By the time Star had awoken, she had most of an arm; albeit a small one; but still shrieked in terror when she saw it, rolling on her side, staring at it… and startling Sledge, who blinked, shaking himself… and picked her up, sliding an arm beneath the tiny, fragile new limb and wrapping her in a hug.
“I thought you were dead, Star..”
Grey watched for a moment as she seemed shocked, wrapping one intact, armored arm around him, the new one just feebly swinging around… and then looked at herself… and around.
“Is… is Shockwave really dead?”
Sledge squeezed her a bit more tightly. “...Yes. Stacks, too. He….”
She burst into tears, pressing against his chest.
If he were a friend, what would he do at this moment? Probably hug them. Cry with them. He wasn’t certain he could make himself cry.
Grey considered…. And after a few more seconds, taking care not to touch her arm, stepped in close, closing his eyes and hugged them both; letting the four ants keep watch.
It seemed to have been the proper response; the two leaned against him a bit, and just stood there for now… before finally breaking it up. Star looked at Sledge, then at her arm. “So… what happened to my arm?”
He sighed. “Well. They had all these guns, and they used them… both as clubs and as they shot at us. One of them shot you in the arm, and…. Well. Your arm went somewhere off into the parking lot.”
He looked around. “I could hear Grey fighting, and screaming, and you and Shockwave were both blasting… They hit you first. Took off your arm, you fell unconscious. Then they got Shockwave. By the time they got Stacks, I was right there in the middle of them, and most of them were dead.”
He looked at the corpses. “...and I killed the ones who were left. If Grey hadn’t come back, I’d probably have finished them all off… but I’d be dead.”
Star nodded. “That’s… really shitty. And I’m really sorry about Shockwave. And a little less sorry about Stacks. But… that doesn’t explain the arm.”
“We got credits for killing them. Two-fifty each for the first ten… and I killed eight. You probably got some, so did Shock and Stacks. And…. Grey got the ability to summon a system store kiosk, once a day. He called it. I bought the two mutagens we’d talked about getting first…”
He grimaced. “And drank the healer one. And gave you the regeneration one. So I could keep you alive.”
“....You used two power mutagens to keep me alive!? Why!? There are like… potions of rejuvenation and that sort of shit! Like… a fifth of the cost, and would’ve worked so long as I was still alive!”
“I wasn’t thinking! You’re the one who researched all this, you just told me what mutagens we should get, and why, when we got enough credits!”
She stared at him… then at her arm. “...Thanks for saving my life, you big doofus. You too, Grey.” She sighed. “Well. There’s only so many mutagens you can use. This’ll change my plans. Having Stacks and Shockwave gone will change them even more.”
Grey nodded. “I’m going to be taking a new job with the military. We’ll be recruiting… and obviously you’re welcome to come along. Competent, experienced people are worth their weight in gold right now.”
Sledge nodded. “We’ll think about it.”
“In the meantime… you two should loot these guys. And then… we should find out why they were even able to come here. I… think… its related to the buses by the cliffs over there.”
***
At first, it looked as if everyone had simply vanished. Not people. No belongings. The buses were parked together in a parking area not far from the cliff-side… Grey might not have ever realized what had happened… if he hadn’t noticed that there was a railing… part of a railing… along the cliffside. But none next to the telescopes.
He stared for a few seconds… and started stalking towards the cliff face, as Sledge and Star stood looking at one of the buses, chatting.
“Its strange! I wonder how long these have been here.”
“At least a couple days. With all the chaos a few more missing persons here and there…where did they all go?”
Grey arrived at the cliff edge, what he was certain some might call a beautiful desert view… and looked down for what he expected at the bottom.
Corpses. Men. Women. Children. All dead. Looking mostly intact, aside from broken arms, limbs, and all the blood.
They’d fallen off the cliff. Died. And with no-one there to gain levels from it….. Created an ambient surge of mana that caused the breakthrough. The question….
Why did they fall? One or two could be understood. But the whole mass, at once?
He looked back towards the rest stop, then at the siblings inspecting the bus. “Found the people. They all jumped… or were pushed, more likely.”
He examined the ground, and where the railing was…. Then looked back down. Both the railing, and several feet of rock, had been seamlessly broken and tossed down there… with the people atop it. Either the rail went first, or they all went at the same time.
Sledge and Star reached the edge, looking down as well, looking down at the pile of bodies… and Grey looked at the surroundings… the sky… then back down. He started backing away from the edge.
“Hold up. Something’s not right here. Get away from the edge.”
Star glanced at him… and stepped back quickly, while Sledge lingered a bit longer… before nodding, and turning back. “What’s wrong, Grey?”
“The bodies. They aren’t being eaten. There’s no vultures, or scavengers. How many nests of giant ants have we run into that would just love to eat this many bodies?”
Star glanced toward the cliff face, then back to Grey. “...What if the scavengers aren’t working right, now that the system is here? Magic in the corpses or something?”
Grey shook his head. “No… I’ve seen vultures. Bigger than usual, even… there was one at least twenty feet across watching us destroy zombies in Chihuahua. I don’t think they get levels from eating corpses, but everything’s getting bigger… even the cows, just from existing in a high-mana world.”
He looked back at the bodies, then at the cliff. “....Intact, if broken, bodies. Nothing willing to eat them… or whatever’s eating them died. This smells like a chemical weapon attack, or something radioactive… or magical.”
He turned away, looking out at the desert. Nothing but rocks. Cacti. The rest stop. Off in the far distance, barely visible, a gas station by the interstate. “...I might be wrong. But this doesn’t feel like a monster attack. If it were, this invasion wouldn’t have happened, and we’d be looking at some giant beastie the Chosen would be hunting. And combining a mysterious method of death with the arrival of a bunch of invaders…”
Sledge blinked. “...Are you thinking they somehow killed these people to trigger the portal that took them here?”
“Them, or allies of theirs?....Its the most likely possibility. These people weren’t ready for a fight… but they were ready to settle on a new world. Either they were involved in planning this… or expected something like it to happen, and took advantage.”
He considered for a moment. The police… and more importantly the military… would want to know about this.
***
When Colonel Parsons picked up the phone, the response was immediate. ~Sergeant Grey. Not quite time yet, but you should be hearing from Washington shortly; probably tomorrow..~
“Apologies, Colonel. Just ran into something and I felt it best to call someone. Have there been any reports of alien invasions; as-in, organized groups of armed sentients, not monsters?”
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Silence on the other for a few seconds. ~...Affirmative. Nothing in this region, though. They seem to be targeting extremely remote areas, as far from civilization as possible. I’m assuming you’ve encountered some?”
“Minoans, the bull-people. Less than seventy, mostly lightly armed and armored, a solid chunk of them barely armed at all. The System gave us a quest to clean them out, and they were shooting at us, so we did. However… only about a third of them had rifles, and only four had good armor. Average level either six or seven.”
~The invasions fit one of two patterns. Most of them are Minoan, exactly like you described; various ramshackle bands of refugees and criminals. We’ve also been getting more organized, competent invasions of a different alien species that wasn’t one of the racial options; we’re dubbing them Cyclops for the moment, since they have only one eye. Both of them appear to be avoiding notice by the locals, though the Cyclops are all level ten or above, armed, and armored, while the Minoans… seem random.~
Grey nodded. “So if we see Minoans, investigate. If we see Cyclops, call in the cavalry and back off.”
~You got it. Text me the coordinates and those details, when you can. One of the Chosen is surveying all of them, looking for a pattern.~
“There was an unusual mass-death event that seemed to precipitate this one; several greyhound buses full of tourists who all inexplicably fell off a cliff at once, leaving bodies that aren’t attracting predators.”
Silence again. ~...We believe one or more of the Chosen might be either sympathetic to these factions, or bribed by them. But… we have yet to see any cases of a mass-murder. Herds of cattle, forests, yes… but if the one you’re seeing is a mass sacrifice to deliberately summon one… it’d be the first. I’ll pass it up the chain.~
The phone disconnected… and Grey immediately texted Parsons his current coordinates, before turning back to Sledge. “Well then. I see at least three medium-duty armor suits out of all these. I recommend the three of us take one each. If you two plan to continuing the hunt the way you are, I’d also recommend joining another team… not sure how much I’ll be able to help if not, I’ll probably be tied up after tomorrow.”
Sledge sighed. “Me and Star will just relax for now. Level ten is two levels above the average for the adventurers around here, so we’ll do fine. Maybe help out a group, I'll start putting out feelers tomorrow… but when you’ve got your little organization setup… give us a call.”
Grey nodded. “If you need help, let me know. I can’t promise I’ll be right there, but if I can…”
Sledge stepped up to Grey, and extended a hand; the taller, powerfully built Orc overshadowing the tiny serpentfolk. “You helped us, and if not for you we’d be dead. I owe you one. Two, really; you saved Star too. Whatever you need, I’m on it.”
Grey nodded one last time, and turned, heading for the Lightning; they’d done all the hunting they were going to today. He had some work to do; finding jars small enough to fit things in for the Multi-rifle to fire, and doing a bit of research on the System Store for when he could access it himself tomorrow; ideally before his trip to Washington.
***
When Grey arrived home, he set an alarm for two hours, to remind himself to get dinner; and to go make a delivery of food for the spiders. He had the lizard corpses, and the lower-level worker ant corpses; he’d feed them the lot, and only retain the ones that were at least level 4.
Then…. He set out the tablet. He had credits to spend. Two thousand of them, at least; but they didn’t just show up on his status, so he didn’t know if he had more. So…. He opened up the Guild app, and went to the database…. And a search for System Credits.
He nodded; and focused for a moment. Current Credit total.
That… was a bit confusing. He had 5,000 from killing the Minoans, and a couple hundred from what they themselves had on them. What were the rest for? He needed a bit more information about the store, and how much things were worth.
That… was a massive variation. He might not be able to get a single mutagen that worked for him, or he might get five. Was there a list of the available Mutagens?
He blinked. So. Limited number of mutagens each person could use. So a stat boost was more expensive the better it was. Made sense. But… if he’d been able to use that simple Tool boon on turning the cargo container into an Extradimensional space, why was this a mutagen? Did it duplicate the boon?
He stared. He… could store an entire army of undead in the Shard version. Use the regular storage for his common needs, and just keep animating and stuffing Empowered undead in there until it was full… Undead weren’t hostile to each other, just the living. So… when the time came… he could just kick them all out. A perfect ambush, instantly turning a serene area into a horde.
He would get the 5,000 credit one if need be. But he absolutely needed to find a way to get the remaining credits for that shard. He'd be perfectly willing to kill Sledge and his sister for that, if he could somehow get back the credits from those Mutagens.
He could practically taste it. Even without hitting level 20 himself, that might be enough to let him overwhelm her… he just needed a way to stop her from teleporting away. If the government was going to help him level up... well. He'd need to figure out how to get more credits. He'd see how much what he had would sell for, when the cooldown expired on that kiosk.
