Enter System, page 13
part #1 of Natural Laws Apocalypse Series
“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.
