Lulu sat in the driver’s seat of Char’s truck, staring out the window as if on guard. Char smiled at the sight of her, glad to have the dog’s company. She wasn’t sure she’d be handling this situation half so well if she was alone. Char was laying on her bunk, propped up against the wall. She couldn’t see Lulu directly, but watched her reflection in the passenger side window. The sun had gone down, and without the street lights and security lights of the mysteriously vanished industrial park, the world outside the truck was lost in primordial darkness.
Char was tired. She hadn’t been able to find a shovel and had given up on the idea of burying Steve. Instead, she’d wrapped him up in the blankets from his own bunk and hauled his body up into the sleeper cab of his own truck. While she was in there she’d gathered up Lulu’s food and dishes. She’d also found the 9mm pistol Steve had kept hidden in his seat-back organizer, and two boxes of ammunition for it. There hadn’t been much more of use to her in the truck. Steve had kept a little food, which she’d also gathered up, but most of what he carried was the same sort of stuff she had on hand in her own truck.
The gun was a nice find, though. She’d never carried one herself. Too much trouble to make it legal across state lines, too much risk to carry it illegally. Mentally, she thanked her dad for teaching her to use one. She didn’t have a cleaning kit for it, but, with only two boxes of ammunition, she didn’t think she’d be relying on it for long. She wasn’t sure it would do much against higher level monsters, anyway.
There hadn’t been much that would help her in the warehouse. It was a company that sold packaging materials to other companies. She’d spent a couple of hours poking through it after breaking the lock on one of the roll up doors. Pallets of folded cardboard boxes, and rolls of plastic sheeting and moldable packaging filled the open central space, piled high in neat rows. She’d broken open the vending machines in the employee break room and added a trash bag full of sodas, chips and candy bars to her inventory. She also grabbed a couple of rolls of TP from the ladies room, and broke open the period supplies vending machine for its contents. The only other things of use had been a crowbar and a large set of bolt cutters, which she had also taken.
From her own truck, she’d loaded up her own store of food, her duffle-bag full of clean clothes, her winter boots, some cargo straps, her tool bag, her emergency road flares, both fire extinguishers, her shower bag with all her toiletries and first aid gear, and anything else she thought might be useful later.
She was holding the lightweight hiking pack her late husband had always insisted they each keep packed on the truck. He always called them their “get-home bags”. They held portable water filters, a little pellet fueled camp stove and a set of camping cookware, waterproof matches, and all sorts of other things that would keep them alive on a cross-country trek in the event civilization ever went tits-up. She’d always thought he was a little too paranoid about that sort of thing, but now she silently thanked him for getting her in the habit. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened to fall and hugged the pack to her chest. Remembering him always brought a physical pain to her chest. They’d had only six years together, and yet he’d shaped her life in so many ways.
She gave the memories a few minutes. She’d learned that pushing them away just bottled them up and made it worse later, made her feel guilty for not making time for him. She’d made it a habit, whenever the empty space made itself known, to fill it up with the happier memories and to picture his face and his smile. But she didn’t linger too long. She still had a lot to do if she was going to survive.
It was time to figure out the rules.
Char leaned back, adjusting her pillows to act as a seat-back, and really looked at the icons hovering around the edge of her vision for the first time. They’d been there since she’d reappeared in her truck after that weird white space, but she’d been ignoring them to deal with bigger problems. When she wasn’t looking at them, they became translucent, almost invisible, but it was a simple matter of focusing on them to make them sharp and clear. It wasn’t so much focusing with her eyes, as it was with her intent. They moved with her field of vision to always stay in the periphery, so simple eye movements didn’t make them visible. She had to want them to be visible.
In the upper right there were three bars: a red one labeled “Vitality”, a green one marked “Stamina”, and a blue one for “Mana”. Mana and stamina seemed pretty consistent with many of the video games she’d played, so vitality must be a sort of health bar. Hers had a small amount missing, which she expected considering her wounds and what she’d given to heal Lulu.
In the upper left was an icon that looked like a set of three horizontal lines that she recognized as a standard menu button. Below that were four boxes that looked similar to the cubes in her inventory screen. She hovered her attention on them and a help text appeared:
Quick access slots
Items in quick access slots can be called
Instantly to your hand from your inventory.
“Well, that’s handy.” She added her stamina tonic, a loaded magazine for the pistol, and her crowbar to the slots and practiced using them. All she had to do was focus on the item briefly and will it to appear, and it would materialize in her left hand as if dropped there from an inch above her palm.
She debated for a moment whether to check the menu first, or the last icon on her heads up display. That one looked like several squares stacked one on top of the other and slightly offset—easy enough to recognize as stacked windows, and it was flashing yellow. She focused on it, and all of the notifications she’d pushed aside during the fight cascaded across her vision.
The first one said:
You have killed
Corrupted Dire Opossum Matron — Level 26
Experience Gained
Titles Gained
This was followed by fourteen almost identical notifications.
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 2.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
—————————————————————-
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 3.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
—————————————————————
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 4.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
—————————————————————
Congratulations! You have gained a level.
You are level 5.
You have gained 5 free stat points.
Each of your stats has increased by 1.
Char went through each one, and noticed a pattern. Each level gave her five free stat points, but every fifth level also increased all of her stats by one point. She was level fifteen now, so that was three extra points in every stat. She figured it was that and whatever the titles had given her that made her stronger and faster in the fight. She’d beaten the ‘possum creatures far too easily, and, despite her wounds, hadn’t been nearly as wounded as she should have been afterward. She was getting stronger.
How, though? She wondered. It didn’t make any sense. None of this made any sense. She pushed the question aside. She knew she needed more information, and the how of it was less important than figuring out how to survive. She moved on to the titles.
New Title Earned.
Quick Draw (Unique)
Be the first on your world to kill an area boss.
+10 to Strength
+10 to Speed
+5 to Perception
+20% effectiveness of Strength, Speed, and Perception
————————————————————————-
New Title Earned.
Big Game Hunter (Gold)
Kill a creature at least 25 levels higher.
+10 Endurance
+5 Willpower
+5 Recovery
+15% effectiveness of Endurance, Willpower, and Recovery
———————————————————————
New Title Earned.
Precocious (Silver)
Be the first on your world to reach level 10.
+2 Speed
+2 Intelligence
+2 Spirit
Char whistled softly. Those titles were quite a boost. She decided she needed to earn as many of those as she could. The percentage boosts were especially nice. Those would make every point she put into an attribute even more valuable. She’d been very lucky to have been in her truck. Killing that over-sized opossum had given her a huge boost, but if she’d been outside like Steve, she would never have had a chance. She wondered how many people had died in the first few minutes after the world changed. How many millions of people had come back from that white place only to find themselves facing monsters they weren’t equipped to face?
Her jaw ached, and she realized she was clenching up with anger at that last thought. It made her furious that her whole world, billions of innocent people, had been suddenly forced into some sort of sick death games. Their lives, all their hopes and dreams and plans, were turned upside down in an instant. She redoubled her determination to learn everything she could about the Aldevari Dominion, and to get as strong as she could so that she could fight back against them. They must have unimaginable power to usurp and change an entire world, but they had to get that power from somewhere.
Lulu, alerted by Char’s whistle, and then alarmed by the sudden tensing of her muscles, whined softly and jumped down from the driver’s seat. She jumped up onto the bunk and stretched out along Char’s side, then inched her way upward until she could lick Char’s face. Char laughed. She couldn’t help herself. She felt her tension drain away and her anger fade to the background as she scratched Lulu’s head.
“You and me, girl. We’re gonna survive, we’re gonna get strong, and we’re gonna take back what’s ours,” she said. “But first, I’ve got to finish figuring out what the hell is going on.” Char continued to stroke Lulu’s ears as she turned her attention back to her last notification.
New Quest:
Something Toxic
You have discovered a nest of corrupted creatures. Something has
caused these creatures to become twisted and more aggressive.
Find the source of the corruption.
Prize for completion: Experience. A suitable weapon of Rare rank or better.
Optional: Kill at least 30 corrupted creatures.
(4 of 30 killed)
Prize: [Flesh Affinity Stone], random potion
“Ok, well, that’s a place to start at least,” Char said, as she read over the quest information. “Maybe we’ll get a cool magic sword or something. Now, what’s the deal with these affinity thingies? This is the second mention of them.” She thought for a second, trying to recall where she’d seen the term before. “Oh, right.”
She opened her inventory and pulled out the Flesh Domain Core that she’d looted from the Dire Opossum Matron. It was a faceted crystal about the size of her fist. Its color shifted through various shades of skin tones until it settled on one very close to her own. She examined it.
[Flesh Domain Core]
Reshape yourself.
Consumable
You must be at least Level 20 and have
an open Affinity slot to use this core.
“Affinity slots? That sounds interesting.” Char closed the window and went to the only button she hadn’t pushed yet. She opened the menu.
Attributes
Titles
Skills
Affinities
Inventory
Pet
Settings
Her eyes widened at the settings option. Hopeful, she selected it, and was immediately disappointed. There was no log out option, or difficulty settings. It did give her some choices for customizing what information she could see, and she resolved to play around with the settings later. For now, the only thing she changed was adding Lulu’s health bar under her own to make it easier to keep track of her new friend. She’d gotten very attached to the dog in a very short period of time, and she was grateful for the companionship in this scary new world. She ran her hands over Lulu’s silky ears and head while she moved on to the other menu options. Lulu shifted her head to lay it on Char’s belly and let out a contented sigh.
She checked the Pet options next, but the new screen only showed Lulu’s health and a list of pet commands. The idea of forcing Lulu to do things by some unknown, impersonal command made Char uncomfortable. She didn’t like how invasive this new system was, and couldn’t stomach the idea of using it to order around her new friend like some sort of automaton. She knew she’d have to explore these options at some point, if only to help her understand how things worked now, but she couldn’t bring herself to give them more than a cursory glance before moving on to her Affinities screen.
Affinities
Affinities determine which Domains of magic you
have access to.
You have unawakened Affinities.
Absorb an [Affinity Domain Core] to awaken an Affinity.
You must reach level 20 to awaken an Affinity.
This screen was a little different from the others. Rather than the usual translucent blue background, this one had a swirl of colors against a starry expanse that reminded Char of the beautiful Hubble telescope nebula photos she’d seen. The image was faded and thin, barely there -- grayed over and unavailable.
“Magic,” she said. “I’ve got to get to level 20, Lu. That’s going to be awesome.” She rolled the Flesh Domain Core around in her hand and considered the possibilities. “Reshape myself, huh? Wonder if that means shapeshifting? That could be useful. Could be a while, though. We’d better focus on surviving that long, first.” She popped the core back into her inventory and moved on to her skills.
The list was long and confusing. Char counted nearly seventy skills, some were things she’d only tried once or twice, and wouldn’t have considered skills. She chuckled at the memory of trying to mix up her own black powder, and was surprised to find she still remembered the recipe. She considered some of the other skills, like Alchemy, and found that the memory of reading about how Alchemy, or “Chymistry”, morphed into modern Chemistry was sharp in her mind, as if she’d just read the book. She hadn’t practiced Tae Kwan Do since middle school, but her instructor’s voice was as clear as if she’d just left class. She even remembered the ballet classes she took when she was seven years old. Whatever had been done to her in that strange white space had sharpened her memory. It all felt as clear and immediate as if it had only just happened.
When she was young, her mother wanted Char to experience as many different things as she could, encouraging her to try new things and discover what she was passionate about. Even after her mother died, her father had continued to enroll her in one activity after another. Char never did find the one thing she was passionate about, unless one counted a passion for trying new things. Even in college she couldn’t settle on a major, though she came close with Archeology. Her chest grew tight with a sudden rush of nostalgia and gratitude for her parents’ encouragement. Some of those skills that she’d picked up for fun might just help to keep her alive now.
She moved on to her Attributes.
Unassigned Points75
Would you like to assign points now? (Y/N)
Char whistled softly. Her attributes were three times what she’d started with. Those titles had given her a huge boost, and the percentage bonuses were going to keep on giving, making every point she added worth more. She needed more titles.
She couldn’t find any information to explain the ‘F’ beside Body, Mind, and Soul, but she did find that focusing on each individual Attribute brought up a brief explanation of the stat.
Strength: This is a measure of your physical power. Increase this attribute to hit harder and carry more.
Speed: This is a measure of your quickness. Increase this attribute to improve your movement speed and reflexes.
Dexterity: This is a measure of your proprioception, fine motor control, and flexibility. Increase this attribute for better results with delicate tasks, precision, and body control.
Endurance: This is a measure of how much physical work you can do before you are exhausted and how much damage your body can take. Your Endurance score determines your stamina.
Intelligence: This a measure of your ability to understand and retain new information, and to perform the complex mental tasks required for spellcasting. Increase this attribute to improve your memory, learn skills faster, and improve your spellcasting abilities.
Willpower: A measure of mental toughness. This determines your resistance to mental attacks, your ability to control mana, and your ability to push past your limits through force of will.
Perception: This is a measure of how sharp your senses are, and how well you synthesize what your senses are telling you. All of the raw input in the world means nothing if you can’t put it together in a meaningful way.
Recovery: This measures your ability to recover and integrate mana, heal your body, regain stamina, and to repair soul damage after trauma or spiritual attacks.
Resilience: A measure of your soul’s resistance to damage, both from spiritual attacks and traumatic experiences.
Spirit: This measure represents your soul’s capacity. The greater your spirit the more mana you can channel, and the greater your potential for growth.
Char read through each of them. Mostly, they were what she expected from a game system, with a few exceptions. She was surprised to see speed and dexterity separated into two attributes, but from the descriptions it made sense—one was raw speed, the other was about control. The Soul attributes were a bit odd. How did one measure a soul? For all the existential questions those stats raised, she was glad to see that she had some protection from trauma. She’d watched her father struggle with PTSD, and she had the feeling that this new life was going to have more than its share of awfulness.
She considered the best way to allocate her unspent points, and decided to bring all of her base attributes up to 30, which left her 20 points to spend. She didn’t know what she’d be facing out there. After some thought, she decided to put 3 points each into Endurance, Willpower, Resilience, and Recovery to improve her ability to survive whatever dangers she encountered. She held back the last 8 points to use once she had a better idea of what she would need.
She confirmed her selections. Immediately, she felt energy flow through her, like ice and fire in her veins. Her body locked up as the magic did its work on her, flashes of pain and other, unnamable sensations jolting her as her body changed and grew stronger. She resolved to never add so many points at once ever again. Char grunted and shuddered as the sensations tapered off, making Lulu whine and paw at her in concern.
Char exhaled slowly through her teeth. “I’m OK, girl. Not going to do that again, though.” She clenched her hand into a fist and opened it again, marveling at the new strength she felt. She felt better than she ever had, full of energy and ready to go explore. “Can’t just go wander with no plan, though. We’ll work on this quest first, get the lay of the land, figure out how things work, and get a little stronger. Then I want to see if we can make it to Oklahoma. See if the ranch is still there. If anybody can survive this craziness, my dad can.” She scratched Lulu behind the ears, and added, “You’ll like my dad, Lu. He’s got a soft spot for dogs. He’ll spoil you rotten.”
