled materials on an expanding platform that came out the rear.

“Sure, no problem. And thanks for the guards. There was a couple of those little green guys in that last house, but they put 'em down pretty quick.”

“That's what they're there for,” Marc said, “but if we can expand a bit more I'm hoping to find more survivors and get them to safety here.”

“You got it. Depending on how fast it takes care of them, we can probably get...”

He eyed the cars and the distance from the gate. The recycler might assist in movement, but it was slow.

“I'd say five or six before it starts getting dark.”

“Just do what you can, don't take any risks though. Right now keeping people alive is more important to me than expanding so we can try to find more people to keep alive. There's no guarantee of the second,” Marc said.

The lead of the recycling crew smiled at Marc for a moment.

“You got it, boss,” he said.

Then he pitched in, helping to unload the machine more quickly so they could go back out.

I wonder if there's anyone around who'd be willing to help them unload, but is scared to go outside the Safe Zone, even that would be helpful and save a few minutes here and there, Marc thought.

People seemed to be using the gymnasium to congregate in when the cafeteria wasn't serving so he headed in there and made an announcement that if anyone was willing to do some lifting without going outside the gates, they could help the recycling crew that way.

There were actually a few people who headed outside after his announcement and he hoped that they were going to help like that. His train of thought was interrupted, though, as Conner approached him.

“Marc?”

“Yes, Conner?”

“I went through that intro thing with Al. I also read the description on my available classes. Can I get you to help me with the decision?”

“Sure, but it really ought to be your choice.”

“Yeah, but you know this class thing better than me, even after I had the intro. I understand Warrior, I think, it's like this System's equivalent of a soldier or grunt, yeah?”

“Kind of, except not,” Marc said. “A soldier would be more like the old Roman Legionaries or European men-at-arms, whereas a Warrior is more like the barbarians that attacked them. That's a generalization though.”

“Close enough then. Protector isn't for me. That's more like a bodyguard type of thing from what I read, and that's not what I want.”

“So, you're leaning towards Guardian?”

“Yeah, actually I am. It is, and isn't, like being a cop. I mean with the court rulings that cops didn't have to respond to protect people? A Guardian would've tried to get there and protect them, damn the cost. I kind of think I like that idea. I mean, I became a cop to protect people in a general sense, couldn't do it the way they used to, but this way I sort of can.”

“Well, it sounds like you don't need me to go over it with you. You know what you want.”

“Well, it's like this. A Guardian is tied to some sort of settlement and is the Guardian of that settlement. This Safe Zone qualifies as that. I thought I should ask if you minded if I took the Guardian role for the Safe Zone before I just did it.”

“Ah, I get it now. I intend on expanding the Safe Zone though, is that going to mess with your class?”

“From my understanding it won't, but it might open up some more slots for Guardians in the settlement if it gets large enough.”

“Then feel free. I don't exactly know you, nor you me, but you put yourself between me and those arrows in a heartbeat so I'm pretty sure I can trust you,” Marc said.

Conner blushed.

“Just doing my job?”

“Which one? The one that pretty much went away with the old world or the one you haven't actually accepted yet?” Marc asked.

“Umm, so that's a yes then? I can become a Guardian for the Any Port Safe Zone?”

Marc nodded.

“Go for it. Once you do take your class? Check your inventory. You should get something called a System token and you can, if you like, use that to Systemize the pistol you were saying was in bad shape. I think it should put it back to mint condition. Just make sure you have all your magazines in contact with it at the time. As a matter of fact, try the whole gun belt? See if that gets everything you have in it back to good condition. The whole thing can be considered the tool you need to perform your class correctly, so it just might work.”

“Yeah, but ammunition?”

“Ammunition seems to be holding up fine for some reason. I only had trouble when I tried to fire it before Systemizing the AR-15. Once I had, it fired fine. If not, the shop has most common calibers of ammo available.”

Conner grinned.

“Well then, looks like you've got yourself a Guardian.”

His eyes went distant for a moment, then he shuddered all over.

“Oh that's creepy,” Conner said. “Suddenly I know all sorts of things I didn't before. I learned a spell, Detect Truth, and some skills like Tracking and Subdual. I also got a skill point and a list of skills I can use that on.”

“I'd recommend taking some sort of weapon skill that isn't your pistol. My firearm skills seem to still be in place even if I don't have a System ranking for them, so learning something new would probably be good if you're decent with your pistol. I know you are with the rifle, so...”

Conner nodded.

“I'll let you get to it then,” Marc said, “you should be able to get the help for any of those skills now. You know, as a matter of fact, let me do something here. Jeff said I could use the build pedestal to make minor alterations at no cost.”

* * *

Marc went over to the pedestal that held the wire-frame model for the Safe Zone. They'd discovered that the only people who could touch it were Marc, and Jeff since Marc had authorized him to do so. That didn't stop people from occasionally coming over and staring at it and once Marc went over and started manipulating it, there were several people that came over to watch.

He used it to raise a small pedestal, like the shop pedestal, alongside one wall in the gym. Then he went over and removed the one system help pad he'd kept. Biting his lip he went to the shop and spent several minutes finding a way to keep it linked to the pedestal. He'd considered a padlock and chain, but there was nowhere to connect it to. There was, however, some sort of security measure that could keep the pad within a couple of feet of the pedestal. It was fairly cheap at five silver also, so he bought it.

Attaching one piece of the device to the pad, the attachment molded itself to the pad so it wasn't visible without a lot of peering. He attached the base of the device to the pedestal itself, then placed the pad on it. Once it synced, he tried to walk off with the pad, only to find himself brought to a halt about two feet away from the pedestal.

That should do just fine, he thought.

“Hey Conner, spread the word, would you? This pad I'm leaving on the pedestal has all the basic System help files, including ones that you can't pull up yet. It needs to stay on or near the pedestal, but you're all welcome to use it if you're looking for something and can't find it in the normal help.”

I'll just keep one of the next batch I make in case we need one on the fly, he thought. As a matter of fact...

He checked the shop notifications that he'd set to not interrupt him and found that the entire previous batch of help pads had sold, so he went back to the shop and started getting a new batch set up for sale.

By the time he was done with that, the cafeteria had opened for dinner, so he sat down to eat before doing what he was so eager to do currently. Once he'd finished eating, Felicia, Rob, and Jeff accompanied him back to the gym.

“So, the recyclers were going to hit some cars next. I'm hoping that with their efforts, we've got enough materials for the expansion,” Marc said. “I know how to do it, theoretically, from the book I bought on Safe Zone management. Now let's see if I can actually do it. Jeff, I'll want you to do the wire-frame again if you're willing.”

“Heh, you need to learn how to do it without me. You can just spend some time playing with it, then reset the wire-frame to the existing structure any time you want. I'll do it this time though, but only if you promise to start learning how to do it yourself,” Jeff said.

“Fine Jeff, I actually had some time I was trying to kill today, so I might have some time to try that in the future, but tomorrow, we need to go through the town. Both groups. Lots of noise. I want to draw out the spawns to kill them, plus find any more survivors out there. If we don't get them soon, I don't know how many will still be around to get, assuming there's any more out there now.”

Jeff sneered.

“People are as bad as cockroaches,” he said. “They'll surprise you with their adaptability and what they can survive. I mean, look at me. I lived through everything my dad put me through and came out stronger on the other side, maybe not with the best manners, but with the ability to survive a lot. That old bastard just had to be right when he told me that he was just toughening me up, didn't he?”

Marc stared at Jeff, blinking.

Jeff never talks about his family. I know his mom died when he was young, but he never talked about his dad, ever. What's going on? Marc thought.

Trying to hide his actions, Marc leaned closer to Jeff and tried to smell his breath. He didn't even need to get that close to smell the beer. Marc had just thought Jeff's shirt was stained, but it was apparently still wet with spilled beer.

“Umm, yeah. Well, I hope you're right,” Rob said. “But Marc has a point. The longer we take, the more of them are gonna die, so town run tomorrow everyone?”

“Yeah, well, let me check resources,” Marc said.

You have sufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 1500/1500

Stone: 1500/1500

Metal: 1000/1000

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.

“Okay, we've got the materials. Remind me to do something nice for the guys working the recycler,” Marc said. “Jeff, I think you're right. Let me try to handle this one. If I screw it up, you can always fix it on the next expansion, right?”

“Of course I can,” Jeff said. “I'm great at fixing stuff up. Lots of experience with it.”

“Okay then, let's see if we can make the expansion all towards the town instead of away from it,” Marc said.

He pushed the wire-frame drawing representing the walls out, and out some more. Pushing them equally and trying to only expand towards the town, not backwards or to either side, he managed to push it out about three football fields, if he were to guess. Although it did force him to add some area not in that direction as well.

Okay, I get to designate some stuff here. Let's put in some barracks style buildings with power and water, in case we get lots more people in here. One of those to house up to about thirty or forty people maybe? Place that over this way.

He looked through available designations for the land he was about to enclose, seeing fields, ponds,  wood lots, orchards, and several more.

For now, let's just designate the land to either side of the road approaching the building as fields. The kids can play in those maybe, or we can do something else with the big wide-open spaces. Put a wood-lot off to the side maybe? Then we can eventually supply at least some of our own materials.

He selected light poles along the road and in the parking lot areas, not that those meant a lot now, but he assumed they'd eventually they'd get some sort of transportation and it could be parked there.

What else do we want? Oh, what's this, a greenhouse? With options on hydroponic, soil-based, or aquaponic? What is aquaponic?

A minute's work with the help screens told him that the aquaponic setup would provide both edible plants and fish. A generic bonus to all the types of greenhouses provided plus fifty percent to growth rates in them and he assumed that meant the fish as well. He selected two greenhouses, one of them soil based and the other aquaponic.

That filled out the number of buildings he could include in this expansion, so he tried to finalize the setup.

You have insufficient resources to expand your Safe Zone in this manner.

Resources required:

Wood: 1500/1500

Stone: 1500/1500

Metal: 1000/1000

Sand: 0/10

Fertilizer: 0/15

Nutrient solution: 0/1

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.

“Oh screw that,” Marc said. “Of course I had to try to get fancy so now I need other resources. You know what? If the shop has these for anything resembling a reasonable price, I'm just going to buy them.”

Leaving the setup the way he wanted it, Marc headed over to the shop. There were a couple of people in line and rather than wait, he went back to the building pedestal. Checking the options, he found one that would upgrade the shop, allowing additional people to use it. He checked the upgrade and was happy to note that the only cost was an additional ten metal, which was covered by what they had.

When he went back over to the shop, he only had to wait on one individual to use it, then got to it himself. The total of the materials he needed came to forty silver, which wasn't a very big hit at all to his current funds after splitting up the remaining gold from the auctions, so he simply purchased it on the spot. With the items delivering themselves out the side of the shop pedestal he walked back to the building pedestal and confirmed his choices.

You have sufficient resources to expand your Safe Zone in this manner.

Resources required:

Wood: 1500/1500

Stone: 1500/1500

Metal: 1010/1010

Sand: 10/10

Fertilizer: 15/15

Nutrient solution: 1/1

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.

The new shop upgrade would allow for up to three people at a time to use the shop and he thought that it ought to keep the line non-existent or at least down.

Until you get even more people in here, he thought. Then it might end up being a problem again.

He shook off the negative thoughts and looked around. Rob and Jeff were gone, but Felicia was still right there. He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“We figured out what was wrong with Jeff. You guessed he was drunk?”

“Yeah, I smelled the beer when I got within a foot of his shirt.”

She nodded.

“So, Rob escorted him to his apartment so he could go to sleep. Did you know that Jeff claimed that entire maintenance area we were in before as his apartment?”

Marc shook his head.

“Nope, doesn't surprise me though. He had good times there and from what he was saying a few minutes ago, there weren't a lot of those at home for him.”

She frowned.

“Yeah, I didn't know.”

“None of us did, he never talked about it, but we've got some other stuff to do at the moment. Would you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what?”

“I know some people were planning on standing guard on the wall and I'm about to move it,” he said gesturing towards the wire-frame outline. “I thought maybe we ought to warn them?”

Felicia chuckled for a moment.

“Oh, yeah. I can see where that might be a good idea. I wonder if it would move them with it, or just dump them off of it? Not a good idea to find out though. Let me go warn anyone out there, it should only take a few minutes.

Marc looked over his adjustments, hoping he'd done it correctly. He'd checked and they were nowhere near being able to afford the next upgrade after this one with the materials they'd have left over. He didn't fancy buying more of them either since the little he'd bought had cost almost half a gold. He couldn't afford to just buy all the materials he needed to expand the Safe Zone, even if the basic ones were cheaper than the ones he'd just purchased.

As he waited he remembered how the materials for originally establishing the Safe Zone had floated through the air to where they were needed. A glance a the pile of materials that he'd bought, lying on the ground next to the shop pedestal, brought an amusing picture to mind.

I don't, however, think that people would much like to watch that stuff float to where it was needed, he thought.

He spent the time moving the materials out one of the side doors of the gymnasium. They weren't near the other materials, but at least they wouldn't be trying to float through the interior of the keep when he finished moving them.

After he'd gotten all that outside everything looked alright, so when Felicia returned in a few minutes and gave him the all clear, he accepted the changes.

* * *

Chapter Seventeen

Marc was done for the day. The help pads were restocked, the Safe Zone enlarged, and he'd already had dinner. He wasn't willing to go out and try to clear more of the town in the dark, despite being sure there'd be more spawns out after dark. So he decided it was time to retire to his room and maybe put some more effort into increasing his Mana Manipulation skill.

Oh, and I've got spell scrolls too, I should learn my new spells, he thought. Maybe I could even Scribe a copy of the fireball spell for Doug. We only got one of those, but two of the curse scrolls. He got a scroll too, but he didn't say what it was, just that it wasn't the curse scroll. So maybe he can teach me whatever it is he found?

Marc decided that he was just going to learn the two scrolls he had tonight, then spend some time meditating on Mana Manipulation. That had worked well to advance both skills the last time he did it and he was hoping for a repeat performance.

Plus I should get the symbols for Fire, AoE, and either dark or curse. That should help quite a bit in working my way through more of the Mana Manipulation stuff.

He was about to open his door and enter his apartment when a hand fell gently on his shoulder. He turned to see Felicia looking at him earnestly.

“You aren't going to give Jeff a hard time, are you?” she asked.

Marc shook his head.

“Nah, he can spend all his free time drunk if he wants. I won't give him a hard time about it unless he shows up for an outing drunk.”

Marc paused for a moment and a wry grin spread across his face.

“I make no promises about not teasing him about having a hangover, assuming he has one, though.”

She smiled back at him.

“Good, I know we all thought he was this mysterious semi-bad guy, but with what he said tonight, I think there's a lot more to it than that.”

Marc nodded.

“I always thought it was odd when he wouldn't talk about his dad at all. I understand not wanting to talk about his mom since he probably didn't even know her that well before she died, but his dad? To be honest, despite considering him a good friend, I only met his dad one time in about five years of friendship.”

“Which should tell us something right there, shouldn't it?” Felicia said. “I mean, I know he met your parents repeatedly when we did stuff at your house, but we never did anything at his place until he moved out of his father's house.”

Marc nodded.

“Don't worry. I won't avoid it if it comes up, but I won't bring any of this up on my own either. I'll only talk about it if he does, and I'll only get on his case about drinking if it gets to be a problem for the group or the Safe Zone.”

“Good, that's all I wanted,” Felicia said. “So, what are you doing now? It's still early...”

She stopped her sentence, leaving it hanging. Marc, though, was not the most clueful of individuals when it came to certain things. Drop a math problem in front of him and he was like a dog with a steak, drop a social cue in front of him and he was liable to trip over it.

“Well, I was planning on learning the two new spells off of the scrolls we got. Then I was going to work on Mana Manipulation and Meditation combined, maybe try to reverse the effect of the curse spell and see if I can turn it into a buff.”

He was confused when Felicia's face fell, but she smiled at him gently.

“Okay, you have things to do. I get it. Good night, Marc,” she said.

As she turned and headed for the door to her own apartment, he turned back to his own, shaking his head.

Why do I think I just disappointed her somehow? he thought.

As he entered his apartment he broke into a grin, pulling out the two scrolls he was about to learn.

* * *

In the morning Marc was pleased with his progress. Before going to sleep he'd managed to learn both Curse of Weakness and Fireball. Then, while working on his efforts to reverse the curse spell, he'd gained a point in both it and Mana Manipulation. He'd also managed to change the sign on the symbol used for the stat decrease. That simple change had given him a message that he'd learned a new spell: Blessing of Strength.

Marc wasn't sure if that was a new spell that he'd created, or if he simply managed to duplicate an existing system spell. The name suggested the latter to him, but he didn't care since he'd managed to do what he'd wanted.

After that he'd allowed himself to sink into meditation, focusing on the math behind magic. As a result he'd finished the night by gaining two more points in Meditation and one final one in Mana Manipulation. So he was rather cheerful heading down to breakfast.

His mood was only buoyed when he heard the conversation going on in the cafeteria.

“... telling you, it was crazy. Like watching that old cartoon about a wizard's assistant who lost control of his magic. Those blocks of stone and wood heading for the walls? The sand fusing itself into glass and creating buildings? It was crazy. I'm glad Felicia warned us first or I might've freaked out. As it was, by the time all the changes were done I was just staring and laughing my ass off.”

Ah, that must be one of the guys that was on the wall last night right before I expanded the Safe Zone, Marc thought.

“Hey look, here he is,” the man finished, then turned to Marc.

“What are all those new buildings?” he asked.

Marc, not having expected the interaction, froze for a moment.

“Oh, the ones I added in the expansion last night?” he said.

The man nodded.

“Well, there's a regular greenhouse that speeds up growth. There's also something called an Aquaponic greenhouse that's supposed to use a symbiosis between plants and the fish that live in it and supply us with both for food. The last one, the one attached to the main building, is a new barracks. I wanted to make sure we have enough beds for everyone since I plan on trying to get anyone I find in town to come up here so they can be safe.”

“Aquaponic?” the man said.

Marc shrugged.

“Hydroponic is just growing in water. I guess the aqua prefix is supposed to mean growing in water with fish in it? There should be instructions on a pad in there according to what I read about it. Same thing in the greenhouse.”

“What about those fields out front?” the man asked.

“Oh, those? I know we have some kids here now so I thought they could use them to run and play,” Marc said.

The man started laughing and shaking his head.

“Sorry Marc, wrong kind of field. Those look like farm fields all plowed up and ready to go,” the man managed to say between the chuckles he was slowly managing to contain.

“Then I guess those fields out front are for more crops?” Marc said.

“I guess,” the man said. “I also guess that I'm a farmer. If we can get some seed and some tools, hopefully more than just hand tools, I can work those fields for you.”

“Well, that sounds like a good plan. I'm sorry, what was your name again? I'm horrible with names,” Marc said.

“Ain't we all,” the man said. “I'm Allan.”

“Well Allan, I was planning on another trip into town today to try to find more people. Is there anywhere in town that would have the seeds you want? And what kind of seeds do you think we need?”

“Well, we'll want a decent yield and something that won't damage the soil, maybe even enrich it more since those are new fields.”

“Um, the upgrade to the Safe Zone required a hefty dose of fertilizer. I thought it was for the greenhouse though, do you think some of it might have been for those?” Marc said.

“Could be. I was testing the soil and it's pretty darned good already. Never hurts to enrich it more though, at least up to a point. So, I was thinking beans in one of those fields, bush beans most likely since they give a good yield and it's an easy crop that I can train others on.”

He looked at Marc slyly.

“You know, just in case we end up with more of these fields for the kids to not run and play in.”

Marc maintained his expression. He was used to people taking digs at him and he had an idea that this one might be more of a test than an actual dig.

“I could see where the kids might want to have other places to not run and play,” he said, “but what seeds did you want for the other field? And where can we find them?”

Allan's sly look broke up into a snort.

“Cool customer then? Good, you'll need it with some of the people here. For the other field? Maybe buckwheat? We can make a bread out of it, although it won't be what most of us here are used to. It's another forgiving crop though and since these fields have never been worked, and we've got no idea what other changes this System thingy might have made, it just seems wise to use forgiving crops.”

“Allan, I like the way you think. Now, is there a place in town to get these seeds? How many will we need anyway?”

“There is, although maybe not enough to plant both fields fully. Tell you what, with these inventory things, we can carry an awful lot, so how about we get all of those two first types of seeds, then we tuck in all the other seeds we can find too?”

“Where, Allan?”

“That's the bad news. The farm supply store that carries bulk seeds is all the way on the other side of town, almost directly across the town from here. Maybe four or five miles from here?”

“Thank you. We were already planning on going into town today, to try to find more people. We'll just make two passes through town this way, one in either direction. The first one we'll yell out that we'll be headed back to the Safe Zone in a while and people should be ready to travel if they want to join us there. We can pick them up on the way back through, that gives them time to discuss it, for groups, or to get anything they want to take with them together to join us on the way back through.”

“Well, I'll go with you and show you the best route. We can work the route through some of the residential areas without adding much distance to it,” Allan said.

“Are you sure? I thought most of the folks in here didn't want to go back out into the town,” Marc said.

“Nah, I'm good with it. I already picked a class, got it offered when I was testing that soil. I'm now a Farmer by class as well as by life. It looks like if I can get some levels somehow I can do lots of good stuff with the crops, from making them grow faster to driving certain types of insects away. All sorts of stuff. Since I heard your group say they were getting levels by going out into town, I thought I might do the same.”

Marc shook his head.

“We'll probably have to fight some since we're going to make a lot of noise, intentionally.”

“That's okay, I got my weapon I Systemized back when this all started.”

Marc looked at Allan eagerly.

“So, what do you have for a weapon then?”

“You got to promise not to laugh first,” Allan said.

Marc nodded.

“I promise.”

“Well, I was on my farm, a couple miles out of town, when this all happened. I claimed my overalls here for armor, tried to claim my shotgun for a weapon, but it said it was too strong. So I picked this.”

Out of Allan's inventory appeared a pitchfork, nearly as tall as he was. The tines were gleaming, shiny, and looked as though they came to very sharp points.

Marc smiled, but managed to keep his promise.

“Well then, let me go get some breakfast, then we'll grab the rest of the two groups and head out.”

* * *

Since he'd already told everyone he wanted to go into the town to try to find more people today, the groups had no problem with the change in plan.

“The greenhouse people said they needed seed also, so maybe we can find stuff for them. They want things like tomatoes, peppers, and the like. Oh, and we'll need to buy some fish to initially stock the aquaponics pond,” Felicia said. “I checked and they have some of our Earth fish, live, in the shop. Tilapia is the recommended option for that one according to its pad.”

Marc held up his hands in mock defeat.

“Alright, we'll work on it. Just, please, someone make a list?”

“Oh, I was working on that also. We can keep lists or notes in our interface. The command to bring it up is 'notes' all by its lonesome, either spoken or thought,” Felicia said. “I figured you shouldn't be the only one working last night.”

Her rather piercing look at Marc was caught by everyone but him. He'd immediately opened the notes option in his interface to check it out and was staring at that. Felicia groaned and Marc glanced over at her.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

She shook her head once, kicked him in the shin, then turned and stalked off.

“What did I say?” Marc asked.

Jeff laughed at him, almost cruelly. Unfortunately he hadn't had a hangover this morning so Marc hadn't been able to tease him about it.

“You're one smart dude, Marc. When it comes to math. Pretty dumb when it comes to women though,” Jeff said.

“Like you're any better?” Rob asked. “I remember how many girls you asked out, then bitched to us that they turned you down.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Jeff said. “But do you also remember how many didn't turn me down?”

“Well, there is that,” Rob said. “I'm just saying that you shouldn't pretend to know everything about women. Maybe Marc's blind to the fact that Felicia likes him. Maybe she's blind to the fact that he likes her too, but really, we shouldn't tease them about it.”

Jeff broke into a grin, then caught Rob's gaze. He then turned to look at Marc, who was only a couple of feet away from Rob. Rob followed his gaze, then immediately blushed when he saw where Marc was and realized that he'd been overheard.

Jeff was staring at Marc now and when Marc looked back Jeff slowly spoke.

“Yes, yes we should. We should definitely tease them about it until they get the hint and stop dancing around each other like ballerinas. All tippy toe like they're worried about disturbing someone.”

Marc quickly turned and left, his face feeling as hot as though he'd just stuck it in an oven.

I mean, I always thought she might, but are they right and she does? Why doesn't she just say something to me about it.

Then he realized his own guilt.

Hell, why don't I just say something about it so we both know for sure where we stand? Hell, I'd rather go toe to toe with a pair of hobgoblins all by myself, that's how much doing that would scare me, but if one of us doesn't, who will? Rob and Jeff? Well, they sort of just did, I guess. We'll have to see if I've got the guts to mention it to her. Normally I wouldn't, but these last few days seem to be changing me. No surprise there.

Marc grabbed his breakfast and ate quickly. Once he finished he headed out to the front gate where they were supposed to meet.

Felicia was out before the others and she approached with a guarded face.

“Sorry,” he said, when she was in earshot.

“What?”

“I said I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention to you since I'd gone straight to the notes section you told us about.”

She blinked, then stopped and just stared at him then.

“That's right, you said you were going to put points in Charisma, didn't you?”

“What's that got to do with anything?” Marc asked.

“Well, normally you wouldn't notice even after I kicked you.”

“Yeah, well, I'm feeling a little stupid right now. There's been lots of times like that, haven't there?”

She stared at him, then put a hand to his brow.

“Are you sure you're feeling okay? Did the System replace you with a pod person or something?” she asked.

Dodging the easy out that would allow him to just slide into tossing minor digs back and forth with her, Marc took a deep breath.

“That's not the only thing I'm feeling stupid about. I screwed up last night, didn't I? I should've just said I didn't have anything planned.”

Now her face got serious.

“Really, are you feeling alright?”

“Better than I have for a long time. Maybe I won't make any plans for tonight so we can talk, if you like.”

Then, his prior habits and mannerisms took over. As he realized what he was saying, his gaze, which had been on Felicia, slowly slid down so he was starting at the ground.

“I mean, assuming you don't have anything better planned? Ah, crap. I suck at this. I try to actually move forward and instead I'm backsliding. What is wrong with me?”

Fingers came up beneath his chin, tilting his head back up.

“I suck at it too, Marc. I chickened out last night, and tens of times before then, so don't feel too bad. At least you managed to get further than I have.”

Saying that, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his. It was a brief kiss, a peck really, but all the times she'd kissed him before it had been on the cheek, so Marc's spirits soared. He didn't dare speak, afraid that he'd trip up with his words. Instead he just stared at her for a moment.

Until Jeff, who'd used Stealth to approach unseen, started a slow golf clap.

“About time,” Jeff said. “Maybe now you two can stop mooning over each other.”

Marc just stared at Jeff, anger in his eyes.

“Low blow, dude,” he said.

Felicia snickered.

“He's just jealous. He never told you, but I was one of those girls he asked out who turned him down,” she said.

Now Jeff's face went red all over and he tried to drop back into Stealth. With two people staring at him, he couldn't do it, the skill wouldn't trigger successfully. He shimmered briefly but stayed fully in sight.

“Oh look, here comes Rob,” Jeff said.

Marc and Felicia turned to look, but there was no-one there. When they turned back Jeff had, of course, dropped into Stealth and disappeared.

“Really, he asked you out? I mean, I'm not surprised, you're very attractive, but I didn't think you were really his type,” Marc said.

“You silver tongued devil, you. Nice recovery there. But yes, he did. After all I was a female gamer and he didn't know many of those. Most of his conquests were more the dumb blonde types. I let him down easy though, told him there was someone I was interested in and I was just waiting for him to make a move.”

“Oh, sorry, maybe I'm misconstruing things?”

“Marc, Marc, Marc,” Felicia said, shaking her head. “You're someone, aren't you?”

He was about to reply when she turned.

“Oh look, there's Rob,” she said.

“You too?” he asked, but this time when he turned Rob was approaching them down the road that stretched from the gate to the buildings. The other group was following along and he had Allan with him also.

“Hey, you guys seen Jeff?” Rob called. “He's the only one we're waiting on.”

“He's around here somewhere,” Marc called. “He's in Stealth. Just messing with us, like normal.”

“Good, then we should head out,” Allan said. “Got a long walk ahead of us, especially if you want to go the residential route.”

“I thought you said it wouldn't add much on to the walk.”

“It won't. A quarter mile isn't much compared to four or five miles, but if we get a lot of takers, that's going to slow us down a bunch,” Allan said.

“Well then, I guess you're right. We should head out,” Marc said.

* * *

As they headed down the road towards downtown, they passed the recyclers. Conner had volunteered to stand guard for them. He'd used his lesser system token he got for choosing a class on his pistol so he was armed with that and the baton that he'd selected as the weapon for the initial Systemizing. Marc had made sure the man had as much ammunition as he'd wanted since the 9mm Glock 17 Conner had Systemized shared ammunition with Marc's father's Ruger SR9c and Marc's dad had always amassed a surplus of ammunition for any of the firearms he owned.

Conner waved as they went by, not taking his eyes off of the surrounding area as he did so though.

Good, I'm glad he found something he could do. It would've been a waste for him, with his training, to end up just hiding in the Safe Zone, Marc thought. I'm glad the Guardian class also guards the inhabitants when they're outside the walls.

Marc had been especially happy when Conner volunteered since his original plan had been to just have the recyclers take the day off any time both groups were out of the area around the Safe Zone. This was much better, the expansion of the Safe Zone could continue apace while he and the others were out trying to find more inhabitants for it.

They made it a half mile from the gates before the first interruption. The asphalt in the area was showing heaved up areas, almost like speed bumps, and he didn't understand why at first. Then the prairie dog the size of a German Shepherd surfaced through the dirt on the side of the road.

“That's a big'un,” Jeff said, “but just one isn't going to be an issue for us.”

Marc, knowing that prairie dogs were actually a bit clever, and focused on doing everything as safely as possible, spun around.

“Behind us,” he said.

The first one had come up on the left hand side of the road to draw their attention, but the other nine had come up behind them and were pulling themselves out of their holes to charge the party.

Jack's bowstring thrummed as he shot the one that had been a distraction. It didn't die with a single shot, but two more arrows lodging inside of it before it made it out of its hole to run did the trick. Meanwhile Marc had tossed up his Arcane Armor spell first, then started in on his newest spell, Fireball.

“Don't close with them yet, backpedal a little,” Marc called, then started casting.

The group backed away from the prairie dogs as a ball of flame shot from Marc's hands. When it burst, it only spread out to about a little more than a yard, but that was enough to scorch two more of the prairie dogs after setting the center one aflame.

Default settings, but if I make it expand more before my skill goes up, I'll lose damage, Marc thought. I'll just need to grind it up to a decent expansion level then maybe mess with it some.

After the fireball had burst, the group moved in. Jayden and Rob were forming the front line, trying to gain the attention of the prairie dogs and hold their aggro. It was relatively easy since Rob had taken a Taunt skill. He made some growling noise that caught all their attention, then slammed his sword into his shield.

“Hey, nice sword Rob,” Jeff called out, from nowhere apparently.

Marc's attention moved to Rob's sword. It was a longsword and of a better quality than any they'd found yet. It also seemed to shimmer a bit in the sunlight, nearly glowing.

Marc shook his head and readied his Mana Darts. He knew the flame and dark symbols now, but he didn't want to curse the prairie dogs, he just wanted to kill them. He wasn't sure if applying the dark symbol to the Mana Darts would do a different form of damage, or simply curse the target, so flame it was.

Jack had switched targets to the ones charging after the original one fell. Doug had tossed out a Mana Dart at one of them as well.

Guess he hasn't reached skill level three in the spell yet, Marc thought.

Doug yipped excitedly right after he finished his cast and the next time he cast his Mana Dart, there were two darts.

Or maybe he just got it right then, Marc added, casting his own Mana Dart.

He split the darts, giving them a Fire Aspect and sending one towards each of the prairie dogs he'd already scorched. One of them fell to the dart, while the other continued rushing Rob. The one that had taken the full brunt of the Fireball was now down as well.

Felicia had buffed Rob and Jayden while Olivia was waiting, ready to heal the first person to get wounded. Jack had dropped another prairie dog and now was changing targets again. Doug cast another Mana Dart, dropping his target.

We've got this under control, so let's try out the new spell I created, or discovered, or whatever, Marc thought.

It only had a five minute duration, just like the curse version, but Marc doubted that the fight would last that long.

He cast Blessing of Strength on Rob just before the first prairie dog reached him and Rob roared as he felt the spell take effect. He even seemed to swell a bit, as though the added strength had forced a bit of growth on him as well. When he slammed his sword forward, it cut halfway through his first target.

That might've been overkill, Marc thought, but a good, successful test at least.

He pulled his pilum out and trotted forward, targeting the burned opponent that had been scorched by both his fireball and the Flame Dart version of the Mana Dart. The creature was slowed from his wounds and it only took a single attack from Marc to drop it.

Three of the prairie dogs had made it to Rob, but the first had dropped almost immediately. Jayden had drawn one off of him and as Rob was preparing to strike the last one, Jeff showed up from behind it, driving his gladius into its back and dropping it.

Rob had only taken one minor wound and Olivia had healed it immediately. Jayden, at a lower level and with worse armor had taken a little more damage, but a heal each from Olivia and Felicia had him back to full health as well.

“Hmm, never thought I'd actually see anything to be scared of about prairie dogs,” Rob said.

“You should,” Felicia said, beginning to cast again. “You're diseased from that one little strike he got in on you. Let me fix it with a Purify spell. That's the one I just got at fifth level, should take care of a disease.”

She finished her cast and Rob glowed for a moment, then Felicia looked over Jayden.

“Looks like you didn't get the disease, so we're good.”

“I always knew they were filthy little bastards,” Jeff said.

Marc looked back at Rob. Not only had the spell healed the disease, but apparently it had also cleaned him up. He'd been spattered with blood and rather rumpled after the fight, but now he looked like he'd just stepped out of his front door, ready to go.

“Wow, that's a nice spell. Did you happen to notice the side effects?” Marc asked.

She nodded.

“It does a few things, but the disease aspect is the most important part of it. At least right at the moment.”

Then she looked over at him and glanced away quickly.

“And if both of us can ever get over our own obstacles, I imagine it would handy for cleaning up afterwards, too,” she said, very softly.

She glanced back towards him as she finished speaking. Marc's eyes widened and Felicia realized that he'd heard her. Evidently she thought she'd been speaking under her breath, but it had been just loud enough for Marc to hear. As he stared at her, she turned beet red and hurried over to Olivia, starting to talk about their class in a loud voice.

* * *

Chapter Eighteen

After the prairie dog attack they made it the rest of the way to the downtown area with no additional problems. Once there, Marc decided that the best way to make a lot of noise was with music. He'd discovered that the quality of his MP3 player and associated gear had improved substantially when they'd been Systemized. He hadn't tried maxing the volume yet, but even halfway up the volume slider made it louder than he'd been able to get it before.

He jury rigged a holder for the external speaker and hung it from his belt, then turned the MP3 player on.

Let's see, music to slay by, he thought, smirking. Need something with a  good beat to get the blood flowing. It should draw out any spawns in the area too. Aha! That'll do nicely.

He had a truly eclectic selection of music, a little bit of almost everything, and a lot of a few styles he liked more. One of his favorites was 80's music of different varieties, so that's what he started with.

The strains of a live version of  'Don't Pay the Ferryman' started drifting from his speaker. The sound of the audience cheering in the background would hopefully convince spawns that there were lots of victims out here, he hoped.

“Make some noise?” he said to the others, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “I'm not sure that the canned stuff will sound enough like live people to draw anything out.”

Jeff shook his head and rolled his eyes at Marc's choice.

“You gotta let me pick one later on,” Jeff said. “I know you've got it on there, I had you put it on there.”

Marc groaned inwardly. He could only think of one song that he'd put on there for Jeff in the past few months and it wasn't one of his favorites. He'd already decided on his next choice though and he set that to playing as Ferryman finished.

'Don't Fear the Reaper' had a bit more bass to it, but still as they walked down the street slowly, they didn't see anyone or anything that they were looking for. He halfheartedly queued up Jeff's choice as they walked. Allan caught his attention and motioned to a side street which they started heading for.

For just a moment Marc thought he saw a curtain twitch and a pale face stare out towards the road where they were. He waved at the curtain and motioned downwards. When the song stopped, he didn't start Jeff's choice immediately, instead he hollered as loud as he could.

“We'll be coming back through here in a few hours. When we do, if you want to move to a Safe Zone, just come down and join us. The high school is a Safe Zone now, so if you want you can try to make it there yourself too, but there's monsters out there, so you can travel with us for safety if you like.”

The curtain twitched again, although he didn't see a face this time. So he shrugged and turned to Allan.

“This is going to lead us to the residential area you were talking about?”

Allan nodded.

“Yeah, it'll probably only take us an extra ten minutes both ways and should get us within earshot of a few hundred houses, well if you're loud anyhow,” Allan said.

“Okay then. Let's go. Don't blame me for this next musical choice, it's Jeff's.”

Marc hit play on the music and the first few seconds were quiet until the singer hit the word 'Floor'. That was bellowed at full volume after the whispered start. Then the song got louder. 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor' rang out over and over. Marc was keeping his eyes opened and he groaned as he saw movement inside a dark building. It was some sort of store with a large, open, ground floor if he remembered correctly.

As the song echoed through the streets, the movement inside the store became more concentrated and a moment later a pack of massive rats came flooding out into the street, heading straight for Marc.

“Hah!” Jeff screamed, barely audible over the music. “You've just got to pick the right music!”

Evidently Jeff had been spending some money at the shop since instead of drawing his gladius, his hands flickered down to his body and came up loaded with throwing daggers. He started whipping them one after the other at the rats. Meanwhile Rob had dropped into a crouch, his shield in front of him.

Jack was firing his bow as quickly as he could, killing most of the rats he hit. Doug and Marc both managed to cast at about the same time. This time Marc just used the generic Mana Dart spell. When his target and Doug's both dropped, he cast again only this time he split his darts, targeting one rat per dart.

A single dart wasn't enough to drop a rat, but those he'd hit suddenly seemed significantly less interested in the headlong charge towards Marc. Jayden and Rob stepped in between Marc and the rats at that point and he had to be more careful about his targeting.

The two tanks did end up in combat, but they both wore heavy leather boots that prevented the rats from biting their feet badly. Although the rats did try to scale their legs, but once Marc had seen that he held off and used his spell on the smarter rats trying that.

The fight was over in just a few minutes, rat corpses nearly the size of Chihuahuas laying scattered about the street.

“Hey, do these guys have loot? Should we go in there and see if they had a nest or something?” Olivia asked.

The healers had it relatively easy in the last fight, only needing to cast a few heals, and stepping into place to plug leaks when the number of rats overwhelmed the front line.

“We could, if we're quick,” Marc said. “So only check in that main room maybe?”

Rob pulled out his sword.

“That's why I got this. It gives off light, it also holds an edge better and requires less maintenance. Magical, but nothing super powerful so it was only a couple of gold. But yeah, let's look. Let's go in to check and we can use my sword for light.”

I'm not sure I want to be the one to tell him that if we get into a fight, his light source also being his primary weapon may not be the best of plans, Marc thought. I can always mangle another Mana Dart spell to make light if we need it though.

They moved into the store, with Rob in the lead holding his sword up. Marc almost stopped after his third step into the store when he heard high pitched squeals and squeaks.

Shit, are those babies? Are we going to have to kill a bunch of baby rats to avoid an infestation? That just doesn't seem right, he thought, then realized that he hadn't thought of the rightness of any of the fights he'd been in so far.

Am I getting my emotions back or something? he wondered. Why would it suppress our emotions for so long, only to allow them back? Can we deal with it better after a while or something?

His notification light started flashing at that point so he pulled it up, curious.

You've discovered a important fact about the System. Certain emotions of individuals on worlds new to the System are suppressed so they may function and have a better chance of survival. This suppression begins to wear off at level 5 since by that point the individual has demonstrated that they are capable of surviving in the System Worlds.

Exp+250

Marc stopped cold and Doug almost ran into him.

“Damn it! I knew it,” Marc said.

“What is it?” Felicia asked.

“You remember when I got experience for figuring out something about the System before?”

“Yeah.”

“It just happened again. I'd been musing for a while about the thought that the System might be suppressing emotions and reactions. Everyone had adjusted far too well to the System's arrival. Well, I just discovered that the System does suppress that stuff and they start to ease up on the suppression at level five,” Marc said.

“Well, that would explain a lot,” Felicia said.

“What is it? Can we keep going?” Jeff said. “I hear baby rats and I'm thinking that one of them would make a great pet. Can you imagine it? If I feed him well, he might even get bigger than the ones we just saw. A rat bigger than a Chihuahua sounds like an awesome pet to me.”

Marc shuddered.

Well, at least we won't have to kill all of them if Jeff manages that, he thought.

The nest was in the backroom of the store. Evidently the store had carried a bunch of snack foods since the wrappers from it all were torn and shredded all over the floor.

The rats must've been using that for food, but ran out? Marc thought.

Inside the nest were a batch of baby rats, only about the size of a chipmunk. Jeff practically jumped into the nest when he saw them. There was one adult rat left and Jeff pulled his gladius and stabbed it as soon as it made a move for him. Then he slowly moved towards the baby rats.

“Anyone else want one?” he asked. “There's four of them here. I can probably handle having two pets, anyone else?”

Jack cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Um, if no-one minds, I'd like to have one or two myself. My class does get some bonuses with animals so I might be able to help others train some also if they want.”

“Anyone else?” Jeff asked.

After a few moments of no answers Jeff continued.

“Well Jack, two for you and two for me?” he said. “We'll see if we can tame these little guys.”

His hand darted down and he grabbed one of the baby rats by the scruff of its neck.

“Anyone got a bag we can tuck them in? I don't want them to get hurt, but we'll need to take them with us. If we leave them, something might eat them.”

“Hey,” Doug said, “I think I saw some canvas bags, you know like the souvenir style ones, out in the front of the shop. I'll go check, but you might want to grab those shiny things in there too, are they coins?”

Jeff tore his eyes away from the baby rats and looked around the nest.

“Oh yeah, I guess there are some coins in here. Go get the bag and I'll pick up the coins after these babies are secured.”

* * *

Marc was still shaking his head when he got out of the store. Jeff had slung the bag over his shoulder, carrying the squirming canvas sack while occasionally muttering soothing words towards it.

What, exactly, is he going to do with those if we end up in another fight? Marc wondered.

He'd given up on selecting songs from his MP3 player. Maybe Jeff was right and his selections wouldn't work. Instead he'd just set it to random play from everything on the device. That meant lots of stuff from the 80's on up. Rock, pop, classical from lots of different time frames, a touch of rap, a touch of country, and more. Basically he had a little bit of everything on his device, well everything except opera. Opera had never done anything for him, so he hadn't bothered to save any opera music.

Right now the speaker was blaring a song whose essence was pretty much exactly the opposite of what they were after, 'Mr. Cellophane' from the musical Chicago. Meanwhile the parties were taking turns hollering out similar messages to what Marc had yelled earlier. They were almost through the residential area now though, but he had at least seen movement in windows and curtains stirring, giving him hope that they'd be able to get a few more people to safety later on.

As they left the residential area they picked the pace back up, moving towards their intended destination. The farm supply store stood on its own lot, with nothing much else around it. The only other buildings in the area were outbuildings for the store itself.

As they approached the store, Marc heard the distinctive sound of a dog barking.

Actually, that's more than one dog. I wonder if some people took shelter in the store there or something? he thought.

When they got to the front door, he held up a hand. The dogs were definitely inside the store and they'd gotten louder as the groups approached.

He peered in through the window, then shuddered. There were pools of blood visible through the window, in the middle of the aisle he could see. The blood was partially congealed and dried, but there were prints running through it in all directions, the blood was tracked out from the pools and left the prints pretty much highlighted. They were, as far as he could tell, dog paw prints.

“Guys?” he said. “I'm not sure, but I think those dogs we hear may have killed someone in there.”

There was a hand visible near the blood, but disconcertingly enough it didn't actually appear to be attached to anything. It was just lying there, white bone sticking through the ragged flesh of the wrist.

As he tore his eyes away from the hand, he realized that some of the paw prints were significantly larger than the others.

“We may have some really big dogs in here,” Marc said. “I can see some prints that are probably as large as my hand.”

“Proceed with caution then?” Rob said. “Let me borrow your shield, Marc. It's a lot better than mine.”

“Let me get you and Jayden spelled up also,” Marc said, handing over his shield.

He'd discovered a surprising feature of the Systemized equipment. The holes that had been drilled through his shield from Mana Darts had slowly filled in. Over the course of about three days, they'd sealed themselves back up. Now he worried a lot less about his pilum potentially breaking.

He gave himself his own Arcane Armor, then cast Phantom Shields on Rob and Jayden.

Your spell, Phantom Shield, has increased in skill level (1->2).

“Alright, hopefully we don't have to fight these guys, hopefully they're just good boys stuck in the building, but...”

Marc shook his head to express his doubts about that end result.

“Okay, tanks to the front, next to the door. Try to bottleneck them in the door since it sounds like there's more than one. Jack, Doug, you guys join me a ways behind them. Felicia, Olivia, off to the sides where you can still see everyone. Jeff? Hell, I don't know. I don't know that you'll be able to backstab these guys and those baby rats are kind of noisy.”

Jeff pulled his throwing daggers out.

“I've got a few ranged attacks. I'll join you guys on the ranged line and throw if I get a chance,” he said.

“Okay then, I guess we're ready. Whenever you're ready Rob.”

Rob had plunged his sword into the ground and pulled out his pilum. Marc approved, slashing attacks would be a problem in the doorway. Jayden only had his spear so far, so he was covered for an effective weapon to strike with as well.

Rob leaned in, looked back at everyone else, then loudly stated.

“On three. One, two, three.”

As he spoke the last number, he tried to pull the door open.

“Ah, shit. It's locked,” Rob said. “Do we bust the window?”

“Nah, looks like I do have a purpose here,” Jeff said.

He'd already switched his throwing daggers for his lock picks. Now he approached the door and knelt. He patted the bag of baby rats, murmuring soothing noises to them before working on the lock. Thirty seconds later he backed away, swapping picks for daggers again.

“All yours,” he said gesturing towards the door.

Rob repeated his earlier performance, but this time the door swang open.

The door swang open. It looked like it was normally an automatic opening one, but had been locked shut and stopped its normal function when the power went out. Now it swang all the way open and stayed in that position. Rob and Jayden were to either side of the door, a small gap between the two of them.

Rob sighed.

“Here doggy, doggy,” he called. “Who's a good boy?”

The barking, which had stopped for a minute, now returned, significantly louder. It grew louder still as whatever was making the sound approached the door. Marc just stared when it appeared.

The creature looked like it might have been a Doberman, at some point. Now it stood as tall as his chest. What looked like the spikes of a collar were around its neck, but he couldn't actually see any sort of collar. The spikes appeared to just grow out of the creature's neck.

It ran towards the door, the light from the sword illuminating more and more of it as it approached. The creature's tongue was hanging out as it barked, but when it got closer, the tongue slid in and it bared its teeth in a snarl. Then it lunged forward, far more quickly than something its size ought to be able to move.

As it lunged, the two tanks thrust their spears. They both hit it, but neither one seemed to penetrate its skin, the spears just glancing off to the sides. The creature continued forward, slamming into Rob's shield.

Rob nearly fell over, but barely managed to maintain his footing. A higher pitched yapping came from the store, rapidly growing louder. A moment later another dog showed up. This one was only about the size of a Doberman would be, but to Marc's eyes it looked like a Rat Terrier.

Marc's suspicions grew as the smaller dog raced forward. It leaped up onto the back of the first monster of a creature, then leaped directly towards Jeff, or at least towards the bag hanging from his shoulder.

“Oh no you don't,” Jeff said, dropping the throwing knives and drawing his gladius.

He spun to put his baby rats away from the approaching dog and thrust towards it. The dog hit the gladius with a yelp, but tried to push past Jeff to get to the rats.

“Doug, you and Jack help the tanks. I'll back Jeff,” Marc said.

He quickly cast his Mana Dart spell, targeting the giant Rat Terrier. It struck and the dog yelped again. Jeff was darting back and forth, trying to keep his rats away from the dog, but it kept after its target.

Marc threw another Mana Dart spell at the Terrier. With his current mana level he could toss another four of the spell still, but he'd prefer to save some of it in case there was something else in the store.

Although, I haven't tried this one yet, maybe it'll help, he thought.

He quickly ran through the Curse of Weakness spell, targeting the Terrier. A moment later the dog slowed down quite a bit and its leaps grew lower. Jeff took the opportunity to stab it once more, then sprinted away.

The dog turned to give chase, but it was too slow now. Marc was guessing that it had only had around a five strength, so while it wasn't totally incapacitated, it was nowhere near its prime anymore. He was holding Rob's shield since he'd given his to Rob, so now he grasped it properly and pulled out his pilum.

The terrier had somehow identified him as the source of the last spell that had hit it, or maybe just realized that'd he hurt it. So it was coming for him now.

If I can pin it, then we can take it using ranged attacks with no danger.

The snarls and shouts of the other fight were distracting, fortunately he'd learned the Blessing of Strength spell so he didn't have to modify the curse on the fly. He cast it targeted on himself and suddenly everything was much lighter.

As the Terrier leapt at him, he thrust with the pilum, driving it into the dog. The spear practically went through the target with his new strength so he leaned into it, taking several steps forward and turning the dog on its side. Then he thrust harder on the pilum, driving it through the dog and into the packed ground underneath.

Marc stepped back, keeping an eye on the pilum. The dog was frothing at the mouth now, barking frantically, but it wasn't going anywhere. The end of the pilum in the air swayed back and forth slightly as the Terrier attempted to escape, but it was firmly pinned to the ground and going nowhere.

Each of the spells he'd used last had cost twenty mana, less than his Mana Dart, but still a noticeable chunk, so now Marc was down to roughly seventy-five mana. He could check, but that would take too long. He was sure he had enough to toss out another Mana Dart and still have some mana in reserve.

He spun back to where the tanks were fighting the altered Doberman. They'd managed to keep it trapped in the doorway, so far, but Rob wasn't looking so good. He repeatedly flashed with light as he was healed, but the Doberman had its teeth set into his leg and kept shaking and grinding.

Marc tossed out another Mana Dart, striking the Doberman with the spell. The dog growled a bit more, but kept its attention on Rob. Marc wasn't sure what to do. His weapon was holding the terrier pinned, but it was still alive. He really didn't want to run himself out of mana.

One more spell, then I have to trust the others to take it down, he thought.

Two more Mana Darts flew from his hand as he finished his spell, striking the Doberman. Finally the dog seemed to be showing some effects from the damage it had taken. There were at least four of Jack's arrows sticking out of it at this point while wounds from the spear and pilum were visible in several places.

A knife flashed past Marc, striking the doberman as Jeff came closer again. Several more knives flew from him also. With a final arrow from Jack, the Doberman collapsed. Rob had to pry the dog's jaws apart with his pilum to release his ankle, then the healing he was being given finally managed to get him back to full.

Marc's notification light was flashing so he pulled it up.

You have gained a level (5->6)

You have two ability points to distribute.

Your Intelligence has increased (13->14)

Your Constitution has increased (9->10)

You have one new skill point to distribute.

“It's dead,” Rob said.

“Good thing too,” Felicia commented, “I only had enough mana for a couple more heals.”

“I'm out already,” Olivia added.

“I'm low too. We need to take care of that Terrier, but then we should rest before we go in here. Who knows what we'll find inside,” Marc said.

“Terrier's already taken care of,” Jeff said. “The doggone thing tried to eat my babies. Pun intended.”

He walked over and kicked the Terrier's corpse as Marc winced and groaned.

“Oh yeah, you probably want your spear back, don't you?” Jeff said.

He pulled it out and tossed it over to Marc, who cleaned it and put it away.

Rob, healed now, was examining the Doberman.

“This thing is like twice normal size, maybe more. These collar spikes? They're actually bone and growing out of its neck and its teeth are huge. I knew that already though,” he said, shuddering as he stared the spot on his ankle that had been the Doberman's chew toy for a good portion of the fight.

“What's going on, anyhow?” Rob asked. “Why all the mutated non-System animals?”

“Maybe that's the uncommons?” Marc guessed. “The commons that showed up were probably the goblins, hobgoblins, and kobolds. Who knows what else we haven't seen yet. But when the uncommons started spawning we saw giant centipedes, giant prairie dogs, giant rats, and these things. Maybe the uncommons pick out some native animals and enhance them?”

“Maybe,” Felicia said. “I bet there's non-native uncommons also, we just haven't run into them yet. Just knowing that tiny little centipedes come in a six foot version has me creeped out though.”

Jeff was backing away a little as the others discussed the giant insects.

“Yeah, you're not the only one,” Rob said, nodding his head towards Jeff.

“Better you guys than us,” Doug added. “I'm not exactly fond of bugs, but six foot versions?”

He just shook his head.

“Well, let's all heal up, regen stamina and mana, then head in for what we came for. Keep an ear out though, in case we hear anything else in there,” Marc said.

“Don't worry, once we go in I'll be dogging your footsteps,” Jeff said, obviously watching Marc for a reaction.

Marc just sighed.

“Really, Jeff?” he said.

* * *

Chapter Nineteen

As Marc rested he considered his two new stat points that he had to distribute. He also had a new skill point that he was torn on. He could use it to increase his repertoire of fighting skills, or he could use it on the Calligraphy skill he'd recently been offered.

As much as I want the Calligraphy skill, I think I'd better pick up another weapon skill. The pilum is too long for some situations, and if I use it to immobilize an opponent again, then I'll be weaponless again. I think there were some decent, inexpensive, common short swords in the shop that I saw, so perhaps Short Swords?

He selected the option, knowing that even if he'd misremembered there were still some short swords that they'd taken off the various spawns they'd killed.

Now for the stats. If I'm worrying about weapons, then my physical stats will count. So, my Strength is falling behind the other physical stats, maybe one point to that? If I go by that as a qualification, then my Willpower would be the other obvious option. It's falling behind the other mind stats and it does control my mana regeneration speed as well as adding a little more to mana. So, Strength and Willpower?

Before he could second guess himself, he applied the two stats. Then he pulled up his stats to see how things were looking.

Stats, he thought.

Marcus Aurelius Cavanaugh

Class: Arcane Bulwark/(hidden class English Major)

Level: 6

Experience: 327/8000

Health: 372

Mana: 384 (+10)

Stamina: 390 (+12)

Endurance: 17 (+7)

Body: 8.3 (Strength:7, Constitution: 10, Agility: 8)

Mind: 10.3  (Intelligence: 14, Willpower: 8, Aptitude: 9)

Social: 5.3 (Charisma: 6, Personality: 5, Allure: 5)

Skills:

Short Spear (melee weapon)(3)

Shield Bash (2)

Research (1)

Analyze (creature) (1)

Mana Manipulation (7)

Meditation (4)

Creative Writing (1)

Scribe (1)

Shield Mastery (1)

Short Swords (1)

Spells:

Mana Dart (4)

Arcane Armor (2)

Phantom Shield (2)

Crenelate (1)

Curse of Weakness (2)

Fireball (1)

Blessing of Strength (1)

He grinned as he looked at his increasing health and mana along with his list of skills and spells.

I guess things are looking up a bit, he thought. Although, they weren't looking down so why am I feeling more encouraged now?

He brushed off the uncertainty of his mood, blaming the System and its interference with his emotions. Maybe he would've felt this way about earlier levels if his emotions hadn't been being suppressed. He'd never know though, so he simply tried to dismiss the thought.

Noting that he was full up on Mana again, he stood.

“Anyone need more time or can we get moving on getting the seeds out of this place?” he asked.

“Hang on, please? Working through some leveling stuff,” Jack said.

There were a couple of other nods from the members of the second group so Marc moved over and sat down next to Felicia.

“You leveled too?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I kind of planned what I'd use my new skill points for though, assuming I didn't get options on any really nice new skills, so it was quick for me.”

“I didn't have mine planned, but it was still pretty quick. Being without a weapon after I pinned that thing in the last fight told me I needed another weapon skill and a secondary weapon,” he said.

“I already have another weapon, just in case, but it seems to do about the same damage as my tire iron. They classified that as a mace for skill purposes so I picked up another one from the shop for cheap and just tucked it into my inventory,” she said.

“I wish I'd thought of it sooner myself, it'll be nice to be able to toss the pilum if a thrown attack is appropriate, but still have a weapon on me.”

“It's not like you aren't dangerous without it. You've got your spells now.”

“Yes, but it's hard to parry with a Mana Dart,” he said, gesticulating as though he were trying to do so.

She snorted at that, then chuckled under her breath.

“Hey, it looks like they might be about ready,” she said, getting to her feet.

Marc followed suit, looking around and seeing that everyone was paying attention again, not lost in their screens.

“Alright, let's get in and out of here. It's liable to be a bit gross, but anyone who doesn't think they can handle it, or just doesn't want to, can stay out here on guard. Except you Allan, you need to show us what we should get,” Marc said.

Doug and Olivia ended up staying outside on guard. Marc had Jack stay as well since his primary weapon was his bow and it wouldn't be that useful in the cluttered store. Plus, that way the guards weren't all casters.

They moved into the darkened store, Rob holding his sword up for light. Marc covered his nose at the loathsome scent that saturated the air inside of the store. Dead, rotting things made up the high notes with different kinds of oil and other chemical scents threaded through it all.

“Over this way,” Allan said. “That's where the bulk seed is.”

Jeff shimmered out of view and Marc wondered if he was going to scout out the rest of the store or if he had something else planned. Disregarding that, he followed Allan over and started loading his inventory. Amusingly enough, he could take the entire covered half-whiskey barrels containing the seeds into his inventory, each one taking its own slot. He felt a little bit of weight increase, but it was drastically reduced from where it should have been. He left a few slots open, just in case, since there were plenty of people to carry the seeds.

Allan filled his inventory second, then Felicia. While she was doing that, Jeff reappeared.

“Hey Rob, chew toy!” Jeff said.

“That's rude, I was tanking for you too,” Rob said.

“No, I meant chew toy.”

Jeff brought up his hand. In it was the severed hand Marc had seen through the window. Marc shied back a little, not really wanting to be anywhere near it. Then Jeff squeezed and the hand made a little squeak.

“As in, this thing is one. Who the hell makes severed hand chew toys?” Jeff asked.

“And who buys them?” Felicia added.

“Yeah, that'd be the store owner,” Allan said. “I think that was his Doberman you guys had to fight, or at least it was once. No clue what that thing was now. That's the type of dog toy he'd get though. He said the dog wasn't a pet, it was a guard, so if it got toys they'd have to be ones that encouraged him to be a better guard dog.”

“Rob, Jeff, you guys load up. Let's get out of here. It really does stink,” Marc said. “Anything else we want here, Allan?”

“Maybe some, if it doesn't decay back at the Safe Zone like you said. There are some farming tools that would make life easier.”

“Grab them quickly, we still have to walk home and try to recruit a bunch of new people for the Safe Zone on the way,” Marc replied.

“I'm on it,” Allan said.

He walked away muttering about different tools and the like and Marc gestured for Jeff to follow him.

“Keep an eye on him? Who knows if there's anything else in here and he's already got the Farmer class, so we kind of need him,” Marc said.

Jeff nodded, then slipped back into Stealth again.

* * *

They were moving back down the road towards the town when Jeff sidled up next to Marc.

“So, yeah. That thing might've been a chew toy, but back in the office there were at least three bodies torn to shreds. I didn't want to mention that to anyone before. Plus, at least one person was shredded on the floor of the store, you saw the blood.”

“Kind of what I figured,” Marc said. “I wasn't too eager to see it though so I just tried to keep us on task.”

“Good idea, don't know how some of them would've dealt with it.”

He chuckled.

“Surprisingly,” Jeff continued, “I think Felicia could've handled it, don't know about Rob. And the others? No clue at all.”

“Well we avoided all that at least, now we just need to get home with all the stuff we found.”

Allan had discovered a lot of other things to bring back with them, from fertilizer to tools and all kinds of stuff in between. The fact that items stopped their decay if you brought them into a Safe Zone meant that there were all sorts of items that were just a little worn down now that they could bring back and use. Nothing fancy, but hand tools? Allan had asked everyone with room to stash some of those in their inventory to bring back.

They were almost back to the residential area they'd alerted earlier in the day when a message flashed across their sight.

System Message:

Rare spawns will now commence. Increase your power levels by destroying spawns or through other means. Good Luck!

Marc dismissed the message quickly.

“Well, the System sure isn't wasting much time is it?” he said. “I wonder just how high the spawn levels will go. Common, uncommon, rare, will there be mythical and legendary or something of the sort as well?”

“You know there will be,” Jeff said, “although they might not be called that. At least we've had a few days with just the more common stuff. We got a Safe Zone set up and we've even managed to save some of the town's inhabitants. Not to jinx things, but somehow I'm expecting to find a rare spawn on the way back to the Safe Zone, that's just how things work, right?”

Marc shook his head. Unfortunately he agreed with a lot of what Jeff had said.

“Well, let's see if we can't save a few more inhabitants before that happens, okay?”

He sped up the pace so they made it back to the residential area in just a few more minutes. Once there, he started yelling, imploring people to come join them at the Safe Zone so they could have at least a modicum of safety along with company.

He was fairly surprised when the first few yells brought out what looked to be a party of adventurers. Their equipment wasn't great, but they had some. It looked like a pair of machetes were the weapons wielded by their front line fighters, used in conjunction with shields like Rob's, and leather coats like the one he'd given Jeff. They had two ranged attackers with short bows also. These two wore leather coats as well, but had no shields. He was most interested in the last two though, neither one wore armor and the weapons they carried were little better than long sticks, suggesting to him that they'd managed to home grow casters of their own.

“Hey there,” Marc called. “Are you interested in changing your base to a Safe Zone?”

“That's what we're here to talk about,” one of the ranged attackers said.

“Well, I'm Marc, I'm the one who created the Safe Zone with the help of my party. Who are you?”

“Ronald, Ron really since the only ones who called me Ronald aren't around any more. So what is this about a Safe Zone?”

“You should check the help on it. Essentially it's a space where spawns don't occur. They can still attack the place though, but being able to sleep without worrying about a kobold spawning on your chest and tearing out your throat is kind of relaxing,” Jeff said.

“Jeff...” Ron said, letting the name hang.

“Hey Ron, how's it hanging? I know you don't trust for shit, so I'll let you know up front that Marc's entirely honest. Little goody two-shoes sometimes, but he's trying to get as many people as possible in the Safe Zone to help them stay alive. Already expanded the place once and is planning on doing that repeatedly.”

He looked over at Marc and when Ron couldn't see his eyes, he winked.

“You were saying you wanted to expand right into the town, right?” Jeff said.

“Yeah, it takes a lot of materials to expand the Safe Zone, but if they're already in place in the area we're expanding into, then those count. So all the buildings that are falling apart would be used for materials and allow us to speed up our expansion. Hopefully we can get a big chunk of the town as part of it and revamp it so the survivors can live there. Build shops for craftsman, have some fields for farmers, have the areas outside the walls for hunting and clearing spawns,” Marc said, launching into a spiel he'd half-planned a while back.

“Yeah, what's the cost?” Ron asked.

Jeff started laughing and Marc turned to him, confusion evident on his face.

“TANSTAAFL,” Jeff said. “There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. That's Ron's motto. Here's the price man, you need to actually contribute somehow, that's it. Whether it's guarding the walls, adventuring outside them to get stronger, or taking up some sort of crafting. That's all. I told Marc we should charge people, but these other guys outvoted me.”

Ron's face brightened a bit.

“Well, we gots a lot of hard workers here. We been protecting them and they been helping feed us, gave us some of their original claims so we could do it better too. You willing to take them all along?”

“How many,” Marc asked, eagerly.

“We know of twenty-three survivors other than our party. We been protecting them here, but if there's a better place for them to be protected and you ain't gonna try to rob us just for going there, well, we'll tell them we think that's the best plan,” Ron said.

“That sounds great,” Marc said. “One quick question though, and it's only barely related.”

He nodded towards Ron's back line.

“Casters?”

Ron grinned.

“Yeah, looks like you got 'em too though, you be one of them even.”

“That I am, I'm just wondering how they managed to get their classes, maybe offer to trade some spells with them if they're interested.”

At that, the more scrawny of the two back liners stepped up. He looked to be in his late teens, maybe even still high school age.

“Hell yeah, Ron. I told you I needed more spells. I vote for it.”

The other back liner slapped the back of his head. She looked a few years older than him, but there were some similarities that told Marc they were family.

“Shut up, Reggie. Let the man negotiate,” she said.

Ron groaned and rolled his eyes.

“I see you've got the same problem I do,” Marc said, side-eyeing Jeff.

He'd noticed Ron's original reaction to Jeff and was trying to play on it. Ron looked over at Jeff for a moment.

“You know, you might be right there. Goodwill gesture then. The chick? She used to be an EMT. When she went to treat someone that got bit by one of these critters out here, she got offered a healing type of class. Her brother, Reggie? Well, he's always been a nerd. He claims that's why he got it, something about math.”

“Ah, another math Mage,” Marc said. “We'll have to have a chat. If you can learn it, I've got a damned interesting skill that will help you with all types of magic.”

Reggie started straining against his sister's grasp, trying to run towards Marc.

“Can we, Ron? God, something to eat that we don't have to worry about monsters smelling? Sleep in a decent bed? It sounds like heaven,” the Healer said.

Ron smiled at her and Marc noted that she had far more sway on the leader than he'd expected.

Doesn't look like magic, girlfriend maybe? Or even just a crush? He's reacting the way I do to Felicia.

“Alright, we can try this,” he said to her.

Then he turned back to Marc.

“You screw us, I'll make you pay. Okay boys, go get the people.”

The two tanks and the other bowman turned and trotted off, knocking at the doors to houses and calling out to people.

“We had 'em pack up what they wanted to take, just in case we agreed to go with you. It's not like they got much any more,” Ron said.

People were starting to trickle out into the street, slowly forming a crowd around Ron.

“Alright, we're going to go with these people. It sounds legit, even if Jeff's involved.”

A few of the crowd waved to Jeff while a few of the other crowd members scowled at him.

Yup, sure looks like they know him, or at least some of them do, Marc thought.

“Start forming up, make sure the old folks and the kids have someone able-bodied nearby to help them,” Ron called out.

About then there was a roar from somewhere deeper into the residential area. Several people came fleeing up towards Ron.

“Shit!” Ron said. “That's new. Everything we've seen so far been small, big rats and scaly little guys. This ain't, sounds huge.”

Marc looked around, he wanted to get the non-combatants out of the area, but didn't want to sacrifice any of his group to do that. They might be needed in the upcoming fight.

“Allan!” he yelled. “Lead these people towards the Safe Zone, same route we took earlier on. Go about a block and if it looks like we're losing, get them moving to get back there.”

Allan startled, taken off guard by Marc's command. Then he straightened up and his pitchfork appeared in his hand.

“Alright people, on me. You heard Ron, help each other out if you need it. We're going to that intersection right there,” he yelled.

He pointed with his pitchfork.

“Then we're going to wait and let these folks take care of whatever that problem is. After they kill it, they're going to lead us back to a Safe Zone where we won't have to worry about this stuff popping up out of nowhere.”

Allan didn't even look to see if anyone was listening or following. He set off towards the intersection he'd indicated, apparently confident that the others would follow. And they did.

There were still other non-combatants streaming out from between the houses and down the roads. As each one appeared, Ron yelled and pointed towards the crowd. Then he stopped cold, staring between two of the houses. Marc quickly looked and caught sight of the monster that was making the roaring noise.

It was green, with boils and warts. It was humanoid in shape, but almost twelve feet tall. All of its limbs were long and thin to the point of looking almost stretched and emaciated. And the teeth in its jaws were huge.

Not teeth, fangs, Marc thought. What is this thing? Some sort of ogre or troll or something? I'd guess an ogre would be thicker, so I'm going to guess troll.

Then he realized that he didn't need to guess and stared, triggering his Analyze (creature) skill.

Urban Troll - Hostile

Level – 9

Commonality – Rare

“Shit!” Marc yelled. “I blame you, Jeff! It's that rare spawn you were sure we'd find, an Urban Troll.”

“Fire and acid?” Reggie called out.

“In the games, kid. Who knows about in real life,” Jeff replied, also at volume.

“Worth a shot,” Marc yelled. “Jayden, Rob, we need a front line, then I'll start tossing some fire at it.”

The two tanks formed up a few feet in front of Marc. Even before Marc got his first spell off, the other two tanks that had been trying to rouse people to leave for the Safe Zone had joined in, extending the front line.

Ron had his bow out and an arrow nocked. He was waiting for the tanks to get set and once they did, he drew and fired. The arrow struck the troll and it roared its pain. Jack and the other bowman started firing as well.

Meanwhile Doug was the first of the mages to get a spell off, his pair of Mana Darts flew out, striking the troll and aggravating it even more.

“Awesome!” Reggie squeed. “Is that a magic missile?”

“Mana Dart, but almost the same thing, kid,” Doug said.

Now Marc let his spell off. It had taken slightly longer since he'd first cast Phantom Shield on Rob and now he was substituting his fire symbol for the damage type in his Mana Dart spell. His own two darts flew out. Instead of raw mana his were made of flame. Text slipped across the bottom of his vision for a moment and he grinned.

Your spell, Mana Dart, has increased in skill level (4->5).

The troll roared in pain and anger as the flaming darts struck it in the chest.

That should give me another dart if I'm right, he thought, and we're going to need the damage here.

Reggie squeed again.

“Flame arrow! You guys have got to trade spells with me.”

Figuring that the quickest way to get the young mage into the action was with spell talk, Marc responded.

“Well then, let's see what you've got to trade. Show us,” he said, gesturing towards the troll.

Reggie went into action, his hand gesticulating, something most of Marc's spells didn't require, then he punched towards the troll and held his fist out.

Water condensed out of the air around his fist, then it jetted out towards the troll, fast enough that it could strip paint. As Reggie gestured diagonally and down, the water jet raced across the troll's torso, opening an inch deep slash along its path.

Damn, that's a decent spell, Marc thought. I'm sure as hell willing to trade with him, even if that's the only thing he's got.

Now the troll had closed in on the fighters. It was attacking with its hands and feet, the claws on the hands sending out slashes and the feet kicking out to knock the tanks off their own feet.

“Rob, Crenelation coming up!” Marc screamed.

Then he cast his newest class spell for the first time. The stone block that rose was waist high on Rob, and arrived just in time. The troll kicked towards Rob, not having seen the spell take effect, and slammed its foot into the stone. The stone didn't move, the troll screamed, then it started hopping around on one foot for a moment.

“Rob, strength,” Marc called.

Then he began the Blessing of Strength spell, targeted on the tank.

Meanwhile Doug had put out another two Mana Dart spells and Reggie had used his water jet spell a second time. The archers were firing over and over, but their arrows were slowly driven out of the troll's flesh by its healing.

Marc peered at the troll when he finished casting. Most of the wounds it had taken were healing or had healed, although the two charred holes from his Mana Darts hadn't healed in the slightest. He was hit with an inspiration.

“Give me as many wounds on his torso as you can in the next ten seconds,” Marc yelled. “I can maybe stop the regeneration.”

The archers sped up, shooting arrow after arrow at the troll's chest. Doug managed another Mana Dart in the time frame, and Rob jumped up onto the crenelation and drove his pilum straight into the troll's shoulder. Then he jumped up and supported his weight on the pilum, tearing it back out as the troll swatted at him, sending Rob flying with his pilum in his grip where it had torn out of the troll.

Before Rob hit the ground, Marc saw him glow with a golden light and he hoped that it wasn't too late. The healers were on the job though and he couldn't worry about that. He started casting his Fireball, modifying it on the fly. It would do a little less damage, but it would still be fire damage. At the same time it should be large enough to engulf the troll's chest when it arrived.

Just before he finished his cast he saw Jeff appear behind the troll, driving his gladius up under the creature's loincloth. The troll had already been back on both feet after its hopping episode and now it let out a high-pitched squeal and turned, kicking.

Jeff caught the foot on his side. Instead of flying away like Rob had, Jeff simply spun several times before running into the wall of a house. Once again he began to glow with a golden light, but now Marc couldn't pay attention as released his Fireball spell.

It almost appeared to move in slow motion as it raced towards the troll, that's how intently Marc was focusing on it. He really hoped he was right and the flames would stop the healing factor. He'd ended up targeting it lower than he'd originally intended, trying to cover the wound Jeff had left since that had to be incredibly debilitating for the monster.

The fireball spread out as it flew. He'd gotten the dimensions right and it wrapped around the creature's lower torso, some of the flames looking like they'd made it around the loincloth as well.

Then time sped up for him again. The troll roared in agony. It wasn't dead yet, but it was certainly suffering. Rob stood up and raced back towards his place in the line. Jeff didn't bother to stand up, but he pulled out his throwing knives and started hurling them at the troll.

“One more like that and I think we've got him,” Marc yelled.

He heard the groans, audible over the sound of combat even, but the archers renewed their rapid firing and the tanks circled in on the troll, striking it over and over. Doug sent another pair of Mana Darts flying out and Reggie managed his Water Jet spell once more.

This time, Marc changed the mana variable to the fireball spell. He left the changes he'd made before, but tried to pump it back up to full damage with more mana. When he thought the troll had enough wounds, he yelled for the tanks to back off and began his cast.

When the fireball roared out, he realized he'd missed something in the equation. The fireball was noticeably larger than he'd intended.

“Get back! Big fire!” he yelled, watching as the tanks tried to scramble back farther.

This time there was no slow motion for him, it was like watching a train wreck about to occur. Three of the tanks had flung themselves backwards, leaping as far as they could. Rob had simply ducked and covered behind the crenelation and Marc hoped that would be enough.

The fireball hit and exploded with a roaring noise. Not only did it wrap around the troll, but it also extended several feet out from it, bathing the troll in flames. Its actual body caught fire so when the fireball dissipated there still flames dancing over the troll as it tilted and began to fall.

Your skill, Mana Manipulation, has increased in skill level (7->8)

Your spell, Fireball, has increased in skill level (1->2).

A cheer started to go up, strangling itself back into silence as the troll caught its balance and stood. It looked around, fury visible on its face, and caught sight of Rob as the tank stood up again. With a roar the troll swung for him. Rob managed to interpose his shield at the last moment, but it was rent by the troll's claws which continued into Rob's arm.

“Damn it, what's it take to kill this thing?” Marc exclaimed.

Then he cast another Mana Dart of the flaming variety, the three darts racing forward and striking the troll in its face just as Rob drove his pilum into the creature again.

This time when the troll started to fall, it kept falling, collapsing to the ground as a charred mess.

* * *

Chapter Twenty

There was silence for about ten seconds as everyone stared at the troll, waiting for it to move again. When it didn't, the cheers went up again. Meanwhile, Marc trotted over to Jeff, who was pulling himself to his feet.

“Hey Jeff, take its head? I'm not a hundred percent sure it's actually dead, but if we decapitate it...”

Jeff pulled his gladius out and ran over to the troll.

“Happy to oblige. I owe this fucker. He tried to use me like a top.”

Several seconds of hacking at the neck of the troll left the head separated. Jeff turned, then kicked the head like a soccer ball, sending it flying back among the houses.

The cheers had stopped as Jeff worked, then there was a whistle of admiration from Ron.

“You guys don't screw around, do you?” he asked.

Marc shook his head.

“No clue if that thing would've stood up again. I figure burning it down and taking the head should do the job though.”

He bent over and looted the troll. Not even looking at what he got from it, he simply registered that the loot function had worked which confirmed that it was dead.

“Alright, everyone who participated in combat, come loot this thing. Then we need to get moving,” Marc yelled.

Jeff walked over and kicked the headless corpse, then started laughing.

“Hey, that worked! You can loot things by kicking them while you think it.”

Marc grimaced as half the remaining people that still had to loot did it by kicking the corpse.

Harmless, really, he thought, but why does it bother me like that? Nothing's really bothered me much for days.

Once they were all done, the combined groups headed towards the people they were going to shepherd to the Safe Zone. Marc waited just long enough to watch the troll's body decay away then trotted over to join them.

“Okay, we have a set path to take. I think I saw some signs of life downtown earlier, as in people, not spawns, so we want to go that way in case they want to come along as well,” he said.

Allan nodded.

“This way people,” he said, pointing.

Marc quickly asked Ron if he'd be willing for his people to take rearguard while his group and Jayden's would take the lead. Ron nodded and he and his people dropped back. There was a lot of damaged equipment from the fight with the troll, but nothing destroyed to the point of uselessness.

Hopefully it will all regenerate in the Safe Zone, like my shield did after it was holed by the Mana Darts, he thought. I suppose that assumes it's all stuff that's been Systemized though.

When he reached the spot he'd seen the curtains twitching earlier on, he called a halt. He put his fingers to his mouth and let out a piercing whistle.

“We're headed back for the Safe Zone now. If anyone wants to come along, now would be the time!” he yelled.

He waited, willing to give it up to two minutes, but in under one, a door swung open. A small group of people came out of the door, led by someone who was wearing what looked like a martial arts practice armor and carrying a bokken. The wooden martial arts sword had a matching wooden scabbard hanging from the person's belt, which he was happy to notice, was brown.

So, a martial arts student? Marc thought. Pretty advanced at brown belt and he... no wait, she... has a bokken. I bet that's why that group survived. I wonder if any of the others picked up a class? Huh, I didn't think they normally wore a belt outside their armor, I wonder why?

“Hey, is that bōgu?” Felicia called out.

She got a nod from the person leading the others out through the door, although they didn't turn to look at the speaker, instead they were watching all the nearby building exits.

“Um, what is bōgu?” Marc asked.

“That's the armor she's wearing,” Felicia said. “It's training armor for Kendo. That's probably where the bokken is from too.”

“So, she might actually have a class and know what she's doing?” Jeff asked, interjecting himself into their conversation.

“Hopefully,” Marc said. “The more classed people we can get, the better.”

Meanwhile the small group was making their way over to Marc. He assumed that was since he'd been the one calling out.

“Hello?” the armored individual said, tentatively.

“Hi there. Looks like you managed to keep some people alive through all this?” Marc asked.

He couldn't see her face, but her body sagged as though either in relief or sadness.

“Not enough of them,” she said. “We lost three.”

He looked at the four people with her. There were two younger boys, probably in their low teens, an older girl who probably would've been a junior or senior in high school, and the older woman who was probably in her forties. All the faces he could see held a family resemblance and Marc was guessing that the armored woman probably would have one as well, if he could see her face.

He had no idea of her age or anything else though, the armor not doing anything more than providing a vaguely feminine outline to allow him to determine her gender.

“Well, that's a lot better than some places have done,” Marc said, trying to comfort her.

She straightened and sheathed her bokken. Evidently his words had done enough to convince her that he and his group weren't going to be trouble.

Although shouldn't the sheer numbers have told her that anyway? he thought.

“We're headed back to the Safe Zone we created. You're welcome to join us, all of you,” Felicia said.

“Felicia?” the armored woman said.

Felicia just looked confused until the woman took off her helmet.

“Natalie? Is that you?” Felicia said.

Natalie nodded her head.

“I wish I'd known you were responsible for the Safe Zone, we would've responded to those signs we saw. If we had, my dad would probably still be alive.”

“I'm not, Marc is mainly, but it was a group effort,” Felicia said. “I didn't realize that people wouldn't trust the signs. I mean, it's insane out here, but the mention of the Safe Zone in the initial message said they were safer, so I thought people would swarm to them.”

“Yeah, well, that same message also told us that we couldn't trust other people. So we didn't and we paid for that lack of trust,” Natalie said, sadness tinging her voice.

“Well, let's get all these people back, Marc. We need to be moving,” Felicia said.

Marc whistled again and caught a hint of movement across the road in an alley. It looked low to the ground and a quick glimpse showed him four legs and gray fur. Not that that meant it was safe, but he only saw one creature and thought that it wouldn't be a problem at all even if it attacked.

“Let's move it out. The sooner we get moving the quicker we get you all back to the Safe Zone,” he called out.

* * *

The rest of the trip back went quickly and easily with nothing else to slow them down. When they passed Conner and the recycling crew, he got a quick wave. They were a short ways down a side street, working on another house, but the road leading there and back to the Safe Zone were all clear of cars now, so Marc was sure they'd spent a fair bit of time working on metal recycling earlier on.

Once again, they reached the gates and Marc cycled each person through, listing them as a resident so the gargoyle wouldn't take offense to their presence. He'd done some checking and if a resident took hostile action against another resident in the Safe Zone then they'd lose their resident classification, unless they were defending themselves against someone else's attack.

That should make Conner's job easier. Anything involving physical damage will leave it obviously apparent who's at fault, he thought.

Once he'd cycled everyone in, he took the time to pull up his notifications. The light had been flashing for a bit, but he found it easy to ignore now if he wanted to. He hadn't leveled, but he did freeze when he saw the loot he'd picked up off the troll.

Actual gold pieces? he thought. Troll blood? Troll skin? And...

He just stared at the message that accompanied the loot listing.

For the first kill on a rare spawn worldwide, you've been awarded an additional drop:

Monster Core

It looked much larger in his inventory than the first one they'd found had, so he looked around to make sure no-one was watching and then pulled it out. Sure enough, this one was the size of a small plum while the previous one he'd found on the Hobgoblin was about the size of a normal marble.

He stared at it and its stats popped up.

Monster Core

Item grade: rare

Item quality: Excellent

If Marc remembered right, the item qualities went: junk, poor, common, uncommon, good, excellent, masterful, legendary. He'd seen the list somewhere in his help files and tried to memorize it, but he wasn't sure he'd remembered it all. Even so, the quality level of this core was significantly better than the last one.

That one is common and poor quality and will still provide power for the original Safe Zone and three expansions, along with the gargoyle. What could this one do? Marc wondered.

He quickly put it back into his inventory and went to find Felicia. When he did find her, she was apparently in a serious talk with Natalie. Natalie had shed her armor and was wearing a martial arts Gi now. Noticing that Felicia seemed to be comforting the other woman, Marc veered away.

Alright, I could tell Rob instead, but he's not much for planning, which is what I want to do right now. I want to try to figure out what we can do with this core and plan for it. I could talk to Jeff, he'd understand the importance, but he'd urge me to sell it and split the proceeds.

Marc glanced at his inventory to look at the core again, and noticed something else as well. He had yet another System token. When he checked this one it was listed as a rare.

He went back to his logs and pulled up the kill message for the troll. Sure enough, right at the end there was a message about additional rewards for the first rare spawn kill on the world.

So, I got the core and we all got rare System tokens? I'll have to ask the others about that, see if they got the tokens also, he thought.

On that note, he did head out to find Rob. When he did, the tank was talking to a few of the people they'd just brought in, not the ones who had already gained classes, but some of the others. From what Marc could make out, they'd wanted to ask about getting classes and Rob had been the first classed person they found that wasn't one of the adventuring party that had been protecting them.

“Because they said we didn't want to do it, and they didn't want to talk about it at all,” one of Rob's crowd said as Marc approached.

“Are you asking Rob about getting classes?” Marc asked.

He got a bunch of nods.

“We've got that covered for you. Tomorrow, I'll have Al give you an introduction to what we know about the System. That includes how to get yourself a class,” Marc said. “Okay? I need to talk with Rob for a minute first though, if you don't mind.”

Marc got a bunch more nods then, plus a couple of audible acknowledgments, not to mention several angry glares. Ignoring those, he drew Rob aside.

“Rob, do me a favor?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

“Just check your inventory for me. Did you get another System token? A rare one this time? I think it dropped from the troll, but I don't know if we all got one or not.”

Rob got a vacant look on his face for a moment, then smiled and nodded.

“Sure did. Hey, what are those good for? I know you and Felicia used some to get the guns to work with the System, and those were lesser ones, weren't they?”

Marc nodded.

“Yeah. I don't know what these ones are good for. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't the only one that had received one before I mentioned it to anyone else.”

“Oh, yeah. I see what you mean. That might've caused some problems if they hadn't gotten one, wouldn't it?”

Marc nodded.

“I still don't know if everyone got them, but with both you and me getting them, I'm leaning towards everyone in the fight getting one.”

“Why don't you track down Reggie and ask him. To hear him babble on, you're like some sort of archmage or something. I bet he'd be happy to talk with you.”

“You know, I just might. Do you know where he is?”

“Yeah, Ron said he and his crew were going to take rooms in the barracks. Reggie and his sister were going to share one of those barracks rooms with Ron himself. So I think they're out there. But they were going to come look for food soon, they said, so maybe just intercept him in the cafeteria?”

Marc had set some of the barracks rooms up more as suites in case there were families that had to stay out there.

“Good plan, Rob. Sorry to have broken up your impromptu question and answer session there.”

“Don't apologize. I just kinda got roped into talking to a couple of them and then more and more showed up,” he said. “I'm glad to get away since I'm kind of hungry myself.”

When they got to the cafeteria it was easy to find Reggie. Marc heard him as soon as he stepped in, talking and talking, going through the fight with the troll and pointing out all the different things people had done. He was sitting with Ron and his sister and the two of them were rolling their eyes, Marc could see it from here even.

I'm sure I'm going to regret this, but...

Marc walked over.

“Hey, Reggie. Can I steal a few minutes of your time?” Marc asked.

Ron looked over at him, gratitude evident in his face.

“Ellie and I don't mind if you want to go talk to him,” Ron said. “I know you were talkin' about maybe trying to learn some of his spells.”

“I can?” Reggie said. “Sure, where do you want to go, Marc?”

“For the moment, just another table. I need to eat too. Once I've eaten we'll head somewhere quiet to talk for a bit. You already got a room, right? So you know where to go back to later on?”

Reggie nodded.

“Yeah, I got one. I got a bedroom to myself and Ron and Ellie are taking the other bedroom in there.”

His older sister, Marc surmised that was Ellie, winced at Reggie's words and looked relieved as her little brother followed Marc as he went to get food.

“So, Rob was saying you're good at math too. Do you think that's why we got our Mage classes?” Reggie asked.

“Well, I'm only partly a Mage. I got a weird class called Arcane Bulwark. It's like a Warrior-Mage, where the spells it provides focus on defense. I can learn other spells though, I just don't get them from the class.”

“Then where'd you get the flame arrow and fireball spells? Those sure aren't defensive,” Reggie said.

Marc took his food to a table well away from Ron and Ellie to give them a bit of a break from Reggie, then sat down and started to eat. Between bites he continued to talk.

“Well first, flame arrow isn't that. It's just like Doug's Mana Dart, except it's aspected to flame. That's all part of that other skill I was talking about. The Mana Dart spell came from a scroll I got when my party cleared the school. The fireball spell came from clearing the middle school and rescuing some people there. The kobold casters had the Fireball spell and a curse and we found scrolls for both.”

“Yeah, that's right. You said I might be able to learn about that other skill you used?” Reggie asked, apparently unable to stay on a single topic.

“I made a bit of a discovery. Magic with the System is math based. It's just another division of math to learn, but most spells that you find are kind of plug and play. If you know the right symbols, you can alter the spells. The skill is called Mana Manipulation and lets me discover new spells, or alter existing ones in some ways. Ron said you were good at math, so tell me honestly, how good is good?”

Reggie bit his lip, lost in thought. When he replied he seemed focused as though trying not to jump around on the topic any more.

“I know calculus. It's the most recent math I learned and I did it just because someone told me I was too young to do it. So, obviously, I know everything necessary to get to that point. I'm a math geek, pretty much that and computers was all I did and I don't know that there'll be much computer stuff going on any time soon.”

“Actually, that might not be true. There are pads that do some of the same things computers do, they're available in the shop. I don't know if they have any that are like regular computers, but I know that they can duplicate a lot of the functions tablets had,” Marc said. “But, that's not what what we were talking about.”

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, thinking.

“You might be able to learn it, Mana Manipulation that is. I'll try to teach it to you, but it's going to have to wait a while. There are lots of things that need to get done around here and it seems like I'm always doing something. It's more important to me to try to rescue any other survivors from the area than it is to spend the time to teach you that right now, okay?”

“Alright, how about spells then?” Reggie asked.

“Now that takes a lot less time, at least it did with Doug. We'll get to some spell trading in the next few days. I saw your Water Jet spell, did you have others also?”

“Yeah, I got a minor curse spell too, plus a melee range offensive spell. Kinda like burning hands from the old games?” he said.

Marc nodded his understanding.

“What's the curse?”

“Um, It's called Dehydrate and gives a penalty to the target's Agility for the duration. I haven't used that much since I got the Water Jet though. Direct damage just seemed to be better for the situations we were in.”

Marc nodded.

“I get that. I'm sure the curse will have its place, but I learned a Curse of Weakness and used my Mana Manipulation to convert it to the Blessing of Strength I used on Rob when we were fighting the troll. I just had to, essentially, reverse the sign on the symbol that represented the Strength change in the spell.”

“Oh, that's cool. Life Hacks for Magic and all that,” Reggie said.

Marc wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing or if he'd just been insulted.

“Anyhow, come with me for a bit. I'll explain some of the basics of Mana Manipulation and if you understand them, then I can teach you the rest of it later on. Better to know now if you're going to be able to learn it or not. First off though, check your inventory. Did you get a System token for the troll fight?”

* * *

Marc determined that, with some extra tutoring in math, Reggie would probably be able to learn Mana Manipulation. He also found that Reggie had gotten a token as well. Once he'd left the boy to head back to his room he began to wonder if teaching Mana Manipulation to him was advisable though. The boy was all over the place, unable to stick to a topic for more than a few minutes before bursting out with a statement or question about something totally unrelated.

That's a decision for another time. It'll take a lot of time tutoring him before he can learn the skill, if I'm guessing right, and that's time I don't have to spend on that for now. So I can put that decision off for another time. I don't remember though, was I that bad when I was only fourteen? Marc thought.

He had several other tasks for the evening, although the next two were the ones he was most concerned about completing. He had to check the sales on the help pads and replenish them if needed, then he wanted to check the material levels for the next expansion of the Safe Zone.

Stopping by the shop, he grinned. Now there was a kiosk style building instead of just the pedestal. There were three windows along its front, each with its own attached pad for browsing the shop. One was in use when he got there, so he simply stepped up to another. He'd checked his notifications on the way here and the pads had sold out again, so he ordered a new batch and then withdrew the coins for the others' shares of the profits.

He slumped against the wall as he started to download the data to the new pads, the master pad resided in his inventory except for when he was doing this, but he'd discovered that he could do the download simultaneously to all the pads he was preparing so the whole process only took about five minutes. Then he stepped back to the window and listed the pads for sale.

There were other things he wanted to look for in the shop, primarily a decent quality short sword that wasn't too expensive, but first he needed to check on the expansion possibilities.

He walked over to the building pedestal. As always the wire-frame drawing showing the Safe Zone as it currently was shone above the top, and there were some people who were just looking at it, as though they had nothing else to do.

I have to figure out a way to get everyone with tasks. I mean, they'll still get down time, but these people just look downright bored, he thought. Ooh, I wonder if I could write up the different tasks that need to be done, using my Creative Writing skill for them, then post them on the board. That would give me practice with it, and everyone else tasks to do with an added chance of success.

Dismissing the idea for the moment, he opened up the build screen.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 1783/2000

Stone: 1884/2000

Metal: 659/1100

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.(1/3)

Well, it looks like we're well off the next totals still. Probably wood and stone could finish out tomorrow, but I don't know about the metal, he thought. Maybe I'll ask them to focus more on the metal tomorrow? Get at least one or two houses, then everything else as cars or other heavy metal items?

Knowing that he was probably at least two days away from the next expansion still made him a bit happy. If he could expand three days after the last expansion, and the last expansion had taken most of the surplus materials, then he might be able to extrapolate the amount of time it would take him to make his goals of getting the Safe Zone to start including parts of the town itself.

Except, I won't do that because I don't know if there's a specific pattern for the upgrade costs and how much they go up. Also, if I want to build non-standard stuff to add in, then I'll need other materials for that too. Speaking of which, I have to ask Felicia if she wants to work on her Alchemy skill. She said she got it way back at the start and now we've got what I bet are ingredients for either healing or health regeneration potions. So, ask her if she's interested and build her an Alchemy lab if she is?

He let his thoughts wander, trying to pick out the other things he ought to make buildings for. If he wanted to support some of his residents as crafters then he should make it as easy for them as he could. The list he made started with Felicia's lab, then he thought a smithy would be needed.

Assuming we've got someone that wants to be a smith, he thought. As a matter of fact, I think I'll ask people what they'd like to do and if it would benefit the Safe Zone then I'll create the buildings for them if I can get the materials. Then I can write out orders for them to man the buildings appropriately and maybe help them achieve better levels of success?

That idea went into the notes file Felicia had showed him before, along with a few of the other things that he'd been thinking about. Then he remembered that he'd wanted to talk to Felicia tonight, hopefully clear some things up between them. He thought they were both interested, but he still wasn't a hundred percent positive so he wanted to tread lightly.

When he got to the hallway outside of her room though, he heard her talking with another woman, one whose voice currently sounded on the edge of a crying jag, so he changed his mind about knocking and simply went into his own room.

Setting up his MP3 player on random gave him an appropriately eclectic set of music and he settled in to reading more of the new mathematics text he'd bought a couple of days prior.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-One

When Marc woke the next morning he was feeling more rested than he had in days.

More rested than since before the System change, I think. If nothing else, having the Safe Zone is good for not worrying about sleeping, he thought.

He went down to the cafeteria after a quick shower and realized that although it felt like he'd slept in, it was still somewhere in the middle of the time that they served breakfast.

Standing in line to get food, he noticed first that the pretty young girl that had been serving at the counter now had company. Two dark-haired girls that were within a few years of her age were assisting now. As he got closer to the counter he found that the cooks now had some more help as well. He recognized one of the other men in the kitchen as one of the ones they'd rescued. Looking closer he realized that the two other women at the counter were part of that group as well.

I guess Ron wasn't kidding when he said they were all hard workers. Some of them jumping right in to help with the kitchen work almost immediately after they got here tells me he was right.

There was a wider range of things available to eat now as well. In addition to the breakfast items that the original cook, Marc couldn't remember his name, had been offering there were now also a wider range of breakfast burritos, with varying degrees of spicy available.

Claiming a pair of moderately spicy burritos Marc went and found a table. Rob and Felicia were both at tables surrounded by some of the new people, speaking with them as they ate, and Marc soon found himself with a group around him as well.

They were asking about things that needed doing, talking about not wanting to take charity, and telling him the skills they had that they thought might help contribute to the Safe Zone.

“Wait, wait,” Marc said. “I'm never going to remember all of this, but I've got an idea. You guys haven't had Al's class yet, have you? He's going to teach you about the System and how to work with it, things like that.”

A series of negative answers greeted him.

“Then here's what we'll do. I'll make sure Al has a stack of paper and writing utensils. For those of you with skills you're offering, I'll have you put your name and the skills down on a list. Then we'll see about getting you set up to work with those skills, okay?”

He got a bunch of relieved nods out of that.

What, do they think I'm going to kick them out if they don't start helping out immediately? Marc wondered.

“As for those of you who were suggesting things we need here, come talk to me after that class. I think it'll give you a better idea of what's possible. As far as I can tell, anything within reason is possible. We will need materials for anything we want to build though, so I'm going to see about increasing our ability to gather those before I act on any more suggestions.”

That left almost all of the remaining people nodding and gave Marc a chance to finish eating his breakfast.

“Now, Al's talking to you all later on today, right?”

“Yes, sir, we're supposed to have that class before lunch,” one of them answered.

“Okay then. I'm going to go make sure he's got the stuff he needs for you to make the list of your skills,” Marc said.

He beat a hasty retreat then, depositing his dirty dishes in the area set aside for them. That area was being manned by one of the newer young women that had been near the counter earlier. Then he went to where Felicia was sitting.

“Hey, Felicia, can I talk with you a moment?” Marc asked.

“Sure, what's up?”

“I had a bunch of people volunteering their skills and wanting to work as soon as I sat down to eat.”

She gestured around her.

“Yeah, same here.”

“Well, they haven't had Al's class yet. Can I get a notebook or something from you? Along with some pens or pencils? I'll get those to Al and they can pass it around while he teaches, writing down their name and the skills they think will help. I'm never going to remember all of them and I'd hate to forget stuff like that.”

Felicia looked at him and grinned.

“You know, I was just trying to jot it down in my notes interface. I like your idea better though, then we'll have a master list to work from. Go tell Rob, will you, I think he's been trying to do the same.”

“Not Jeff?”

“Haven't seen him this morning,” Felicia said.

She pulled out a stack of paper and writing utensils from her inventory.

“Sorry, no notebooks, just loose paper. It should still work though,” she said.

Marc collected the items she provided, then went over to Rob to tell him the same. Once he'd done that, he headed out to track down Al. Finding him and Lisa talking in the auditorium where they'd be holding the class, he went up and told them about his idea, handing over the paper and writing utensils.

“You might want to do the same with the people who were already here too,” Al said. “Some of them are pitching in and helping, but I know some are just slacking and taking advantage of the free ride.”

Marc knew of at least one person that fit the category Al had just described.

Because complaining and claiming that the complaints are meant to help improve things doesn't count as helping. Especially when she just complains about something but doesn't offer any ideas on how to improve it, he thought.

He took back two of the sheets of paper and a pencil. Then he returned to the cafeteria. They were just closing up on serving breakfast.

“Hey, Alice was it?”

She nodded, smiling prettily and making eye contact.

“I don't really want to give you more work, but I've got a problem. I need to find out what skills everyone has to offer to help the place stay running. Now, I figure everyone has to show up here to get their food, so do you mind if I post a sign and a sign up sheet for people to give their name and what skills they have to offer or are willing to learn?”

“Just put it up on the wall?” she asked.

He nodded.

“That was the plan. It might slow down your lines a bit though,” he said.

She smiled again, still holding the eye contact. It was starting to make Marc slightly uncomfortable, so he shifted his gaze.

“That won't be a problem. I got some help now too, so we'll be able to move at least as fast as we used to even if people slow things a little with the sign.”

“Thanks, I just wanted to warn you so if the line snarls a little you'll know why,” Marc said.

“Thanks for the warning then,” she said with another smile, trying to catch his eyes again.

Alright, I may be obtuse, but I'm sure she's flirting with me. Need to not encourage that, not in the slightest since maybe Felicia and I might be able to actually get together finally. That won't happen if I'm not careful about things like this.

“You're welcome. I'll just get this set up and let you get back to work,” he said.

Once he had that set, he pulled up his notes interface.

Oh yeah, we need the tilapia, and I need to make sure the seeds are all given to Allan so he can get them to the people that have volunteered for the greenhouses, he thought.

His morning was filled with small things like that, but he managed to clear his list before lunch, leaving him time to start investigating the buildings he was sure they were going to need right after he'd eaten lunch.

* * *

Marc's plan was slowly coming together. He had purchased the tilapia and they were delivered directly to the tanks in the aquaponic greenhouse, materializing the way he imagine a spawn would. There were food pellets for them that should last for a while and they'd need fewer of those once the plants were growing well.

The rest of his plan for the morning had involved finding his own source of paper and starting to write. Using the Creative Writing skill, he'd written out instructions for everyone that was already performing a function for the Safe Zone. He'd also written out orders for those who were manning the greenhouses to go to Allan to request the seeds, then take the seeds and plant them according to the instructions on the pads in the respective greenhouses.

He felt a little stupid doing everything this way and he had to purchase a large cork notice board for the cafeteria to post all the orders on, but this way he'd increased his Creative Writing skill by a point in the creation of the orders and everyone who followed them would gain a better interpretation of the orders and the five percent bonus, ten percent for the orders he'd written after the skill increase, towards them being completed successfully. Something which didn't sound like much, but even the original five percent to successful completion would add up, at ten percent it actually started to sound decent and he was eager to continue leveling that skill for the higher percentage bonuses it would offer.

After lunch his first stop was at the shop kiosk. A few minutes spent searching, and eight silver, provided him with a common quality short sword that he could use as a backup melee weapon to his pilum. Eight silver as a lot, but it looked to be in much better condition than any they'd found on the spawns so far so he was willing to part with it.

A few more minutes of searching, plus an entire gold coin this time, netted him a better pack. He'd been using the one he had since before the System, but the help he'd downloaded to his brain had mentioned that there were packs that interfaced with his inventory. He'd just bought one with an additional twenty slots. When wearing it he could simply access its contents the same way he did his inventory. There were much larger ones, but the prices rose dramatically for anything larger than what he'd just purchased.

Finally he was stuck with making a decision. He could afford another recycler with the coins he had. The gold coins from the troll had certainly eased his financial situation and the ongoing income from the help pads would cover any day to day costs he had.

I have to assume, he thought, that some of these people that just came in, the hard workers as Ron called them, are going to have skills that we can't immediately make use of. Another recycler would give them something to do in the meanwhile. Plus, if we need additional materials for the buildings I want to make, I could dedicate one recycler team to going and acquiring those while still having one working to expand the Safe Zone. It's a lot of money, for now at least, but I think that I need to do it.

He winced as he purchased the second recycler, clearing out all but two of the gold coins he'd had. This time he'd paid attention to the upgrades available on it and ended up paying six gold for one that moved faster and had the capability to process some variant materials that he thought he'd need. It was essentially the same machine as the first, the difference being somewhere in its programming, so if he wanted he could probably upgrade the first one to the same level as the new one.

He did have several hundred silver and even more copper remaining in addition to the two gold, but somehow the sight of all that gold in his inventory had given him a warm, fuzzy feeling. Like he had a nest egg tucked away, or something like that.

Needs must when the devil drives, he thought. If it weren't for the damned spawns, the System itself would probably be the closest thing to a devil that I'd ever encounter.

The second recycler was delivered a moment later and he took hold of it and began to drag it outside. It's quicker movement when underway meant it took him about thirty seconds instead of a good two minutes to get it across the gym and out the door. The shorter time it took to get it to the small shelter near the material piles that had been built to shelter the first recycler told him that the speed upgrade, at least, had been a good investment.

Okay, now that I've got a way to retrieve alternate materials, it's time to see what we can build currently and what alternate materials they might need. So far it's been sand, fertilizer, nutrient solution, and I suppose the core to build the Safe Zone initially might count, not that I can get some of those from a recycler. I assume an alchemist lab for Felicia will require a lot of glass, which means more sand I'm guessing.

He went back to the building pedestal in the gym and started looking at options. Sure enough, the alchemy lab required a lot of stone, a little wood, one unit of fertilizer, and twenty units of sand. A smithy would require stone, metal, and a heat source, although the description noted that the smithy could be tied to a powered Safe Zone's power at the cost of one expansion's worth of power. A leather worker would require tannin sources, which translated to an absurd amount of unprocessed wood.

The list went on and on so Marc decided that a meeting of his group, plus maybe a few other people, would be required in order to determine just what he was going to build next.

He put the word out for his group to meet him in the auditorium. There weren't any more classes scheduled for today, so they ought to have the place to themselves. Then he gave it a little more thought and also put the word out for Jayden, Ron, and Conner to meet there as well.

* * *

Ron was a little later than the rest of them showing up and Marc wondered if that was intentional, until he showed up and told them that he and his group had found a few more survivors and escorted them to the Safe Zone. He gave Marc their names so they could be added to the resident list, then they settled in for the meeting once that had been done.

After sharing all the options they currently had for extra buildings to make, except the alchemy lab which he was planning as a surprise for Felicia, they started in on discussing it. Unsurprisingly, most of them thought the smithy should take priority, even if it would cost extra power. One of Ron's people had picked up the bowyer/fletcher skill while making arrows for his group to use and Marc was sure he'd find them on the list. More weapons sounded good to him especially ones that could be used from the wall with minimal danger to the users, so that also went to the top of the list.

There were a lot of things they couldn't use yet. Evidently they could raise their own herds of animals for meat and material since a slaughterhouse was on the list as well as a tannery and glue maker.

Although the tannery and glue maker could also just be used with game, but they certainly wouldn't be in use consistently from just that.

A barracks was available, and was what Marc had based the one he'd built off of. Part of the reason Ron had selected it for his crew was because residing in it added bonuses to some physical combat skills. For now they wouldn't need a new one, but Marc had a suspicion that if they kept expanding the way he wanted, they'd eventually need to build another one near the gates so response time was better in case they were attacked.

Jeff wanted a brewery at the top of the list, and Ron supported him on that. The only problem was that it wasn't something that was showing up on the list yet.

“I mean, it costs as much for a single bottle of beer as it does for a meal if you get them both from the shop,” Jeff said. “That's outrageous.”

“Well Jeff, I'm sure we'll do a brewery eventually,” Marc replied, “but we don't have grains at all to use right now and I don't think buckwheat, the only one we're currently planting, makes for any sort of decent beer. Besides, I don't have the option on it yet.”

“True, I've never seen an all buckwheat beer,” Jeff said. “But that just means we need more fields.”

“Which we'll put in once Allan has some more people with the Farmer class. He's the only one who has it so far. We're trying to figure out what we need to be able to make things safer, easier, or quicker for everyone right now. That's all,” Marc said.

In the end they decided on the smithy and a shop for the bowyer/fletcher for right now. They'd see how quickly the structures formed and what materials were needed for them before making any more decisions.

Plus the alchemy lab for Felicia, of course, Marc thought. But there's no need to bring that up with anyone else right now.

Marc went back to the building pedestal and pulled up the structures they wanted to build. They had sufficient materials for all three, once he had some more sand and another unit of fertilizer. So he started the build on the smithy and the bowyer/fletcher, locating the smithy well away from the sleeping areas and the bowyer/fletcher behind one of the growing fields. Before he hit accept on it, he drafted a couple of people who were just hanging around to go warn anyone on the grounds that building would start soon and materials would be floating around all over the place.

Then he went in search of Al to retrieve the list he'd made during his class. He also copied the list in the cafeteria, leaving it up since it didn't look like all the earlier residents had signed onto it yet.

Then he started looking. Sure enough, there were quite a few people who were willing to do manual labor. Primarily from the group that came in with Ron, but there were still a couple from the earlier group who were willing to do that. He picked a mix from the two groups that were willing to both do manual labor and go outside the Safe Zone, then went looking for them.

After he had the four of them, he brought them out and showed them the recycler. Explaining that they needed materials to expand the Safe Zone and to build other things inside of it, he offered the four of them the position as a second recycling team. He promised them a guard any time they were going outside of the Safe Zone also. The four of them accepted and he wrote out their first assignment, blushing as he did so.

Written orders, it just seems embarrassing to do it this way, he thought. It's worth it in the end though.

Then he stopped for a moment and thought about how Ron had found more survivors this morning. After promising them a guard in the morning he took off, looking for Jeff.

“Hey Jeff, do you want to work on your Stealth some more? Might be dangerous though,” he said.

“What is it, this time?” Jeff said.

“I was just thinking. Ron didn't find so many survivors this time. Maybe we should look elsewhere. I thought you could do a scouting run, in Stealth, and see if you spot any more survivors that we could get first thing tomorrow.”

Jeff looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Sure, I can do that. Now?”

“Give me two minutes first,” Marc said.

He sat down and immediately started writing out orders for Jeff to search through some of the areas they hadn't been to yet, looking for other survivors to rescue. He left it up to Jeff whether he wanted to contact them now, or with the group in the morning. Finishing up the orders, he handed them over.

Jeff took them daintily between thumb and forefinger, staring at the sheet of paper.

“Ugh, hard copy!”  Jeff said.

“There's a reason for that. I've got this skill that will increase the chances of you being successful if you're working off my written orders,” Marc said.

Jeff looked at him curiously.

“We'll talk about this later. There's no chance a class called Arcane Bulwark would get a skill like that, none.”

“Fine, we can talk about it later on, but for now, go look for people that we can maybe keep alive through this?” Marc said.

Jeff gave him a sloppy, two-fingered salute. He concentrated for a moment and his outfit changed to include the leather jacket with his gladius belted at his waist.

“Yes, sir. I'll be on my way, sir,” he said, sarcasm dripping from the words.

He turned and shimmered, dropping into Stealth.

* * *

Marc felt guilty for sending Jeff out like that, but he knew that Jeff would have the best chance of anyone to do that without getting in trouble.

Although Jeff doing anything without getting into trouble is difficult to imagine, he thought.

Even so, with his Stealth, Jeff would have the best chance of finding anyone else alive out in the town. Marc just hoped that he'd be okay. He knew Jeff had a healing staff in his inventory though, they may have loaned one out to Olivia after she'd depleted the first one, but she'd returned it shortly thereafter. So even if he got wounded, he could heal himself and if he did get into trouble he just had to break contact and go back into Stealth.

Marc tried to push away the worry that sending Jeff out was causing in him since it was too late now, but he did resolve to not do that again.

Marc moved on to his next task. He knew who he'd like guarding the other recycling party, but he didn't know if she'd be ready to work yet. She'd seemed pretty broken up the last time he'd heard her, and he didn't even know where she was.

Instead, he found Felicia in her room. Knocking at the door, he waited for her to answer it. When she did, she just looked at him, waiting.

“Hi,” he said, cursing himself for the inane greeting.

“Hi yourself. Did you need something?”

“Yeah, I did. Do you know where Natalie is?” he asked.

Felicia's brow furrowed and she gave him a dark look.

“Why?” she asked, coldly and abruptly.

Marc held up his hands.

“Whoa, I just wanted to ask her if she was willing to guard the second recycling team I formed today. I've already given them an assignment for tomorrow and I need to get them a guard. I know you talked with her a lot yesterday, so I thought you might know where she was.”

Felicia relaxed.

“Oh, sorry, yeah. Come with me.”

She closed her door and started walking down the hall.

“So, I thought we might do something later on? If you're interested,” Marc said.

Felicia stopped and turned to him.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I was going to ask last night, but it sounded like Natalie needed your time more than I did then.”

Her face fell again.

“Yeah, she's taking it pretty hard. Evidently her dad got a class too, but he disappeared when he was out trying to forage for them. She's convinced herself that he's dead and I'm not sure she's wrong. I mean, where could he disappear to?”

“Well, if there's another lair type of thing around, he might've been captured or something,” Marc said.

“I didn't want to tell her that though, I didn't want her to go charging out on her own trying to search through every building in the town looking for him or any lairs.”

“Oh, well, that's probably good. If there is another lair, we might find it soon. But it's probably better that she assume he's gone since that's the most likely probability.”

Felicia nodded her head.

“Yeah, I didn't say it in so many words, but that is what I told her. I don't know if she'll be ready to pull guard duty yet, but it would be good for her if she did. She needs something to take her mind off of things.”

When they found Natalie, she was in the apartment she was sharing with the other members of her family. Surprisingly, she seemed eager when Marc offered her the job.

“It'll be good to get out of here every day,” she said. “I love my mom like crazy, but these last few days she's just been a bit much. Maybe having other people around will help, if she'll leave the apartment at all anyhow.”

Marc told her where to be after breakfast in the morning and then he and Felicia went back to his room.

“So, I picked up this pad for myself. It's kind of like the ones for System help, but more powerful. I can get books on it and...”

He tapped the pad a few times, opening it up to the listings for movies that he'd found. It looked like, much like books, the System had just about every movie that had ever been made.

“So, you want to watch a movie? You can pick,” Marc said.

“Mmm, we should see if there's a way to get a larger screen,” Felicia said. “Set it up in the auditorium maybe, with a library of movies for it? But for now, let's watch this.”

Her finger went down and tapped the selection she'd searched for and Marc leaned back, slipping an arm around her as he did so. Instead of stiffening or pulling away as he'd feared, she leaned into him as the two settled in for their movie.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Two

It had been earlier than he'd thought when they'd started the movie. It ended before the dinner hours at the cafeteria were over. Rather than just go for whatever they had down there, he decided that he'd treat this like a proper date.

“So, what would you like for dinner?” he asked Felicia.

“We can just go down to the cafeteria,” she replied.

“Or we can go to the shop and get whatever we want,” he replied. “While we're there we can even look for a screen like you were talking about. I like the idea of setting the auditorium up for movies. It'll give people some entertainment, although we'll need to decide how to determine what gets shown when.”

“Or we can just find someone else to do that. We just need to make sure they know to show some of everything.”

“And that all depends on whether or not the screen and projector is available,” Marc said. “So let's go get dinner and search the shop?”

“You win,” Felicia said.

“Tell you what, if you aren't tired of my company by the time we're done down there, then you can pick another movie for us to watch. I'm guessing that if there is some sort of projection setup for movies that it will either be fairly expensive, time-consuming to set up, or both.”

She smirked.

“But you told me that your tablet there was fairly cheap, so I could just get one and watch whatever I wanted in my own room.”

“That's why I said if you aren't tired of my company,” Marc said.

“Okay, let's go look. For dinner, I don't know, maybe steak? With potatoes and vegetables.”

“I'm sure they'll have that, Jeff said they had everything and I'm positive that would have to include both steak and bacon, if I know Jeff,” Marc replied.

They headed down to the shop and browsed through it, finding what Felicia wanted, but the projector screen was significantly out of their current reach at twenty gold. Since they'd found it in a business section of the shop, Marc wasn't too surprised.

It's something to keep in mind though because I think it would be a good plan to get that and a library of a couple hundred movies. Give people some other form of entertainment. Hell, I could even set up my MP3 player with the external speaker down here a couple of hours a day and that would probably be good for now.

He made a mental note to do that tomorrow as he and Felicia selected their meals, then headed back for his room. He'd made one additional purchase that he'd managed to keep hidden from her, tucking the bucket of hot buttered popcorn into his inventory and hoping it would stay warm until they started the next movie.

* * *

At breakfast the next morning Marc was accosted by Jeff.

“Where were you all afternoon yesterday? I did what you ordered and I don't know if it was your written orders or what, but I managed to find another group,” Jeff said.

“Great, how many were there?”

“I've got no idea. I couldn't get them back here. They're on the top floor of an apartment building, got a big banner reading 'HELP' hanging off a balcony. It looked like they'd armed themselves with sharpened broomsticks and shit like that for weaponry, but there were these big green dudes going in and out of the ground floor of that apartment building.”

“Where were they?”

“You know that liquor store over on Cherry street?” Jeff asked.

Marc shook his head.

Jeff groaned and thought for a moment.

“Two blocks south of the library on Cherry street?”

“That I can follow.”

“Yeah, it's one of those apartment buildings right there, intersection of Cherry and Pine, but the entry to the building is on Cherry.”

Now Marc could visualize the area he was talking about. He thought he even knew the building Jeff was referring to. They had fairly inexpensive apartments that appealed to the lower middle class and college students, or at least those of them that were single since Jeff recalled all those apartments as being pretty small.

College students. Shit, I bet they have more gamers there and that's why there's a group that survived. We've got to go get them, obviously, but how many of the big green guys are there, and what are they?

“So, big green guys? Like man-sized, larger? Anything else about them?”

Jeff sighed.

“Man-sized. If I had to guess to guess, I'd say orcs, but I couldn't get close enough to Analyze one without being spotted.”

“Any numbers?” Marc asked.

“At least twenty, but probably more,” Jeff replied.

“Okay, so we've got three groups, we come in at around fourteen in numbers ourselves and have some ranged attacks. Did you see weapons on them?”

“Mostly long melee stuff, spears, longer swords, that sort of thing.”

“No bows?”

“Not that I saw, but you know that doesn't mean anything.”

“Well, let's catch the groups as they go through here and give them the option on this. I'd like to take all three groups to do this if they're willing,” Marc said.

An hour later they were headed out, with all three groups. When they'd heard that there was another group of survivors they'd volunteered immediately. There was a light rain as Jeff led them through the streets. Marc turned up the collar on his coat when the drops of rain started trickling down inside. He glanced over at Jack.

The Huntsman had fretted about this task, worried about getting his bow wet during the fight, until Jeff had pointed out that he could take position in the building across the street from the orcs and fire through the door or windows. Then Jack had been eager to go.

Marc had paused just long enough to load Jeff down with some of the better quality weapons they'd looted so far, primarily poor quality short swords and daggers. With the description Jeff had given of the survivor's current weaponry, Marc thought the looted ones might still be an improvement. And getting the survivors better weapons might contribute to the success of his plan.

He had, much to everyone else's chagrin, paused three minutes to write up the plan and pass it around. A very abbreviated description of why he was doing that had silenced the protests and also contributed to everyone actually reading the plan before they headed out.

Now they were taking up position in the building across the street. All but one of them that was. Jeff, in Stealth, was slowly making his way towards the entrance to the apartment building with the orcs. The rest of the group would bombard the visible orcs with their ranged attacks, hopefully dropping some and at the same time, drawing them out of the building.

Once they were out, Jeff would move in and make his way upstairs to the survivors. He'd offer them the weapons if they wanted, then try to lead them downstairs to take any surviving orcs in an attack from the rear.

With the information he'd had, it was the best plan that Marc had been able to think of, and the only add-ons were firing from inside the building across the street to protect the bows from the rain. It also helped that they could make their way into position through the ground level of that building without the orcs seeing them.

Now they were in position. Tanks stood next to the access points the archers and Mages would use to attack from, ready to step in should the orcs make it that far. The Healers were a few feet back from the rest and the Mages were mixed in with the archers, leaving those with bows the best access to the windows since the Mages could cast with line of sight in most cases while the archers needed a bit more room for their attacks.

There was movement in the apartment behind the balcony that the sign hung from. The balcony itself was covered with plastic bags, sloping towards the center portion of it. Several other balconies looked the same and Marc assumed that they were low on water.

The sign itself had gotten wet in the drizzle, the red paint smearing and running down from the letters. In a little while the message wouldn't even be legible any more.

So, it's a good thing Jeff found them when he did, Marc thought.

He'd been keeping rough track of the time and now Jeff should be in position.

“Ready?” he hissed, casting his Arcane Armor as he waited for the replies.

He received a bunch of nods and quiet affirmatives.

He was going to lead off the attack, but there just weren't that many targets at the moment. Evidently the orcs didn't like the rain too much since instead of moving in and out of the building like Jeff had reported they were doing when he saw them, there were two guards posted at the door and they hadn't seen any other orcs even stick their heads out of the building.

“Okay, archers target the one I do, Mages hold off and hit the other one. We need the other one to give an alarm first in order to draw the rest of them out of the building,” Marc said softly.

Then he cast his Mana Dart spell, three lightly glowing bolts leaving tracers behind them as they raced through the rain to strike the orc guard on the right.

The orc yowled briefly, his cry cut off as three arrows struck him as well. The other guard called out some sort of alarm, then started looking around. It didn't take him long to spot the groups in the building across the street, but as soon as he did the remaining mages cast their spells. Doug had two projectiles from his Mana Dart now and Reggie's Water Jet seemed strengthened from the rain. Even so, the second guard didn't drop until Marc had added his own Mana Dart spell to the efforts.

Moments later a torrent of orcs flooded out through the previously guarded doorway. A motion caught Marc's eye and he saw someone step out onto the balcony above, deftly avoiding the water collection efforts. The man stared over the edge and his eyes widened enough to be visible from the street, then he darted back inside.

Hopefully he takes the cue and they start unblocking the stairs, Marc thought. That would sure make Jeff's part easier.

Then he turned his attention back to the orcs spilling out into the road. Some of them had already apparently spotted the groups since there were three of them sprinting across the road. Others were looking around to see if there was anyone else in sight.

Marc tossed off another Mana Dart at the orc in the lead of the three that were sprinting across the road, then he put a Phantom Shield on Rob who was one of the two tanks guarding the door.

Arrows and spells flew from inside the building out towards the orcs. Marc tried to keep his attention on the one he'd just Mana Darted, but when it made it to the entryway Rob stepped out to block it, striking it with a Shield Bash that sent it flying into another one of the sprinters.

Jayden was with Rob in the doorway and the two of them crouched, blocking the door from side to side with their two shields. Evidently Jayden had spent some of his coins at the shop, and been able to find what Marc hadn't before, because he had a spear that was vaguely similar to Rob's pilum, just with more of a leaf-shaped blade on the end instead of the pilum's thinner point. The two of them were mostly playing defense as arrows and spells whizzed past them toward the orcs. Their shields saw most of the action, but occasionally a spear would flick out to strike an orc before being pulled back, ready for another strike.

Marc was standing at a nearby window with one of Ron's tanks on guard in front of him. The man couldn't just stay still like Rob and Jayden were, he kept having to move from side to side to try to prevent the orcs from entering the building.

He couldn't see the encounter on the far side of the door, but from the sounds it was just like the others. The ranged attacks whittling away at the orcs while the tanks simply tried to keep the orcs out of the building.

Finally Marc was low on targets directly in front of him. Orc corpses littered the street in front of the building, but there were still some standing and fighting. One overtopped the other five that remained right out front of the building by a foot or more and there were two standing right in front of the entrance to the apartment building with the survivors. Marc groaned when he saw one of those begin to cast.

“Shit, we have casters across the street,” he hollered.

“I see them,” Jack yelled from his position near the doorway. “Targeting.”

“I'll target them also,” the archer from Ron's group that was right behind Marc said.

“Can't see them, can't target,” Ron yelled from the far side of the attack.

Marc himself had cast Mana Dart after Mana Dart into the attacking orcs and he wasn't sure just how much mana he had left.

Mana, he thought.

Mana: 97/394

Huh, I wonder if the rain will affect my fireball spell at all? Actually, no, they're right in front of the entry to the building and I don't want to set it on fire. So Mana Dart it is. I have got to sit down with Reggie and trade spells. His Water Jet would be perfect here, but he only had enough mana to cast it four times.

Marc hurled out another Mana Dart at the caster who'd just finished his spell. The larger orc right in front of the attackers glowed for a moment, then grew, adding almost another foot onto his height.

With Marc's Mana Dart and two archers focusing on him, the caster began to slump. Until the other orc right next to him began a cast of his own. It was a quick spell and the targeted caster seemed to straighten and heal right in front of Marc's eyes.

Then Marc saw the shimmer behind the casters. He'd researched it and he saw the shimmer when Jeff was in full Stealth. Members of other groups didn't see him at all though, unless he failed his Stealth check. Now Marc felt a little better about things.

He looked back to see the leader and three more orcs still standing in front of the building he was in. Jayden and Rob were tanking the leader and Felicia was hard pressed to keep them healed.

With a cast of Mana Dart at the single orc that had moved in front of his window, he pulled out his pilum and hurled it, striking the orc. The tank in front of Marc took advantage of the orc's reactions to the pain from spell and spear, driving into it, knocking it over, then plunging his machete into its heart.

You have learned the skill Short Spear (thrown weapon) (1). Learning is best done by doing.

“Jeff,” Marc screamed. “Healer, your right.”

Then he stepped out into the street and turned to face the leader of the orcs and the single orc that still stood near the door. His short sword appeared in his hand, summoned from his inventory, as he strode forward, debating whether he should use the last of his mana on a Phantom Shield or save it for Mana Darts.

When the leader kept his attention on Rob and Jayden, Marc decided to save his mana for the moment and advanced on the single orc that accompanied him. Said orc was assisting the leader in attacking the two tanks so Marc's first strike came as a surprise. He chopped with his sword, striking the orc's shoulder with a solid hit.

Now if only this were the Roman Legion, I'd have shield mates on both sides and we'd all be chopping between our shields and protecting each other, he thought, aghast at where his mind had gone in the middle of combat.

He struck again, but now the orc had turned to face him. Which was what he'd been after. If he could take this orc off of Rob and Jayden, then they could team up on the bigger leader type and maybe make some more progress on it.

Feeling almost as though he were cheating, Marc skipped back several steps, transferring his short sword to the hand on his shield. A quick cast and his target orc was struck by three Mana Darts from his spell. It had been chasing him and had not expected a spell attack, so it staggered back when it was struck. Marc took advantage of that, taking his sword back in his free hand and striking again.

The orc slipped on the pavement that was covered with a mixture of rainwater and blood, then Marc's sword followed it down, finishing it off with a stab to the thigh that apparently opened the femoral vein or something else important to the orc's health. He stepped back again as blood sprayed for a moment, but it quickly slowed as the orc died.

He heaved a sigh, still preferring to be casting in combat as opposed to going into melee. He didn't have that much of a choice at the moment though, with only enough mana left for one more Mana Dart, he'd be most effective in hand to hand using the last spell as an ace in the hole.

Thinking of aces in the hole, he glanced across the street. He'd seen a few more spells come by from the orc casters, but none for a few seconds now. The glance told him why. Jeff, and a whole crowd of other people, were now standing in the entry to the other building. The two casters lay on the ground in front of the door, unmoving.

“Let's finish this,” Marc yelled. “My team join in on the leader type. Ron, your team finish off that last orc then join us.”

He moved in towards the large orc, from behind. Stopping at about ten feet away, he cast his last Mana Dart, slamming the Darts into the back of the orc's neck. With a roar, it turned towards Marc, only for Rob and Jayden to attack it from behind.

When the archer that had been at Marc's window with him started firing at an angle into the orc's side, it was pretty much all over, or so Marc thought. He'd relaxed somewhat, sure that the orc's aggro would switch to someone else, but as it raced towards him, he realized his mistake. His shield came up, but it was hit with enough force to knock him off his feet, sending him sliding across the street on the damp asphalt.

That was the orc's last mistake though. Moving out as it did opened it up to fire from all three archers, meanwhile Rob and Jayden were staying close to it from behind as it moved, striking all the while. Before the orc leader reached Marc, it stumbled, then fell into the street, face first.

* * *

The group limped out into the road. The tanks had taken the worst beating, but the archers had taken a few spells from the orc caster before he was killed and by the time they had, the healers were already low on mana. So they spent several minutes simply regenerating mana and healing up.

While they did that, Jeff was talking with the people they'd rescued.

Why Jeff? Marc thought. Pretty much anyone would be better than Jeff to introduce us to a new group of people. Maybe they'll cut him some slack though since he's the one that went up and got them.

With all the orc corpses laid out in the street, looting went quickly and easily. He heard a couple of happy cries and realized why when some of his own looting turned up weapons and armor much better than that they'd retrieved from any of the other spawns so far. There was also a heavy smattering of silver coins and a lighter batch of copper ones.

Felicia found the best loot. He didn't even find out until a couple minutes later, but when she looted the healer type orc's corpse she picked up an armband. It dropped the cost of her healing spells by twenty-five percent when equipped. When Marc asked to look at it, he tried to Analyze it.

Armlet of Healing Focus

Item type: clothing – upper arm

Effect: 25% reduction on healing costs when worn

You have learned the skill Analyze (item) (1). Learning is best done by doing.

Marc suppressed his cheer at the message that followed his attempt. He'd been hoping to pick up that skill ever since he found out it was broken down into creature and item subsets. Instead, he handed the armlet back to Felicia.

“Tailored loot, gotta love it,” he said.

“Well, it was on a healer type,” she replied.

He just grinned.

“So, should I go talk to the new people? Jeff's been doing it so far.”

Felicia's face blanched at the first question, then twisted into an expression of horror at the second.

“No, don't worry,” she said. “I'll take care of it.”

Then she raised her voice.

“Hey Jeff, Marc wants to talk to you,” she called. “I'll take over for you.”

She stalked over towards Jeff who looked up, confusion evident on his face. He came over to Marc.

“What the hell, man?”

Marc shook his head.

“Don't look at me. That was all Felicia. I mentioned that you were talking to the new people and her face looked like she'd seen a ghost. Then she yelled. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Aw, man,” he said. “I was getting along fine with them.”

Marc looked over and saw the newcomer's faces start to relax some. They'd still been looking a little wary up until a few seconds ago and he was pretty sure he knew why.

“Just what is her Charisma, anyhow?” he muttered.

Jeff obviously heard him, although that hadn't been Marc's intent.

“She's gotta have added some points to it,” Jeff said. “And it wasn't that low to begin with.”

“Well, we should get heading back. Did they have anything else they wanted to bring with them?” Marc asked.

“Oh yeah, I meant to say. They've got a bunch of food stored up there they got in the first day or two. The orcs didn't show up until the uncommon message so they were stocked up on food before they had to block off their exits. Can we help them move it?”

“Do they know about their inventories?” Marc asked. “Does it exceed that?”

Jeff shrugged.

“I don't know.”

Marc walked over to Felicia and cleared his throat softly.

“I know I'm not the best for this, but I need to talk to them for a moment,” Marc said.

She looked at him, almost crossly.

“They've got stuff they want to bring, but I don't know if they know about inventories and the like,” Marc continued.

“Oh, well, in that case.”

She turned back to the group of survivors.

“This is our leader, Marc. He's not the best with words, but he wants to talk to you for a moment,” she said.

“Okay,” Marc started. “I don't know what you all know about the System so far, but this is System 101. We've got someone back at the Safe Zone that will give you a more in depth look at everything about the System later, along with additional help files, but for now. Do you all know about your inventory?”

A few minutes later Marc found that they did know about it, but not how much it would stack, how much weight it added from what was stored in it, and that they could trick it with full bags of various items. He went through the very basics of how to manipulate it, how much it would take, then asked if they'd need help transporting the items they wanted to take.

“Oh hey, Jeff misunderstood. We've got all the stuff we want in our inventories already. The rest of that food stuff we were volunteering since he said food would be available for everyone there,” one of the survivors said.

Marc just shook his head.

“Sorry to waste your time then, let's grab everything that should go and get out of here. Who knows when more spawns might show up.”

Then he turned, looked at Jeff, and just shook his head. He quickly sent most of the groups up to gather up the items in question. While he did that, Felicia was chatting with him.

“Actually, I think Jeff was distracted. It looked like one of the girls here knows him, and they might've been kind of close from what I saw,” Felicia said.

Marc went over to Jeff.

“You've got friends here?”

“Um, I know one of the chicks, yeah. Why?”

“Felicia said it looked like you might've been pretty close to someone here.”

“Hey, it was nothing like that. We just hooked up at her place a couple of times, which was here, which might've been why I checked it out?” Jeff said, defensively.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Three

As they returned to the Safe Zone Marc wandered among the new people, not so much trying to get to know them as to get a count and see who, if anyone, had gotten classes. He was astounded to determine that there had been thirty-two survivors there, eighteen of which had adventuring style classes and two with classes that weren't related to adventuring.

Since the adventuring types were helping with the guard duty as the group moved through the streets, he didn't disturb them to find out their classes, he did talk with the non-adventuring classed two though.

One of them had received the class Tinker. From what he could tell, that made them the System's version of MacGyver, able to construct simple devices from materials on hand without any sort of blueprints or instruction. The other had received the class Gardener and they gave Marc news that had him excited.

The Gardener's name was Susan. She was a student at the community college about a half hour away, by car at least, much longer to get to it now. She and another student had been doing a project involving Heirloom seeds. Meaning the seeds were of an older breed of plant and bred true, unlike a lot of the newer seeds available. That was exciting enough, but when Marc found out that the person she was working with had gotten a Druid class, he was ecstatic.

Because the more classes we have, the better, he thought. We've already figured out how to train people for some of our classes, so any more that are added to what we already have may appeal to people who didn't want any of the existing ones. Well, assuming we figure out how to train for the new classes also. The more classed people we have, the better. It'll make them more efficient and hopefully stronger than they are now.

Susan didn't know specifics on any of the other people's classes though, besides the fact that there were a couple of healers. She just knew what they were in general, melee fighting types mostly. They'd seen the orcs casting spells so a few of the people who had been planning on learning the melee fighting classes had changed their mind and held off, wanting to learn a Mage type class.

So, not only are there twenty classed people out of thirty-two of them already, but there are more that want a class and were trying to work out how to get what they wanted, Marc thought. I hate to think of people this way, but this is a gold mine. I've got to remember to thank Jeff for finding them.

The rain let up as they made their way back to the Safe Zone so it was fully visible as they approached it. He heard murmurs among the new people he was bringing back and paused to take a fresh look at things himself.

The gates were centered on the road that had led to the high school before the System arrived. And now, as they passed through the gates, there were fields to either side. They were already starting to sprout, green shoots visible above the ground, and Marc made a mental note to ask Allan if that were normal.

Back beyond the field on the right side of the road stood the bowyer/fletcher workshop. The land behind the other field was clear, but that was where Marc was planning on putting the alchemical workshop once the had the rest of the materials for it.

Hey, I wonder if they're back yet. They were going out to get the sand today, he thought.

The blacksmith shop was out back and to one side of the school building, which looked nothing like a school any more. Now it appeared like a rough medieval fort, made from stone but with glass in the windows instead of open air windows like the original forts would've mostly had. The greenhouses stood off to one side of the school from this angle, also well away from the blacksmith.

I don't get that though, why did we need sand for glass for greenhouses, but not the main building? Did it actually just use the existing glass for the windows? I should ask Jeff at some point, but it's not important right now.

Despite Jeff's protestations that his relationship with the girl that had lived in the apartment building was nothing special, he'd spent the trip back staying close to her, chatting, and she seemed to be more than happy to chat with him in return.

Well, maybe Jeff will be in a a better mood going forward? Marc thought. Because she looks interested to me. Maybe she'd been hoping for more than a hook-up? Especially if it was more than once or twice like Jeff said.

Marc shook his head, trying to drive thoughts of Jeff's personal life out of it.

Because it's none of my business, and I just don't want to know.

With his fresh look at the Safe Zone, he understood why the new people might be impressed a little. It hadn't been that long since the System took over, and there was a lot of progress made here already. Admittedly, they were nowhere near self-sufficient yet, but there was visible progress towards that goal.

* * *

“Felicia, come here for a minute,” Marc said.

They'd brought all the new survivors into the main building. They were in the cafeteria now, having some hot food. The group had dropped off all the extra provisions that they'd gotten as well and the cafeteria kitchen was nearly full of foodstuffs.

“Yes, Marc?”

“A whole bunch of those new folks are classed. Two even have non-combat classes. One of those told me that one of the combat classes they did get was Druid. I don't know about the System, but every game I ever played had Druids portrayed as having lots of plant related skills and spells, even fast growth plant spells. So I think we need to find that person and see if they can figure out how to train others.”

“Oh, like the people working the greenhouses and farms?” she said.

Marc nodded.

“Imagine how much food we could produce with a mixture of Farmers, Gardeners, and Druids working the crops.”

“Gardener?” she asked.

“Yes, that was one of the non-combat classes I was talking about. The other is a Tinker. They were the one that built that water collecting stuff on the balconies.”

“That could be useful,” she said. “Both of them.”

“Well, I was thinking we could give the Gardener some sort of garden herb bed or something? Does your Alchemy skill tell you anything about what plants would be useful for it?”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I've looked at it, and there are quite a few plants I could use, but I need a lot of equipment to do anything with it, so I haven't tried anything. There's a traveling alchemical set in the shop, but it's just as expensive as that big screen and projector. Without it, I'd need an alchemical lab to do anything with the skill. Seems a waste, because it could be handy, but...”

Marc, having found that Natalie and her group had returned with the materials he'd wanted before heading out for normal recycling duty, grinned.

“Well, do me a favor, would you? Warn anyone out near the field that's got nothing behind it that construction will occur there shortly?”

Her eyes flashed.

“Using me as an errand girl?”

“Come here, Felicia.”

He led her into the gym, pulled up the build screen at the pedestal, and shared it with her. When he pulled up the build option for the Alchemical lab and it showed that all the materials for it were available except the fertilizer, she turned to him.

“I can get the fertilizer for a few copper from the shop,” he said. “So, I just need to do that and I can get your lab built for you.”

She just stared at him for a moment, shaking her head.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” she asked.

Then she answered her own question, leaning in and giving him a kiss that left even Marc pretty sure of exactly how she felt about him.

“I'll go tell them now,” she said, breaking the kiss. “Then I'm going to go watch my lab build itself.”

“It comes with a garden bed for ingredients,” he replied, “That's what the fertilizer is for, so help me place it exactly the way you want it before you go.”

She bent over and started poking and prodding at the wire frame. She discovered that she could move the location of the garden bed in relation to the lab, as well as adjust just where the lab would go. Five minutes later she was satisfied and headed outside to warn anyone in the area what would be happening. Marc walked over and purchased a unit of fertilizer. Once it was outside of the kiosk, he simply set it to the side, knowing that the Safe Zone would retrieve it from anywhere inside of itself when it was needed.

As he thought about that, he changed his mind. Picking up the fertilizer, he moved it outside the doors to where it wouldn't be floating through the gym before making it to its destination. By that point, he figured Felicia had warned anyone in the area. Returning to the build pedestal he accepted the cost for the alchemical lab and chose 'build'.

* * *

“Because spears were the easiest thing to make, even if they weren't great, they were something other than our fists.”

Marc was listening to one of the recent survivors who'd had a class, a surprising one to him: Spearman. Two of the survivors had that class after making and fighting with their own homemade spears. Another five had a straight warrior class, while on the spellcasting side there were two healers and a druid. There were also a pair of Rogues, not Thieves they were quick to correct, but Rogues. The other six had an odd assortment of non-standard things from Shieldman, a large individual who had allegedly been using a table to shield the other attackers as they fought, to Combat Medic.

The Combat Medic was an odd mix of Warrior and Healer. He had some very minor healing spells, mainly things to counteract bleed effects or restore minor amounts of health, and also some basic warrior skills. Like Marc, his fighting skills weren't as good as an actual warrior and his healing spells weren't as good as a Healer, but he had an increased rate of survivability on the front lines compared to a Healer due to getting the Health of a Warrior class. His mana was somewhere between that of a Warrior and a Healer though. He also had some skills that would heal or speed up healing to balance out everything else.

Marc shook his head, trying to stop musing on the wide array of classes that the System seemed to have, or generate. It seemed there were lots of people getting the standard classes, but a solid subset getting things that were less common and even rare. He'd guess the Combat Medic and his own Arcane Bulwark classes were rare, while things like the Druid, Guardian, and Shieldman were closer to uncommon.

And there I am, musing on the classes again. Get back on track, Marc, he thought.

The Spearman had finished talking now. They'd brought the new survivors as well as some of the earlier ones to join the Safe Zone in together to talk, to try to let the new people detox before Al started talking to them about the System.

It had been Rob, of all people, who noticed that all the newer people were twitchy, reacting to the slightest unexpected sound and repeatedly patting weapons, for those who had theirs outside of their inventory.

So, they'd brought them all to the auditorium with some of the people Ron had escorted in and allowed them to compare stories for a while. The time for that was about past now, though, as Al walked up onto the stage.

“Alright, my name's Al. I understand that some of you are gamers and may know some of what I'm about to explain, but some of you aren't also, so please be patient if I cover something you already know...”

Al talked for a good forty-five minutes, trying to give people as much of a grounding in the System as he could manage. He told people they could talk to him about classes or general questions, while they could talk to Lisa, he took a moment to point her out, for questions on Crafting. Then he pointed at Marc and his group, who'd been waiting patiently on one side of the auditorium.

“This is Marc, he and his group are the ones that created the Safe Zone. He'd like to talk to you for a few minutes, then we'll let you go and give you forty-eight hours to get used to everything here and wind down. I know you've been under a lot of pressure recently and this should give you a bit of time to recover.”

Marc had walked up on stage. Now he looked out at the people they'd just brought in. Some of the people that had been talking with them, people who had already heard Al's lecture, were still there. Either wanting to hear the lecture again now that they'd had time to settle in, or for some other reason he couldn't think of.

Because it isn't like any of them look close to the new people. Well, excepting Jeff maybe, but he stayed with us during the lecture, so...

“Alright, as Al said, my name is Marc. I wanted to let you know what we've been trying to do here, the methods we've been using to do it, and give you something to think about during your down time.”

He cleared his throat, nervous at talking to more than forty people at the same time.

“Our primary goals so far have been twofold. We've been trying to find survivors and bring them back here to the Safe Zone and we've been trying to expand the Safe Zone so we have room for more survivors. Side efforts to that have been stocking up on food and other items that we'll need. So, if any of you are interested in doing it after your break, we're always looking for more combat classes to go out and try to find more survivors. We're also looking for anyone who has figured out a way to teach their class to someone else. We've figured out how to pass on the Healer, Mage, and Warrior classes, so if you've got a different class and figure it out, we may ask you to train people in that class.”

Marc started pacing, wanting to burn off nervous energy. As he continued to speak, he told them about the limited number of non-combat classes that were available, two of them from their own group. He also mentioned the greenhouses, smithy, and alchemy lab and that if anyone wanted to learn the skills associated with those, that they could probably use assistants, which might teach them the skill, and that he could build more buildings of the same and other types if needed.

He went on for about a half an hour, trying to spell out just what was available to do and reinforcing that residency in the Safe Zone required that they do something to pull their own weight. That point seemed to have slid past a few of the earlier people to show up and he'd hated it, but he'd gotten on their asses trying to get them to help out where they could.

He also told them just how to build a Safe Zone, but pointed out that he intended to make as much of the town into one as he could manage, welcoming them to build one elsewhere if they preferred that option. He closed by telling them about Tim, and warning them that there actually were people like that out there who thought that they could just take what others had built simply because they wanted it.

“So, he demanded I hand over the Safe Zone to him. I don't even know how I'd go about doing that,” Marc said.

That was a bit of a lie, he assumed that if he authorized someone on the build pedestal and removed all prior authorization that the remaining person would become owner, but it wasn't something he ever planned to test.

He tried to stop there, but got a yell from the crowd asking what happened to Tim.

“We had to kill him, he pulled a pistol and was threatening people,” Marc said.

Jeff started laughing, loudly and uproariously.

“Don't let him kid you,” Jeff said. “Marc told the guy “Sure.”, then walked up to him like he was going to give him something. He gave him something alright, used a spell to plug the guy's pistol, then told him “No.” to his face. Tim pulled the trigger and pretty much blew his own arm off. Felicia wasn't too impressed with him either, so she loaded his torso with buckshot. Don't get me wrong, my group are all great guys,” he turned to look at Felicia nervously, “and gals. They've got the right stuff when the chips are down though, so it wouldn't be wise to cross them.”

Marc groaned at Jeff's input. He hadn't wanted to force the new residents to think of that type of thing during their downtime, although he had felt the need to warn them about Tim and others like him. Jeff had totally tossed that kindness away though. Then he noticed the looks on the faces of the people in the auditorium.

Some of them were laughing, others were looking at Marc with approval on their faces.

What the hell? he thought, I was sure it would be a bad thing to bring that up. Why are some of them smiling, and others laughing?

He shook his head.

“That's all I've got for you now. There's a cork board in the cafeteria. I put written tasks on it, maybe think of it like a quest board? But I've got a skill that increases the chances of something being done successfully when I've written it out and the person doing it has read it, so I'm trying to get used to writing out everything that needs doing and letting people pick and choose what to do. We're glad to have you with us. Now take some time to get used to things. Those of you with coinage can feel free to use the System shop kiosk in the gymnasium.”

He felt safe on that last since they'd split the loot from the orcs with the people being rescued. They had come in at the end and helped kill the casters and the orcs still in their building. That had allowed a number of them to actually loot some of the corpses. He'd made sure the others got some coins also. When he explained it to the other adventuring groups as wanting to encourage them to be active outside of the walls, they'd agreed and donated some coins towards the cause.

He got down off the stage and went over to his group.

“What the hell, Jeff?”

“You're welcome. You were losing them. They already know that the world is a hard place now. It sounded, to them, like you were trying to convince them otherwise towards the end before I spoke up. Now they know that you know it also and it gives your words more weight.”

“What?”

“I hate to say it, but I think he's right,” Felicia said. “You were trying to soft play getting rid of Tim after his attempted takeover. Jeff laid it out for them and that let them know that you were trying to be nice to them by not mentioning it. Since the other option is you were a coward that let someone else take care of your problem? He's right, it gave them more respect for you. But you still better not do anything like that again.”

Her voice became vehement with the last sentence and Marc leaned back, worried about another slap coming his way.

“Now I need to go finish taking inventory of my Alchemy lab,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “Thanks again.”

Felicia rose and walked out of the auditorium. The others who had been here for the talks were also milling about, starting to file out.

Damn, I'm going to have to build another place for people to live, aren't I? Marc thought. I think this batch is going to fill up almost all the accommodations we have left. I hope we've got enough extra materials for that, I'd much rather take advantage of the buildings you can add every level for things that are more rare than just additional lodging.

* * *

Marc looked through the build screen. With his estimates of how many materials would be needed and his estimates of how much the recycling teams would pull in, he thought he could do the next expansion tonight.

And if I'm lucky there'll be enough materials left over to do another Barracks style building for lodging. It works out well when I fill it with rooms instead of just bunks. Cuts the amount it will house in half, but gives some privacy at least, he thought.

He was actually paying more attention to the grayed out additions available to the Safe Zone. Those had only lit up once before, when he was updating the Safe Zone to the second level. That was when he had chosen the greenhouses and he wasn't sure if they became available because the Safe Zone had gone up a level or if they were only available to be built when the Safe Zone was expanding. The greenhouses were available still, but it was the same question. Were they available because he already had some or had their availability just come about from him expanding the Safe Zone.

The book he'd purchased didn't actually mention that, just that some things were only available at certain times based on levels and actions with no more clarification than that. He wished it were more specific but was pretty sure that whoever had written it did so based on their own experiences with their Safe Zone rather than on any other knowledge base.

It made him consider, briefly, taking knowledge of Safe Zones when his Research skill went up, which led him to wondering how to level up his Research skill. Realizing that he'd spent almost the entire time they'd been back at the Safe Zone after fighting the orcs lost in his own mind, he tried to dismiss the thoughts.

He looked around the gymnasium, where he was standing. Someone had purchased a few things to spruce up the area. Circular tables, with matching chairs, the kind of things you'd find in a food court, now dotted the room here and there. Whoever had purchased those had also purchased the type of red, velvet hanging ropes you found at movie theaters or expensive restaurants. They'd used the ropes to section off the area around the building pedestal. The ropes made him think it was Jeff, but the tables weren't something Jeff would've done, so he wondered.

He turned back to the building pedestal and pulled up the expansion screen.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2000/2000

Stone: 2000/2000

Metal: 1059/1100

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.(2/3)

He was positive the recycling crews would bring in more metal than he needed, he just hoped he had sufficient of the materials to add in some of the buildings that only seemed available when he expanded the Safe Zone.

If not, do I wait for more materials or do I go ahead and do the expansion anyhow? Marc wondered.

He closed out the screen a final time, noting that he'd need to use another core if he wanted to continue expanding beyond this next time. That or System tokens, but he was loathe to use the System tokens, knowing he could Systemize items with them.

After dinner, he thought. I'll get something to eat, then check again after dinner when the recycling teams are back. They should be back any time now.

He worried, but he was pretty sure they'd be safe. He'd instructed them to stay near the Safe Zone, but go off onto the side streets, planning on claiming the materials left on the main road into town with the expansion. With Conner and Natalie to guard their respective teams, they shouldn't be in very much danger at all.

Although not very much isn't none, he thought. Hopefully I can start getting into the areas with more materials in another expansion or two and they can stop going out if they want.

Realistically, he knew that they wouldn't be going out now if it wasn't something they wanted to do, but he still felt responsible for them being out there.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Four

When he entered the cafeteria, he found Felicia and Rob eating at a table. They waved him over and he went there first.

“Hey, have a seat,” Felicia said.

“I need to get my food first.”

She shook her head.

“Nah, Alice has three other girls working with her now, from Ron's crew, they're doing waitress duties. One of them should be over in a minute.”

As though summoned by the words, a young woman showed up behind Marc.

“What can I get you?” she said.

“Umm, sorry. What's available?”

“Oh, yeah, well, it's on the menu, but that's posted over near the kitchen. Sorry, I forget we just changed to this format this afternoon. We've got chicken enchiladas, medium spice. We've also got beef stew and bread, or chili and bread. Sorry, all the meat is from cans though, just so you know.”

“Wow, choices now?”

“Yeah, we've got three cooks back there, so they each picked something and made it. There's enough people around that there won't be many leftovers, although the last people in for dinner may not have a choice as to what they get,” the waitress said.

Marc glanced down and saw that Felicia had chosen the enchiladas and Rob the stew.

“Let me have the enchiladas, would you?” he said.

“Be right back with those. Drinks are in the cooler.”

“Shoot, I should've grabbed that first, but maybe...”

Marc looked in his inventory. He seemed to recall stacking a few loose cans of Coke in there and sure enough there they were. He pulled one of those out and popped the top, the fizz catching a few peoples' attention.

One of the slackers whose case he'd had to get on about not contributing shot him a glare as he took a drink. Marc just stared back at the man, who quickly turned around.

“Hey, I'm going to expand the Safe Zone again after dinner if anyone's interested,” he said.

“I'll come along for that, but only if you don't send me to the walls to warn the guards,” Rob said.

“Same,” Felicia added. “I didn't mind warning people about my Alchemy lab, but I don't want to run errands.”

“That won't be a problem. I realized that some of the people who got here earlier are upset that they don't have any coins for the shop, while some of the later ones do. I figure I'll start hiring runners and the like for a copper or two when I need that,” Marc said.

“Yeah, but you gave them options to learn crafting. They could make stuff and sell it in the shop if they wanted coins,” Rob said.

Marc shrugged.

“A lot of people can't just pick up something new that easy. As long as they help somehow, I'll eventually find a way to pay them for what they do. I can set up taxes, but don't want to do that yet. I want to let people get their feet under them first.”

Marc's enchiladas arrived at that point and he applied himself to his food. When he'd finished, he rose to leave, Rob and Felicia rising with him. Near the door he paused.

“I need a runner for a few minutes. I'll pay two copper for it,” he called.

He'd expected more people to react, but the only taker he got was a younger girl, maybe ten years old.

“I can do that,” she said. “What do you need?”

He explained that he was going to expand the Safe Zone again and he needed someone to warn the guards so they could get off the walls before they moved. So he wanted to her to go tell them that, then return and let him know everyone was off the walls. She grinned and trotted off, heading towards the front door.

Marc went to the building pedestal in the gymnasium.

“I wonder who did the tables and ropes and stuff,” Marc said.

Rob grinned.

“I did the tables, bought them from the shop. Jeff was with me and he said we ought to section off the building pedestal, so he bought the ropes.”

“I knew it was Jeff. I just couldn't figure out why he'd buy the tables, too,” Marc said.

Felicia snickered.

“Well, you shouldn't have to worry about him tonight. I saw him escorting his friend down to his apartment,” she said.

“Hmm, I wonder if getting laid will mollify his attitude a bit,” Marc said before snorting. “Who am I kidding, it's Jeff. Nothing changes his attitude.”

He stepped up to the pedestal and opened the build screen.

You have sufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2000/2000

Stone: 2000/2000

Metal: 1100/1100

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.(2/3)

This time some options he hadn't seen before were available.

“Hey, should we light the walls?” Marc asked. “That's a new option that wasn't there last time.”

“How much extra does it cost?” Felicia asked.

Marc selected it and saw that the metal cost rose by twenty-five, but they could still cover that.

“Only twenty-five metal and we've got it.”

“Won't that make it hard for the guards to see beyond the walls?” Rob asked.

“The description says it casts soft light to fifty feet beyond the walls,” Marc said, “as well as providing illumination within ten feet inside the walls.”

“I'd say do it, well, depending on what other options you have,” Felicia said.

“Wood lot, orchard, lodging, pond, fields, and all the stuff that's available whenever.”

“Isn't there lodging available normally? Why's that different?”

“Let me see.”

Marc looked and realized that the lodging was an upgradeable apartment building. Something that might take care of his worries about lodging. It came with water and power, like the Safe Zone itself. He pulled himself out of pondering the description.

“Thanks for getting me to look at that. It's a better version of lodging that's available all the time, but it's also upgradeable. I don't know if upgrades are only available when I'm enhancing the Safe Zone or any time, but I think it's a good call to take that. Let's see: lodging, wall lighting, and another field? The fields like those two are only available during upgrades on the Safe Zone, so I think grabbing another now is a good plan.”

“Well, check and let's see if you can do that,” she said.

Rob nodded his agreement.

“Crap,” Marc said. “I can't do both the lodging and the wall lighting. They both take metal and we don't have enough.”

“Probably lodging then,” Felicia said. “We've been fine without wall lighting so far.”

“That leaves me one more. Let me do some reading.”

A minute later Marc had made his choice. The wood lot, obviously, provided wood. It took a while to get going though and he'd already put one in. The orchard was similar, food and eventually wood too, but it took a while before it produced. The pond was actually a source of freshwater fish, something he hadn't realized before. Like the fields, he'd thought the pond was just ornamental.

“Okay,” he said finally. “I'm thinking lodging, a field, and a pond. The pond is actually another food source for freshwater fish, not just for decoration. The two tree things take longer to get producing than the pond, so...”

“So, short term for now, long term later?” Felicia asked.

Marc nodded.

“Can we afford those three?” Rob asked.

“Sure, the pond actually provides materials based on where it's located. If there's rock excavated for it, it goes into our stone stores,” Marc said. “Same thing with the fields. The lodging was fine before, it just took too much metal to do along with the wall lighting.”

“Then let's do that,” Rob said.

“Okay, just waiting on the messenger to get back then,” Marc said.

A minute later, the little girl came in, out of breath.

“They're all set,” she said.

“Thank you,” Marc said, holding out three copper instead of two. “Here you go. A bonus for a job well done, too.”

Then he turned back to the building pedestal and locked in his choices.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2000/2000

Stone: 2000/2000

Metal: 1150/1150

Fertilizer: 0/5

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor

This power source will sustain three expansions from base.(2/3)

“Crap, one second,” Marc said.

He trotted over to the store kiosk, bought five units of fertilizer, then dropped them outside through the gym door. When he returned to the building pedestal, he was all set. He made sure the wire-frame outline was where he wanted it, stretching way down the road from where the walls were now, then chose the expand Safe Zone button and mentally clicked it.

The screen flickered for a moment.

Further expansion beyond this size will require additional power sources. Current power source at maximum. Power sources may be examined for compatibility at your build pedestal.

* * *

“Well, that'll be interesting,” Marc said. “I'll need additional power sources to continue expanding, but it mentions compatibility.”

“As in, it needs to be compatible with what we have?” Felicia asked.

Marc nodded.

“It does let me examine items for compatibility though, from what it just said. I wonder how you do that?”

“Well, you're standing at the build pedestal, so maybe experiment?” Rob said.

Marc nodded.

“I'm curious, let me check with a System token first. I have a sneaking suspicion that if you start with one type of power you need to keep providing the same type for expansion.”

Marc dropped into the building screen, noticing that a new check compatibility option was lit up near the bottom of the screen. When he pressed it, the items he had that could provide the Safe Zone with power showed up on a list. He chose a System token first and was unsurprised when the pedestal spat back the result.

Incompatible.

He selected the Lair core next and was surprised to get more than a single word.

Compatible, 50% efficiency. Will provide power for 4 expansions (+1 power slot for quality)

“That's interesting. The System token doesn't work, the Lair Core will provide power for four expansions, plus one extra power slot like the smithy takes,” Marc said. “Let me check the other one.”

He'd shown the Monster Core from the troll to both Rob and Felicia after they'd gotten back to the Safe Zone. Jeff had been trying to convince him to sell it instead, positive that it would be worth a lot of gold. Marc had wanted to hold onto it, knowing he'd need the ability to expand a lot to convert the majority of the town to a Safe Zone.

Now he selected that core from the list.

Compatible, 75% efficiency. Will provide power for 5 expansions (+4 power slots for quality). Bonus: additional area claimed per expansion due to commonality and quality of core.

“Now that's what I'm talking about,” Marc said, bouncing on the front of his feet.

If he'd known how to dance, he would've been doing it. Instead, bouncing on the front of his feet was his version of a victory dance.

“What is?” Rob asked.

“The core from the troll? It's commonality and quality are high enough that the System awards additional area per expansion it's used for. So if I use that one, we can expand faster. Never mind that it can do five expansions and has four extra power slots beyond that.”

“Do we have that many things that need power?” Felicia asked.

Marc shrugged.

“The only one we've built so far is the smithy. I haven't seen others, but I'm betting there's lots of stuff we don't have access to yet. The smithy had an option for burning materials to power it as opposed to using the Safe Zone power slots. I imagine that's why it showed up when I didn't have any extra power slots to run it, but it let me designate power for it in exchange for one expansion slot. I bet once we have additional power slots available, there'll be things that use it showing up in the build options.”

Felicia grinned at him.

“You know what means, right? With that one core, you'll be able to get the Safe Zone expanded into the downtown. Well, if the additional area is anything worthwhile.”

“Whether it is or not, I'll take it. The next normal expansion would get us to the first buildings along the route I planned. I never should've had the recyclers working along the main road at the start, or we would've gotten some on this expansion.”

“Yeah, but isn't that only half value?” Rob asked.

“Sure, but there's no way we're going to get to everything before it falls apart, so it would've probably ended up a net gain. No use crying over spilled milk though. I've got them working off on the side streets now at least, so the next expansion will get us beyond where they stopped and get us additional building materials beyond what we're collecting,” Marc said.

“Great, so when can we expand again?” Rob asked. “I'm kind of catching on here. I hadn't really realized that everything would just decay into dust that we couldn't use for anything at all.”

“Rob, did you put another point in Intelligence?” Felicia asked.

He blushed.

“Yeah, I did. Back when I got level five. I was tired of taking a couple of minutes to catch up on the things you two and Jeff talked about. Sometimes you were on the next topic by the time I caught up on the previous one.”

Marc was curious now.

“So, is it working?” he asked.

Rob nodded.

“I think it is,” he said. “I really do. I know I'm not up at your levels of Intelligence yet, but it's easier to follow along. I'm not sure I'll add more to it though, at least not soon.”

“Great Rob, I'm glad that you're happy with your choice. You can always ask us to spell things out and explain them better though, you know that, right?”

“Yeah, but I don't like interrupting you when you're brainstorming,” Rob said. “It just seems rude to interrupt your flow that way.”

“Well, feel free to do so if you need it to follow along. You provide some of our ideas too, normally things the others of us haven't even considered,” Felicia said.

Rob's face reddened slightly, but he was smiling at the time.

“Well, it's dark out now, so I think I'm going to go to bed,” Marc said. “We can look over the new alterations in the morning when we can actually see them.”

“I told Janey I'd come visit tonight after dinner,” Rob said, “so I'd better go do that now. Don't want to break my word.”

“Escort me back to my apartment?” Felicia asked, smiling at Marc.

“I'd be delighted,” Marc said.

* * *

Come morning Marc remembered that he'd wanted to put his MP3 player down in the gym the night before and had totally spaced it. So to make up for that he figured he'd go put it down there now and leave it there for most of the day.

He purchased a couple more of the locks like he'd used on the help pad and locked his player and external speaker onto the build pedestal, then he turned everything on and set the player to shuffle through every song on it. Turning the volume up to where it could be heard in probably half the gym had it at less than half volume. He estimated that the battery, with its new capacity or reduced demand for electric from everything else in the system, would last for more than a day. Once he had that set up, he left and headed to the cafeteria for breakfast.

During breakfast, Marc chatted with the leaders of a couple of the other parties. Ron and Jayden were both planning to take their parties into the town and look for survivors today. There were enough classed people from the newest survivors to form several parties and the planned leaders for those stopped by as well, introducing themselves as Zoey, Mason, and Logan.

Marc was a bit more enthused by the next three people who stopped by. They were more of the most recent survivors, the ones that had held off on combat classing because they wanted the Mage class.

“Alright guys, let me get this set up. I have someone else who wants to learn the spell I'll be teaching you to get you the class, so give me an hour then meet in the auditorium?” Marc said.

He got a bunch of eager nods from that and then got to finish his breakfast in peace. He did manage to catch Ron before he left and ask if he could borrow Reggie for a little bit to teach him a new spell. Ron shrugged.

“Sure, I hate to bring the guy into fights, but his go-to spell is a real killer. I don't think we'll get into anything heavy today and even if we do, we can always retreat back to the Safe Zone and get some help with it, so I think it'll be good.”

“Well, I'll teach him another combat spell. It's damage won't match his Water Jet, but it'll grow over time as he uses it and it costs a lot less mana so he'll be able to get more spells off per fight using it,” Marc said.

“Now that's good,” Ron said. “The poor kid could only use that Water Jet once per fight when we started. Now he's up to like four a fight, but yeah, when we're facing hordes of smaller things it'd probably be handier for him to have a spell that didn't take a quarter of his mana.”

“You going to see him soon or know where he is?”

“He should be here with Ellie shortly. She was talking with that Combat Medic dude we just rescued. She thinks they can probably learn some of each other's skills or spells also since she's got a healing skill as well as her spells.”

“Good, more healing is always a good thing.”

“No need to tell me that,” Ron said.

“Alright then, I'll wait for Reggie. Going to try to get Mage classes for those three who were holding off on classes that we just rescued. I'll teach them the Mana Dart spell and Reggie can learn it at the same time.”

* * *

As Marc taught the four people the Mana Dart spell, he realized who the female in the group was.

Isn't that girl that Jeff was with yesterday? The one he said he'd hooked up with? Marc thought.

He didn't let it distract him, but he did make a plan based on it. He chatted with the different potential Mages and Reggie. When someone was slower to grasp a part, he talked with the others. The first thing he did was set up a time for Reggie to try to teach him the Water Jet spell and promised to give him the Fireball spell at the same time. Reggie was beaming and practically bouncing with excitement after that.

As he chatted with the others, he tried to determine their plans. They all wanted to join an adventuring group, but were uncertain how things were going to get split up. All the leaders from their batch of survivors had groups of six already and even that seemed to be a bit much in some cases. Marc just mentioned that some of the groups, including his own, could probably use another member or two so they could keep that in mind when determining where they'd end up.

That throw-away comment, something he never would've thought of using in the past, sparked a thoughtful look in Ella's eyes. She was the one that had been with Jeff and had gone to his apartment with him the night before, so Marc was hoping that her thought patterns were following the same path as his.

Because maybe if she's in our group with us, Jeff won't be quite as uptight. Plus as a Mage she'll work her way up to a decent DPS, which we need, if she's any good at it.

She certainly didn't seem to have any difficulty in grasping the basics of the spell. She was the second one in the group to get it, a few minutes after Reggie managed. The others, spurred on by a younger boy and a woman learning the spell before they did, both managed to get it down within ten minutes of the first two.

“So, these are the Mages?” Ella asked.

“This isn't all of us,” Marc said.

“And we all aren't just Mages,” Reggie added. “Marc here is an Arcane Bulwark, like a Mage tank, and I'm an Elemental Mage.”

Marc blinked. He'd never even thought to ask Reggie what his class was and had assumed he was just a Mage. He recovered though.

“Plus Doug is out with his group. He's also a Mage.”

“So, what do you think, should I take the plain Mage class the System just offered me?” Ella said.

“Did it offer anything else?” Marc replied.

“Not right now. I had offers for some melee class types before though.”

“Well Doug, at least, wanted the plain Mage class. He figured it would limit the spells he could learn less than any of the variant classes,” Marc said.

“Good point. I'll take it,” she said.

The others had instantly taken the Mage class when it was offered, so she was the last of them to do so.

“I think that's it for now,” Marc said. “I have another spell or two I can probably teach you, but I have other things I need to do today.”

He got a bunch of nods as people stood up to leave. Ella held back though.

“You said that your group needs more people?” she asked.

Marc grinned inwardly.

“Yes, we do. We're shy a straight DPS person. Jeff can do damage per second in bursts, but only from Stealth. I can do it also, but sometimes we need a second person on the front line and we'd rather not put our Healer there. So someone who is only dedicated to DPS would be optimal.”

“Like a Mage?”

“Or an Archer type, but yeah, Mages tend to do good DPS.”

“Hmm, any potential recruits for that position?” she asked.

Marc shook his head.

“I'm gonna talk to Jeff. Maybe I could take that slot? But I want to ask him about it first.”

If she can deal with him on a regular basis then I don't think he'll be able to drive her off if she wants something, Marc thought.

“Well, we'd be glad to have you if that's how things work out,” Marc said. “I have to go now though. We expanded the Safe Zone last night and I still haven't looked at the additions.”

* * *

Marc went searching and finally found the rest of his group already outside, looking around the new area that had been added. He hadn't been able to put all of the added area in front of the previous Safe Zone and leading towards the town, the build program had forced him to add some to the sides and rear as well, but the Safe Zone was now decidedly rectangular, one of the narrow ends of the rectangle getting close to the more heavily built-up areas of the town. The areas to the side and the rear were pretty much open except for the smithy and greenhouses he'd put there earlier on.

Down towards the new location for the front gates were the apartment building, the new field, and the pond. The new field almost abutted one of the existing ones. The apartment building and pond were across the street from it, the pond between the new lodging and the preexisting field on that side. Marc stifled a chuckle when he realized there was already someone fishing in the pond. One of the older men who'd come in with Ron's people was sitting on a rock at the edge of the pond, a makeshift fishing rod in hand.

Marc walked up to him.

“I don't know that you're going to catch anything in there yet,” he said.

The man turned to him, grinning.

“Not to worry. I saw the water stirring where the fish were eating the bugs. They're in here, see?”

He pulled up a length of cord that he'd turned into a makeshift stringer to hold the fish. On it were three fish, varying in size. Marc would guess that they ranged from one pound to three and couldn't identify the types to save his life. Fishing had never been his thing.

“I stand corrected. I thought with it just going in today it would take a while for there to be fish.”

“Well, there'll be a lot more in a while. I've been releasing all the smaller ones I catch so they can keep breeding, but there are a few of these bigger guys in here already. Besides, I got an even luckier catch this morning. After I released a few of the smaller guys I got offered a class. The Game Warden class. Since I do fishing and hunting both and know which prey to take and which not, I guess it makes sense. It's almost like this System thing knows me.”

“You did, did you? Do you happen to know what your class does?”

“Yeah, we manage wildlife to make sure they aren't run extinct. It says a Safe Zone can, at a reduced cost, set aside an area for native fish and game. If you do that, then I'll be able to make sure we can always harvest some game out of there.”

The System sounds like it got a little pushy here. Although if I can find the appropriate area in the build pedestal, I'll at least check the cost. Ongoing supplies of food and materials would probably be a good thing, Marc thought. First, I want to see the rest of the area I just expanded into.

As Marc walked down towards the gates he realized that there had been more than one reason it was a good idea to get the recyclers moving off the main road. There were several patches with deep holes where they'd removed houses that would've been in the current Safe Zone. He assumed said holes wouldn't appear if the materials were Harvested by a Safe Zone expansion. Even if they only gave half the amount of materials that way, it might be worth it just to avoid the massive holes.

Finally he found the rest of his group down near the gate.

“Marc, we were just talking about you,” Jeff said.

“That's okay, Ella and I were just talking about you, too,” Marc said, raising his eyebrows up and down a couple of times.

Jeff looked at him suspiciously, but Marc turned to Felicia.

“Were you, really?” he asked.

“Yes, we were. We were saying that we're going to need to have more than one gate into the Safe Zone, especially if we keep expanding quickly,” she said. “You're the one who could do that, so we were talking about you, but you were talking with Ella?”

“Yeah, she's one of the people I just helped get the Mage class. I remembered that we were looking for a DPS and if we can get her some levels then a Mage class could be a decent one,” he said softly.

He glanced around and realized that Jeff wasn't paying any attention to him. He was staring at the road that led between the keep and the gate. Marc's eyes followed his and he saw Ella walking down the road, her eyes on Jeff.

“She said she'd run it by Jeff, but would love to join our group,” he said, still speaking softly.

“You can be cruel, you know that?” Felicia said.

“Why?”

“You don't know that he wants anything to do with her on a regular basis,” Felicia pointed out.

“Well, he did bring her back to his apartment the first night she was here,” Marc said. “So I don't think he'd be that adverse to it.”

She shook her head.

“You know, Marc? You're a nice guy. It's one of the reasons I was interested and waited so long. I'm sure you'd be true to anyone you were with, but Jeff?”

“I think you underestimate him,” Rob said. “In all the time I've known him he's had the opportunity to join lots of other cliques or circles of friends. He's stuck with us pretty much straight through. I mean, yeah, he went off to get excitement elsewhere, but he always came back.”

Felicia just stared at Rob.

“I'm just saying that he has that potential,” Rob said.

“I don't disagree, looking at it that way. I'm just surprised that you were the one to point it out.”

Rob beamed.

“I may never have had the quickest wit, but I've always been good at judging people. At least I think I was. Now that I'm a little smarter, I'm even better at that.”

Marc's attention was torn away from Rob as Jeff broke into a trot. He'd agreed with Felicia and had been worried that Jeff would run away from Ella, but he was trotting straight to her and when he reached her, he threw his arms around her and swung her around in a circle before setting her down.

Marc just stared, dumbfounded, as Ella laughed at Jeff's antics, the sound ringing out loud and clear.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Five

Jeff led Ella up to the rest of the group a couple of minutes later.

“Hey guys? Ella would like to be our DPS, what do you guys think?” he asked.

Ella was standing slightly behind Jeff and Marc could clearly see her smirk.

Oh my god, he thought, they're a perfect pair, they deserve each other. Did she just manage to manipulate him into asking in under two minutes? Should I say something? No, having a DPS is more important, I think, as long as she doesn't keep that up in any way that's detrimental.

Felicia glanced at Marc, who just shrugged and tried to direct her gaze to Ella's smirk. Felicia glanced where he was looking and got a soft smile on her own face.

“Yeah, that sounds great to me, weren't we discussing needing a DPS member?” she said.

“Yeah, I was talking about it recently even,” Marc said, looking directly at Ella.

She at least had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. She shrugged and looked at Jeff as though saying “What can you do?”

Rob looked at her, then Jeff.

“Sure, we'll need to get her some levels though, both in her class and in the Mana Dart spell if that's what Marc taught her. Those extra Darts Marc gets at his current level in the skill make a real difference.”

This time it was Jeff's turn to stare at Rob as though not believing that their large tank would realize something that insightful. Rob still looked the same, just bigger, so it was easy to forget that he'd been adding points to his mind stats.

“So, it's decided then? I can give it a shot?” Ella asked, looking gratefully towards Marc for not revealing their earlier conversation. “I'm so glad you thought of that, Jeff. I wasn't sure what I expected when I asked what I could do to be useful now that I had a class that could do ranged damage.”

Aha! I wonder if they really only hooked up a couple of times or if it was more than that, Marc thought. Since she already knows that the best way to get Jeff to do something is to make him think it was his own idea, it makes me wonder how well she knows him.

“That's okay with me,” Marc said. “Feel free to back out if it's too much for you though. I know some of the people we have here can't handle the combat end of things very well.”

Ella shook her head.

“I'll be fine. I've already been in a few fights with the orcs when they tried to come up the stairs. So I know what combat is like, at least a little. I almost froze the first time, but came around and managed to brain that bugger with a cast-iron frying pan before he could get his sword around all the furniture blocking the stairs. Didn't kill him, but it did stun him briefly, just long enough for one of the guys with spears to take care of him.”

Jeff beamed at her as she spoke and Marc blinked a few times, not quite believing what he was seeing. Jeff's actions suggested that there was definitely more than just a couple of hook ups in the past, starting with going to check out that particular apartment building and running right through to the way he was looking at her now.

“It's a good thing you had so many gamers in your building,” Marc said. “We're guessing it's because they recognized what was happening and adapted more quickly than most that you had so many survivors there.”

“Really, you think that's why?” Ella asked. “In that case...”

She paused for a moment.

“About two and a half miles farther out Cherry Street. You know those buildings that look almost like slums? The ones that are only technically in town because they're so far out.”

“The big concrete ones?” Jeff said.

She nodded.

“I know there was a group of gamers there. I used to work in an electronics shop, and one of the guys was in over and over. He was buying cables and parts to set up a large LAN so he and a bunch of his gamer friends could have LAN parties at home. He invited me to join them when he found out I played a few of the same games, but was okay with it when I turned him down. He just told me where they were and that if I changed my mind I was welcome any time.”

Jeff was looking irked.

“That was a few months back, so he's probably still there. He was a good guy, as soon as I told him I had a boyfriend he backed off,” Ella finished.

Marc's eyes flashed to Jeff, who was looking kind of sheepish as he found the eyes of Rob and Felicia on him as well. Jeff just shrugged and looked embarrassed.

Yup, more going on there than he was willing to admit, Marc thought, but that's fine. It isn't, or wasn't, really our business. And now we know.

“Well then, I wanted to find more survivors and that sounds like a good lead. Anyone have objections to heading out there tomorrow?” Marc asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Jeff said.

Rob and Felicia were nodding their heads in agreement with him and Ella just looked proud that she might've provided a lead that could help find more survivors.

* * *

Marc and the group headed back towards the keep. Once they got there, Marc told them that he was going to go check out something he'd been informed he could build at a discount. The rest of the group went with him, but when he got to the gym and headed for the building pedestal he saw an older man trying to mess with his MP3 player. It was password protected with a PIN though, and the man wasn't having any luck.

“Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?” Marc said.

“Trying to change this junk music to something a little more acceptable, why?” the man answered.

“How about because it's my MP3 player and my speaker.”

“Then put something decent on, not this new-fangled trash,” the man spat.

“No,” Marc said, “and I don't know where this attitude is coming from. You're getting free room and board, the only condition was that you had to pull your own weight. I don't think that's too much to expect.”

“As though it matters what you think,” the man said. “You young snots, always acting so superior.”

Marc was normally pretty level headed, but he'd caught the man trying to mess with his belongings and now the man was insulting him and trying to act all haughty. Even his level headedness was being pushed to the limit.

“So, how exactly are you pulling your weight?” Marc asked, his voice cold, but loud.

“As though I'd do anything like that.”

“So, you're saying I should mark you hostile so the gargoyle guardian comes after you? Or should I just throw you out of the Safe Zone?”

“You and what army?” the man said.

Marc had had enough.

“Listen, buddy. You had as much of a chance to build a Safe Zone as I did, and you didn't. Your continued stay in this Safe Zone is dependent on pulling your own weight.”

Marc desperately wanted to know the man's name so he could keep track of him and make sure he started doing something. A small light in the lower corner of his vision, slightly different from the notifications one, started flashing and he pulled it up. It contained the list of residents he'd made of the Safe Zone and one of the names was highlighted. As he stared at it and made a mental note of the name, a familiar shrill voice startled him, pulling him out of his perusal of the list.

“How dare you speak to my husband that way.”

“Karen? I should've known,” Marc said. “So, Mr. Michael Sternn and Mrs. Karen Sternn. The two of you still aren't listed as having any duties or doing anything productive in the Safe Zone.”

He'd noticed when he'd accidentally pulled up the list in his anger, that quite a few of the names in it had a notation of what functions they were performing, these two had still been blank in that slot.

“So, you've got forty-eight hours. If you still haven't taken on any duties in that time, you will have the choice of having them assigned and enforced, or being escorted out the front gate of the Safe Zone. I have repeated myself, over and over, that you're welcome to be here, but if you are you need to pull your own weight. So far, the two of you are just dead weight, and this Safe Zone can't afford that.”

Marc's voice hadn't risen, but he had been speaking loudly. What he hadn't realized was that all the other conversations in the gym had ceased. He'd been speaking loud enough to be heard over the music and as a result everyone in the gym had heard him. The first time he was aware of that was when someone in the crowd of people in the gym started clapping. Not a slow golf clap either, but actual applause. The first person was quickly joined by several others and Marc flushed when he looked up and saw everyone staring at him.

He was also surprised that every person in his own group was looking at him approvingly. Even Ella had a satisfied smirk on her face and was nodding her head.

Marc beat a hasty, but dignified, retreat from the gym. He'd considered turning the music up and restricting it to the directory holding the genre the man had been complaining about, but resisted the impulse. When he made it to the cafeteria he collapsed into a chair, leaning forward on the table.

“Way to go, man,” Jeff said. “Those are exactly the people I was worried about showing up here. Not necessarily those two, but their type. You told them though. I'll help you escort them out the gate when it's needed.”

“You mean if it's needed, don't you?” Marc asked.

“What, you think being lectured by some wet-behind-the-ears, by his standards, young whippersnapper is going to change what that guy or the Karen are going to do? Dream on, man. I'll help you kick them out though, no problem there.”

“I'll help too,” Rob said. “You've been very clear that everyone needs to pull their weight. How do you know that they haven't been though?”

“Evidently the same list that I use to authorize people as residents of the Safe Zone keeps track of what duties they perform while in it. One second.”

He pulled up the list again and skimmed it.

“Even the little girl I hired to run down to the wall and warn the guard before expanding has a listing as 'messenger', but those two show nothing at all in the duties section,” Marc said.

“Oh, what's it show for us, just out of curiosity?” Jeff said.

Marc pulled it back up.

“Adventurer,” he said, before starting to laugh.

It took a minute or two for the hysterical laughter to subside.

“Hell, here I am, classified as an adventurer by the System, trying to run a Safe Zone, and I had to leave so I didn't perform an act of petty revenge on that asshole.”

Jeff quirked an eyebrow at him.

“I was sorely tempted to turn the music up and restrict it to the directory of songs in the same genre of the one he complained about,” Marc said.

Jeff snorted.

“I would've done it, then piped the music into whatever apartment he's in too,” Jeff said. “Or wherever else he tried to go.”

Marc felt hands on his shoulders, hands which started digging into the knots in his muscles that had been building for days. He sighed, practically a gasp, and slumped under Felicia's ministrations.

“So, are we still on for tomorrow's search and rescue?” Ella asked.

“Definitely, sometimes I think I can relax more out in town under threat of the spawns than I can here,” Marc said. “There are a bunch more people like that on the list, showing no duties or contributions to the Safe Zone, but I can't do anything about that since we just brought in a bunch more people recently and they need the time to settle in. Those blank listings might be them. Soon though, I'll need to start keeping an eye on that list and maybe kicking more people out. I don't like that idea, I hate it, but we can't carry people who aren't willing to help out, we just can't.”

“Like I said, that's the type of people I was worried about,” Jeff said. “Fortunately we got a lot of the other kind too. I'll help boot people as needed, you don't even need to help. I can do it all on my own if necessary.”

Marc waited until well after dinner to return to the gymnasium, retrieve his MP3 player and speaker, then pull up the build screen. As he'd expected an entry for a Wildlife Preserve now existed. He pulled it up and read the information it contained.

A Wildlife Preserve is a way of maintaining a stock of the natural creatures in the area. Spawns are disallowed from attacking the game in a Wildlife Preserve, although hunters and the Game Warden are fair game for them. The Game Warden may authorize kills or other harvesting of the natural creatures in his Wildlife Preserve.

Requirements: Individual with Game Warden class to unlock Wildlife Preserve. Forested area as minimum of 50% of intended Preserve. Living trees in Preserve do not count towards required materials.

Minimum size of 10 acres, up to 10,000 acres. Requires 1 unit of wood per acre at build time.

Upgradeable

Well, that's pretty straightforward, he thought. There's a whole bunch of woods back behind the high school, some little streams and ponds as well, so that would be a good place to put it. Not yet though, I don't want to use the wood right now, we'll expand the Safe Zone a couple more times first, I think.

Felicia had joined him in coming to retrieve his items, now she took his arm.

“Come on, let's go back to your place. I just got your shoulders earlier and you're much more relaxed. How about I give you a full body massage?”

Marc picked up his pace, the memory of her hands working the knots from his shoulders hastening his steps in anticipation of more of the same.

* * *

Felicia's ministrations helped a great deal and Marc ended up having a better night's sleep than he had since the System had arrived, even with her sleeping beside him, an arm thrown over his chest.

Now he was up though and he didn't want to wake her. He was sure she'd been just as tense as he'd been before she massaged him, although their activities after the massage may well have relieved some of her stress as well. He slipped out from under her arm carefully before heading over to the shower.

Evidently he wasn't quiet enough, because while he was in the shower he felt the shower door open and another body slip in with him. Despite it being a tight fit just for him, the two of them managed to burn off a bit more stress before he was finally ready to head down for breakfast.

When he got down to the cafeteria he noticed that there were fewer people visible than normal, then quickly attributed it to the fact that he was about an hour later than his normal time of coming down for breakfast.

His group was there, waiting, and he and Felicia quickly got their own food and ate.

“So, we still doing this?” Jeff asked.

Marc nodded.

“Do we want to bring some of the other groups along as well?” he asked.

“Don't think we can,” Jeff replied. “I think they all headed out already. They also rearranged a lot, what with the new Mages available. So those new people have four groups now, four groups of five. They already had eighteen combat classes. Adding in two more Mages made it easy to split up evenly. The point being, they're already out and about, scavenging and hunting spawns.”

“Alright then, should we head out?” Marc asked as soon as he'd finished his food.

Everyone else stood as he did and they walked out of the keep. Now Marc knew where the other people were that were normally in the cafeteria. There were a number of people with Allan at the fields. He was showing them how to treat the new field and a sack of seeds was lying at the edge of the road, just waiting for the newest field to be prepped.

Allan spared him a wave as he was walking down the road, then hurried over to catch a word with him.

“What happened?” Allan asked. “I'd had one person interested in learning the Farming skill, this morning though six more showed up.”

“Um,” Marc said, embarrassed. “I kind of made the point that anyone in the Safe Zone needed to help somehow, and told a particular couple that if they didn't start helping, we'd escort them out and set them to hostile with the gargoyle.”

Allan chuckled.

“Damned layabouts, they used to be everywhere. Looks like this System did us one favor at least, there's a lot fewer of them than there used to be. Sounds like fewer still soon, one way or the other.”

It took Marc a moment to realize that Allan meant they'd either be helping and no longer layabouts, or dead and no longer layabouts. When he did realize what the Farmer meant, he was torn between feeling bad about it and agreeing with the man.

Me and my group have been risking life and limb, even taken a lot of injuries, to help these people survive. If they aren't willing to help with their own survival, then maybe they don't deserve to have a spot here, he thought.

He felt bad about how he'd phrased it to himself, but he wasn't enough of a fool to try to deny that that's how he felt deep down. His surface feelings were the ones that objected to the potential treatment he'd have to give the Sternns, and those were only from the things he'd been taught, not his own deep-down feelings.

The things I was taught in a much kinder and gentler world, he thought. I think those are going to need to fall by the wayside though, at least if we want to survive. We can give them a chance at survival. If they don't take that chance and run with it? Well, the end results aren't our fault, they aren't my fault. We told them what was required before we brought them here. It's like breaking a contract, there are penalties.

As much as he tried to convince himself of his argument, he still felt a niggling trace of guilt, but he determined that he was going to stand by his decision, even if he felt guilty about it.

Because it isn't right to the people who are running with their chance, who are helping out in order for all of us to survive, if I don't stand by that decision.

Finally having resolved the inner dilemma that had been bothering him, he gave Allan a firm nod.

“One way or the other,” he said. “Regardless of how that makes me feel.”

Allan gave him a grin.

“Good to know the man in charge has a rational grip on the situation, but still feels things,” he said. “I'll get back to work. If you have a chance we can use more of these fields. Once they get the class, assuming they do, it'll take one Farmer or two Field Hands per field.”

“Can Gardeners help?” Marc asked.

Allan shook his head.

“Nah, they're specialized in smaller patches of crops, or maybe herb gardens and the like. They'd probably work well in the greenhouses too. These fields take a different form of treatment, but they're also more limited in the crops they can grow.”

Marc nodded. It kind of made sense to him. Gardeners probably dealt with more delicate crops or things that took more individual effort while Farmers, and apparently Field Hands, dealt with bulk crops.

Although I didn't even know Field Hand was a class. I wonder if someone got it or he learned that from his Farmer class?

He didn't stop to ask now though.

“Sorry, I have to go. We received some information on where there might be another pocket of survivors so we want to go see if there's anyone there or not.”

“On your way then, more people will be better. Specially with your new building there,” Allan said, gesturing towards the apartment building.

“Yeah, I need to find someone to work as an administrator or something so we can get people settled into the lodgings we have. People have just been settling in wherever they can.”

Marc waved as he continued down the road, the whole conversation taking less than a couple of minutes.

Conner stood on the wall above the gates, looking out towards the town.

“Conner, recycling crews taking time off?” Marc called.

The Guardian looked down.

“No, the adventuring parties decided that they were going to rotate the guard duty on the recyclers among them. The last couple of attacks on the recycling parties were close things, too many for a single guard to handle almost. This way I can actually stand guard on the Safe Zone proper and they'll have enough people for guard duty. I did already pick up a couple of levels from guarding the recyclers and that might've had something to do with their decision, though. Experience that comes to you instead of having to hunt it? Slower, but some people apparently prefer that.”

“Good then, good to know that we've got a person standing guard along with the gargoyle,” Marc said.

“Speaking of that, you upgraded again? I was told there's a slot for a second Guardian for the Safe Zone now and the wall is much farther out. You mind if I do some recruiting?”

“Feel free, just try not to poach the adventurers, okay?”

“Done Marc, I'll check those who aren't classed yet first. I think my Grandfather's favorite good bye is appropriate here, though, since it looks like you're headed out into town,” Conner said. “Safe journey to you.”

Marc waved as they passed through the gates. Now that they were in the city he had to focus. Ella took the lead, going around the south side of the settlement and starting out down a road. Marc recognized that they'd come to Cherry street in about a quarter mile, then they'd have to turn and take a two mile plus walk.

* * *

About a mile or a bit more down Cherry street, Marc stopped for a second. Something looked off, although he couldn't tell what. So far they'd done the same as before. They'd travel a few blocks, call out for survivors, post signs telling people there was a Safe Zone at the high school saying that if people were willing to help support it, they could live there.

They'd just finished one of those stops a block back, although Marc had been pretty sure there weren't any survivors in that area. There'd been holes in the buildings, holes that looked like giant bullet holes, and he had no idea what had caused those. Now, he was sure something was off.

He called a halt for the rest of them also and kept scanning.

“What's the problem?” Jeff asked.

Marc shook his head.

“I'm looking. It's a gut feeling sort of thing. Something's different here, but I can't tell exactly what.”

“That,” Felicia said, pointing.

Marc followed her finger, staring at the concrete building she was pointing at. He had no idea what it had been, but it was ugly now. It was probably uglier before it was destroyed even. Right now the roof was caved in along with one of the walls, the center of the concrete wall's thickness a much lighter color than the outer edges.

“That's it,” he said. “The hole in that wall? If it was the System's decay it wouldn't be that color along the exposed edge, it would look the same as the parts that are lying on the sidewalk in front of it. That concrete was smashed by something, not decayed by the System.”

“So what smashed it?” Rob asked.

“Now that's the question, isn't it?” Marc said. “Hey Jeff, feel like practicing your Stealth for a few minutes?”

“You got it,” Jeff said.

He started to shimmer as though going into Stealth only for it to fail as Ella grabbed his arm.

“Careful, hon,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek before releasing his arm.

Jeff looked mortified for the brief moment before he slipped into Stealth.

Ella knows that, too, Marc thought. That smirk says she knows exactly what she's doing. What is this, an episode of How to Train your Rogue?

As Marc turned to look forward again, he caught sight of Felicia, who looked like she was trying hard not to smile.

No, it's more than not smiling, it's like she's trying hard not to burst out laughing, Marc thought.

It was only a couple of minutes until Jeff was back.

“I got close enough to Analyze this time,” he said. “Ogres, three of them.”

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Six

Marc continued to stare, something still wasn't right and his brain wouldn't let go of the problem until he figured out what it was.

“We going to do something?” Jeff asked softly.

Marc held up a finger and mouthed the words “one minute”.

Then it clicked.

“Hey Jeff, was there a lot of debris inside of that building?”

Jeff cocked his head for a moment.

“Yeah, but not from the building itself, no concrete in there.”

“Then I think that, like in the games, these things are going to be incredibly strong. Look at all the debris outside. They hit it from inside to destroy it and if those things can punch through a wall like that?”

Marc shook his head and the rest of the party took on a thoughtful look.

“Should we maybe just go around them?” Ella asked.

Marc shook his head.

“No. We know that the spawns will breed if left alone long enough. There are only three now, but they might spawn in more even before starting to breed. If we leave them alone, it'll just get worse.”

“So, how can we take them?” Rob asked.

“I'm still trying to put some puzzle pieces together, but you know those holes in the buildings I was commenting on?”

Rob nodded.

“I think that was these guys, since they're the only thing in the area and so strong.”

“So, throwing stuff?”

“That's my guess,” Marc said. “Maybe chunks of concrete from their own building?”

“I have something that might help some with that,” Rob said. “If we can get all our shield users in the front line.”

Marc looked at him curiously.

“I took the Shield Wall skill. With three of us, we'd get thirty percent more armor rating for everyone in the front line and the back line can just stay behind us,” Rob said.

“Did you try it out?” Jeff asked.

Rob nodded.

“Grabbed a couple of other tanks and experimented. It creates this big oval shaped shield, kinda like Marc's Phantom Shield spell, but thicker to the eye.”

Marc quickly pulled up the Shield Wall skill and skimmed it. He'd read it before and thought he had a way to exploit it.

“Hey, we might be able to bump that up to sixty percent more armor,” he said. “The skill description says 'per shield'. If my Phantom Shield spells count as a shield, I can toss a bunch of those out. I already found that I can control it, fasten it to my arm like a shield, so maybe...”

“Okay,” Jeff says. “That definitely gives us better protection. What about damage though? Ella's still low level so she won't be able to output a lot of it.”

Marc pulled out his AR-15 and looked over at Felicia. Seeing what he was doing, she pulled out her shotgun.

“Well, Felicia has the close in damage covered, and I can fire while we're on the way in,” he said.

“With shield in hand?” Jeff asked, doubtfully.

“Maybe not before, but I've got more Strength and Agility now, plus...”

Marc turned his arm, holding his shield horizontal to the ground, then he laid the AR-15 across it and sighted through the scope.

“Yeah, I can do that for a minute or two,” he said.

Rob cleared his throat.

“Um, you won't have a minute or two. Shield Wall is a mana-based Warrior skill. With my mana level I'll only be able to hold it for about fifteen seconds or so.”

“That's enough for us to get close, at least,” Marc said. “Since I think the biggest danger for us here will be them hurling chunks of concrete at us, I think it'll help a lot. A tip though Rob, you'll want to not run your mana down to zero. It makes it a lot harder to fight after since it'll give you a raging headache.”

“Thanks, I'll remember that. This is the only mana-based skill I have so far though, so it shouldn't matter, mostly.”

“So, that's the plan?” Jeff said. “You four go charging at them while I'm in Stealth behind them?”

“Pretty much. We'll try to hold their attention with the guns, I think that'll work okay to give you distracted targets,” Marc said.

Jeff sighed.

“Well, if we're going to do this, we probably ought to just do this,” he said. “I wish we had some of the other groups with us though.”

Then he grinned.

“On the other hand, this'll be a lot more experience for us this way, not having to split it with another group. Hey, loot too, although since it seems to give everyone stuff every time, I don't know if it's that much of a difference.”

He glanced at Ella quickly, took a step to put more distance between them, then faded out into Stealth.

“Give me two minutes,” he said.

Then there was silence. More silence than was normal anywhere in the town. With the power out, the background hum of the electric lines was gone, and there wasn't anything living in the area that the ogres had claimed. The only noise in the two minutes was when one of the ogres shifted and grunted. Then time was up.

“Okay, let's move forward at a quick march,” Marc said. “Three shields abreast. The Shield Wall spell says that other shields joining in increase its strength for as long as it's in existence. So I'll start with a pair of Phantom Shields on Rob and Felicia. If they do seem to work on it, I'll add in my own next.”

He turned to Ella.

“As soon as we're in combat and you're in range, start casting your Mana Dart and just keep going until you're out of mana. Probably back off at that point since you've got no armor.”

Marc quickly cast his own Arcane Armor, then Phantom Shields on Felicia and Rob.

I hope this works, he thought. Fortunately my max mana is almost four hundred now, so I can cast three shields and my armor and still have enough for eleven Mana Darts with my mana regen by the time I cast that much. Less if I use Fireball, but I might get multiple targets with that spell, so we'll see.

The three with shields lined up together. Marc told the other two to imagine their Phantom Shields on their non-shield arm like normal shields would rest in that position. He could tell that the shields moved as he'd said so the target of the spell was the one that could control it. Something he'd wondered about. Then they started moving forward.

It wasn't a silent movement by any means. The sound of the guns clacking against the shields and Rob's shield and armor rang out in the mostly silent street and a moment later a large head stuck up out of the broken concrete building that was their target. It noticed them and the ogre clambered out onto the sidewalk, bending over and picking up a basketball-sized chunk of concrete. It wound up to throw and when it released, the concrete was moving at the speed of a major league fastball. A shimmer went up in front of them as Rob triggered his skill.

The concrete slammed into the Shield Wall in front of Rob, caroming off to strike a building somewhere. Marc felt the force on his shield as well and he realized the Shield Wall must distribute the force to every shield in it.

“It's working,” Rob called. “I can see how many shields are in the Shield Wall and it reads five.”

Marc quickly cast Phantom Shield on himself, as well, just in time for another chunk of concrete to come rocketing in.

He leveled the rifle across his shield and tried to bend down to look through the scope. That was too difficult to manage while maintaining the quick march though.

Hell, it's a huge target so maybe I don't need the scope? he thought.

Firing without proper aim left his shots striking all over, but they were striking. The ogre was ten feet tall and as wide as two men standing side by side. Marc emptied the magazine as quickly as he could when he noted that a second ogre was coming out to join the first. He figured he hit with twenty or more of the rounds in the thirty round magazine and that was better than he'd expected.

Several more concrete chunks came flying in, slamming into the shield wall and, in one case, breaching it. The one that made it through hit Rob, throwing off his pace, although he managed to keep the Shield Wall up. Felicia stopped for a moment, throwing a heal at Rob leaving Marc in front of them.

“Five seconds left,” Rob called as he started moving again.

Marc was staring right in front of him. The Shield Wall had moved with the shields and was now in an arrowhead shape, focused in front of him. He pushed his Phantom Shield out from his body, narrowing the tip of the wall even more.

“Sprint!” he yelled. “We can use the Shield Wall to attack.”

Marc broke into a run, then a sprint when he saw the others joining him. It took another second for them to reach the first ogre, the one Marc had shot repeatedly. When they did reach it, it was almost like running into a brick wall, the Shield Wall contacting it and transmitting the force of the blow back to all the shields involved.

The ogre was the only one on the other side of the Shield Wall though, so he took the entire force of all their sprinting bodies, focused to a narrow wedge at the front of the Shield Wall. Marc, Rob, and Felicia were slightly stunned by the impact, but the ogre went flying, the front of his body rent in a wide cut from the point of the Shield Wall.

Rob almost recovered too late. He'd dropped the Shield Wall after impact, so it was only the Phantom Shield and his own physical shield that blocked the fist of the second ogre that had come out. This time it was Rob's turn to go flying.

He flickered with a golden-yellow light before impacting the ground as Felicia threw out a heal. A Mana Dart flashed over Marc's head to strike the remaining ogre in front of them, reminding him that Ella was in the fight also.

Not wanting to take the time to change magazines, he started casting. As he did, the roar of Felicia's shotgun caused him to flinch, almost losing control of his spell, but a moment later three Mana Darts, unaspected, went flying into the ogre that was now approaching him after it had sent Rob flying.

In one of those pauses in combat where it's nearly silent, Marc heard the distinctive sound of Felicia  racking her shotgun to load another shell. He got another Mana Dart off just as she fired again.

Rob was back up again now, but Marc had been slow to get his second spell off on the ogre since he'd had to dodge several blows from it as well. It was slow, but he was pretty sure it would just have to hit him once to put him down for good. Rob came charging in with his longsword out now. His first strike took the ogre in the leg, slowing it as he carved deep into the muscle.

Marc took a moment to catch his breath, his dodging having consisted as much of him just throwing himself to one side or the other as controlled movement. As he did, the shotgun roared again.

That's three shells. I know she had six, five in the tubular magazine and one in the chamber, he thought. And it's slowing already, so we've got this, I hope.

With another Mana Dart preceding his movement, Marc went back in closer in case Rob ended up needing help. Ella was still hurling her single dart Mana Darts, or had been until recently. Marc imagined she was out of mana by now though, so he was surprised to see her move in closer instead of fleeing back away from the danger. She had a knobby club in her hand, the portion in her grip about the size of a baseball bat, but the other end swelling out to half the size of a person's head.

She let out a crazed scream, swinging her club into the side of the ogre's knee. The shotgun roared again and Marc waited for that before starting to cast his spell, having almost lost concentration on his spells twice in this battle when the gun went off while he was casting.

The ogre was slacking, but kicked at Rob. Rob was watching its arms and not its feet and Marc almost wasn't in time to cast Crenelate on the ground right in front of Rob. As it was he didn't have a chance to warn the tank, just cast it.

Your spell, Crenelate, has increased in skill level (1->2).

When the stone rose from the ground to block the front of the ogre's toes, it roared its anger and pain. Rob, finally having noticed the danger, had been backing up. Now, seeing the three foot tall crenelation and the ogre temporarily slowed as it lowered its foot to the ground, he raced forward the distance he'd just put between himself and the monster. With an extra push he lofted his next step up onto the crenelation, then lofted himself again, longsword brought back over his head and sweeping downwards as he leapt forward.

The ogre, already very shredded from the fight, received the blade of the longsword in the middle of its face. As Rob's momentum carried him back down, the sword was dragged down the front of the ogre, shredding its torso even more.

The ogre was done, collapsing to the ground in a bloody mess. As the four of them stood there, panting, the sound of combat came from inside of the building, followed by a yell.

“A little help here!”

The voice was definitely Jeff's and it sounded like he was in pain.

* * *

Ella was the first to react, she started for the door leading into the building, then stopped.

“I don't have enough mana to cast and I really can't tank at all,” she said. “Someone help him.”

Marc was already moving, heading for the collapsed wall. When Ella spoke, Felicia and Rob started moving as well. Rob heading for the door and Felicia followed Marc.

Marc stopped at the top and started casting. When Felicia reached him a few seconds later, he'd already launched a Mana Dart at Jeff's opponent. Jeff himself was limping around the interior, trying to dodge the hands of the last of the ogres. It was spilling blood from its back, evidence that Jeff had managed his backstab, but simply not done enough damage to drop the creature.

Rob raced inside the door, then looked at the ogre.

“Whoa, ugly! Big ugly!” Rob shouted, Taunting it.

The ogre looked over and a look of rage crossed its face. Meanwhile yellow-gold light played across Jeff's body from Felicia's spell.

Rob had switched out his longsword for his pilum and when the ogre charged him he simply stepped back out through the door. The door was far too small to allow the ogre passage so Rob apparently thought he was safe. The ogre didn't care though and tried to throw itself through the door at full speed. The walls alongside the doorway simply weren't strong enough to stop it, especially after the System deterioration, and while they slowed it, they also gave way and spilled the ogre out onto the sidewalk at Rob's feet.

He stabbed down with the pilum, then leapt backwards as it tried to scramble to its feet. After a second heal on Jeff, Felicia turned to the last standing ogre, shotgun still in hand.

“Last shell, I hope it helps,” she called out.

Marc himself was starting to get low on mana, so instead of continuing to cast he dug out his rifle and the spare magazine. The magazine swap only took a couple of seconds and he spilled the empty mag into his inventory to reload later on.

This ogre was slightly farther away and focused on its target, so this time he used the scope. His finger tightened on the trigger over and over as he squeezed it, sending round after round into the ogre's  head. After the first two shots it turned towards him, giving him a better target. It started moving towards him as he centered the scope on its right eye and squeezed the trigger. Text flashed across the bottom of his vision.

Critical strike. Damage X5.

The ogre roared and staggered as the loss of sight in one eye affected its balance. Even so, Marc took aim for its other eye once it had steadied itself. Rob was still stabbing with the pilum, but Marc had done enough damage that the ogre refused to change its target back to the tank.

Marc fired at the other eye, missing. He aimed once more as the ogre reached down to a pile of rubble for a moment to steady itself. In the brief moment it was still he fired again. Text flared in his vision again and he read it as it overlaid the sight of the ogre collapsing forward.

Critical strike. Damage X5.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck fuck! Where is it?” Jeff's voice called from in the room.

Marc looked down into it to see Jeff scrambling around on all fours, looking for something. Rob, meanwhile, had stabbed the last ogre one last time to see if it was dead. When it didn't move, he gave a thumbs up.

“What is it, Jeff?” Marc called.

“I lost the damned gladius, the stupid ogre knocked it out of my hand and now I can't find it.”

“How valuable does something need to be for your find valuables skill?” Marc asked.

Jeff straightened up and shot one arm up into the air, index finger extended from the hand at the top of the arm.

“Great idea! One second.”

Jeff concentrated for a moment then started scrambling again, this time with a purpose. He started tossing items into a pile and when he reached the third thing he'd detected, a loud sigh came from him. Marc watched as Jeff sheathed his gladius, then turned back towards the items he'd already tossed into a pile.

“There's more in here too, I'll work on that for now, you guys go loot the rest, okay?”

Instead of following his suggestion, Felicia worked her way down the rubble into the room.

“You aren't healed all the way, you're still limping, let me take care of it,” she said.

Marc saw her start casting again and walked away to check on Rob. Before he'd started shooting, the last ogre had been pounding on the tank pretty badly. Now he was just sitting on the ground.

“How are you, Rob?”

“Exhausted, burned all my stamina trying to Shield Bash this thing, but it wasn't working.”

“Not surprising since it's so much larger than us,” Marc said. “Are you wounded at all?”

“A little. I'll go find Felicia after I catch my breath.”

“She's taking care of Jeff right now. He wasn't looking too good, didn't seem to be thinking too straight, either.”

“So, you're saying he was wounded but otherwise normal for him?”

“Nah, he was freaking out over having dropped the sword. That doesn't sound like normal to me, even for him.”

“Well, hopefully he's okay. We're only a little more than halfway to our goal.”

“Yeah, I'm wondering if we should keep going today or try again later.”

“Today,” Rob said. “You said it yourself, the longer we wait the fewer we'll save. And if these are gamers then we'll probably get more combat classes and be able to handle more than we have been.”

“True, I just worry about us sometimes, you know?”

Rob got a serious look on his face.

“I do too, all the time, but it isn't like I could do anything but what I've been doing and still be able to look at myself in the mirror. Even this doesn't feel like enough, but it's all I can do,” Rob said. “All we can do, I suppose.”

* * *

Marc took Jeff's advice and went to loot the two ogres from the outside. When he had, he was surprised at what he received. Trotting back in to the last of the ogres, he found everyone else inside.

“Hey guys, I don't know what's up, but each of these ogres is giving me about as much gold as the troll did,” Marc said.

“Huh,” Jeff said. “Wait, that makes sense. We killed the troll with what, something like fourteen people? This time we only had five on three of them. So if they were the high end of uncommon, or low end of rare, then it would make sense.”

“Didn't it tell you commonality when you Analyzed them?” Marc asked.

“Oh, maybe, let me check.”

After a moment of checking his logs, Jeff nodded.

“Yeah, they're technically only uncommons, but so were the orcs, so there must be different difficulties within each commonality?”

“Anyhow, the point being,” Marc said. “There's gold on those corpses, so make sure you remember to loot.”

Recalling Jeff's rather disrespectful act with the troll, he kicked the last of the ogre corpses, looting it as he did so.

I hate to admit it, but that's kind of fun, Marc thought. Maybe even a touch cathartic?

“Alright, Jeff, what's up with the freaking out earlier on. Scrambling on all fours to find the sword? What was that all about?”

“I need a backup weapon,” Jeff said morosely. “You would not believe how helpless I felt when I didn't drop that guy and he disarmed me. Standing there, weaponless, trying to dodge.”

“You had your throwing daggers still, right?”

Jeff pulled out a dagger and held it up in front of him, sweeping his other hand up and down it to emphasize the blade length, then he pointed to the ogre. The dagger was about the length of its middle finger. Making the comparison with his own fingers, Marc realized that it would be like trying to take on a person with a pocket knife.

“Oh,” he said.

“Yeah, so I wanted the sword back in hand in case I missed one and it showed up. I was almost positive that was going to happen and I'd be dead,” Jeff said,

“You found some other things though? I saw you tossing stuff into a pile.”

“Oh yeah, there are a few other valuable things in here too. Let me loot the ogre so its corpse is gone then we'll clear it out and I'll get the others,” Jeff said.

In the end they'd all received a handful of gold per corpse, some silver and copper on each, plus the five items Jeff found inside the building. There were two potions, a necklace, a ring, and an ax that he'd found. The ax was a double-bladed battle ax, not a woodsman's ax, and it was rather heavy.

“Stash that stuff and let's keep going, assuming everyone's back to full,” Marc said. “We lost a lot of time here, but it was probably worth it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to find that those things were breeding and filling the city.”

“I need a few more minutes. I just got Rob back to full health finally,” Felicia said. “So my mana's down again.”

“Alright, everyone sit and rest, I'll take watch,” Marc said. “Anyone else close to the next level? I'm only about seven or eight hundred points away.”

“Little over a thousand,” Felicia said.

“Same,” Rob added.

“About nine hundred for me,” Jeff said.

Everyone looked to Ella.

“Um, level seven? I'm nowhere near there, but I did get all the way up to level four already. I also got a new spell. A light spell? Not combat anyhow, but maybe good?”

“Did you already use your stat and skill points?” Jeff asked.

She nodded.

“Like we talked about. I bumped my Constitution for more health, My Intelligence for mana, plus some into Agility and Aptitude. Next level will be Willpower and Strength, like you said.”

“Skills?” Jeff asked.

“I didn't fill those yet. We hadn't decided on what I wanted yet.”

“Good, we'll go through those tonight and find out what will benefit you the most,” Jeff said.

He slumped back, relaxing, yet his hand never drifted far from the hilt of the gladius.

“Oh, and my Mana Dart went up to a two,” Ella added.

“That's even better,” Marc said. “When it hits three you'll get a second dart.”

“Does it keep adding on every odd level?” she asked.

“So far, I've only got it at five, so I'm not sure if it continues, but I got the third one at five.”

She nodded.

“I guess we'll see then?” she said.

“I hope so, I'd love to get that up to where I get a fourth dart,” Marc said.

“I'm full on mana, we can go,” Felicia said.

The group stood and started walking again.

I sure hope there's someone there, Marc thought. Taking out the ogres was probably a good enough reason for this trip, but getting more people has become harder. I don't think there'll be many non-classed still alive, unless they're with people who did get a class.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Seven

They moved a little slower when they started off again. Everyone had been kind of keeping an eye out earlier on, but now after the ogres, they were being even more cautious. There were another five blocks past the ogres where the large holes appeared in the buildings, but then they went back to the more normal, dilapidated look they were used to at this point.

Even moving a bit slower, it didn't take them that long to get to their goal. They could see the two concrete apartment buildings in the distance as they approached. They appeared to be in better shape than the buildings that had used a less durable building material, but even the concrete was showing some signs of wear, as though it had been exposed to erosion with no maintenance for several decades.

Ella barked a laugh.

“Heh! American Khrushchyovka,” she said.

“American what?” Rob asked.

Marc had been about to ask himself and was relieved that he wouldn't have to reveal his ignorance.

“Khrushchyovka,” Ella said, “it's a Russian term. I never would've remembered it if I hadn't recently dropped a few more points in intelligence, but years back I did a report on the things. Essentially, because traditional masonry for building is more expensive and time-consuming, Russia decided on poured concrete buildings, like these. That's what they were called: Khrushchyovka. They're hideously ugly, but quick and cheap to build. Sorry, didn't mean to disrupt anything, it just kind of came out when I remembered the name.”

“That's fine,” Marc said. “It's not like we're doing a lot else at the moment. We can talk while we walk, so long as we also keep an eye out.”

As they got closer to the concrete apartment buildings, Marc noticed a lot of scorch marks on the concrete walls of the ground floor.

“Wow, looks like they had a fire or something,” he said.

Jeff nodded.

“Wait here? I'll go scout it out. See if there's anyone alive,” he said.

“Will do,” Marc replied. “Damn, I'd hoped to find more survivors, but if they had a fire in the building?”

He slowly shook his head.

Jeff patted Ella on the arm, then stepped to the side and shimmered into Stealth. Marc assumed he was going to check the building out and that assumption was verified about thirty seconds later.

A head poked out of a window on the third floor.

“Stop right there!” the person yelled.

Marc looked up.

“We're not moving at all,” he called back.

“Not you, your scout. He's just about at the front door and he'll be really unhappy if he opens it,” the person replied.

“Jeff, abort!” Marc called.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeff called back. “I saw the tripwire, I was about to disarm it.”

“Did you see the pressure plate that will activate if the door swings open though?” the person in the window yelled.

Jeff broke Stealth and stepped back, looking up for a moment.

“No, damn it, I didn't see that trap until you warned me about it. How the hell can you see through my Stealth and set traps I can't find?”

“Long story, no time for it. Why are you guys here? What are you doing?” the person in the window called.

“Can we come in, or you come down, so we don't have to yell?” Marc said.

“Give me the ELI5 first, then I'll decide.”

“Explain like you're five?” Marc asked incredulously, “Fine, here's the tl;dr version. We started a Safe Zone. We're trying to rescue survivors and get them there.”

“Too long, didn't read version? Really, Marc?” Felicia asked softly.

“Hey, it sounded like he wanted the most concise explanation I could give, so I did,” he replied, just as softly. “Not to mention I'm still a little pissed over the freeloaders. This yelling back and forth isn't helping that either.”

“Alright, come on over to the wall you're facing. Third window in from the road is safe to talk through, I can pull the traps off of that one easily enough,” the person yelled.

“Well, I guess we know they've seen some action,” Rob said. “If they trapped everything around, they must be having some problems.”

“That's the guy I was talking about, the one who was setting up the LAN here,” Ella said.

“Well, let's go talk,” Marc added, heading for the designated window.

* * *

“So, you got a Safe Zone? How'd you do that?” Kenny asked.

The person who'd been yelling from the window had introduced himself as soon as he'd come down. Marc could see several other people in the room behind Kenny, but they hadn't said a word yet. What was more worrying was that it looked like they were well equipped, better than Marc's group had been at the start at least, probably even better than they were equipped now.

I hope that doesn't mean they'll want to stay here. We could use a well equipped party to help find more people, Marc thought.

“We cleared the high school of goblin and hobgoblins. Once it was cleared, the System determined the building was strong enough to qualify to make a Safe Zone and we did it. We've been rescuing survivors, killing spawns, and expanding the Safe Zone ever since.”

“Sounds like you're simplifying things a lot.”

“Yes, I am, if you've got a couple of hours I'll be happy to give you the whole story. You aren't the first classed groups we've found either. Plus we've learned how to teach people some of the classes.”

“Yeah, we figured that out for our Mages, at least,” Kenny said distractedly. “What classes can you teach?”

“Warrior, Mage, Healer, and we're working on Woodsman, for combat classes at least. There's a lot more people learning non-combat classes though and those seem easier to pass on,” Marc said. “It looks like the non-combat ones are simply learn by doing under the supervision of someone with the class. Warrior is that way also, the way we figured out to teach it, and so is Healer. Mage involves some learning though. Normally if I teach them the Mana Dart spell they get offered the class.”

“Heh,” Kenny snorted. “You can learn Mage by doing too, as least our type.”

“Your type? We've got a few standard Mages, plus an Elemental Mage, and an Arcane Bulwark. What's your type of Mage?”

“Pyromancer,” Kenny said, glancing at the scorch marks along the wall.

Duh! I should've figured that one out on my own, Marc thought.

Kenny looked through the party again, he'd done it when they first approached, but now he did so more slowly.

“Ella?” he asked.

The lower level Mage had been hanging close to, and behind, Jeff throughout the conversation.

“Yeah Kenny, it's me. I'm the one that told them you were out here. I thought you might have survived, so I convinced my boyfriend's party to come out and check,” she said, placing a heavy emphasis on the word boyfriend.

Jeff glanced at her sharply, then glared at Kenny.

“Well shit, I wish I had known there was someone I knew in this group. We would've been a bit more welcoming,” Kenny said.

“You guys been having problems? Marc asked, gesturing towards the scorched walls.

“Gremlins,” Kenny spat. “Little green things, like knee high. Some of them have magic, but all of them have teeth and claws. We lost a few people with no classes and even one of our classed people to them.”

“You've got non-classed survivors? You should definitely consider the offer to come to the Safe Zone then, it's a lot safer there,” Marc said.

“Yeah, we want to, we just want to know what the catch is,” Kenny said.

His eyes had been flicking about as they spoke and now they focused on a point and widened.

“Shit, speak of the devil. Gremlins,” he said, pointing.

“Where, I don't see anything,” Rob replied, staring where Kenny was pointing.

“That's why I saw your friend in Stealth,” Kenny said. “Practice. Look for the footprints puffing up dust.”

Marc had noticed the wide, bare of any growth, patch of dry dirt around the building. He hadn't realized that it was a defensive measure though. Now he saw what Kenny pointed out and the creatures moving towards them slowly became visible to him.

“Get in here,” Kenny said, “through the window.”

“No time,” Marc replied. “Form up, Ella against the wall. Felicia, Rob, and I will form an arc around her for protection. Jeff—”

“I know, I know,” Jeff said. “Stealth and Stab, leaders or casters.”

He shimmered out of view while he was speaking.

“Can everyone see these things?” Marc asked.

Rob and Ella shook their heads.

“Well, let's see if I can't break their Stealth,” Marc said, beginning to cast a Fireball.

He was modifying the spell, giving it as much AoE as he could, despite the damage drop. He hoped that even a tiny bit of damage would break the Stealth on the gremlins. He had to be quick though, they were almost on the group.

Marc launched his fireball, targeting it to get as much of the area where the gremlins were as he could. When it went off, there were a bunch of shrill cries of pain, but none of the Gremlins dropped. Rob tensed though, and Ella started casting, so Marc figured he'd achieved his objective.

Somewhere back in the building he heard some cursing.

“That son of a bitch has a Fireball? All I've got is the Flamethrower and Burning Hands spells and I'm a Pyromancer!”

Marc smirked.

Looks like there'll be a few new spells to trade for soon, he thought.

He cast his Arcane Armor spell as the gremlins charged, then pulled out his shield and pilum.

Alright, mission for this fight is to protect our Mage. Maybe she can pull another skill level on Mana Dart with enough targets, he thought.

Based on that premise, Marc began a defensive fight, something his class excelled at. He laid out gremlin after gremlin with Shield Bashes, as Ella tossed out her Mana Darts. Before long she was sending out two darts with each cast.

Once she called out that her mana was low, he jammed his pilum into the dirt. They were fighting too close together for him to take it into his shield hand, he was afraid he'd hurt someone if he tried. Then he started trying to raise the skill of his own Mana Dart spell, throwing spell after spell at the Gremlins.

Much like the kobolds, the gremlins seemed to rely primarily on numbers to overwhelm an opponent, but shortly into the fight Marc had noticed missiles shooting out of some of the windows on the building, and a minute later there were a few more tanks alongside of him. Tanks he didn't know.

There were a couple of robed people in with the tanks and it took Marc a moment to realize that they were robes, not dresses. It wasn't until one of them raised a hand and released a gout of flame that struck several of the gremlins that he realized they were Mages in robes and not just women fighting.

When the gremlins had lost about seventy-five percent of their numbers, one in back let out a warble. As the rest turned to flee, that gremlin started chanting.

Oh, hell no. Not letting a caster get off a spell if I can help it, Marc thought.

When the one beside it started casting also, Marc had to make a choice. He chose the second one, hoping that Jeff was ready to stab the first caster before it finished its spell. His Mana Darts flashed out, striking the second caster and interrupting its spell. It squeaked in terror and its hands flew to its head as the miscast spell apparently backfired.

Meanwhile the first caster had a satisfied look on its face. It had stopped chanting and was leveling its hand, directly at Marc. A moment before it was pointing straight at him, the casting gremlin cringed with its whole body, Jeff appearing behind it. The casters hands flew towards its back where it had been stabbed and when the hand it had been leveling made contact there was a flash of light and the smell of ozone filled the air.

Not waiting to see what else was going to happen, Marc cast two more of his Mana Dart spells at the other caster. With one Mana Dart spell cast on him before Jeff took the primary caster out Marc was sure the second casting of it would drop him. When it didn't he cast the third time, which did finally drop it.

The scorched corpse of the primary caster hit the ground as Jeff hopped around shrieking, having caught part of the lightning the gremlin caster had discharged. Fortunately, the other gremlins didn't try to continue the attack. They'd already been fleeing when they saw both of the casters slain and now that their casters were gone they sped up, breaking apart into groups of one and two before disappearing into the streets, alleys, and buildings of the area.

* * *

People poured out of the building and started looting once the last gremlin was out of sight. As they looted, Kenny looked over to Marc.

“I wasn't sure, but I think maybe you guys can manage to keep a Safe Zone intact. I'll put it to the group, but I'll vote that we join you. Especially with all our non-classed people, it would probably be safer.”

“Sounds great. I'm not criticizing here, just wondering. Why didn't you guys build a Safe Zone out here?”

“We did try, after we cleared the building, we tried to make one. They told me we didn't have the materials, not enough wood, and we could build a temporary one for ten silver. The damned regular gremlins only drop a copper or two each normally though and we just couldn't manage to get a thousand copper to pay for it. We're probably close now, but...”

Marc was torn for a moment before speaking, but these people were trying, they knew what they had to do, or thought they did, and just hadn't been able to manage it yet.

“Well, it's kind of counterintuitive to why we came out here, but once you got classes you should all have gotten System tokens that you can see in your inventory. You can use those to create a permanent Safe Zone if you also have enough other materials.”

“What? I thought they were just an award sort of thing since I couldn't manipulate it.”

“Didn't you read the help on Safe Zones?”

“We tried, but most of it was so much gibberish that we gave up. We figured if we got the temporary one up we might get more help on it. That's how things seem to work now. It just sounded like you needed to have the token to have the capability to build one.”

Marc nodded.

“Yes, it is how things work, mostly. If you access the Safe Zone help now though I bet it's more clear. We noticed the help files clearing up a few days back, becoming much more understandable.”

“We did too, but that's true for all of them? I never thought to go back and look at the ones we'd discounted earlier on,” Kenny said.

“Well, go ahead and give it a shot,” Marc said.

Kenny's eyes unfocused for a moment, after ensuring that there were enough people around alert to avert any sort of attack.

“I'll be damned, it really is. Is that all System Tokens can do though?”

Marc shook his head.

“Nope, if you can get to a System shop, you can use it for other things there. Like Systemizing additional items, or purchasing completely new items.”

“Yeah, and just where are we supposed to find a shop?”

“Any Safe Zone,” Marc said. “If you build one, you should get a shop automatically installed. Or, if you join ours, you can use the one there.”

“Dude, sorry, but I'm gonna have to talk to my guys. Do you mind standing guard for a few? Most of the time the gremlins all leave after a failed attack, but a couple of times one or two have remained around after to try to attack when we lower our guard. Plus, I still never found out the catch to staying at your Safe Zone,” Kenny said.

Marc stood after looting the corpses of the two casters, hiding his grin. He'd just picked up another scroll from the primary caster's corpse.

“Sure, no problem at all. How long do you need?” Marc asked. “The catch though? You have to actually contribute, help the Safe Zone prosper.”

Kenny shrugged.

“Half an hour tops? I hope it's less than that, but you never know with these guys. As for helping out? Well, we've managed to stay alive here by everyone doing that, it shouldn't be a problem.”

Marc finally stopped and actually looked at the people he'd been fighting with. Their armor was significantly better than any but Rob's. Even at that, it was better looking. He could see the ornamental aspects that it had once had, before the obvious scars of battle had marred it. Their weapons looked to be of a decent class, swords, maces, and knives that looked as though they were ready for use.

“What the hell? If you don't have access to a shop, how'd you get the equipment? It looks a lot better than what we had, or still have even,” Marc said.

Kenny grinned.

“Yeah, while LARPers may have gotten the short stick and gotten insulted all the time before, it ends up that their gear, when Systemized at least, is pretty damned awesome.”

Then he turned and called for his group. They clambered in through the windows and disappeared into the building.

Marc was explaining that they were waiting for Kenny to talk to his people. He hadn't been the only one who'd noticed the equipment though and had to explain.

“Live Action Role-Players, you remember, the ones with costumes, padded weapons, and good looking mock armor and the like? Evidently they claimed their LARPing gear and it turned into the real thing.”

Marc shook his head.

“However they did it, they're still alive and they've got a bunch of non-combatants still alive also, so no-one start cracking jokes about what their hobbies used to be, okay?”

Marc stared at Jeff in particular. LARPers were exactly the type of person that Jeff used to love to tease mercilessly. Sometimes even taking it way too far to the point that tempers were flaring and ready to explode.

And if that happens now, with real swords, armor, and magic? No, just no, Marc thought.

Surprisingly Jeff nodded.

“If those guys have as many traps as I think, they could pull me out of Stealth, and they've been surviving attacks like this while keeping others alive? I can cut them some slack and toss some respect their way instead of disdain.”

Marc just stared at Jeff.

“Hey man, they've got to have their own Rogue classes too, what with all those traps,” Jeff added. “Who knows what skills they might have, and if we can trade skills? I'm not going to endanger that, noway, nohow.”

Ella drove her elbow into Jeff's ribs.

“Hey,” he complained.

“Be nice, Jeff,” she said.

“Okaaay,” he replied, stretching the word out until it nearly snapped.

She just shook her head and muttered something about juvenile delinquents.

I ought to introduce her to Conner. Maybe between the two of them they could get Jeff to grow up some? Marc thought.

* * *

Kenny was back out about ten minutes later, all by himself.

“If you don't mind waiting a bit longer? We need to get everybody to head back with you. Are you sure it's safe? We've got almost as many non-classed as we do classed.”

“As safe as anything is currently. We had to kill ogres on the way though and I'm pretty sure nothing is going to have moved into their territory in the last hour or two, so mostly safe at least,” Marc said.

“Okay then. Gotta be as safe as it is here. With the concrete of the building crumbling and the gremlins attacking over and over? It's worth the risk. Be right back, gotta grab my own stuff too.”

The first one out was one of the guys wearing robes. He immediately made his way over to Marc.

“Was that a Fireball I saw you casting earlier on?” he asked.

“Yeah, kind of. I sort of spread out the area of effect, less damage, but I was mainly trying to break their Stealth with the damage, so any at all should have done the trick.”

“Wait, you twisted a spell as you cast it?”

Marc nodded.

“How'd you learn that?”

“The spell or the twisting?” Marc asked.

“Both, definitely both.”

“Well, the Fireball was learned from a scroll.”

The man's face fell.

“Single use?”

Marc nodded.

“Damn!”

“The twisting was another skill I've got. Don't even ask unless you're seriously into math, because that's what magic is in the System. It's just another division of mathematics pretty much, and twisting spells means having to get a basic grasp of that first,” Marc said.

“Well crap, then. All my spells are channel style, I keep having to feed mana into them to keep them going. I'd like some one and done mana cost style spells.”

“I can probably teach you Fireball, or maybe make you a scroll of it,” Marc offered. “If you'll teach me that Flamethrower spell in return.”

The man's scowl spread out into a grin.

“You can make spell scrolls?”

“Yup, Scribe skill does that.”

“I think I like you already. Name's Joshua, by the way.”

“Marc.”

“We'll talk about this more later, okay? I want to make sure the other Pyromancers know that we've got a chance to learn new spells. They've got the same problem, channeled costs. I think it's because of how we got the class that it's feeding us channeled stuff, but I don't know.”

“How—”

Marc had started to ask him how he got his class, but Joshua had disappeared back into the building by the time he got the sentence started.

I'll ask him on the way back, we'll have plenty of time during the walk, Marc thought.

Twenty minutes later they were ready to leave. Some of the non-classed people weren't in the best shape and Marc worried about them making the two and a half mile walk back to the Safe Zone, but he also wasn't about to just leave them.

Maybe we can throw together something wheeled to help them if they can't keep up, or a travois type of thing? The tanks are probably strong enough to drag a travois with one of them, but that would be a problem if we got into combat. Damn, we need some sort of wheeled transport to take with us when we go out to find people, he thought.

He was worried that any people they found from now on weren't going to be in the best shape any more and if he could find something like that, it would make things easier.

Make it easier to recover more other stuff too. Just get it into the Safe Zone and worry about restoring it later on maybe?

He shrugged. There was nothing he could do about any of that at the moment, he just needed to make sure people were keeping their eyes on the road.

But a little talking wouldn't hurt, he thought.

Spotting Joshua, he walked over.

“Hey, I was wondering about something you said earlier. Channeled spells because of how you got your class? How did you get it?” Marc asked.

“Oh,” Joshua said, then chuckled uncomfortably. “Well, when the shit hit the fan we had all claimed our LARPing gear and ended up with decent weapons and armor, right? Hell, this robe acts like light armor for me even. Anyhow, no-one got a class right away, not until they did something to earn it. Mostly fighting, you know? Anyhow, there I am trying to figure out how to get a Mage class, except I was pretty much useless the first fight because I hadn't figured it out. I only had these dinky throwing knives for weapons.”

He pulled out a short knife before replacing it in its sheathe.

“So, I went techno mage, sort of. I tracked down one of the good aerosol cans, you know the ones with flammable contents? That and a lighter. The next time those gremlins attacked I torched a few in the face with the old can and lighter trick. Then, once the fight was over, I got offered a Pyromancer class and the Flamethrower spell. So I passed the can and lighter on to someone else that wanted the Mage class. That's all.”

Marc was chuckling.

“I like it,” he said. “I know intent is a part of what class you get offered, it seems to be so far. Your story fits right in with that.”

“Intent? Damn it, was it that easy?”

Marc shrugged.

“I knew what I wanted, sort of a Mage tank deal. So once I learned a spell by scroll I got offered some classes. Arcane Bulwark was one of them, so I took it. It's a Mage Warrior hybrid. I just get defensive spells from my class, but I can learn other spells from other means too. That's where I got a bunch. I don't know what you'll be able to learn as a Pyromancer, but I bet I can teach you Fireball and the Fire aspected version of Mana Dart.”

“In advance, for all of us Pyromancers in my group, thank you. Having non-channeled spells is going to be so nice. Did you know that if you're channeling a spell and take damage you've got a chance to lose control of it? It can backlash and damage you too, so one and done mana cost spells sound incredible,” Joshua said.

Marc had been ignoring his notifications light ever since the fight. He actually hadn't noticed it right away, it blinked at him so much nowadays that he'd tuned it out. Then he'd found the scroll on the casters when he looted them. That had been enough to distract him for a while longer. Then curiosity about the new people had kept him from checking, but now he was getting tired of the flashing.

He pulled up his notifications.

You have gained a level (6->7)

You have two ability points to distribute.

Your Intelligence has increased (14->15)

Your Constitution has increased (10->11)

You have one new skill point to distribute.

You have learned the spell:  Stand Fast (1)

You have learned the skill: Technical Writer (1)

You are currently at your maximum count for skills and spells, increase Aptitude to increase available skill or spell slots.

“Shit!” Marc cursed, loudly.

Heads swiveled to him rapidly and he realized that his exclamation may have been taken wrong.

“No danger, just discovered a cap.”

With a quick calculation he found what he thought was the formula.

“It looks like Aptitude, which controls how many skills and spells you can learn, caps at a base of three skills or spells, plus two more per point of Aptitude.”

He'd added his aside about what it controlled because he wasn't sure if the new people knew that or not.

“So what, you left your Aptitude low and now you're running out?” one of the new tanks asked.

Marc had gotten their names, but hadn't remembered most of them.

“Well, I mean if a nine is low, yeah. I just got another level so I'll drop a point in there though. That'll clear it up.”

Kenny was staring at him, along with most of the other classed people not in Marc's group.

“What level are you?” Kenny asked.

“I just advanced to seven,” Marc said.

“Seven? I've barely made four.”

Marc shrugged.

“Sorry?”

“Don't be, I'm just glad we decided to go with you guys. It's sounding like a better and better plan all the time,” Kenny said.

Marc, who'd been planning on distributing his points to Strength and Charisma, instead put one in Strength and one in Aptitude. He did, on the other hand, get a message that further advancement in Aptitude would result in more skill slots than his prior advances in it had. He'd thought ten was a milestone for stats and now he was pretty sure of it, despite not receiving similar messages when his Constitution and Intelligence had gone over ten.

Although I do remember feeling healthier when Constitution went over ten, and for Intelligence it might've been when I could start seeing everything more clearly. Maybe Aptitude has the message because there's no other sign like those when you get there? he thought.

There were no interruptions on the way home, although they did stop at the ogre lair for a few minutes to let people rest and the new group look around. They had several more stops after that as well, but either nothing was around, or their group was too big for the spawns to want to attack it. Either way, they made it back to the Safe Zone well before dark.

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Eight

While Marc slept that night he had dreams, bad ones. In his nightmares he found himself watching what would have happened had his recyclers or some of the lower level groups been the ones to find the ogres. When he woke, it was very early, he was poorly rested, and he had a new determination to get the Safe Zone expanded more.

Because the sooner I can get more areas claimed the less area there is for things to spawn in, he thought.

His first act was to go to the building pedestal and pull up the build screen. He spent most of an hour tweaking the wire-frame drawing for the expansion before he remembered that he'd get additional area to claim with the core from the troll.

It took a couple of minutes for him to figure it out, but he determined how to get the building pedestal to show him just what he could claim with the expanded area from the core. The rare core with excellent quality allowed him to claim one hundred and thirty-three percent of the area he been claiming per expansion with the earlier common, poor quality core.

With that additional expansion the very next one could make it to an area with a significantly higher frequency of buildings that would be automatically added to his total materials for expansion.

After a few more minutes of tweaking the wire-frame, he thought he had as much as could manage claimed for materials while still driving straight for the downtown area. The resultant Safe Zone looked like a blocky hourglass with a wider area near the keep followed by a narrow stretch along the road, then expanding out again as it met the more thickly built area closer to town.

He stared at the build screen, willing it to change.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2237/2500

Stone: 2500/2500

Metal: 997/1200

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (3/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (0/5) (+4 power slots 0/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions from the original power source.(0/5)

The stats shown by it included the salvage that would be obtained from the buildings inside the expansion. Even so, it wasn't quite enough to immediately upgrade.

Although if I target the recyclers very carefully today, we might be able to do it by tonight, he thought. There's plenty of extra stone left over, evidently the pond and the most recent field must've been right over bedrock or something, but we'll want even more wood and metal for the buildings that will open up during the expansion. I don't want to miss out on those if I can help it, but I will if it's necessary to do so in order to get more territory claimed.

He closed down the build screen and glanced out the window. It looked late enough that the cafeteria should be close to opening, so he headed over that way for breakfast. Someone had found a white board and mounted it to the wall. On it were scrawled the options for breakfast. He could smell it even without the board, but he couldn't identify what it was exactly. With options on pancakes, breakfast burritos, or oatmeal he was glad to have the board.

No burritos, had those a lot recently. Maybe oatmeal? Unless we've got syrup for the pancakes. Don't know if anyone grabbed any of that or not.

He sat down and waited. It was a few minutes until a waitress came out.

“Sorry, we're still cooking. It's going to be a few more minutes,” she said.

“Quick question to help me decide. Is there syrup for the pancakes?” he asked.

She grinned.

“Yup, if you think to ask for it when you order. We're not going to put that stuff out since there's a very limited quantity of it. Well, kind of limited at least, just what the store had. We got all of it though. One of the groups got together with the cooks yesterday, asking if there was anything they needed. They ended up doing several runs back and forth from the grocery store.”

“I should've thought of that,” Marc said. “I'm glad they did. Which group was it?”

She shrugged.

“One of the newer ones? I think they were supposed to still have yesterday off, but they wanted to help.”

“So one of the groups from the apartments on Cherry Street then. Damned if I can remember all their names.”

The waitress shook her head.

“No-one expects you to remember their names. Just, you know, kind of prompt them for their name if you try to talk to them. Better to admit that you forgot than to get it wrong.”

“When you're right, you're right. So, let me have the pancakes, with syrup, whenever they're ready,” Marc said.

“Sure, sausage or bacon?”

Marc's eyes lit up. He wasn't Jeff, willing to drop a silver on a pound of bacon from the shop, but that didn't mean he didn't enjoy it himself.

“Bacon, please?” he said.

The waitress chuckled.

“It'll be about ten minutes. I'll get it out to you as soon as I can. You can have milk if you want, but fair warning, it's powdered milk.”

“Coffee?” he said.

“That I can get you now,” she said, turning off to go get it for him.

Marc sighed in satisfaction. He was getting his caffeine early and if he waited here, he'd probably find the recyclers and be able to target them more closely to exactly what he needed to expand the Safe Zone again.

And with the bonuses from the better core, hopefully we'll be able to snowball it. Once I have this next section claimed, the one after that has even more salvage in it. Bigger buildings with the heavy metal frames might open up the bottleneck that metal's been causing. Wood? Well, if I have to, I'll send them out back to work on the forest there. As much wood as we might need, although I'd need to have them leave enough trees that we can butt the Wildlife Preserve up to the back wall still. We can take a few out of there without it being a problem though, plus there's lots of dead trees back there too. Thin it out some and focus on wood with one recycler while I send the other team out after more cars or other metal things?

He sipped at his coffee as he thought through things. When his food came he was still thinking through them, but he stopped and allowed himself to enjoy his meal.

Nursing a cup of coffee after he ate, he wrote out instructions and waited for the recycling teams to show up. When they did, they were each accompanied by a group of adventurers.

“Hey guys, got fresh orders for today. If we focus, we can probably get another expansion done today,” Marc said.

“That's fast,” a recycling team lead said.

“Sorry, forgot your name, I'm shit with names,” Marc said, “but we're expanding into areas with more buildings and we can count part of their materials as salvage just by expanding our territory over them.”

“Ah, that's why you have us working the side roads?”

Marc nodded.

“Do you have the newer or older recycling machine?”

“Older one.”

“Then these orders are for you,” Marc said, handing him the orders to focus on metal.

Then he turned to the other team lead and handed him the other set of orders that focused on wood. That recycler would have to be moving off-road so it would be better for the newer one to get that assignment.

“And, on that note, I need to go find my group,” Marc said.

“Don't worry, we'll take care of this,” the team lead said, the lead for the second team nodding in agreement.

* * *

Marc spent the day trying to keep himself busy. His group had decided that they weren't going out again today, after the ogres the day before they wanted a day off. Systemized equipment had been damaged and they wanted to let it restore itself as it did when in the Safe Zone.

So, he took the new Pyromancers, after the new group had their lecture from Al, and started teaching them the Mana Dart Spell. It was good that he'd figured out the symbol for fire, because they just couldn't get it, until he tried teaching them the fire version of it directly.

I should've realized that, Marc said. They're Pyromancers, they can't learn the non-aspected version, only the fire version.

Once he tried to teach them the fire aspected version they picked it up quickly.

He'd been hoping that Ron's group was staying in also, but that wasn't the case. He wasn't willing to steal Reggie away from them again, not knowing the strength of some of the spawns showing up in the city, so he simply kept an eye out for Ron's group coming back. While he did that, he started working on his Scribe skill.

From what he knew of the skill from learning it, he didn't need anything fancy to use it, at least not for lesser powered spells. He hoped that Fireball was one of those, since that was the first thing he tried to Scribe. He attempted it four times over the day, with two successes and one increase in the skill level.

I'll turn one of these over to Joshua, then he can teach the other Pyromancers the spell. I'll give the other one to Reggie once he has the time to teach me the Water Jet spell in return.

He'd been amused to note that on a successful Scribe, the paper he'd been using rolled itself up into a classic scroll. It also darkened somewhat, making it appear more yellowed than the white of the paper he'd been using.

My guess is that the System simply creates the scroll itself and removes the one I actually wrote, Marc thought. Because these two look identical now, like there's a template it uses. I wonder what would happen if I tried to write one of my variations that isn't standard, like the Mana Dart torches?

It was well after lunch when Jeff approached him. He was wearing a mischievous look that put Marc on guard immediately.

“Okay Marc, pull it up and check,” Jeff said.

“What?”

“Pull up your list of residents. See if the Sternns have decided to actually become part of the Safe Zone or if they decided to be dead weight that we need to toss out,” Jeff said.

“Umm...”

“Don't wuss out here, Marc. You made it plenty plain to them what they needed to do. They got forty-eight hours like everybody else and their forty-eight didn't start until a couple of days after they got here. They should've been being productive already a while ago, before you had your little spat with him. So if they still aren't now, they never will be and we need to get rid of them before they sink the Safe Zone like an anchor tied around its neck.”

“How do you figure that?” Marc asked.

“If they get to hang around? If they get room, board, and safety without doing anything for it? Others will notice and will try the same. The ones that don't do the same will start feeling resentment, especially after you laid down the law to the Sternns. Plus, you'll have gone back on your word.”

Marc knew that Jeff had saved that last bit to end with intentionally. Marc tried to never break a promise, so now he pulled up the list and looked. There were still quite a few blank spots on it, but most of them were the people who'd come in the day before. The Sternns, however, were not from the day before, and were still blank.

“No, they haven't done anything to support the Safe Zone,” Marc said, in a defeated tone.

“Well, shall we track them down?” Jeff asked. “Then we can eject them. Unless, of course, you just want to register them as hostile with the gargoyle.”

Marc shuddered at the thought.

“No, we'll track them down. They look like they're in a room currently, probably the one they claimed. It's the room that used to be Mr. Barnett's old chem lab, looks like.”

“Hey, I know where that one is, well where the lab used to be anyhow,” Jeff said. “Shall we? We'll pick up Rob on the way.”

Marc sighed and slumped, feeling defeated, but he started following Jeff.

“Why is it that when you try to help some people they don't think that they need to do anything to help themselves as well?” he asked, rhetorically.

Jeff didn't treat it as rhetorical though.

“Some people are assholes, entitled assholes even. They think that they shouldn't have to lift a finger and that everything should be given to them on a silver platter. They think that they shouldn't have to work if someone's willing to provide everything for them,” he said.

Marc just stayed silent for the moment.

He might be right, Marc said. Just because I never ran into them before doesn't mean that they didn't exist. I mean, an upper middle class upbringing and some college is pretty much my entire frame of reference. Admittedly I met some people like that in college, but these two seem to take it to an extreme. All they had to do was help out somewhere. If the System recognized the little girl as a messenger, it would've registered anything they did also, wouldn't it?

Marc wasn't happy and evidently it showed on his face.

“Don't worry about it, Rob and I will take care of it,” Jeff said. “You just give me the go ahead that you want to back up what you told him and we'll do it.”

Marc closed his eyes and squeezed them shut. He really thought that he should be there for this, but at the same time he wasn't sure that he could follow through on it if he were there.

“Do it,” he said. “I'll watch though, I'm just not going to be involved directly. I don't know if I could follow through if I were.”

Jeff grinned at him.

“Don't worry, we'll get that softy center you've got all hardened up. Just give us time.”

I hope not, Marc thought. I'm not sure if I'd like the person I would be if that happened.

He went outside and down towards the gates after Jeff left to get Rob and pick up the Sternns. Marc had told him that it looked like they were hiding in their room.

Marc was standing near the gates when the couple were marched down the road. Rob had both of their arms twisted behind their backs and was frogmarching them to the gates. Jeff looked over, carrying a baseball bat in one hand.

“Stupid fucker tried to attack us with this baseball bat when we forced our way in after they wouldn't open the door. So, we couldn't be as gentle as you would've liked,” he said.

Marc gave a curt nod and watched as the procession made it to the gates. He wasn't the only one watching either so he winced when Jeff took a deep breath and started to bellow.

“Sternn! You low down, double-dealing, backstabbing, larcenous, perverted worm. You're outta here. You wouldn't work, you lied about not working, then tried to attack me from behind with a baseball bat when we told you it was time to leave. You stole from us. You came here with the agreement that you'd pull your weight, but you lied. Good-bye Mr. and Mrs. Sternn.”

Marc winced with embarrassment. He'd recognized the speech, he'd even made the connection with the names himself when he first found out the Sternns' last name, but he just couldn't believe Jeff had bellowed it at the top of his lungs for everyone to hear.

Rob looked back at Marc, who stepped out.

“I am, for my sins, in charge of this Safe Zone. I told you the conditions in which you could stay here, and you agreed to them. Then you didn't hold up your end of the bargain, even after chastisement. So now I fear I have no choice but to banish you. Understand, I will now register you as hostile with the Safe Zone's guardian. If you try to return, it will attack you. I will give you one minute to leave before I change those settings.”

The gate swung open and Jeff threw the baseball bat out into the road beyond the walls.

“Go get your weapon you prick,” he spat at the male Sternn.

Rob moved them forward, pushed them through the gates, and released their arms. He grabbed the gates as he stepped back, closing them as he moved.

Jeff walked back to Marc.

“God, that was cathartic. The asshole reminded me of my old man,” Jeff said.

“Really? Heavy Metal, Jeff?”

“Hey, if the shoe fits, right? Besides, how could I resist it with that name?”

* * *

After dinner, Marc went back to the building pedestal and pulled up the screen.

You have sufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2500/2500

Stone: 2500/2500

Metal: 1200/1200

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (3/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (0/5) (+4 power slots 0/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(0/5)

He pulled up the expansion parameters he'd set earlier and almost selected build right off, then realized that he hadn't warned the people on the wall or out on the grounds.

I need an intercom, or loudspeakers on the grounds or something. That'd be easier than having to do this every time, he thought.

He went back over to the cafeteria and called out that he needed a runner, pay two copper. He was greeted by a familiar face popping up out of the crowd and trotting over.

“Again?” the young girl asked.

“Yup, same thing even. Say, what's your name anyway? If I keep getting you as a runner, I probably ought to know your name.”

“Amelia, but everyone calls me Amy.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Amy.”

“So, Amy, two copper to run down to the wall and warn the people standing guard on it. Another two if you warn everyone else you see on your way there and back, sound good?”

“That works for me. I got chocolate last time. This time I'm gonna give some to my mom, and get some more chocolate too, I think.”

Marc couldn't help but grin. Amy was a breath of fresh air after how the rest of his day had gone.

“That's good that you're helping out your mom. When you warn people, tell them it might be a few minutes before the changes start, but that they will happen soon, okay?”

He'd realized that he hadn't selected any of the additional buildings that the expansion would provide yet and that it would probably take a bit to select them when the options appeared.

Amy nodded, then trotted off towards the front door. Marc returned to the gym and the build pedestal, then hit the build option, knowing that he'd get the building choices and have to finalize them before the actual alterations would begin.

Numerous selections that he'd never seen before popped up, all requiring power.

Sawmill – 1 power slot

Wired Communications (within Safe Zone) – 1 power slot

Grain Mill – 1 power slot

Brewery – 1 power slot

…

The list went on for a bit, but he didn't see anything they absolutely needed right away, although the Wired Communications option was tempting. Soon the Safe Zone would be large enough that it would be necessary. He was sure that would require a lot of metal though, and he wasn't sure that they had enough. Instead he chose the previous Wall Lights, yet another field, and the orchard that had been listed at each upgrade so far. He was presented with sub-choices for the orchard and made them. Then there was still another slot open, so he picked the Wired Communications option, looking closely at the help.

Wired Communications – This allows a Safe Zone that has grown large enough to stay in easy contact within its walls. The original purchase will cover a switching station and up to 5 contact points. Points must be designated at construction time. Additional contact points may be added at any time through the build screen at a cost determined at the time of the addition.

Marc went through and added points. The main one would be in the keep. A second one would go in the apartments, one at the main gate, one in the barracks, and he decided to place the last one at the site where he planned on adding in another gate at some point.

When he checked the build rate again, he actually had enough metal to get it all taken care of. He'd worried that the Wired Communications option would require more than they had. He also realized that he'd need ten units of fertilizer to finish his building materials, five each for field and orchard, and quickly purchased them from the shop, moving them outside the building as soon as he had.

Amy arrived a minute later and told him that she'd warned everyone she could see, so he hit accept, only to have one more screen flash in front of him.

Smithy is currently using an expansion slot as a power slot, would you like to switch the Smithy to an existing power slot? (y/n)

He quickly chose yes, happy to receive an expansion slot back, even if it weren't one of the expanded ones from the better core.

The build pedestal accepted the instructions and... froze. In the wire-frame drawing flashed an amber colored dot. A notification was flashing so he pulled it up.

A neutral party has been detected in your chosen Safe Zone expansion area. Only residents or allies may be within the expansion area when activated. You must remove neutral party before expansion will continue.

“What the...?” Marc exclaimed.

He quickly started tracking down his party members. Realizing Jeff was drunk again, he elected to not disturb the thief, instead taking Felicia, Rob, and Ella.

“Why isn't Jeff with us?” Ella asked.

“He's drunk,” Marc said, shaking his head.

“I think I can fix that,” Felicia said, “if we want him with us.”

“It'd probably be best,” Rob added.

Ella nodded.

“I'm afraid he'd be pissed if we left him behind,” she said.

Marc led Felicia to where he'd found Jeff drinking. She walked up to him and pressed a finger to the wet spot on his shirt. A moment later, she cast the antivenom spell.

“Alcohol is technically a poison, so I think this should work,” she said, watching Jeff.

Jeff shook his head.

“What the fuck? I had a great buzz going, what the hell do you think you're doing, Felicia?”

“It was that or leave you behind when we took the party out,” she said.

Jeff's head snapped around and found the rest of the group standing near the door. He actually had the decency to blush.

“Why do we need the party? It's dark out soon.”

“Because I just started an expansion again, but got a notification that there's a neutral party in the proposed expansion area that has to be removed before the expansion will continue,” Marc said.

“You don't suppose Sternn....” Jeff started.

Marc shook his head.

“Nah, he'd be hostile. I really did mark them that way. So we need to find out what, or who, this is. Then either get them out of the expansion area or get them recruited.”

“What are we waiting for then?” Jeff said.

“Someone to sober up,” Ella commented pointedly.

“Oh, well, I'm sober thanks to Felicia. Let's go.”

* * *

Chapter Twenty-Nine

It was dusk when they went through the gates. Conner was keeping an eye out for them from atop the wall as they went. The building that contained the neutral party was within easy sight of the wall itself so it was a quick trip. Jeff was going to scout things out inside, but when he pushed on the door it fell off the hinges, hitting the floor with a muffled thud. Dust puffed out, filling the air and obscuring their vision.

Marc had purchased a flashlight from the shop. It was a small thing, but gave off a decent light and was guaranteed for a ludicrous amount of hours of functionality with just its tiny onboard battery. When he turned it on, all it illuminated was a wall of dust.

They waited for the dust to settle and when it did, they discovered another problem. The floor was riddled with holes. This was a house, but it was in worse shape than any of the other houses Marc had seen yet, as though it were falling apart even before the System had arrived.

“Alright, they're neutral so we probably don't need to sneak up on them,” Marc said. “Should we call out? Let them know we're here and wait for them to come to us? I don't fancy walking across that floor,” he said, pointing to the numerous holes in the floorboards.

“Sure, why not?” Jeff replied. “If there is someone here, they must've heard that door fall over.”

“Hello?” Felicia called out. “Is there anyone here?”

Silence was the only answer.

“Guys?” Rob said.

“What is it, Rob?” Marc replied distractedly, trying to figure out their next move.

“I think they might be here, but not able to answer.”

Marc looked over at Rob. The tank was scrutinizing the floor.

“Why do you think that?” Marc asked.

“Well, look at all the holes closest to us. See how the edges are kind of blunt, like the wood is all punked and rotted?”

Marc nodded as he looked.

“Now look at the hole in the floor over near the far wall,” Rob added.

Marc looked and almost groaned. The hole on the far side of the floor had crisp sharp edges, as though the wood were in much better condition than most of the floor. It was the only hole like that though, the rest were rotted around the edges.

“So you think someone fell through the floor?” Marc asked.

“I don't know why that hole over there would even be a hole,” Rob said. “The wood looks in much better condition than the rest of the floor.”

Marc looked up, at the hole in the ceiling that was nearly centered over the one in the floor. He pointed that way.

“Look up. I bet someone was upstairs and the floor collapsed under them. When they hit the floor on this level, it gave out underneath the impact,” Marc said.

“So, our quarry is in the cellar?” Jeff said.

“I bet they are and either can't hear us, or aren't even conscious,” Marc said.

“We've got to get down there then,” Felicia added, “and help them if we can.”

“Felicia, can I borrow your tire iron?” Rob asked.

“Why?” she replied, handing it over.

“Because it's a blunt weapon and a point would probably just get stuck if I did this.”

Rob started tapping the floor with the tire iron. Finding a spot that seemed softer than the rest, he hit it harder, poking a hole in the floor. Using her tire iron he pounded around the floor, opening up a large hole. Then he returned her tire iron to her.

“Anyone good with knots?” he asked.

Jeff sighed.

“Yeah, I am, why?”

“Because I finally figured out a use for my miscellaneous item,” Rob said.

He backed out of the door, stopping at a stone that protruded from the ground in the front yard. It looked large, like the tip of an iceberg with most of it concealed. Rob tried to rock it back and forth a bit, but it was reluctant to move, shifting only a tiniest fraction of an inch.

He pulled a coil of rope out of his inventory, then separated pitons from it. He drove one into the stone he'd just checked, then looked over to Jeff.

“We need a knot that won't come undone with our weight on the rope,” he said.

Jeff walked over, muttering.

“When I got offered the Rope Use skill from tying the gym doors shut, this wasn't what I envisioned using it for,” he said, softly, but still loud enough for the group to make out.

A minute later Rob walked over to the hole he'd made in the floor and dropped the rest of the rope down into it.

“I'll go first, but keep your light on me?” he said, looking at Marc.

Marc nodded and Rob took hold of the rope and lowered himself into the basement.

Marc tossed his flashlight to Rob and then shimmied down himself, followed by the rest of the group, one at a time.

“Okay, let's see if we can figure out what room that hole leads into,” Marc said.

The basement was finished, although the walls were thin. They did seem to be in better shape than the floor above them though.

It only took a minute or two for them to find their way, but once they got into the room that hole led into, they were faced with mounds of debris. Using his shield, Marc started pushing it to the sides and out of the way. Rob and Felicia joined in with their own shields.

“Hey, this is solid,” Rob said.

He'd uncovered the corner of something big and black. They worked on pushing away the debris around it and found that it was a large, black, metal container. Something like a safe, but five feet deep, eight feet wide and six feet tall. It was propped up at an angle, held by some of the debris. One portion of the safe was leaning on the ground, but the propped up portion was about two feet in the air.

Jeff dropped down to his stomach and tried to peer under.

“Marc, light,” he said.

Marc handed down the flashlight.

“Shit, there's someone stuck under this thing. Looks like they're alive, there are all kinds of empty wrappers and bottles scattered around under here.”

“Quick, let's clear out behind the safe, then we'll see if Rob can straighten it up,” Marc said.

Suiting actions to words, they cleared the area behind it, then Rob worked on levering it up. That got the first reaction from the person trapped beneath. As the safe shifted up they let out an unconscious, agonized moan.

Rob finished straightening the safe and they discovered that the man's ankle was trapped under the edge. Rob immediately squatted, got his hands under the edge and prepared to lift.

“Get him out when I lift,” Rob said.

He counted up to three and on three he tried to straighten. The edge of the safe lifted up and Felicia and Ella dragged the man out by his shoulders. Rob grunted and lowered the edge of the safe once the man's leg was free, then Felicia took over.

“It looks like he's badly dehydrated and his ankle is shattered. I imagine his healing couldn't handle it with the safe constantly pinning and damaging his ankle. The foot is in bad shape, all infected. The infection is climbing his leg as well. I'll try a Purify to get rid of the infection, but it might take more than one, he's pretty bad off.”

She began to cast, but Marc found himself distracted.

Why was that safe so solid? It doesn't show any signs of deterioration in the slightest. As a matter of fact, why is it so big? The only safes I know of that are that size are...

The realization came to him that this was probably a gun safe and with the condition it was in, someone must've Systemized it.

“Jeff?” he said.

“Yeah?”

“Can you pick a combination lock?” Marc asked.

“Probably, why?”

Because I want to see what's in this safe. It's obvious that it was Systemized, but why would someone do that? What's in it? I think it's a gun safe, but why one so big?”

“Now you've got my curiosity piqued,” Jeff said.

He moved around to find the lock. He had to do it in semi-darkness though since Marc was holding the light on the man that had been trapped. Felicia was still casting, on her third Purify spell, but once she finished it, she relaxed.

“That takes care of the infection. It was pretty bad. We need to heal him, but we also need to get some water in him or he might not even survive the trip back to the Safe Zone. Even with as short as it is.”

Marc pulled out a water bottle. Once he'd gotten his new pack that interfaced with his inventory, he'd stacked a bunch of water bottles in one of the slots.

“Here,” he said. “Can we just trickle some into his mouth?”

“Best we can do for now, unless we can get our new Druid down here. I was talking with him and he's got some spells that might help. One called Hydrate, that allows him to add moisture to plants and animals. Helps speed growth, but I bet it would speed healing in this case.”

Marc cursed himself inwardly for not having traded spells with Reggie yet. He could've reversed his dehydrate curse to the same effect if he had.

“Ella? You're the quickest one here that's not doing anything else. Can you run back to the gates and see if Conner can find the Druid and send them down here?”

The man they'd been treating was clothed completely in grays and faded blacks, including a ski mask. Now Felicia slipped the mask up in order to give the man water and gasped.

“This is Natalie's father!” she said.

“Well, shit. I guess we know what happened. He was foraging and had an accident. That explains why he had so much food and drink with him too, he was probably going to bring it all home,” Marc said.

Felicia filled the cap with water and trickled a tiny bit between the man's lips. He coughed and choked, so Marc wasn't sure if they'd gotten any down into him. Felicia patiently tried again and again, getting at least a tiny bit of water into him. As she worked, Jeff came back over to Marc.

“No can do. It is Systemized, and that changed the lock. It's something a lot fancier than whatever was on there,” he said.

Marc desperately didn't want to complete the build cycle before he found out what was in here. He was pretty sure that the safe and its contents would be recycled if he did so.

That's it, I need to get a recycler down here and it can recycle the safe, hopefully without damaging the contents, he thought.

“Rob, we need to make a ramp. Is there enough debris around here that we can make one where you let the rope down?” Marc asked.

Rob looked around.

“Maybe, why a ramp?”

“Well, then we can carry him out of here on a stretcher or something. Plus, this safe? It's Systemized and Jeff can't pick it. I want a recycler down here to recycle the safe so we can see what's inside of it.”

“Ah, two birds and all that?” Rob said.

“Right, let's see if we can manage that, okay?”

He turned to Felicia.

“We're going to try to make a ramp. If we get one made, we can run off a stretcher and carry him out of here on it.”

“And the safe, I heard you,” she said. “Be quick though, the sooner we can get the Druid here or Natalie's dad back to the Safe Zone, the better.”

“Come on Rob, Jeff, let's make a ramp,” Marc said.

* * *

Marc and Rob started out by scooping debris up with their shields and carrying it over to Jeff, who'd stack it. Rob's shield wasn't very good for that purpose though, being round. Marc's rectangular one worked much better and Jeff was falling behind on stacking so Rob joined Jeff.

Less than half an hour later they had a ramp, just in time for the Druid to arrive. Ella led him down the ramp, looking at it with wide eyes. Also accompanying her was the new Combat Medic.

“Yup, we did that,” Jeff said, nodding towards the ramp.

Marc just shook his head.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “It's Natalie's father, if you've met her. He's been lost for days, evidently trapped down in this basement, pinned under a heavy metal safe. Felicia thinks he's badly dehydrated and doesn't want to risk her healing spells yet, she said they'll work much better if his body has resources to call on.”

“Yes,” the Combat Medic said, “healing spells partially draw on the reserves of the body, so if he has none, they could've killed him instead of healing him.”

“I'll see if my Hydration spell will work on a person,” the Druid added.

The two of them hurried away with Jeff leading them.

“Hey Rob, I'm going to rush back and get one of the recyclers. Probably the new one since it's faster and I can probably pull it on my own. Stand guard here? It's not part of the Safe Zone yet and there's been lots of coming and going, so...”

“You got it, Marc. I'll holler if I need help. With everyone in the other room, I think it won't be a problem.”

Marc hurried up the ramp, then jogged back to the Safe Zone. Conner came down as he saw Marc running.

“What's up?” he asked as Marc drew close.

“Need to get a recycler down there quickly,” Marc said.

Conner dropped into a jog alongside Marc.

“What for?”

“Well, the man we found? He was pinned under a metal safe, a huge one. I think it's a gun safe, and I think it's been Systemized. Jeff can't pick it because the lock was upgraded when it was Systemized, so I'll use a recycler to eat away the walls on it. I desperately want to know what's inside.”

“Guns, lots of them. If I'm not mistaken, that's Old Man Taggert's place. He was one of those survivalist preppers. Not the rational ones like your dad, more like one of those Doomsday Prepper ones.”

Marc stopped dead.

“My dad's a prepper?”

Conner chuckled.

“Do you think everybody with a gun keeps thousands of rounds of ammo per gun?”

“Yeah, don't they? I mean Felicia's family didn't but they mainly used shotguns and they normally had a thousand or more shells, right?”

“Take it from me, thousands of rounds is more than people need. Plus, all his food stores?”

“What food stores?”

“What do you mean?”

“My dad didn't have lots of food stores. Not that I know of anyhow.”

Conner slapped his forehead.

“Did he tell you what to do in case of emergency?”

“Yeah, he told me to take shelter in the basement under the garden shed.”

“Did you?”

Marc shook his head.

“Oh damn, I hope that stuff is still good and not all gone yet. I figured you had it tucked away around here somewhere after you told me he was your dad.”

“Crap, I've never actually been down in that basement. You're telling me it's full of goods?”

“I never actually saw it, but we did talk about it. He wanted the police to know that he had lots of guns but that the whole family was trained with them so when we ran into each other at the range, he let me know and asked me to spread the word to the others officers that wouldn't freak out about it.”

“Well, I guess I know what tomorrow's task will be,” Marc said.

“Or you could just expand that way and claim the house, leave everything intact.”

“I can't, the System recycles anything in the area I'm claiming and I only get raw materials,” Marc said.

“In that case, yes, I think I know what you should do tomorrow,” Conner said, “For now, do you need a hand with this recycler? It's close enough to the walls that I should be able to help you out without abrogating my duty.”

“Please, quicker is better. Rob's standing guard, but it's outside the Safe Zone until I do something about Natalie's father. Probably just bringing him into the Safe Zone and registering him as a guest would clear the area to be claimed. But once I claim it, the safe would be gone.”

“Do Systemized items go away like that too?” Conner asked.

“You know, I've got no idea. Maybe not? But I'd rather not risk it, especially if it is loaded with guns. We keep them in the Safe Zone and train people on them. They can be used as defense, so long as they're kept in here they won't deteriorate and we can use them indefinitely.”

“Or offer them to people with System tokens that demonstrate they know how to use them maybe,” Conner offered. “They'd be bound to last longer if they're Systemized, right? And they might encourage more people to go outside the walls.”

“Sure, maybe that too. Either way, we need to get them first,” Marc said.

“And here we are. I'll guard with Rob while you take care of that, help escort you all back to the Safe Zone once you're done,” Conner said.

Marc dragged the recycler down the ramp, feeling it shift under him as he did so.

Maybe come back up as quickly as I can, especially if I've got a full load on the back? he thought. Because I've got no desire to find out what it feels like to be buried under rubble if it collapses on me. If I'm that interested, I'll ask Natalie's father. Or maybe not, I don't imagine he'll want to talk about that much.

When he got the recycler into the other room, he found Natalie's father sitting up. His leg and ankle were splinted and he was arguing about having to leave, to get back to his family. Evidently he wasn't quite coherent because it took several repetitions for Felicia to get through to him that at least part of his family was safe already.

The Druid shook his head.

“Only time is going to take it from here. I can put him to sleep if you can arrange for someone to carry him back to the Safe Zone. I've got nothing for incoherence.”

The Combat Medic agreed and Marc knew that Felicia didn't either.

“Rob can carry him. Conner's here with me and he can stay and stand guard until I'm ready to go,” Marc said.

Felicia looked over at him.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I don't know how long this should take. I don't think it'll take long, but there's no reason to wait when you can get him back to the infirmary in the Safe Zone and let his family know we found him.”

“I'll stay with them also,” Jeff said. “Safety in numbers and all that.”

Ella stepped up alongside him, expressing her opinion without saying a word.

“Alright then,” Felicia said. “Let me go get Rob.”

As she left, Marc started up the recycler. There was an extension that allowed contact to be made with the machine without it having to butt up against what it was trying to work on, so he used that.

Because that will probably give me the finest touch I can get here, he thought.

As he started to edge the extension towards the metal, Jeff stopped him.

“Do the door, Marc. If you can just dissolve the locking mechanism with the recycler we can swing the door open and you won't have to eat away a whole wall of it. Should be quicker, and less contact means endangering the contents less too, right?”

Marc immediately pulled the recycler over to where he could get the extension to the door and started working on the metal where he thought the locking bolt would be.

In the end, there were four locking bolts and the door shuddered open shakily on its hinges with four gaping holes along its edges when Marc finished. When it did open, he whistled. The bottom of the safe had apparently been stacked with spam cans of ammunition, although they'd tumbled all over the place.

Fortunately there was a shelf about midway up the safe that had kept those tumbling cans from smashing into the guns that were on the top of the safe. AK-47s lined the top, jumbled from the safe's fall, but looking intact and functional.

As a matter of fact, they don't look like they've been deteriorating with everything else. No rust, no tarnish, no dried, cracked wooden stocks. They look like they might've just been bought, treated for storage and tucked away here.

Marc looked back at the safe itself.

“I wonder if that's what having the safe Systemized did?” he mused aloud. “It doesn't look like these have been deteriorating at all, so maybe keeping things in a Systemized container keeps them from deteriorating?”

“So, the Safe Zone is just one massive Systemized container?” Jeff said. “Since whatever we bring in stops deteriorating?”

Marc shook his head.

“I've got no clue, but I wonder if things like this are available in the shop? Or if we could make them with our System tokens? That, however, is a question for a later date. For now, we've got to salvage this stuff. We can't take the safe, the ramp would never support it, but everything else? Maybe we can load it onto the back of the recycler and haul it out that way?”

They started unloading the safe, discovering that there were twenty-seven AK-47s, each of them equipped with a sling, a bayonet, and ten magazines. For ammunition there were sixty-three unopened spam cans full of ammo. Marc thought there were probably four hundred and forty rounds per can since there were two numbers on the lid of each can. One was 7.62, which he knew was the ammunition for a standard AK-47, the other number was four hundred and forty. The rest of the print on the cans was in a foreign language, Marc thought it was Russian, but he couldn't be sure since it wasn't any language he knew. There were a number of loose rounds in the safe also, apparently from the one opened ammo can they found.

That was all in the main compartment of the safe. On the right was another compartment, separated from the guns by a thin metal wall that showed some dents from the abuse. On the other side were scattered MREs, probably once piled, but the forty-eight meals, ready to eat were now mingled with a small scattering of combat knives, seven of those, and some smaller lock boxes which were a lot heavier than they looked.

It took almost an hour to get everything loaded and tied down on the back of the recycler and once it was, Marc really didn't want to trust the ramp with the recycler. He chuckled as he realized he had the perfect solution.

Dragging the recycler towards the ramp, he then moved it to the side, brought it to the wall and adjusted the angle on the front. Setting it to lean up, he then pushed the recycler up against the wall of the basement and started to cut his own ramp out to the street.

The rest met him when he got up to ground level twenty minutes later. He'd had to keep moving the blocks of dirt that the machine produced, stacking them along the ramp as they moved up. The machine wasn't moving quickly already just due to the contents of the safe, and he didn't want to slow it any more. Once he got back to ground level it took the small group less than ten minutes to get back to the Safe Zone.

* * *

When he'd gotten the recycler and its load back to the Safe Zone Marc faced a new problem, where to put it. The apartment complex he'd recently built had lockable doors, so he selected one of those to store everything. With only a few people knowing what had been there, and the load getting transferred into the apartment after it was dark out and there wasn't anyone to see them, he hoped it would stay a secret. Once it was all in there he turned to Jeff.

“Go ahead, I know you were waiting patiently,” Marc said.

Jeff hadn't been being patient. Since they'd found the lock boxes he'd been fidgeting and started to say something several times. Now he dropped to his knees, the lock boxes on the table in front of him. His lock picks appeared in his hand as if by magic when he pulled them out of his inventory.

He's good at that, Marc thought as Jeff opened the three locks in under a minute total.

“And...” Jeff said, throwing open the first box.

Inside were a mess of older looking coins. Dimes, quarters, half dollars, and large dollar coins, all of them in clear plastic tubes. Jeff grinned as he picked one up.

“Junk silver,” he said. “Coins made in 1964 and earlier were ninety percent silver and it looks like all of these are those.”

He moved to the next box and opened it to reveal a hint of gold. A large number of gold bullion rounds inhabited the box, each in its own plastic sleeve.

Jeff's grin grew bigger.

“We all know what that is,” he said.

Then he flipped the lid on the last box.

“Well shit, now I feel bad for the guy,” Jeff said.

The last box contained a bunch of photocopied documents and a stack of photos. The photos were of middle aged people and younger ones as well. The younger ones had little messages on the back addressed to 'Grandpa'.

Marc shook his head.

“And we've got no idea what happened to this guy?” he asked.

Conner shook his head.

“I would've thought he'd be the type to do well in this kind of situation, well, a disaster type situation anyhow, but who knows. The fact that you said the safe was Systemized means he was around when it started. Other than that?”

Conner just shrugged.

Marc had felt that way himself up to level five. Now he felt more remorse over the loss of a man who looked like he might've been valuable to have around. Plus just the general remorse from the massive loss of life that occurred.

And expanding the Safe Zone is how I'm trying to cut down on that loss of life. I've got an expansion waiting, so this one's for you Old Man Taggert. Maybe we'll find you somewhere also, or save one of your relatives or something.

His step was hurried as he headed back to the gymnasium and pressed 'continue' on the build screen. He moved to the doors leading outside and stepped out, waiting to watch the material flow through the Safe Zone and for the expansion to commence.

* * *

Chapter Thirty

When the wait grew to more than the thirty seconds he'd anticipated, Marc groaned. His notification light had started flashing, but he'd been going to wait to check it until after things were underway, having only seen it happen the very first time, he wanted to watch the changes all happen again with the larger expansion.

Due to the quality of the core used in the expansion process, you have one additional Perk to add to your Safe Zone. Choose:

1 - Power slots for the Safe Zone will be increased by 1 per core used in this Safe Zone

2 – Phantom Guards. These guards are not good fighters, but at the first sign of invaders they will sound an alert that will be heard throughout the entire Safe Zone alerting the inhabitants to the location in question. They will then take defensive actions throughout the fight, attempting to prevent invaders from entering the Safe Zone. Sufficient guards will be generated to allow one guard per 100' of wall. As the Safe Zone expands, more guards will be generated to maintain this density.

Marc bit his lip, thinking.

I should go and ask everyone else, or at least Felicia, about what to pick. It's already been so long since I tried to initiate this expansion though, hours even, he thought.

Then he gritted his teeth and walked back into the building. He thought Felicia would be either back in her room or in the infirmary with Natalie right now. The infirmary was closer so that's where he went first.

Sure enough, Felicia and Natalie were sitting in the waiting area outside of it.

And the fact that Jeff actually put in a waiting area boggles my mind. Maybe there was a preset infirmary design that he just plugged into the design? That would explain it, and I do believe that he would've thought of adding an infirmary. He's spent enough time in the hospital himself that he'd remember.

Marc cleared his throat gently and both of the women looked up at him.

“Felicia? Got a quick decision to run by you,” he said.

“Go,” Natalie told her. “Dad's going to be fine according to what Eugene said, he just needs to get his food and water reserves up in his body, then you can heal him.”

Eugene, that's the Druid's name. I know we were introduced, but I just didn't remember it. I'll try harder this time since I'm hoping to work with him and figure out how to train more Druids.

Felicia stood and headed over to him.

“What is it, Marc?”

“Well, remember you told me I should ask for help making decisions?”

She nodded.

“I went to finalize the expansion and got another prompt. We've got another perk due to the quality of the troll's monster core and this time it gave me a choice.”

“Spill it, what do we have to choose from?” she said.

He described the two choices, sharing the notification so she could see it.

“I'm leaning towards the guards,” he said. “Because if we keep expanding, at some point we'll have more walls than people to guard them. Already it's just sort of a volunteer thing because I don't want to insist that some people take guard duty.”

“We've got what? Four power slots? How many of them are we using?”

“Well, the smithy is converting over to one, so we'll get that expansion slot back, but it'll use a power slot. I'm pretty sure that we'll want a Sawmill eventually, Crafters will probably need the wood from that as opposed to the recyclers. You know we'll want a Brewery and I think that used one also. Oh, and we're using one for Wired Communication within the Safe Zone. I think of that like a Safe Zone wide intercom or something, or a limited small town telephone setup?”

He shrugged.

“So yeah, we could use two more power slots, but I think having the Phantom Guards would be a better option.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, nodding her head.

“Either one would be good, but you're right. With the amount of expansion we want, and the fact that we have the expanded expansion slots with the good core, manning the walls will be an issue unless we get lots more survivors. So, yes, I'd pick the Phantom Guards.”

“Think I should run that by Jeff and Rob also? Or just go with it.”

“Just go with it. I think Rob would be happy to just go with your choice, and Jeff? Well, let's just say I think interrupting him right now wouldn't make him happy. Ella said something about 'rewarding' him for helping her find the right group to join.”

Felicia snorted.

“I'm pretty sure that he didn't have much to say in the matter of which group she joined though, she can wrap him around her little finger like nobody's business.”

“But he did, at least, encourage it?” Marc said.

She nodded.

“Yeah, he did. I'll give him that much credit on his own, but I think I know who'll be wearing the pants in that relationship, whether he realizes it or not.”

Marc chuckled and wondered if his running to Felicia with this decision meant that she was wearing them in their relationship. Then started chuckling harder when he realized that they actually had one.

“What's so funny?” Felicia asked, looking more curious than annoyed.

“Oh, not much. I just realized that you and I finally have some sort of relationship, even if we haven't exactly laid out any ground rules for it, and all it took to get there was the end of the world as we knew it.”

She stared at him for moment before bursting into laughter.

“When you're right, you're right. I mean it's funny, but it isn't. It seems that gallows humor is the one that comes most readily to hand nowadays though.”

“I'll take it. Any humor at all seems to lighten the load some. Have you been noticing it also? The things that just didn't bother you back before level five seeming to have more of an impact now.”

Her face took on a serious look and she nodded.

“Yeah, and you're right again. With all of that slowly encroaching on us, even gallows humor helps. Now, if you'll excuse me, I want to get back to Natalie. Finding her father was another bright spot, at least for me. It helped ease up some of those feeling that were coming back.”

Marc nodded.

“I'll go get this expansion finished. It's been hours since I first started it.”

“Rather eventful hours though, so it wasn't a waste of time or anything, just a delay,” she said.

She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then went back into the waiting room. Marc returned to the gym, selected the Phantom Guards perk, then stepped out like he had earlier. This time, he got to watch as the materials pile got down and busy. Wood and stone flew off into the darkness towards the areas of the wall that were expanding. Metal went flying towards the front door of the keep and Marc worried about that until he realized that it was probably the materials for the base of the Wired Communication upgrade.

The doors opened to allow the metal in, then closed behind it. Marc just sat there staring as the rest of the changes took place in front of his eyes. The moon was bright so he could actually see the wall from where he was and he discovered that the existing wall simply pushed forward to the new boundary, the materials building the connection between the portion that had moved and that which had stayed where it previously was.

So yeah, people could actually stay on the wall during the expansion, not that I think anyone will want to do that. Wait, no-one but Jeff will want to do that, I could see him doing it though, Marc thought.

* * *

After watching the expansion progress for a few minutes, Marc realized that he was wiped out. With everything he'd done over the course of day he was exhausted. He thought about stopping by the infirmary again, but instead went straight to his room, promising himself to check on Natalie's father first thing in the morning. He didn't even try to meditate or work on his Mana Manipulation skill, simply crawled into the shower, then into bed. In moments he was asleep.

He slept the sleep of the dead. There were no dreams, very little movement, and even though he was fully rested when he woke it didn't feel as though he'd slept for very long at all. He pulled himself out of bed and walked to the window. The sun was rising and was only about halfway above the horizon.

Wait, that means I only slept something like six hours. I'm pretty sure it wasn't thirty and I slept a whole day away, but I've never felt well rested when I only got this little sleep before. I wonder what's up?

He stayed true to his word, dressing and going to the infirmary first thing. Natalie was still there, but in her father's room now. Felicia was nowhere to be seen and Marc guessed that meant she was sleeping.

“Hey, how's he doing?” Marc asked softly.

Natalie, who'd been dozing lightly in her chair, snapped upright and spun to face him.

“Marc,” she sputtered, half asleep.

Marc didn't get his answer from her though, instead he heard a raspy, masculine voice from the bed answer.

“Apparently much better, due to you and your friends.”

Marc glanced over and saw the man's eyes open. As he watched, the man drew himself up into a sitting position in the bed.

“So, Natalie tells me you're the one in charge of this Safe Zone? And that you're seeing her old friend, Felicia?”

Marc kind of shrugged.

“Yes? I mean, I am in charge of the Safe Zone, although I try to run most decisions through my group. Felicia and I have a...”

Marc raised a hand, then wiggled it back and forth.

“thing going, something between us. We haven't exactly tried to define anything yet. We've known each other long enough that it just feels like a natural extension of our relationship?”

He wasn't sure he was explaining it well and that was why he'd phrased the last as a question.

Natalie's father started to laugh, but interrupted it with a cough and settled for a quiet chuckle.

“Yup, that sounds like a relationship to me. She'll keep you on your toes that way.”

Natalie frowned at her father.

“Not that that's a bad thing or anything,” he quickly added.

Then he stuck out his hand.

“Bill,” he said.

Marc took it and replied with his own name.

“So, Natalie's been telling me what you've been doing here. She mentioned a bunch of classes, but it seems like she missed mine. I didn't tell it to her before because the name's none too flattering, but if you've got room, how would you like to add a Scavenger to your Safe Zone?”

“That's your class?”

Bill nodded.

“What's it entail?” Marc asked.

“Minor fighting capabilities, about those of a Scout. Where it shines is that I can Scavenge things. What that means is an increased chance to find an item of a type I'm looking for. Things like food, weapons, and the like. Plus, twice per day, when I find something with the Scavenge skill I can choose to Systemize it.”

Marc froze, then ran Bill's words back through his mind again.

“You can Systemize items? Two daily?” he asked.

Bill nodded.

“Don't know how long that'll be good for, lots of stuff is falling apart already, like the floor under my feet a few days ago, but while it holds up it sounds like a pretty powerful skill, right?”

Marc shook his head.

“No. I mean yes it is, but it'll stay a powerful skill, not just for how long the current items take to decay. Were you aware that items that are Systemized fix themselves? I assume that's back to how they were right after Systemization, but even so damaged items repairing themselves is crazy powerful.”

“Yeah, so? I can do a bunch until it's all gone, then kaput,” Bill said.

Marc grinned.

“Nope. Items made under the System, with its Crafting system? They don't appear to be Systemized, they're just normal items that don't suffer the deterioration of the existing ones. Once you can start Scavenging items like those? You'll still be able to Systemize them and improve them. At least, that's how I'm reading the situation.”

“Oh,” Bill said. “I didn't realize that, I just thought anything new made would automatically be Systemized.”

“No, we've had some people working on things. A Seamstress and we just got a Trapsmith. None of their items were Systemized items. They were System items so they don't decay at the fast rate, but they don't read as Systemized.”

“Well in that case, you have a use for guy that can track items down and improve them? At least a couple a day anyhow?” Bill asked.

“I'm sure we will. And we'll be able to use your skills to add even more items to the Safe Zone up until the final bit of decay sets in. Plus, non-Systemized items brought into a Safe Zone don't decay at the fast rate anymore, so even more than two a day if you can find things and bring them back. Then eventually you can Systemize those items after we can't retrieve any more from outside the Safe Zone.”

Bill turned to Natalie.

“He's a quick one, isn't he? No wonder it was him and his group that got a Safe Zone set up around here first.”

“I don't know dad, I don't know him that well. I just know what Felicia told me, but I figured her opinion was probably biased so didn't pay that much attention. Maybe I should've.”

She looked at Marc curiously and he blushed.

“No, I'm not that quick-witted, I don't think. I am smart and we've made lots of different plans also. What I just mentioned was just combining those plans with the skill you told me about.”

“Close enough for me,” Bill said. “When can I get started?”

He tried to swing his legs over the edge of the bed, but Natalie stopped him.

“No dad, you stay in bed until one of the Healers clears you.”

“And after that we normally give people forty-eight hours to get their heads wrapped around the new world,” Marc added.

“Son, I spent days trapped under that safe with nothing to do but think. I thought I'd die, but instead I'm alive. I've had the time I need to get my head wrapped around the new world you mentioned. Now I'd prefer to be out there making sure more people get a chance to do the same. Natalie told me you're looking for survivors and I'm hoping that I can Scavenge survivors as well as I can anything else.”

Marc stopped dead. He hadn't even considered that possibility. If it worked he might be able to, or rather Bill might be able to, find any more survivors in the town. At the very least they could offer them residence in the Safe Zone and let them know where it was.

And make it perfectly clear that they have to pull their own weight to be here. I don't want to have to evict anyone else. It makes me feel dirty, even just telling Jeff to do it does, and who knows what show he'd put on next time if I asked him to do that.

* * *

“I'm going to head down for breakfast. If I see Felicia, I'll send her up here to check you out, Bill,” Marc said.

Natalie glared at him.

“Don't look at me like that. You know Felicia won't give him a clean bill of health if she doesn't think he's good,” Marc said. “And the sooner we can get him added to a group and headed out, the more people we'll be able to save, hopefully. Assuming you can Scavenge survivors,” Marc added, shaking his head.

“I can only try,” Bill said. “But the class includes things like tracking for game animals and using Scavenge to find those, so I've got hope.”

“Well, it was very nice indeed to meet you, Bill. Hopefully you'll be up on your feet again in no time.”

Marc headed out and hurried towards the cafeteria. Once he was there, he realized that he was early again.

I was early the other day too. What's with this, I was never an up with the dawn type, but I've been getting a lot less sleep recently and been feeling a lot better. Is that a result of my Constitution increasing as much as it has?

He sat down after checking if they'd gotten any coffee brewed yet and claiming a cup for himself. As he nursed his coffee he ran through the groups they had, trying to determine which would be the best fit for Bill.

He's not going to add a lot of combat capability, so they'll need decent combat skills. So probably our group, which I don't think will happen because we don't have a regular schedule on going out, or Ron's group. I bet Ron would be all over finding more survivors. Some of the groups go out to find spawns to kill, but he takes his group out to find people and just kills any of the spawns they find along the way.

Marc nursed his cup of coffee until breakfast was ready. Grabbing food, and another cup of coffee, he settled in to wait for Felicia. He was impatient and it didn't help matters that it took her until nearly the close of breakfast hours to arrive. When she did, he relaxed. She had Bill and Natalie with her.

He followed them into the line, the waitresses only operating during lunch and dinner, procuring one final cup of coffee and desperately trying to ignore Alice's flirting by taking Felicia's arm. That caused Felicia to look at him curiously, then back to the server and return the gesture, clutching his arm possessively. Alice's crestfallen face told Marc that he might have less to worry about with dodging Alice's flirting from now on.

Why do I feel bad about it though? It's not like I was encouraging her, unless she thought me getting here early a few times was encouragement.

“So, Bill. Did Felicia say you're good to go?” Marc asked, after they took seats.

“She told me I'm good to be out of bed, but she doesn't want me leaving the Safe Zone until tomorrow.”

“I want to keep an eye on him, just in case,” Felicia said. “He was in really bad shape yesterday and I'm astounded at how quickly he recovered.”

“I am level five,” he said, “and Scavengers get Agility and Constitution for their levels. So my Constitution is a bit buffed. I'm sure that has something to do with it.”

“Even so, I want to keep an eye on you for a day and make sure you don't run out of energy again halfway through the day. That could be deadly if you were out scavenging.”

“Did he tell you his idea?” Marc asked.

She shook her head.

“He thinks he might be able to use his Scavenge skill to find survivors,” Marc said. “I'm thinking we should group him up with Ron's party to do that since they've been focused on finding people more than fighting.”

“That's a good idea,” Natalie said. “I know they're pretty strong, so there shouldn't be nearly as much danger for him that way.”

“Hey, I'm right here,” Bill said. “Don't talk about me like I'm not.”

“Now you are,” Natalie said, “but you weren't for a few days. I'd rather not go back to having you not right here.”

“Sorry Bill,” Marc said. “It's probably good to take the single day off. You weren't exactly in shape to actually rest where you were.”

He grunted in reply.

“Ron's group has already left for the day anyhow,” Marc added. “So, I'll talk to him about it when they get back this afternoon. I'll introduce you too, Bill, if you're willing.”

“Yeah, we can do that. My wife stopped by earlier, so I need to go talk to her some more. She's not gonna like this plan, but if I can save more people, I feel like I ought to. You know, pay the favor forward and all that?”

Marc nodded.

“So, if they get back and are interested, I'll be with my wife. Do you know which room we're in?”

“Um, Felicia does at least. She showed me once so I could ask Natalie to work as a guard—”

“Which I've got to go do now,” Natalie said, interrupting Marc. “When the groups took over guarding the recyclers, I started working with Conner instead.”

She leaned over to kiss her dad's cheek, then got up to go to work with a wave for her father, a smile on her face for the first time since Marc had met her.

“As I was saying,” Marc said. “So, even if I don't remember, I can ask her to show me the way. The other group I thought about pairing you up with was ours, but we don't have a regular schedule for going out like Ron does, too many other things we need to do here as well.”

“Okay then. You know where I'll be. Don't be surprised if she tries to play the crying game when you show up. I'm sure she'll try to keep me from going out again, but I think it's something I need to do, so...”

Marc nodded.

“I'll warn Ron also if he's with me,” Marc said.

“In that case, time for me to go face the music,” Bill said, standing and heading out.

“So, what are we going to do today?” Felicia asked.

“Well, we've got to check out our Wired Communications center, let Allan know he's got another field and an orchard, then after dark we can check out the wall lights. Plus, we haven't really looked over some of the other buildings, just turned them over to those who can use them. Also, Conner told me that my dad has a food stash at our house. We should probably go retrieve that today also.”

“That's right, I haven't given you a tour of my lab yet,” Felicia said. “You can check it out. I've got the formulas for three things so far, lesser potions all. There's healing, mana restoration, and stamina restoration. As soon as the ingredients are ready I'll be able to try to make them. I am going to need a bigger herb garden at some point though, if we want to make a decent quantity of potions. I've been trying to identify the ones we found with the ogres too, no luck yet though.”

For the moment they'd divided up the items from the ogres with Felicia taking the potions, Rob the ax, and Jeff the necklace and ring. If they ever managed to find out just what they were, then they'd assign ownership on a permanent basis.

* * *

By the end of the day Marc had investigated all of the buildings he'd already created. He'd heard from people that the greenhouses were growing their plants at ludicrous rates, but when he saw the plants put down mere days ago that were already sprouted and extending stems and vines almost a foot in length he realized they'd been understating things.

Even the fields were growing much faster than they should, according to Allan. The shoots in the original fields were several inches tall already and Allan had already gotten Field Hands to plant the newer fields. They were still working on the one Marc had put in the night before while Marc was on the tour and he discovered that Allan had chosen more challenging plants for the newer fields after seeing how well the first ones were doing.

The apartment building had residents already as well. Aside from the apartment he'd claimed for the guns, there were four others already claimed in there. When he looked inside an unoccupied one, paying more attention to the apartment than he had when he'd been dropping guns off inside of one, he discovered why.

They were very comfortable apartments, each with its own mini-kitchen and running water. There were outlets, odd looking ones that each contained one plug of the standard grounded type he knew and a second with four curved sockets and a round one in the middle forming almost a miniature bullseye.

That must be the plug for things you buy from the shop, he thought. Because I haven't seen a plug like it in my life that I can remember so it certainly isn't a common one.

Marc caught up to Ron at dinner, telling him about the new class that Natalie's father had and stressing that Bill thought he could use it to find more survivors, but that Marc wanted him to go with a group, not on his own.

Marc had hoped that Ron would volunteer and he wasn't disappointed. When Marc mentioned he was looking for a group, Ron started eating quicker. Once he'd finished his food, he asked to meet Bill so he could talk to him.

Bill had been right, and his wife was all teary eyed during the ensuing discussion, but in the end they decided that they'd try it out tomorrow and see if Bill was correct and he could locate the survivors. As he put it, there were a number of ways he could do it.

“I can look for fresh tracks of people, use Scavenge to hunt for things that they'd probably have, or for say... human hair, and that all assumes that I can't simply track the survivors with the skill itself. I mean, it says find valuables, and a living survivor would be valuable, right?”

Marc found that he simply wasn't all that tired again come dark, so he and Felicia toured the now lighted walls. The Phantom Guards were just that. Translucent figures that stood at attention, peering out into the night. They reacted not at all to Felicia and Marc as they passed by, continuing to stand guard, undistracted.

Felicia didn't want to walk the entire circuit and Marc didn't blame her. The Safe Zone was getting rather large and to walk all the way around the walls would be a good bit of exercise that they really didn't currently need. So they left the walls and settled down in Marc's room for another movie. He'd paused in the gym on the way back, and the popcorn was fresh and hot when he pulled it out of his inventory as the movie began.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-One

In the morning Marc watched as Bill headed out with Ron's group. He wasn't sure just what his own group was going to be doing today since they hadn't discussed it, but if they weren't going out he needed to check the material stores for the Safe Zone and see how long it would be until they could expand again.

It shouldn't be very long at all since I can claim the existing buildings for half their materials now and we're close enough to the downtown that there will be a lot of buildings in the new area I can claim. Wood definitely won't be a problem, Natalie's old recycling team has been working the forested area out back using the recycler on all the standing and fallen dead wood. That's added up quickly. I think stone and metal are the things I need to worry about, plus any of the non-standard materials I might need for buildings I choose.

He was up early again and had waited for the cafeteria to open before going down. Felicia was still asleep and that was reinforcing his idea that a higher Constitution meant he needed less sleep. Felicia hadn't put many points in Constitution yet, so she needed more if his theory was correct.

I'll have to ask Rob and any of the other tanks whose class is partially Constitution based. If I'm right then they won't be needing as much sleep either, Marc thought.

With that thought in mind he hung out in the cafeteria, approached the tank types as they entered, and quickly asked them about it. He was surprised to discover that they needed even less sleep than he did now, even the ones that were a level or two lower than him.

So, not just Constitution based? Maybe Strength as well since those are the two stats most of the tank types get each time they level? Wait, there's the Endurance stat also and that seems to go up with both Constitution and Strength. Maybe that's got something to do with it.

Worried about being a pest, Marc returned to the tanks while they were still eating, quickly asking each of them what their Endurance score was. After he'd received the answers, he thought he'd found his solution. The amount of sleep needed seemed to be based on the Endurance score. Also, the people with higher Endurance had found that they could force themselves to stay awake longer if it was necessary.

So that's what Endurance does. That was one of the stats fairly easy to train up before, I wonder if it still is? If it is, then maybe we can create some training for it? In case people would rather be doing more and sleeping less?

He shook his head.

Who am I kidding? Some people will, but I bet most of them would rather not. Rough physical training just so you don't have to sleep as much and can do more on a regular basis? The workaholics will go nuts over it and everyone else will want to keep their normal sleeping schedule. I can post a note about it anyhow, that way if anyone is interested they can try to train their Endurance up.

He did, however, share his findings with the tanks he'd asked about it and his own group when they showed up a little while later.

“So that's why you keep getting up so much earlier than me?” Felicia asked.

“I guess,” Marc replied. “I'm feeling well rested so I am getting enough sleep. How about you Rob?”

“Yeah, I don't need to sleep as much, but normally I just go back to sleep when I wake up early. I don't need it, but it's nice,” Rob said. “Feels like I get to sleep in every day and then still get a full day's worth of stuff done.”

“Speaking of which, what do we want to do today?” Marc asked.

“Game,” Jeff said. “Living in a game setup isn't nearly as fun as I thought it would be. I'd like to settle in with a decent game and just... Hell, I don't know. I don't think those games would be as much fun anymore either. Not that we have a computer or a console to game on anyways.”

“Heh,” Rob said. “Check the shop. I bet they have something like that.”

Jeff shook his head.

“Nah, I don't know what we should do. I think the area right around the Safe Zone is pretty well covered by the other groups, so we won't find anything to do there.”

“I had a thought,” Marc said.

“Uh-oh,” Jeff said, unable to resist.

Marc glared at him for a moment before continuing.

“The Lair core? For kobolds? Do we want to find a place to set that up for farming experience? We might not get a lot from them any more, but most of the other groups are lower level than us and they might? Plus if we get more people taking a combat class, we can train them up in there.”

Ella took on a thoughtful look.

“Does lower experience from a spawn mean less chance of increasing a skill on them? I'm just thinking that even the groups who don't get much exp from the kobolds might be able to level their skills up on them,” she said.

Jeff grinned.

“Now that's a half decent idea. Once we know how quickly they spawn we can assign a rotation for clearing it out to any groups that are interested. With both experience and skill levels available that way we'll probably get a bunch of takers.”

“So, should we head out today and try to find a spot for it outside of the Safe Zone?” Marc asked.

“A decent distance outside of the Safe Zone,” Felicia replied. “We don't know if they have surges in breeding rates for anything, or when they'd start heading out of their lair, or anything of the sort.”

“I was thinking I'd make that forest out back of the school a Wildlife Preserve,” Marc said, “but there's a lot more area than what I'd use back there and the spawns are prevented from killing the game in it. Although they admittedly might be a problem for the hunters and Game Warden.”

“So keep it a fair bit away from there as well,” Felicia said.

“I'm trying to remember the area. I don't think we want it too far out, we have to walk to it to farm it all the time.”

“Well then, that's what we ought to do today,” Felicia said. “Figure out where to set up an experience farm.”

* * *

They geared up and headed out. First they went through part of the area Marc wanted to use as a Wildlife Preserve. He needed to make sure that enough of it was forest to qualify. They turned at a right angle once he was satisfied that it was forested enough and soon found themselves out on the open plains.

Marc knew that there used to be a ranch out this way. It hadn't been operational in years, but the main house had still been there, albeit not in the best of shape.

I'm thinking that if we can actually find the place, even if it's fallen in on itself already, it might be a good area to set up the Lair core, he thought.

They spent about forty-five minutes just wandering around. There were a few houses out in this direction and the ones they saw weren't in very good condition any more. Marc headed to the road that led to those houses though, he thought the ranch was at the end of it.

“Out this way. Does anyone else remember the abandoned ranch? I thought that might be a good spot for the lair.”

“Or we could head that way,” Jeff said, gesturing towards the low hills right outside of town. “I'm sure there's a cave or something out there we could use.”

“Jeff, do you remember what else is out there?” Marc asked.

Jeff shrugged.

“Jeff, what are the most common crafter types in games?”

“Uh... Are we talking NPC or player?” Jeff asked.

“Call it between everyone,” Marc said.

“Then smith, farmer, miner...” Jeff trailed off.

“Oh yeah, there's the old mine in the hills isn't there?” he said.

The mine had been founded when a decent sized silver vein had been found more than a century ago, but it had been abandoned for decades by this point. Most of the boys that grew up in town, Marc, Rob, and Jeff included, had been in it at least once since it was the frequent destination for dares and other less reputable plans.

“Yes, and with the way the System is affecting everything else, I'm guessing that we might actually be able to get something out of the mine again, if we can ever get anyone willing to try mining,” Marc said. “So I thought the ranch would be good for this. It had a lot of buildings, the main house, the bunkhouse for its employees and a bunch of other smaller places that they used for who knew what.”

“You're right, the ranch works. Imagine if we can get a silver mine going again here. Gold would be better, but silver works for me.”

“Learn the mining skill and we'll escort you out to check and see if you find any,” Marc said. “Now come on, the ranch is only a little farther out this way.”

It was a little farther away from Safe Zone than Marc preferred, but they found the place. Despite the deterioration it still hadn't collapsed completely. Marc counted the house, the bunkhouse, two large barns and about seven other smaller buildings on the property. He knew there was a fence around the several thousand acres that compromised the ranch, although he wasn't sure if it would've decayed away by now or not. He could see the strands of barbed wire sticking up out of the weeds in a few areas though, so he thought it was probably still standing, or at least parts of it were.

“So, what do you think? I'm sure if we figure out the shortest route it'll be less than an hour from the Safe Zone if you go directly between the two,” he said.

“Closer would be better,” Jeff said.

“No, this is good,” Felicia replied. “It's far enough away that the kobolds won't find the Safe Zone unless they're incredibly lucky or we stop farming the place.”

“If we stop farming it, we'll try to come recover the core,” Marc said. “It's something we wouldn't want to just leave lying around on its own, you know?”

She nodded.

“So, where do we put it?” Rob asked.

“The largest building?” Ella asked. “They might expand to the others, probably will even, but if you start it in the largest one then they'll have the biggest opportunity to grow before they have to expand. If the intent is to get lots of them to farm, than I think that would be best.”

Marc nodded.

“Alright. I want to go in alone though. The place looks like it's about to fall apart and I'd rather not have it collapse on me. Bill heartily disrecommends that.”

“Should Jeff do it then?” Felicia asked. “He's the one with a focus on Agility.”

Marc slowly looked at Jeff, then turned back to Felicia then raised his eyebrows and gave her an expression of disbelief.

Felicia glanced over for a moment. Jeff was currently fidgeting, looking from Marc to Felicia and back.

“Oh yeah, never mind,” she said. “Forget I said anything.”

“I'll be careful,” Marc said, “I promise.”

The group went up to the edge of the porch and the rest of them stopped as Marc continued on. He gingerly made his way into the house, then down into the basement. The core had been buried before and he didn't know if that was necessary for it to work or not.

The floor of the first basement room he was in was concrete, old powdery concrete, but he still didn't want to risk beating on it with the rickety building over him. He checked the doors and was relieved to find that one led into a root cellar with a dirt floor.

A bit of digging with his shield gave him a hole. He considered the core and the potential for the kobolds themselves to get a hold of it, then dug down another foot. The packed dirt didn't really want to yield, but the sturdy construction of his shield combined with his strength got the hole as deep as he wanted it.

He took the core in hand and looked at it. Re-reading the description, he realized that they had no way of knowing how long it would take to start the lair.

Lair Core (kobold)

Item grade: uncommon

Item quality: common

When placed in an unoccupied area, this Core will began to accumulate mana. Once it has accumulated enough, kobolds will begin to appear and create a lair. The overall size of the lair, levels of the kobolds, and all other accouterments of the lair such as traps, treasure, and the like will increase with the duration of the Lair's existence.

He placed the core in the hole, then filled in the dirt he'd dug out of it, packing it down. The rocks he'd found when he'd dug the hole went in just before the last layer of dirt, so it would be easy to find the core again if they needed to do so. Just poke a couple inches down in the dirt and if you found a mass of rocks, that would be it.

Rather than make his way back through the house, he carefully climbed the steps leading out of the root cellar, swinging the door open gently as he climbed out. Then he closed it again, setting the latch back in place so it wouldn't blow open.

When he made it around front the rest of the group was staring at the front door.

“Well, that was anti-climactic,” Marc said.

The group practically jumped out of their skin.

“Marc, how?” Rob asked, glancing at the front door, then back to Marc.

“Root cellar. It's where I buried the core. I used those steps to get back out rather than trust the house.”

“Good, I thought you might've been taking lessons from Jeff in Stealth, and that would be just too much,” Rob said.

Marc grinned and shook his head.

“Nope, just didn't want to go through the house again. I thought it was going to collapse on me more than once going in.”

“Okay,” Jeff said. “Are we done now? Can we head back?”

“Yeah, but let's try to determine the most direct route and leave blazes to make it easy for people to find, right? We'll need to check this place every day or two and see when the kobolds start showing up though,” Marc said.

They did as he suggested, although he was pretty sure they hadn't managed to find the most direct route. Even so the trip would still be under an hour, if he was estimating correctly. That was good enough. If it was popular and there was a much shorter route, he was sure someone would find it and mark it.

* * *

They didn't make it back in time for lunch so Marc sprang for lunch for everyone from the shop. The help pads were still selling consistently. He was creating and listing twenty-five a day. He'd do more, but that was as many as the master pad could handle at a single time and he wasn't willing to do it more than once a day. So he had plenty of silver, although at a hundred to one conversion to gold, it didn't add up to very much in gold.

Although we've got the gold from the ogres and those coins from Old Man Taggert's stash to auction, plus the others I had from before so gold is available if we, well if I, take the time to list it. Wait, I'll get Felicia to help. I bet if she writes up the auctions they'd pull in more. Later though, right now lunch, then see if we've got the wood for the Wildlife Preserve. I think we've got a lot more than we need to even make a decent one of a thousand acres, but I have to check. I don't want to slow down expanding to make it. If we've got enough wood though, I won't have to slow down at all.

After they ate, he headed for the build pedestal. Pulling up the build screens he checked the materials total the Safe Zone currently held.

Resources:

Wood: 1783

Stone: 932

Metal: 459

Sand: 7

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (1/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions from the original power source.(1/5)

The Rare-Excellent core was highlighted and Marc figured that the bottom line of the readout would change if he selected the common-poor one instead.

But there's certainly enough wood to build the Wildlife Preserve and still keep us pretty close to on schedule. I'll do that in a few minutes, first I want to see how close we are to the next expansion.

He pulled up the build screen.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 1783/3000

Stone: 932/3000

Metal: 459/1400

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (1/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(1/5)

Then he started working with the wireframe. Once again it wouldn't allow him to put one hundred percent in the direction he wanted to go. Maybe eighty-five or ninety percent could go in the direction of downtown while he had to add the rest in different directions from the keep. So he expanded the wireframe straight down the road towards downtown until it wouldn't take any more.

The spur he'd created that way was just a little wider than a football field was long, the minimum width the System allowed him to use. The rest of the added area he used to expand the borders on the other three sides of the keep equally. Then he glanced down at the totals and froze.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 3000/3000

Stone: 3000/3000

Metal: 1372/1400

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (1/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(1/5)

What's up with all the materials from the expansion? he wondered.

Digging down a couple of menus found him another diagram that showed where things were coming from.

Oh, the sewers and underground lines for everything start just beyond our current Safe Zone walls. That must include the concrete and metal from those as stone and metal. Plus, there are probably thirty houses in the area I'm trying to claim, which probably accounts for the wood. It's a shame I can't do that right this moment, but we're still shy a bit of metal. The recyclers aren't back from today's runs though, so maybe after dinner?

When he left the build pedestal, Marc found that Ron had already returned for the day.

“So, how'd it go?” Marc asked.

“Well, Bill can't Scavenge survivors directly, but he can indirectly. Instead of searching for survivors he uses a technicality and looks for Systemized items. Most of the people who survived have at least a couple of those, so we found five more people today. Two singletons and a group of three.”

Marc grinned.

“Now we just have to figure out if he can teach his class to other people, or even just that skill. If he could, we could find a lot more people. Assuming they're out there.”

Ron frowned.

“They are. In addition to those five we found two more people who'd probably died within the last day or two. I don't know why they just don't come here.”

Marc shrugged.

“They might be to scared to go out at all and haven't seen the signs, or they might've read the message from the System about humans being dangerous also and are going by that. We almost didn't get Natalie's family because of that.”

“That's just stupid,” Ron said. “Why would people believe the System over other people? And they don't have to have seen the signs. We've been calling out like your group did when you found us.”

“I don't know then, Ron. Like I said though, if Bill can train anyone to the class or the skill, then we can put even more effort into saving folks. So I'm hoping he can. Oh, hey, is Reggie around?”

“Yeah, he's trying to teach one of the people we found today how to be a Mage. He said he saw how you did it and wanted to try. The kid he's trying it on is his age, he even knew Reggie before all this, and agreed to try.”

“They in the auditorium?” Marc asked.

Ron nodded.

“I think so. Gotta go though, gonna find Al to talk to the new folks. If you're going to the auditorium, warn Reggie that there will be more people there shortly.”

“Will do, Ron. Thanks again, great job. I feel like crap that I didn't get my group out to hunt survivors today, but we're planning a way to get the people with combat classes a boost to levels and skills.”

“Hell, that'll do then. That'll help the people we do find stay alive longer,” Ron said. “Besides, you guys have brought a lot in on your own. It's our turn to help out for a while and it's something I enjoy doing.”

“Great. I'm going to go track down Reggie.”

“Warn him like I said, okay?”

Marc nodded and headed for the auditorium. Rather than announce himself, he just listened for a few minutes.

Reggie's hopping around a bit much for the other guy to get it. He's close though. I guess I'll step in and help, plus warn them about Ron.

“Hey Reggie,” Marc called.

Reggie startled and spun around.

“I think you skipped a step there,” Marc said. “Plus, Ron wanted me to warn you that he was going to bring the new people you found here for Al to give his talk.”

“Ah, crap,” Reggie said.

“We can try more later,” the other boy said.

“Or Marc here can do this and you'll learn a lot quicker,” Reggie said. “Marc?”

“I don't know if we have time, but we can try.”

The other boy nodded so Marc settled in to teaching. Several of the steps had been explained adequately by Reggie so it went very quickly. Marc was just finishing up as people started filing into the auditorium.

“So that's how you do it. Give it a shot, target that chair,” Marc said.

The other boy, who Marc had found out was named Gregory, pointed his finger and a Mana Dart shot out and struck the chair. Gregory gave a cheer after he was successful.

“Sorry, I gotta go now,” Gregory said. “Mom and dad said I could try until we got our introduction talk and it looks like that's now.”

Wait, the kid just got here today and Reggie was trying to teach him? I guess they really must've known each other before, Marc thought.

“Hey Reggie, any interest in bumping up the schedule on our spell trade? I've got a couple of hours to kill right now if you aren't busy.”

The two of them spent the next hour and a half teaching each other their respective spells. Marc actually had a harder time learning the Water Jet spell than Reggie had the Fireball. Something about being an Elemental Mage made the elemental spells easier for Reggie to learn, and learning it from the scroll Marc had prepared made it easier still. Despite the longer time Marc took to learn Water Jet they still managed the exchange before dinner.

Marc knew that as soon as he used his current skill point he'd be at his maximum skills and spells again, but Water Jet was a strong enough spell that he'd thought it worth the attempt.

Plus, there's a lot of variables I can alter on it so who knows what I might be able to do with this one, Marc thought.

He was satisfied when he went down to dinner and when he saw the recyclers at a different table, he knew what he was doing right after he ate. Conner saw him and came over to sit at his table to eat with him.

“Hey Marc, I don't really like asking, but could you do something for me?” Conner asked.

“What do you need?”

“Well, the walls are only ten feet tall. I can't really get a good look at the surroundings from that height, especially with the constant expansion. Any chance we can get a watchtower or something at some point here?”

“Ah crap, we'd even discussed putting one in before, but I forgot to look for it in the build table. If there's one listed there that we can afford, I'll do it on the next expansion, okay?”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you. Those spooky looking guards are yours too, right?”

Marc nodded.

“Yeah, they don't really fight well, but they're supposed to alert the entire Safe Zone if there's an attack that gets to the walls, so I picked those as kind of an alarm system.”

“Good, they're freaky to be nearby, but if it's just an alarm system? I'm all for extra protection for the Safe Zone.”

Then Conner turned his attention to his food. Marc did the same, moving to the gym and the building pedestal when he'd finished eating. He pulled up the build screen again.

You have sufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 3000/3000

Stone: 3000/3000

Metal: 1400/1400

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (1/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(1/5)

He grinned. The recyclers had come through again. They could expand and now they'd be getting more materials with each expansion. The amount would increase as they got closer to downtown, which they'd be very close to after this expansion.

Then he stopped, left the pedestal, and found Felicia.

“We're expanding again,” he said. “Want to come along and help with the picks for buildings?”

“Already?”

He nodded.

“We're getting into the area where there are lots more houses, plus it recycles the sewage systems and other pipes underground. So there's lots of stone and metal also. Metal has been the bottleneck so far, so more of that is speeding things up.”

“Good, maybe we'll find more survivors in the expansion again. Let's go down.”

“I already promised Conner I'd put in a watchtower if they have it there. He wants a better view of the area,” Marc said. “Allan wants more fields still, but I had four additions to select last time so if I put in one field along with the watchtower that leaves two more selections.”

When they hit the gym the first thing Marc did was buy five units of fertilizer and stack it outside the door, knowing he'd need that for the field. Then he stepped up to the pedestal again and started reading off options to Felicia.

They ended up choosing two more non-powered buildings. A butcher, since they remembered seeing that on the list of peoples' skills, and a chicken coop. The description for the coop stated that  once it was in existence in the Safe Zone, live chickens would be available for purchase from the shop.

Conner's watchtower was in there as well, several layers down in the wall selections. Marc was surprised to find it needed sand until he found out that it came with a mounted telescope.

His selections made, he almost hit the build button, before remembering that he needed to warn anyone on the walls.

“Any chance you saw Amy around?” he asked Felicia, without looking away from the pedestal.

Felicia chuckled so Marc turned around. Amy was standing with Felicia.

“I saw you going back here right after dinner, so I followed along in case you needed me,” Amy said.

“Well, you know the job, interested? Warn those on the wall and those along the road that we're about to start building so they have to watch out for the moving materials.”

“I'll be back as soon as I warn them,” Amy said. “Four copper, right?”

“Five now, you have to run farther to get to the walls,” Marc said, grinning.

Amy sprinted for the door and was back in under fifteen minutes. This time she wasn't even panting.

“Wow, that was fast.”

“I got a class,” Amy said. “Junior Courier. I carry messages. It gave me bonuses to a few things plus the Run skill so I can do it quicker without getting out of breath.”

Junior? I wonder if that means she'll upgrade whenever she gets to the age normal classes can be chosen. We think that's fourteen, because we haven't seen anyone younger get one, but now Amy has. The Junior prefix makes me think it's not quite the same as the other classes though. Well, we'll check it out later, Marc thought.

He selected the build button, then turned and handed Amy six copper.

“The sixth is congratulations on getting a class,” he said.

Amy just broke into a huge smile as she stared at the coins in her hand.

“Mom's gonna be so happy. Now she can buy the needles she wanted from the shop and work on getting the Seamstress skill like Lisa,” Amy said.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Two

Marc didn't have a thousand wood left after the Safe Zone extension, but he still had a lot left, more than eight hundred. Rather than put off creating the Wildlife Preserve, he went ahead and created it, just at seven hundred and fifty acres instead of a thousand like he'd originally planned.

After all, I can upgrade it, which I assume means size, he thought.

He headed to his apartment with Felicia accompanying him. He wasn't that tired, but it was late and he wasn't sure exactly how much sleep he needed any more. He thought back and decided that somewhere between four and six hours was what he needed, depending on how tired he actually was.

They settled into bed, no frisky business this time since Felicia was tired, and were soon sleeping.

Marc had no idea how much time had passed when a noise woke him. He stayed still, lying in bed, listening.

There it is again, it's a scratching noise and it sounds like it's coming from outside. Like something is trying to come through the window, he thought.

He rolled out of bed, pulling his short sword from his inventory. With a quick cast of Arcane Armor, he started looking through the windows, unsure which one the noise was coming from. When he finally found the disturbance, he relaxed.

There was a raccoon, admittedly a rather large one, sitting on the window ledge and scratching at the glass. When the raccoon saw him, it rocked back on its haunches. Its front paws, which had been scratching at the glass, went up into the air and took on the classic begging pose.

Marc's eyebrows went up.

What the hell? I thought these things were more skittish than that. It's a lot bigger than the one I saw at the store though, so maybe they get less skittish when they get larger? What's it want?

Felicia's voice, still half asleep, broke into his thoughts.

“Oh, he's so cute. It looks like he's hungry. Do we have anything to feed him?” she said.

The raccoon, almost as though it had heard and understood her, straightened slightly. Its torso stretched higher from its rear legs and the extended paws started swaying side to side slightly as it kept its eyes locked on Marc's.

“I carry around some stuff in my inventory for when we're out adventuring. I'm sure I can find him something,” Marc said.

As Marc looked through his inventory, Felicia went over and opened the window. The raccoon shied away from her for a second, but once she stepped back it slipped into the room. Once in, it turned back to Marc and took on its begging pose again.

Marc pulled out the remnants of a pack of beef jerky and tossed a piece to the raccoon. It immediately dropped onto all fours and snagged the dried meat, chewing noisily. As it ate, it looked around as though something were missing.

“Oh,” Felicia said, “he's thirsty, I think.”

“No, raccoons normally wash their food when they can. I think it's water he's after, but maybe to wash his food, not drink,” Marc replied.

The Safe Zone had equipped all of the rooms with basic furniture when they were created, and that included a trash can. One Marc hadn't used yet. So he took it to the bathroom, filled it halfway with water, then brought it out and set it close to the raccoon. Marc had expected the creature to back off as he approached, but while it did keep an eye on him, it didn't run away.

When Marc took a step back, the raccoon moved over and sniffed the water, then used its dexterous claws to dip the jerky in the water and swish it back and forth. It gobbled the rest of the jerky down, then started begging for more.

Marc tossed it another chunk of jerky and watched as it picked it up and dipped it in the water again. He Analyzed it as he watched.

Raccoon - Friendly

Lvl – 3

Commonality – Uncommon

“Huh, he's friendly,” Marc said. “That's probably why he can be in the Safe Zone, or maybe he came in from the Wildlife Preserve I just created or something. He's a little beggar though, isn't he?”

The raccoon heard him and stuffed the rest of the jerky into his mouth, going back on his hind legs and begging for more.

This time Marc held the jerky out, slowly approaching the raccoon. As he got closer its front paws darted out. Gently and carefully, the raccoon removed the piece of jerky Marc was holding from his hands, then went back to the swish and eat maneuver.

“I like the little guy,” Marc said. “I wonder if I'll be able to tell him apart from any other raccoons though. He's level three, so he must've been fighting some too. I think I'm going to name him. I'll call him Beggar.”

The raccoon nodded at him, then there was a flash of Marc's notification light and he pulled it up to find that the Analyze entry that was the top thing in his log had changed.

“Beggar” Raccoon - Friendly

Lvl – 3

Commonality – Uncommon

“I guess I will be able to tell him apart. He accepted the name and now it shows up when you Analyze him,” Marc said.

Marc dumped the rest of the jerky from the pack onto the floor in front of the raccoon, then went back over to the bed to watch Beggar eat. Felicia was snuggled up against him and at some point they both fell asleep.

* * *

When Marc woke in the morning he was chilly. He also remembered dreaming about raccoons.

Or maybe it wasn't a dream, he thought as he looked around and noticed the trash can partially filled with water and the open window.

He got up and closed the window. He and Felicia had fallen asleep atop the covers so he folded them over her and made sure she was secure on the bed before heading to the shower.

After a hot shower, which took care of the lingering chilliness, he headed down to the cafeteria.

Why do I keep doing this? he wondered. I get up too early and get here before they're serving. Hell, they don't even have coffee started yet this time. I think they aren't even all back in the kitchen yet? Hey, if the shop has most of the foods we used to like, I bet they sell hot coffee too. It'll be more expensive, but I can grab it there then try to rough out the next expansion for the Safe Zone at the build pedestal. I can see how many more materials we'll need.

Rather than sitting down in the cafeteria, he headed for the gym instead. There was no-one in there at this time of day, but he was correct, and the shop had coffee available. Sipping his bucket-sized caramel macchiato latte, he headed over to the build pedestal.

If I finish this thing, all the espresso in it might be enough caffeine for me for the entire day. I almost understand Jeff's obsession with buying food at the shop now. Only a silver, he says over and over. That's like ten bucks if I'm converting things right, but this thing didn't even cost that much.

His brain jolted into gear with the addition of the caffeine and he stopped musing on things that didn't really matter that much.

Opening the build screen he didn't even bother to check the existing resources first, he went straight to the 3D wireframe drawing and started adjusting it. As he pushed it out towards the downtown he broke into a grin.

Great, this next expansion is going to get us into downtown. That means all those materials won't go to waste. Hell, this expansion alone is going to give us a decent chunk of the downtown area. Hurrah for small towns without a lot of downtown? Marc thought.

He sipped his coffee as he started fine tuning the expansion. The added area from the troll's core was incredibly helpful with his expansion plans.

If I'm gauging it right, I'll only need two more expansions, at least the troll core variety, to claim the rest of the downtown area. Alright, let's fine tune this and see just what we'll need for materials, he thought.

After a few more minutes of tweaking the design, he finally looked at the material costs.

You have insufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 2497/3500

Stone: 3500/3500

Metal: 1700/1700

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (2/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(2/5)

Marc took a long drink of his latte. Now that it had cooled some he could drink it instead of just sipping.

I guess I shouldn't have gone ahead with the Wildlife Preserve, he thought. It does make sense that there's less wood recovered from downtown. Most of those places don't use much wood in their construction. Let me look at the expansion again, see if I can tweak it to make it include areas that have more wood in them.

He racked his brain, trying to remember what buildings close to his current outline used a lot of wood. After a minute he stopped and groaned, disappointed that he hadn't though of it sooner.

Adjusting the wireframe meant that he'd get a fair bit less of the main downtown area, but that he'd be able to include the local hardware store, and its storage buildings.

Then he checked the stats again and found things much more to his liking.

Good, that gives me three thousand two hundred and seventy-four wood, plus the stone and metal requirements are still filled. It means we need another two hundred and twenty-six wood and we can get expanded into downtown, he thought. Time to write up some more orders.

He took a seat at one of the tables Rob had placed in the gym and started writing. After he'd started using his Creative Writing skill, he'd started carrying his own paper and writing utensils around all the time, just in case. It definitely paid off this time.

Your skill, Creative Writing, has increased in skill level (2->3).

He did a mental fist pump as he read the message, then remembered that he might be missing out on some other decent bonuses of his hidden class.

Because I got the Technical Writing skill and I haven't even looked at the help for it yet. I was so caught up in figuring out the formula for Aptitude, and worried about losing out on skills and spells, that I never even looked at it.

Help Technical Writing, he thought.

The Technical Writing skill is designed to increase the chance to learn, and the learning speed of, skills, spells, and other things that may be taught. The Technical Writer will have the best results when writing about things that are known to them, the more in-depth the knowledge, the more the bonus given by the treatise written. The writer may do the writing for someone else who is attempting to impart knowledge in this fashion.

The Calligraphy skill will give generous bonuses to this skill if known and used while creating a Technical Writing.

Marc just sat there shaking his head.

Well, dirt, I think I just found the absolute best way to teach classes. And if I put a flyleaf in any books or pamphlets I make like this, using Creative Writing on the flyleaf and ordering the reader to read the following treatise and attempt to learn the knowledge it contains? I bet they stack and I can eventually get it up to a one hundred percent chance to learn whatever I'm writing about. Classes, skills, spells... this should work with teaching any of them.

He sat and drank his latte, musing about the possibilities, until someone entered the gym and interrupted his thought processes.

* * *

After he'd eaten and delivered the written orders to focus on wood today to the recycling groups, Marc got his group together.

“So, I wanted to discuss the things we found the other night when rescuing Bill. I'd like to split it between our group and him. I'll send some coin to Eugene and... uh, the Combat Medic, for coming to help out, but not an equal split.”

“That'd be Terrance,” Felicia said, “the Combat Medic that is.”

Marc nodded.

“Anyhow, I'll send them a gold each for coming to help out, but the rest we should determine between our group and Bill. I'd like to put the guns into an armory of some sort to be used to defend the Safe Zone. The MREs can go to us and Bill, they're the type of thing we can just toss in our inventory and eat while out adventuring. But the coins? The junk silver,” Marc said, looking at Jeff and getting a nod that he'd remembered it correctly, “and the gold? Those I think we should auction off. We can each take a split of it and call it good, or we can use it to invest in the Safe Zone.”

“Bill should have a say too, no?” Felicia asked.

“And he will, not for the split, but for the guns going towards the Safe Zone defense and for whether we just split the coins or invest them in the Safe Zone. He may want one of the AK-47s just for himself since he's in a group that's more active than us even, and he's welcome to it. He can take up to four of the guns and the corresponding ammunition for them if he likes. So he'll get an equal share to the rest of us.”

Ella nodded approvingly.

“It's fair. He might've found it first, but he'd be dead without us having found him and then he'd have none of it,” she said.

“Okay, so here's the deal. Felicia and I had already discussed getting a large screen for the auditorium, one that we can use to play movies. The equipment for that is about twenty gold in the shop. The movies themselves are cheap though, one to two silver apiece from what I've seen. So, that's one upgrade we'd like to make. Give the people some entertainment and they'll be a lot happier about everything else.”

“I liked your setting up your music player in the gymnasium, is there a sound system we can get, like the screen for the auditorium? Set up the sound system in the gym and have certain hours where it's turned on? It'll need songs also, but if all the movies are there, then the songs probably are too, right?” Rob suggested.

“Probably, let me check on both those,” Marc said.

He pulled out his pad and started checking the shop.

“Hey, what's that?” Jeff asked.

“A pad,” Marc said.

“Yeah, but how are you checking the shop on it?”

“I know I told Felicia, didn't I tell the rest of you? You can get a pad that links to the shop. You can buy stuff on it, digital stuff like the math book I've been reading? Or movies, or songs too I bet. You just can't buy the physical stuff, that you need to be at a pedestal or kiosk to get.”

“You didn't tell me that,” Jeff said.

“Um, I think he did, but you weren't listening?” Rob added. “I mean, I think you were there when he told me about it.”

“Oh, well, that's possible,” Jeff replied.

“Anyhow, you can use it to search the shop, even buy the physical stuff, but you have to take delivery at the pedestal or kiosk. You can, however, search for items on it.”

He turned the pad to Rob and showed him the listing he was looking at. Ten gold for an allegedly top of the line System sound setup. It included multiple speakers that could be spaced up to a hundred yards from the main unit.

“Looks like this is a business thing also,” Marc said. “I found it in the same area as the screen I was talking about.”

“So, there's something else that could be an upgrade for the Safe Zone,” Rob said, looking happy that he'd had a good suggestion.

“And if you're making the auditorium a theater, then you ought to see if you can get a smaller shop kiosk,” Jeff said. “Let people who have the coins get snacks before they go in.”

“But that brings up something else,” Felicia said. “If people are eating in there, well, you know how movie theater floors end up, right? We'll need people to clean it.”

“Which means paying people,” Ella said. “Because I don't see that as something people are going to be willing to do for free just because it needs doing.”

Marc groaned.

“So, that brings up another thing for the Safe Zone. We need to find a way to get the Safe Zone treasury, and that does exist since I've seen it referenced in the screens, some funds. The easiest way is taxes. I can set those to apply to any transaction done at the shop. I haven't yet, I wanted to wait, but if we're going to do all this stuff then we'll need a way to pay some people. Crafters can sell their items through the shop, so they can theoretically make money, but the Farmers, Gardeners, and the like?”

Marc shook his head.

“Even with the faster growing speed of stuff, they may need money just to get through until their first crop comes in. Once it does, we can maybe designate a certain percentage of it as theirs to do whatever they want with and the rest of it to go to the kitchens. But until the crops come in?”

Marc shrugged.

“We'll need to think about it. We can't do anything like a Universal Basic Income. That was fine for governments that minted their own money, but we don't.”

Jeff got a sly look on his face.

“But maybe we could?” he said. “You were talking about the mine. We should definitely go check it out. Even if it isn't going to be productive again, there might be a lair in there, or a dungeon, or something worth bothering with.”

“We can put that on the to-do list,” Marc said, “but I'd like for at least one of us to have the mining skill or some way to tell if there's stuff worth mining in there.”

Jeff grinned.

“Find Valuables,” he said.

“Will it detect ore?” Marc asked.

Jeff's grin grew shaky.

“It ought to, I think. Especially if it's silver ore or something like that? That ought to be valuable enough to register.”

“Yes, we can try that, but I'd still like to have someone with us that can tell if it's worth bothering to try to re-open the mine. Because it'll be one hell of a pain to do that unless we can expand the Safe Zone to include it, and it's a long ways off for that.”

“I've got a question,” Jeff said.

“About what?” Marc asked.

“Days back, you said we'd discuss that Creative Writing skill of yours, and we haven't done that yet.”

Marc looked around. Felicia already knew about his hidden class. He trusted Rob to not talk about it, he wasn't sure about Jeff, although the thief could keep his mouth shut when needed. If he couldn't he'd have been in lots more trouble over the years. He wasn't sure about Ella either, but he'd promised to tell Jeff and if he did, Jeff was bound to tell Ella.

“That's because it's from a hidden class,” Marc said. “Do you remember when we were so happy about the help files clearing up?”

Jeff nodded.

“I got the class because of that,” Marc said, tapping the back of his head. “Everything for American English is getting translated right back here. It's this constant little buzz in my head. I can mostly ignore it, but every now and again I notice.”

“Wait, how can you translate when you don't know what language it's coming from?” Ella asked.

“Maybe edit or proofread would be a better term? The System was nearly getting its message across in help files before. Now, I think it rummages through my vocabulary and knowledge of the English language before it spits out the help files. It uses what I know to format those help files so they're more understandable.”

“And this Creative Writing skill?” Jeff asked.

“Well, I got the hidden class because I agreed to let the System use my knowledge for the help files. Creative Writing is one of the skills I've gotten from it.”

“One of?”

“Yes. Research was the first, that's how we got access to all the basic help files and how I managed to start making those help pads. I can choose more topics for it after it increases some, but it's still sitting at a one. I don't know how to increase that.”

“Duh, do research?” Jeff asked.

“Maybe?” Marc replied. “But I've done a bunch of it since then on things like Mana Manipulation and Meditation and it hasn't gone up.”

“Did you do that like you would a research project?” Jeff asked. “Or did you just dig in and do it?”

“Crap, you mean I should write everything out? The old identify and develop the topic, preliminary search, and all that crap?” Marc asked. “Damn, if you're right and I want to build that up, it'll be a lot like work.”

Jeff shrugged.

“It's what I'd do if I were trying to build a skill like that up. Look at it this way, you get to grind. Grind your way through paperwork at least.”

Marc shook his head.

“Anyway, Creative Writing was the second skill I got. I just barely read the description on the third one earlier today, and it has a lot of potential. It's called Technical Writing.”

“What is the name of this hidden class you got?” Jeff said. “Because it doesn't sound like anything I'm familiar with.”

Marc blushed.

“Um, it's called... well, English Major.”

When Jeff finally stopped laughing, Marc got to explain about his Technical Writing skill and what he thought he could do with it. Now Jeff wasn't laughing at all.

“Oh, you bastard. You realize that if it works the way you think it does, you could sell those manuals you write? If a simple spell scroll goes for ten gold like you said, how much would one of those books go for?” Jeff asked.

Marc shrugged. It wasn't something he'd thought of, he was more interested in having the books available to the Safe Zone so people could gain classes and add skills more easily.

“It might work that way. I haven't done anything with the skill yet though, so we'll have to see how it works.”

Jeff shook his head.

“Lucky bastard, gets a rare class and then a hidden one on top of it. Well, at least he's in my group,” Jeff muttered, under his breath.

He might've meant for it to go unheard, but with their increased stats, most of the group heard him anyway.

* * *

In the end they agreed that they'd sell the coins they'd found and then each take a portion of the proceeds in System coinage and put the rest towards the Safe Zone treasury to be used for things like the upgrades and wages for those who were already working without them. Marc had pointed out that the cooks were busting their butts for nothing more than room and board, and that several of the other residents were doing the same. He wanted the funds to start paying the Farmers, Cooks, and all the others that were already pulling their own weight.

Because that might get some of the slackers off their asses also, and I'd much rather motivate them than banish them, he thought.

After they were done discussing everything, he asked if anyone was up for a walk, wanting to check on their new experience farm. With little else planned for the day, the rest of the group came along with him.

When they reached the ranch he was amazed. He didn't see any kobolds yet, not that he'd expected to see any outside, but the ranch house itself was different. All of the outbuildings were still in the same shape as before, but the ranch house looked completely different. As opposed to a rotting out, close to falling down, sprawling ranch house, it was now two stories, had a much smaller footprint, and seemed to be in significantly better shape.

It looked solid now, although still decrepit if you could somehow mix the two together. The style was completely different, bordering on Gothic, but not quite there. It gave off the feel of the type of house you'd see in a low budget horror movie with the bleached boards of the building and the spiky iron fence that now surrounded the house, twenty feet out from its walls.

“Well, something's certainly happening,” Marc said.

Rob was just staring.

“How did it change so much overnight?” he asked.

“Rob, if we can expand the Safe Zone and build new buildings in just a few minutes, don't you think the System can do the same anywhere it wants?” Marc asked.

“Huh, I wonder if there's a leader type kobold already and it's planning out its lair the way we plan out our Safe Zone?” Felicia asked.

Marc didn't have an answer, but he knew that if she was right and there were such a kobold already, he wouldn't want to sit down to tea with it. Any mind that thought the creation Marc was staring at would make a good home wasn't someone he had any desire to hang out with.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Three

When they arrived back at the Safe Zone, Marc settled in for some research. He wrote out what he wanted to do to upgrade the Safe Zone and provide entertainment and the like. Those notes were based off the ideas from his group. Then he started walking around, stopping people for a minute or two worth of conversation where he asked questions about what they'd like to see in the Safe Zone.

While he was doing that, he started checking in with what people were working on. The list that included their jobs had filled in quite a few blank spots since he'd evicted the Sternns. Evidently the example that people wouldn't be allowed to simply rest on their laurels had been taken to heart.

As he spoke, he tried to determine who would need to be paid for their efforts by the Safe Zone, and how much. He based his estimates for pay off of the cost of some of the basics available in the shop. He knew that a lot of it was overpriced, but for the moment they didn't have any other alternatives.

While he walked and talked he kept his eyes open for a few specific people. Three people had listed tending livestock as an option for what they wanted to do, and he wanted to speak to at least one of them before he bought the chickens for the coop. He also wanted to find the older gentleman with the Game Warden class. He hadn't thought to get the man's name before, or if he had, he'd forgotten it already. The Wildlife Preserve was ready though, and Marc wanted to let him know and officially assign him to it. He also wanted to warn him that he should bring a guard or adventuring group most of the time out there since he could be attacked by the spawns while in the Preserve.

The first of the individuals he'd been keeping an eye open for showed up about forty-five minutes into his rounds of walking and talking to people. She was one of the people who'd said she wanted to tend livestock.

“Aha! You wanted to handle livestock, right?” Marc said, once he'd gotten her name.

“Yes, why, do we have some?” Sheila answered.

Marc nodded.

“Well, we will. I got a chicken coop on the last upgrade, and that made live chickens available for purchase in the shop. Would you like to help me pick them? I've got no idea if they have different breeds or anything.”

She smiled.

“I raised backyard chickens for a while. That was years ago though. I can probably handle it, and I'm sure I can remember some of the better breeds for laying eggs or getting meat.”

“There are different breeds for things like that?” Marc asked.

Sheila nodded.

“Yes, plus if they're available we'll want heritage breeds, that's a type of chicken that breeds true. Some of the hybrids don't.”

Marc shook his head helplessly.

“I'll have to leave that up to you,” he said. “I know nothing at all about raising chickens.”

“Well, if you're ready to buy chickens, we can go look at the shop,” she said.

Marc led her down to the gymnasium and over to the shop. When he opened it up and searched for live chickens, he found a huge list.

“Um, here?” he said, gesturing to Sheila and moving out of her way.

She started looking through and a few moments later pointed at the screen.

“Them. I remember those best. Rhode Island Reds are a dual-purpose breed, good for both eggs and meat. They're mostly peaceful, lay very well, and they breed true. My second choice is on there also, but if we've only got the one coop and want to breed up our own flock, then we probably don't want to mix breeds.”

“Well, the listing on the coop said it was sufficient for up to fifty birds,” Marc said.

“Big coop then,” Sheila said. “I do remember that chickens should have at least two square feet apiece in their coop, more is better.”

“I haven't actually looked at it yet,” Marc said. “Maybe we should do that before purchasing the birds?”

Sheila smiled and nodded.

“That's probably a good idea. Where did you put it?”

“It's behind the keep. There were wide open areas back there and I thought that the chickens should probably have some wide open grassy areas, yes?”

“Only if we can fence it in. They'll get everywhere otherwise, plus some flying creatures might be a problem. Eagles and other raptors will go after chickens given the opportunity.”

Marc took her out to where the coop was, then glanced inside. Like the other buildings it had a pad inside of it. This one appeared to be a straight copy of a book, with forward notes that dealt with this coop specifically. After the forward came the cover of the book, which read Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens. When he pointed that out to Sheila she nodded.

“That's a good one, I used to have a copy of it.”

The other surprise was that there was an enclosure like the one on the shop. Marc found that he could access the chicken purchase screen here, plus another screen for animal feed and bedding.

“Looks like we can get the chickens here,” he said.

“Fifty won't be a problem, there's enough room,” Sheila replied. “Maybe start with fewer than that though so I can get my hand back in on raising them?”

“Ten hens and a rooster?” Marc asked, wincing when he looked at the prices.

The hens were five silver apiece and the rooster ten silver all by himself.

“That ought to work. I was talking with the others that wanted to do livestock also, so we'll probably all work this for now until you get more, assuming you plan on getting more.”

Marc nodded.

“I don't know where or how yet, but I'd like to have a small herd of cows and some pigs also. Beef and bacon, you know?”

“Yeah, I was married for twenty years. I know men and their desire for steak and bacon. At least my man craved it.”

This was why Marc wasn't so social. He had no idea if he should ask her about her husband and if he was ex, or late, or what. So instead, he punched in the order for the chickens and authorized it. He also ordered some bedding and a bag of feed. A moment later a clucking noise came from the little enclosure.

He opened it and a chicken paraded out, looking around before starting to peck at something. As soon as he closed the door, the clucking started again. So he opened it and let another hen out. That repeated itself until his entire order of eleven chickens had been delivered. The very last one out was larger than the others, with a larger comb and what looked like an extra addition to its legs. That one gave him a glare as soon as it arrived.

There was a dull thump after the rooster came out and Marc pulled out the bedding, a bale of straw, then another thump as the feed arrived. The rooster was wandering around as he pulled those things out, and now it was close to him and glaring again.

“Watch him,” Sheila said. “Those spurs on his legs can cut you up pretty bad if you aren't careful.”

“Well, I'll leave you to this. I've got a bunch more people that I need to talk to today,” Marc said, backing out of the coop.

* * *

Marc had a thought and moved down the road towards the new pond. Sure enough, the man who said he had the Game Warden class was sitting there, fishing.

“Hi,” Marc said. “I'm afraid I didn't ask your name last time.”

“Ramon,” the older man said, “and you're Marc. I assume you're here to offer me the Game Warden position? I was notified that the Safe Zone had added a Wildlife Preserve.”

Marc nodded.

“Yes, but also to warn you that if you take it, you'll want to take one of the guards or an adventuring group with you when dealing with it. The description I got said that spawns can't attack the game in there, but they can attack hunters or Game Wardens in the Preserve.”

“Well, Ron said we're going to back you all the way, so I can show you this. If you can spare some shells, I ought to be alright,” Ramon said.

He reached into nowhere, accessing his inventory Marc knew, and pulled out a double barreled shotgun. It was obvious that the weapon had been Systemized.

“12 gauge, I'm used to buckshot and birdshot, so if you've got some of those you can give me then I ought to be just fine,” Ramon said.

“I can certainly get you some shells. I think we've only got double ought buckshot, is that okay?”

“So long as you don't want me hunting any birds, it ought to be fine.”

“I'd still recommend you take someone with you most of the time. The spawns can come in large groups.”

“Oh, I'd be an idiot to go it alone. I don't intend to do that. I just need to be able to defend myself and not have to rely on someone else to do it for me. I ran my shells out helping those boys defend our neighborhood though, so I just need a resupply.”

“Well, we'll be working out pay and the like, and we'll try to supply the materials for jobs. It sounds to me like some of your materials ought to be shotgun shells. What do you think?”

“I think you're trying to butter me up, Marc, but it is working. I'll take the position, starting officially as soon as you get me those shotgun shells.”

“I also need to place a gate in the back wall,” Marc said. “Otherwise you'd be walking all the way around the Safe Zone just to get there.”

“I could do it if I had to, I won't lie and say I'd prefer it though. I'll wait for the gate,” Ramon said.

“Well, come with me and we'll get the shells for you.”

As they walked back towards the keep, Marc assigned the Wildlife Preserve manager slot to Ramon. Once they made it back, he found the shotgun shells in his room. He and Felicia had brought the rest of the ammunition and his dad's guns to his room when they'd recovered it.

“How many shells do you need? Will twenty-five do you for now?” Marc asked.

Ramon nodded.

“I shouldn't even need that many. I only get two at a time with my double barrel, so that would mean I was in a lot of fights if I went through that many. I'd prefer to avoid that, if possible.”

“Well, take twenty-five for now. If you're supporting during a fight you'll have a chance to reload, so it might not be as many fights to run out as you're thinking. Like you said, I hope there aren't any, but I'm also not going to count on that with the System in charge.”

Ramon looked like he wanted to spit at the mention of the System. He refrained though, since he was in Marc's room. Instead he just grunted.

“I'll go add in that gate now,” Marc said. “I'd prefer you not head out there on your own, but it's your call.”

“I'll wait until I know the place better before I try it by myself. My class gives me some sneaky abilities, so if I know the area first there's a good chance I can avoid any trouble that shows up,” Ramon said.

“Thanks, I figure once you've got a few levels, it won't be as dangerous.”

Ramon laughed.

“I did mention I was backing the boys with my shotgun before, right? I was an unclassed level four before I was offered the Game Warden class. Then I was a level four Game Warden and I've been climbing towards five. Catch and release of the younger fish actually gives me experience, more than the ones I catch and keep even.”

Marc had completely forgotten that you could level while unclassed and carry it over to your class. Now that he remembered, he realized that Ramon may well have missed out on a bunch of stats, but he seemed happy with his class now, so Marc didn't bring that up.

“Good then, that'll happen even sooner if you're starting at level four,” Marc said.

Ramon grinned at him and shook his head.

“I'd ask what level you thought was safe to be out there on my own, but I'm guessing you don't have an answer for it.”

Marc shrugged.

“It depends on what spawns are around. At level four I'd say the kobolds, goblins, and even hobgoblins wouldn't be a problem for you unless they outnumbered you badly. On the other hand, the ogres we found would be a serious problem for you, so...”

“I get it. Things aren't the way I'm used to them being,” Ramon said. “I'll be careful for a while until I see what types of things get in there.”

“Also, I only made it seven hundred and fifty acres so far. At some point, when I have enough extra wood, I plan on expanding that to make it larger,” Marc said.

“Seven fifty seems pretty big to start,” Ramon said.

“Yes, but if we keep getting more and more people, we may need the extra game a larger Preserve can provide,” Marc countered.

Ramon dipped his head in acknowledgment.

“Well, I'll go see who I can convince to come along with me,” Ramon said.

“You might see if some of the adventuring groups want to take a light day and explore the area with you tomorrow,” Marc said. “Most of the people staying behind wouldn't be a lot of help in a fight, with the exception of my group and the wall guards.”

Ramon nodded as they left Marc's room.

“Couple of Ron's boys stopped fighting cause they didn't like it too much. They got a few levels first though, so I thought of them. It'd give them something useful to do and if they aren't out looking for fights and they're just keeping an eye on me? I imagine it's something they could handle better than the daily fights they were getting into before.”

“You know them better than I,” Marc said. “I wasn't even aware that there were any other combat classes in the people Ron brought in.”

Ramon nodded, then raised a hand.

“I'll go talk to them. If they're willing, then maybe I can get out to look around today. You going to put that gate in right now?”

Marc nodded.

“No time like the present,” he said.

* * *

The modification to add the gate was inexpensive, costing all of five stone, ten wood, and ten metal. All of which they had. Since he'd only needed a little over two hundred wood from the recyclers today and they normally brought in a lot more than that if they focused on a single material, he just did it.

It was almost dinner time, but he sat down and went through the suggestions that had been made for the Safe Zone. Some of them were ludicrous and things that only a single person had requested, but there were a number that had multiple requests so he had to take those more seriously. One of the requests was for a library. He knew that the school used to have one, but not what had happened to it. So he tracked down Jeff to ask.

“Sure, the library is still here. I moved it down into the basement though since no-one ever used it,” Jeff said.

Marc groaned and wanted to smack himself in the forehead.

Of course Jeff would think no-one used it, because he wouldn't have used it and if he didn't use it than no-one else would, at least that's how Jeff thinks.

“So, it's in the basement?” Marc asked.

“Yeah, you got to go past the library to get to where all the other materials that weren't recycled are stored. I figured no-one would want the desks and other stuff and they'd just clutter the place up, so the basement is now half library and half storage. Just go down the steps and you'll see the library doors.”

Other stuff that wasn't recycled. This is something else that might've been nice to know sooner, Jeff, Marc thought.

He didn't say anything out loud though. Jeff had been very helpful in figuring out the wireframe and construction properties of the Safe Zone. So if he hadn't mentioned a few little things at the time? Well, at least he had now.

Marc went down and checked it out himself. The library was not as it had been when the place was a school. Instead, there were a series of pads placed on desks, with chairs in front of them. He took a seat and turned the pad in front of him on. The screen showed a listing of book genres on boot up. After choosing a genre, he went down several more menu choices before finding a listing of books.

What he eventually figured out was that the Safe Zone had an electronic library. All the books from the high school library had been entered into it and could now be accessed through the pads in the library room. The pads could not be removed from their desks, but if someone purchased their own pad they could access the library's books from anywhere in the Safe Zone at no charge. The simple two silver pads he used for the help files would work just fine for this purpose, although he wasn't sure how many of the readers would have their own silver yet.

Even so, it's here. They can read down here, although the pads have to stay here, and if they get motivated and make some money, they can buy their own pad and read anywhere in the Safe Zone, he thought.

After dinner Marc was eager to get to the build pedestal and see if he could do the next expansion for the Safe Zone. Instead, he waited near one of the doors and continued asking people exactly what they'd like to see added.

His persistence was paid off in more ways than one as he got to spread word of the library in the basement and how to use the pads in it. He also got a message that left him grinning and knowing he was on the right track.

Your skill, Research, has increased in skill level (1->2).

Damn it, this means I'll have to tell Jeff he was right, Marc thought.

When the cafeteria had finally emptied, Marc headed for the gymnasium and the build pedestal. As soon as he reached it, he pulled up the build screen to check. The wireframe was still set for the expansion to include the hardware store, so if they'd recycled enough wood over the day they should be able to expand.

You have sufficient resources to increase your Safe Zone.

Resources required:

Wood: 3500/3500

Stone: 3500/3500

Metal: 1700/1700

Designated power source for Safe Zone:

Monster Core – common – poor (2/3)

Monster Core – Rare – Excellent (2/5) (+4 power slots 2/4))

The current power source will sustain five expansions beyond the original power source.(2/5)

Okay, it looks like we're good for expansion, Marc thought. I'm going to need to warn everyone, so I'll need Amy. I suppose I could use the Wired Comms, but that would only alert the people on the wall, she'll let the people along the road know too. So, use her and get some more coins into the population. I'll also need Felicia to help me decide on what to build. Definitely another field, Allan's got lots of people working under him now, but beyond that? I'm not sure.

He looked around the gymnasium, noting that there were quite a few people in there now. They congregated at the tables primarily and he was positive that some form of entertainment was going to be a very good thing when they got it. Amy was actually in there, she was looking at the help pad on its pedestal, skimming through it for something. So he walked over.

“Got a bit of a harder job for you if you're interested,” he said as he approached her.

She startled and turned around.

“Sorry, I was reading some of the help stuff. Some of it's kind of interesting, you know?”

He nodded.

“It is, and it can be helpful, like the name implies. I've got work for you if you're interested though.”

“What do you need?” she asked.

“Well, I'll pay twenty-five copper this time if you want the job. It's in two parts. The first is to find Felicia and ask her to meet me at the build pedestal. The other part is just like normal. Warn those on the wall and anyone you see along the road that there's going to be another expansion tonight. I'm paying more though because I've got no idea where Felicia is right now.”

He knew he could find her with the Safe Zone screens available to him, but somehow that seemed like more of an invasion of privacy than just sending someone to find her.

“I'm on it,” Amy said. “It'll take longer than before since I'll have to find her first though.”

“That's fine. I just want her input on what to build with this expansion.”

Amy got a wistful look on her face.

“What is it, Amy?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just wishing that you could build some sort of play area for us kids. You know, swings and slides and the like? But I know that's not important enough. We need stuff to help us stay alive.”

“Well, there are some things that can only be built when we're expanding the Safe Zone,” Marc said. “Those are the most helpful for survival. But I bet I could find a play set, or something to act like one, that we can build anytime. I'll see what I can find after we do the expansion and I know how many materials we have left.”

Marc had wanted to build the kids open fields to play in, but a play area would be even better. There were ten or more kids in the Safe Zone by this point. He thought of under fourteen as a kid since fourteen was where they could get a proper class. Those kids would probably seriously benefit from somewhere to play and not think about things. A lot of them had lost family members, two had lost their complete family and been taken in by others, so even if it cost a few materials, he thought the idea had merit all on its own.

He went back to the pedestal, having to prevent himself from trying to tweak the edges of the new expansion to see if he could get more materials anywhere.

I'll need those materials for the other expansions. We might be able to get all of the downtown, so leaving those materials where they are will help with that, no need to try to grab them all now.

Ten minutes later Felicia came into the gym, following Amy.

“I'll go warn the wall and the others now,” Amy said.

“Amy told me you were paying her a lot just to find me?” Felicia asked.

Marc shrugged.

“Twenty-five copper for finding you and bringing you here, then to go warn the wall and everyone along the road. Sounds like a lot to her, but for us it really isn't that much.”

Felicia nodded.

“So, what are our options this time?” she asked.

“I don't know yet, I was waiting for you before I triggered the expansion. I'll do that now, we can pick, then I'll finalize it when Amy gets back,” Marc said.

“Okay then, what are you waiting for?”

Marc triggered the expansion, then started reading off options on additional buildings that could be created during the expansion.

“Huh, it looks like we opened up more options here. Maybe because this is our fifth expansion?” he said.

“What new stuff is there?” she asked.

Marc started reading them off, two of the buildings sticking in his mind. Once he'd read down the list, he started listing his own preferences.

“Well, we will want more fields, so another one of those,” he said. “I've had to expand our little corridor leading to downtown enough that I can probably put another field in behind an existing one. Beyond that, the Town Hall and the Crafting Hall both caught my attention.”

Felicia nodded.

“What's the Town Hall do?” she asked.

Marc pulled up the help on it.

Town Hall:

This building will provide a central authority for a Safe Zone. It will ensure that edicts, laws, and rules are all understood by the populace. It will not ensure that they are obeyed, but all inhabitants will be aware of them. The presence of a Town Hall will have a positive effect on the morale of all inhabitants of a Safe Zone.

The Town Hall will contain digital records of your Safe Zone and its inhabitants, accessible by those granted authorization by the Safe Zone controller. General information, such as name, age, gender, health, and class will be available as well as their role in the Safe Zone.

The Town Hall will open up new purchase availability. Buildings, technologies, and other miscellaneous items will be available to be purchased for the Safe Zone with System coinage.

Build Pedestal will be moved to the Town Hall.

“So, that looks like it makes some of the things you can do with the Safe Zone available to others?” Felicia said.

“Yes, plus a few things I can't do. Although it'll be nice for others to be able to verify what jobs people are doing.”

“I wonder what technology stuff will be available for purchase?” Felicia asked.

“Doesn't matter. I'm sure we won't be able to afford it for a while,” Marc replied.

“I'd say it's a yes though, even if just for the morale bonuses. The rest is nice and we haven't had morale problems yet, but I can see it happening. Especially if we don't get an economy started so everyone can have some coin in hand.”

“Okay, so Town Hall is the second option. Let me look at the Crafting Hall.”

Crafting Hall:

Crafters are the backbone of a Safe Zone's economy. There are only so many spawns to kill and profit from, yet people will always want goods.

The Crafting Hall will contain ten worktables and a variety of basic tools for crafting. It is invaluable for people learning crafting skills since the chances of learning a crafting skill or class are enhanced inside of a Crafting Hall.

The Crafting Hall will provide the basic needs for learning the following crafts (and associated skills/classes): Metalworking (smith), Woodworking (carpenter, woodcarver), Sewing (tailor, seamstress), Weaving (weaver), and many more. More advanced workshops will be required to achieve the best results from each profession.

“Well, I think that we'll want the Crafting Hall also. Here, look,” Marc said, sharing the help screen with Felicia.

A minute later she nodded.

“Yeah, definitely. Not that we can do much with some of those yet, but I bet Allan could dedicate a field to cotton if we can get the seeds and that could give us some cloth for weaving. Plus if the two guys that have been messing around in the smithy spend some time there they might actually be able to start doing something in the smithy for real.”

Marc chuckled.

“Yeah, I feel kind of stupid for making that. There were people who wanted to smith though, so I did. Little did I realize that they had no idea how to smith. So, one more thing beyond those three. What do we want?”

“Do we need more food stuff?” she asked.

Marc shrugged.

“Until we know how long the cycles on the greenhouses and fields are, I've got no idea. Although here's an addition that wasn't available before. It'll enlarge the pond and create a stream leading away from it also. It says something about this option being upgradeable as well.”

“Will it increase the amount of fish in the pond?” Felicia asked.

“I assume it will. Whether it will increase the amount in there right now or just the maximum amount, I don't know.”

“Well, do you get to create the stream bed, as in control where it flows?”

“It looks like it. I'll assume it's a within reason type of deal though and I can't get it to flow back uphill or anything.”

“That sounds like a good idea. It'll increase food production, eventually at least, if it just raises the maximum and I'm sure that the stream is not just a decorative thing, it'll probably have a use eventually. Has anything the System's offered for the Safe Zone been decorative only?”

“Not on the things that show up with an expansion, so I bet you're right. Shall we take this one for the fourth slot then?”

She nodded.

“I hope I know what we'll be able to do with it eventually, but I don't want to say anything in case I'm wrong,” she said.

He picked his choices, then denoted the path he wanted the stream to follow.

“Done then, now we just wait for Amy to get back,” he said.

When she arrived fifteen minutes later, Marc paid her, then accepted the new expansion. He led Felicia outside to watch with him since he'd determined that watching the Safe Zone expand was very relaxing for him and he hoped it would be for her as well.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Four

Watching the wall move in the moonlight had been entertaining. Watching the watchtower, which was far more visible, was almost spooky. The whole thing just slid forward away from Marc, as though it were riding down a river, even down to the slight bobs it made as though it were being affected by waves.

Marc had to close his eyes and shake his head to clear the vertigo watching it had induced. Then he looked around at the other things that were still forming. The Town Hall was down close to the area the wall had just moved from. The Crafting Hall was on the other side of the street from it. The pond stretched out to the side, away from the road, then a tiny thread of water burst from it, spilling across the ground on a path close to the one Marc had designated for it.

The final field was right alongside where the stream ran, but it had formed quickly, before the stream even started threading its way out of the pond. In the end, the stream ran out into the open area in front of the wall, then headed back towards the back wall and the Wildlife Preserve. A tunnel formed under the wall, blocked by a grating, where the stream left the Safe Zone.

We'll need to build a bridge for that, Marc thought. Maybe even a couple so it's easier to access the area between the stream and the wall. That'll be good practice for the guy who got the carpentry skill. Maybe he can make it in the Crafting Hall in sections and move it out? I think he picked that as what he'd be doing here, I saw a Carpenter on the list at least.

“Well, that's that,” Marc said. “Do we want to check out the Town Hall now, or first thing in the morning?”

“I'm not very tired yet, how about you?” Felicia asked.

“Let's go then,” Marc said.

The two of them walked down the road, then entered the Town Hall. There was an entry foyer with one door and one hallway leading off of it. The door led to a closet just large enough for hanging coats. The hallway led deeper into the building and had doors on either side, as well as one on the far end of the hall.

The first door he opened led into an office. On the desk that was central to the office was what looked like a desktop system.

“Is that a computer?” Felicia asked.

Marc shrugged.

“Let's find out.”

He sat at the desk then hunted for the power button. When he found it, the screen lit up. It loaded to a menu that contained several options.

1 - Any Port Inventory

2 - Any Port Inhabitant Information

3 - Any Port Laws

“Okay, well that's fairly self-explanatory,” Marc said.

He pressed '1' and a list popped up. So far the primary things listed were food stores, of which they had a large amount. He was intrigued to note that the food he'd brought back from his house, his dad's stuff, was part of the list. He'd determined that he was going to give it to the Safe Zone, but he'd stored it in the apartment with the guns for the time being.

The guns from the apartment were on the list as well, under weaponry. Once again, although they were going to the Safe Zone, Marc hadn't announced them at all yet, so it was interesting to see them on the list.

I have to remember that the System runs on intent. That must've been enough to get those things on the list, he thought.

There were other entries under the Inventory menu, but he ignored those, backing out of the menu and opening up the Inhabitant Information menu instead. He was about to dig into that when he heard a shout outside. Shutting down the computer was easy, so he did so as Felicia headed for the door. He was outside just a few seconds behind her, but she'd already stopped next to Conner.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Well, once the watch tower finished moving, I went back up. I thought I'd be able to see farther out  across the city now with its new location. I could, and there's something out to the east of town. There's some sort of encampment alongside the highway to the east, and they have campfires, a fort, and everything,” Conner said, the words spilling from his mouth as quick as he could manage.

“Well, let's go take a look,” Marc said.

He'd intended to check out the watchtower before now, but hadn't gotten to it. He thought that this was a perfect opportunity to do so while also allowing him to see what had Conner in such a state.

The watchtower was forty feet high, and he appreciated his stat gains immensely when he made it to the top of the switchback stairs without getting out of breath. Conner gestured towards the telescope and Marc saw that it had been locked in place. Marc had to stoop slightly to look through it, but when he did he saw exactly what had Conner freaking out.

The encampment wasn't overly large, not by the standard of their current Safe Zone size. It wasn't even as large as the initial Safe Zone had been before expansion. It was, however, apparently designed for defense.

Wooden walls surrounded the encampment, and encampment it was. Marc wasn't going to use the term camp for the tiny fort with wooden walls and sharpened stakes jutting out of ditches near their base, it was definitely an encampment. The campfires burning inside of it made the light flicker, casting shadows outside of the walls which were only lightly illuminated by the moon.

As he stared at it, there was a tickle in the back of his mind.

“That reminds me of something,” he said.

He pulled back to let Felicia take a look and let his mind roam free. For some reason he was thinking about his dad and the stories he used to tell.

“Wait,” Marc said. “That looks like a castra, castrum, something like that. Basically a Roman marching camp.”

“Are you sure?” Conner asked. “I was worried that it might be something the System was doing to throw us another loop. I mean, it wasn't there last night, so it went up fast, whatever it is.”

“I'm not sure, no, but it looks like the way my dad described them to me and they could build those things in just a couple of hours if they had practiced doing it,” Marc said. “I wonder if it's him? How long would it take them to walk back from the convention?”

Conner just shrugged and Felicia backed away from the telescope.

“I didn't see any flags or signs of who it might be,” she said, “but the lighting is so bad between the moon and the campfires that it's hard to make out much detail.”

“How long are you here, Conner?” Marc asked.

“I've got watch until dawn, then I've got one of the others coming out to help. Did you know there were a few warrior type classes that weren't going out adventuring? At least one of them is willing to stand watch though.”

“I just found out about that earlier today,” Marc said. “I was thinking they could work as guards for the Game Warden since he's in danger in the Wildlife Preserve, but wall guard duty works too.”

“Well, one of them is due out here at dawn. Then eight hours after that Natalie's on duty,” Conner said.

“Hmm, can I ask you to put in some overtime? Keep an eye on that encampment until... I don't know, lunch tomorrow? If there's no activity by then we can ignore it, but if there is activity before then, let me know as quickly as you can? You've got the phone thingy at the gate, right?”

Marc called it a phone thingy because it wasn't quite a phone, but served the same purpose. The bases of the Wired Communications units looked like the old land line phones, to a point. They served the same purpose, but the 'handsets' were made to drape over an ear and hang in front of the mouth, like some of the Bluetooth headsets he'd seen, only they were connected to the base unit by a ten foot wire.

“Yeah, we've got it.”

“Well, if there's activity, try to get a hold of me with that. I'll be up before dawn again most likely and I'll try to stay in earshot of the base unit in the keep. I'll also let all the adventurers know to hold off on adventuring tomorrow since we might need to fight a defensive action, depending on who that is.”

“You got it. A little extra time on the wall won't hurt me. I'll probably take a break to get some food once the cafeteria's open though. Graveyard shift makes me hungry.”

“Here, have a snack,” Marc said.

He rummaged through his inventory and pulled out a pack of beef jerky and a bottle of water. His dad had cases of the jerky in the food he'd stored and Marc had topped off a slot in his inventory with it. The stuff was dated several years out and wasn't the really soft jerky you found sometimes, it took a bit more work to chew it and you wanted something to drink while you did, but it really hit the spot.

Conner grinned.

“You're a real Boy Scout, Marc.”

“What? Why would you say that?” Marc said, sounding almost offended.

All he could think of was the scandals about the Boy Scouts that had made the news in the last couple of decades.

“You know their motto, right? Be prepared?”

“Oh, well, that'd be my dad. The jerky's from his stash you told me about.”

“Still, you had it on you. Anyhow, sure, I can pull a bit of overtime. I'm not sure I'd sleep well anyway before we know who it is and what their intentions are,” Conner said.

“Alright then. I'm going to go try to sleep so I'm up well before dawn. I'll get breakfast as soon as they open. Tell you what, after I've had breakfast I'll come relieve you so you can also. Then one of us can keep an eye on the encampment at all times?”

“Sounds like a good plan. See you in the morning, Marc.”

* * *

Marc and Felicia made their way back to the keep. Entering Marc's room they were immediately assailed by the sound of claws scratching on the window. Marc glanced over and saw a raccoon, he was pretty sure it was Beggar, standing at one of the windows and scratching to get attention.

He walked over and opened the window. This time Beggar didn't wait, sliding in and landing on top of Marc's feet before moving out into the center of the room where Marc had put the water the night before.

“Making yourself at home, are you Beggar?” Marc asked, after checking with his Analyze skill to make sure it was the same raccoon.

Felicia had already grabbed the trash can and was filling it with water, so Marc pulled out yet another package of beef jerky and tore it open. He tossed piece after piece to Beggar, once Felicia had set the water down.

“He seems okay with me,” Marc said, handing the jerky to Felicia. “Why don't you feed him for a while and see if that mellows him out towards you?”

She took the package of jerky and continued to feed the raccoon.

Watching Felicia feed the friendly raccoon was almost, but not quite, exactly what Marc needed. He felt himself relaxing a little by watching it, but at the same time his mind was racing.

What if that's mom and dad out there? Could they actually have made it back? Or worse, what if it isn't them and whoever they are aren't friendly to us? Can we defend against someone that appears to really have their shit together when it comes to defense? They'd probably be just as good at offense, right?

His mind kept circling back and forth between the two possibilities. Eventually Felicia ran out of jerky. Beggar considered the window for a moment, but then jumped up into a padded armchair and curled up in a little circle.

Marc chocked the window so it would stay open a bit, sure that Beggar could open it the rest of the way on his own. He didn't want the cold breeze he'd had last night coursing through the room again.

Beggar was apparently asleep already when Marc and Felicia tugged the covers up over themselves and moments later they joined him, passing out quickly now that they were ready to sleep.

* * *

When Marc woke in the morning, there was a cold breeze in the room again. He looked over and found the chair Beggar had been sleeping on empty. The window was hanging open also.

Okay, I don't suppose it's fair to expect a raccoon to close the window behind itself, Marc thought, pulling himself out of bed carefully so as to not wake Felicia.

He shut the window and hopped in the shower. His thought processes were never the best when he first woke up, so it wasn't until he was halfway through his shower that he remembered the events of the night before.

Crap, did I wake up early enough? Marc thought.

He hurried the rest of his shower, then dressed. When he looked out the window it appeared as though dawn were just about to occur. The sky glowed with light, but the ground was still coated in darkness.

Good, I'll go down near the base comm unit until they're serving breakfast, grab something to eat, then go relieve Conner, he thought.

He slipped out through the door, leaving Felicia sleeping in the slowly warming room. Then he went down and sat next to the base unit, the communication piece ready to hand for him to slip over his head if needed.

There was no call by the time he thought breakfast would be ready, so he hurried over and got a breakfast burrito, something he could eat on his way down to the wall. He also posted a sign at the door to the cafeteria, telling the adventurers to report to the gates after they had breakfast.

Marc ate as he walked, pulling out a bottle of water to wash it down with. When he reached the watchtower and climbed it, he found Conner still watching through the telescope.

“Nothing yet?” Marc asked.

“Nope, although I can see better. Some of the people in there are wearing armor, and it looks kind of similar to Rob's,” Conner said.

“So it's probably someone who knows the old Roman legions,” Marc said. “I wonder how they got their armor? Did they already have it like dad did?”

“Um, I doubt it. Not unless they owned about twenty suits of it,” Conner said. “There are a bunch of them in armor, but it's less than half the people in the camp from what I've seen.”

“Well, go ahead and get some breakfast. I'll take over here.”

“I'll be back as soon as I can. I really want to find out what's going on here,” Conner said as he left the room at the top of the tower.

Marc watched as the people in the encampment went about their morning. There was apparently someone responsible for cooking as there was a line that led to one of the campfires. He also saw someone with what looked like a bed sheet and a chunk of charcoal. They were sketching something on it, but Marc couldn't make it out from the angle he had.

Conner was back before anyone exited the camp. It was a painful process to watch too, when they finally did. They had to remove a section of the palisade around their camp, evidently having not left any entry or exit for it.

The man who came out was wearing one of the suits of Lorica Segmentata that they'd seen on the people in the camp. He also carried a long pole, with a spearhead on it. If it were just a spear it would be eight feet long, but Marc thought it had another purpose since it had something made of cloth wrapped around the shaft just beneath the spearhead.

It took him a while since the camp was more than a mile away from the Safe Zone, but finally, the man approached the Safe Zone wall, evidently not knowing where the gate was. As he approached, he unfurled the cloth and Marc realized what had been drawn on it. The white bed sheet was decorated with crossed olive branches. At least that's what he thought the drawing was supposed to symbolize.

“Well, I don't suppose they're surrendering,” Conner said. “Should we clue him in as to where the gate is?”

“I mean, you'd think the watchtower would be a dead giveaway, but...” Marc said, shrugging.

He pulled his shield and pilum out of his inventory, then looked towards the man, held the items outside of the room atop the tower, and started beating the shield with the pilum.

The noise rang out over the downtown area, immediately catching the man's attention. He looked up, saw Marc leaning out, and waved. Then he changed direction and started heading towards the tower.

Marc climbed down the steps and was waiting behind the gate to the Safe Zone when the man arrived. Conner called down when he was almost there and Marc cast his Arcane Armor and Phantom Shield spells, just in case.

Marc glanced back up the road, seeing the Farmers and Field Hands just coming out to tend to the fields. Farther up the road, just coming out of the keep, was Felicia, accompanied by Rob, Jeff, and Ella. He waved to them and they picked up their pace. He was sure it would take them a couple of minutes to get here, but he wasn't worried about waiting for them, not with just one man approaching under a flag of peace.

A knock rang out against the gate and Marc opened it, letting it slowly swing open.

“Can I help you, sir?” Marc said.

The man peered at him. He was wearing glasses underneath his Roman style helm.

“I'm supposed to come here and see who's in charge,” he said in a slightly nasal voice.

“That would be me. What can I do for you?” Marc asked.

The man sneered.

“A boy like you in charge? Surely there's someone else I can discuss things with. What would you do if this were an attack?”

Marc rolled his eyes.

“Well, first I'd sound the alarm which would bring about fifty or so adventurers to the wall in just a few minutes, then... Step aside please sir, and observe the wall twenty feet behind you.”

The man's sneer stayed on his face until Marc started gesticulating and pointed his hand towards the wall. His new Water Jet spell raced out, carving a line into the stone of the wall. There was a flicker of motion that Marc caught out of the corner of his eye, but he didn't react. He was sure someone was watching over this man and didn't want to irritate them any more than he already had.

“Then, I'd defend the walls along with the Phantom Warriors that are manning it, the Guardian in the tower above me, and my group, who are rapidly approaching from behind me. Now, get to the point. What is it you want here?” Marc said.

Marc had raised his voice and now Conner was leaning out of the tower.

“Trouble, Marc?” he called out.

“No, just demonstrating a few things for our visitor,” Marc replied.

Then he turned back to the man at the gate.

“Now sir, are you from the Ancient Roman convention that recently took place? We know that a number of the people in your camp are wearing Lorica Segmentata as well as using shields like mine and weapons that resemble the Roman pilum.”

The man's sneer had left his face, but was now replaced with a look of anger.

“It wasn't an ancient Roman convention. It was a convention on ancient history, not Rome!”

The man was practically shouting, spittle flying from his mouth as he continued.

“The ancient Greeks and Persians also had representation there as well as many others!”

Marc's group had caught up to him while the man yelled. They'd obviously heard him, as was evidenced by Jeff's comment.

“Then why are you wearing Roman armor?” Jeff asked.

That stopped the man cold for a moment. His shoulders sagged.

“You know the old saw, when in Ro—”

He stopped his words abruptly and Jeff started to laugh.

“When in Rome?” Jeff forced out between laughs. “Do as the Romans do?”

“I need to speak to the leader of this Safe Zone,” the man reiterated.

“That's Marc here,” Rob said, gesturing towards Marc. “I would've thought he'd tell you that.”

“I did, he just didn't believe me,” Marc replied.

The man took off his glasses and his squint disappeared.

“Why do you wear those if you don't need them?” Felicia asked. “You were squinting with them on, but appear to see fine with them off.”

“Force of habit, young lady. You try doing something for forty years, then try to break the habit in a week. Now, young man, you claim to be in charge here...”

He trailed off, looking at Marc closer.

“You a Cavanaugh?” he asked finally.

Marc grinned.

“I'm hoping that's a family resemblance you're noting,” he said.

“So that's a yes then? I'm Alexander Digby. I was sent by a Sean Cavanaugh to see if his son was present in this Safe Zone.”

“That's dad. I knew he'd make it back if anyone did. Is my mom with him?” Marc asked eagerly.

The look of scorn returned to Digby's face, although this time it appeared to be tempered by a hint of fear.

“Yes, she is.”

“What's wrong, you have something against women?” Marc asked, irked.

“No! She's just... She's the quartermaster for our trip here and she could make a penny scream by how much she could force out of it,” Digby said.

“Yup, sound like mom's acting pretty normal,” Marc said. “Well, you go on back and tell them that they, and their troops since it sounds like dad's in charge, are more then welcome to join us in the Any Port Safe Zone.”

“You're really in charge here?” Digby asked, wonderingly.

“I and my group were the first in the area to form a Safe Zone. We've been expanding it with both territory and population ever since then,” Marc said. “Now if you please, would you deliver my message? I've been wondering for more than a week if they were still alive and I'm sure they're wondering the same about me.”

Digby shook his head.

“Last time I volunteer for a message run. This place is as treacherous as the highway. Everything's falling apart around our ears.”

“It's like that everywhere but in the Safe Zones,” Rob said. “So the sooner you deliver the message, the sooner you'll be able to come in to where things are intact.”

Digby heaved a sigh, then turned around and started walking.

“Should we escort him?” Rob asked.

Marc shook his head. He'd seen a flicker of movement when he'd used the Water Jet spell, as though someone had been about to attack him, but changed their mind.

“No, I think he has an escort of his own, although he may not realize it,” Marc said.

* * *

They watched from the tower as Digby made his way back to the camp. Once he arrived, there was much shouting and gesticulating, at least if Marc could guess from what he could see. In under an hour the camp was broken down. The wood from the palisade and sharpened stakes stacked onto a wagon.

The group formed up, half the armored individuals in front, slightly fewer than half in back, and the rest spaced alongside the edges. There were actually two wagons, and the second carried a couple of people as well as what looked to be a bunch of goods. The wagons were each pulled by a mule and there was livestock tied to the back of them on long ropes.

The man in the front of the group was wearing a helmet with a transverse plume in red, while the rest of the armored people had a front to back plume and Marc remembered his dad mentioning that the difference meant that the one with a transverse plume was the leader, a Centurion.

Although I thought he said something about them not wearing them in battle, or was that a later Roman empire thing?

Marc couldn't remember and at this point he didn't care. He'd used the telescope to look at the leader and discovered that the man in the front was his father. He was sure his mom was among the rest of the people there as well, so now he ran back down the steps.

Most of the adventurers were out there now and they were slightly disappointed that there wasn't going to be a battle. Marc had an idea though and with a little convincing and some bribery, he managed to convince the other adventurers to go along with it.

He knew that the old Roman salute had been co-opted by the Nazis, so he didn't go with that, instead when his father knocked on the gates, Marc flung them open.

The first hundred yards of the road into the Safe Zone was lined with adventurers on either side, the rest of Marc's party being the closest to the gate. As Sean Cavanaugh entered the Safe Zone, Marc gave a piercing whistle and the adventurers all drew whatever their favored weapon was, holding it up at an angle to form a corridor through which the entering people would traverse.

Sean stared at his son, then to the adventurers and back to his son, raising an eyebrow. Marc just grinned and turned, using a sweeping gesture of his arm to invite his father into the Safe Zone. Marc had planned on some words for this point, but he found his throat was tightened enough that he wasn't going to try to speak.

As he led his father deeper into the Safe Zone, his party fell in alongside of him, the rest of the adventurers holding their salute until the entire group of new people had made it in. Then Conner closed the gate behind them.

“Mr. Digby tells me that this is your Safe Zone?” Sean asked.

“Yeah, almost more trouble than it's worth running this place,” Marc said. “You want it?”

Sean shook his head.

“Oh, hell no.”

“Good, because I'd hoped to offer you a position as the head of the defensive force for it. I'm going to ask mom if she wants to be an administrator here also, since I know that's what she's good at.”

Sean was looking around at all the buildings, the brand new buildings, inside the Safe Zone.

“I want to know how you managed all this. We stumbled on a couple of Safe Zones on the way back, but nothing this size or with lots of brand new buildings.”

“Well dad, let's get all of you settled in, go through the rules, let Al tell you what we've figured out about the System, and then we can talk,” Marc said.

Sean nodded.

“Oh yeah, we definitely need to talk.”

* * *

Continued in:

System Return

Natural Laws Apocalypse #2

* * *

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Other books by Tom Larcombe:

Light Online is a Gamelit/LitRPG series. Eddie Hunter joins a virtual reality game to work as a farmer, just not the type of farmer he'd expected when he signed on. (Completed Series)

Light Online - Series Page

The Crow Hill series is an apocalyptic urban fantasy (more along the lines of Harry Dresden than the romantic urban fantasy popular currently) set in Colorado. (Completed Series)

Crow Hill - Series Page

An Untimely Error: this series is a triology about the wizard Merlin reawakening in the midst of WWII. This is in the same world as the Crow Hill series, just much earlier in time. (Completed Series)

An Untimely Error - Series Page

*  *  *

About the Author

Living at a high altitude in the Rocky Mountain foothills (approx. 8200 feet) is a different experience. Especially after having grown up in New England. The temperature fluctuations can be impressive on a daily basis and we've had years where we've gotten -20°F with windchill in the winter and 120°F in the following summer. It's fun stuff, for certain definitions of fun at least.

I live here with my wife, two daughters, cats, chickens, budgies, and a bunch of friendly wildlife. Beggar, from this novel, is based on a raccoon who used to hop up on the lid of our hot tub and lie down there, or walk around the rim and play with my, and my wife's, hair. We'll be seeing more of him in the following books of the series.

Reviews are the lifeblood of the independent author. I always hated reading the author's request for reviews in the backs of their books, but now that I've seen the difference that a large number of decent reviews has on a book, I understand why they ask. Please take moment to leave a review on this book if you're willing.

Thanks,

Tom

Table of Contents

- Chapter One
- Chapter Two
- Chapter Three
- Chapter Four
- Chapter Five
- Chapter Six
- Chapter Seven
- Chapter Eight
- Chapter Nine
- Chapter Ten
- Chapter Eleven
- Chapter Twelve
- Chapter Thirteen
- Chapter Fourteen
- Chapter Fifteen
- Chapter Sixteen
- Chapter Seventeen
- Chapter Eighteen
- Chapter Nineteen
- Chapter Twenty
- Chapter Twenty-One
- Chapter Twenty-Two
- Chapter Twenty-Three
- Chapter Twenty-Four
- Chapter Twenty-Five
- Chapter Twenty-Six
- Chapter Twenty-Seven
- Chapter Twenty-Eight
- Chapter Twenty-Nine
- Chapter Thirty
- Chapter Thirty-One
- Chapter Thirty-Two
- Chapter Thirty-Three
- Chapter Thirty-Four