Chapter 11: Atlas
This was the moment. I almost told her another lie, but the question pulled something loose in my chest. She could see my class in the party interface, perhaps even my bloated stats. Maybe it was knowing we would be stuck together, or maybe it was the way she said my name, but I just started talking. Initially, at least, the story came out of me in a flat, even tone, as if I’d rehearsed it a thousand times, but I’d never said a word of it to anyone. I told her about the day the System turned on, how the base had gone to shit, everyone losing their minds at once, and how I’d tried to keep my head down and just survive. How I’d killed the man in the elevator, then ran. I told her about the missiles launching all at once like fireworks on the 4th of July, but I did not know how it had happened. I was just a lowly Airman with no power to do such a thing. I was growing more animated, more emotional as the story spewed from me like a causeway at a dam being opened for the first time in decades. I begged her to believe me that there was no ‘big red button’ one man could push and destroy the world. I told her about the massive stat bonus I got for being so ‘effective’ during the purge, and how my class choices were both bullshit, but how the other would have left me far weaker. I told her everything about the class, and how I could harvest stats points and storage space by killing other humans. I told her about Wal-mart. I left out the part about us all being able to steal stats by killing each other. I may have been spilling my guts, tears dripping off my trembling chin, but I held that back. I didn’t think she could become a monster, like me, but that was one secret I would not share. Not right now.
After ten minutes of talking with barely a breath taken, I stopped. My story had finished with a final explanation of how I was sitting in this particular Starbucks in the middle of a bombed-out city of the dead.
She hadn’t interrupted once during my rant. Not a single “Language, Joe,” or a polite throat clearing, despite probably a hundred suitable occasions. She just sat there, her cup of coffee held in both hands, not even pretending to drink.
She was still silent. Her eyes weren’t on me, but fixed on the Starbucks mermaid on her cup, slowly twisting the cup one way, then the other. I braced myself for the screaming, or at least a whispered prayer for forgiveness. Instead, she nodded, slow and deliberate, as if this was exactly what she’d expected to hear.
“I see,” she said.
I wanted her to say more, or less—or maybe just to say that I was a monster and get it over with. “You don’t have to be okay with it,” I said, my voice coming out as a croak. “I’m not. I just… I didn’t want to lie to you about it.”
She finally looked up. There was a glassiness to her eyes, but no accusation, no hatred. Just tears not yet fallen. “You know what’s funny, Joe? I killed fifty-eight people in under one minute. I made myself a mass murderer because I thought it would buy me a little more time with my son. And now, after everything, I don’t even know if he’s alive or dead. You intentionally killed what? One man in self-defense during the purge? You risked being recycled rather than hunt people. If anything, I am the monster between us. The bombs may have dropped in your name, but I know enough about that stuff to know that one man, not even the President, could have done that by himself. I blame you for nothing.”
Shanice stood; I stood. She stood there, a 300-pound black woman, dressed in a ridiculously too-small t-shirt, bare flesh squeezing out like a ruptured sausage casing, arms held wide for a big hug. I had never seen such a welcoming sight.
A minute, maybe five, had passed before I finally let her go. Tears had soaked her Starbucks tee halfway down. “Thank you.” I said. “You will never know what that meant to me.” She just smiled and asked me if I was ready to go kill some panthers. I just nodded.
We walked to the pillar together, side by side. Shanice reached out and touched it. A few seconds later, I received a notification asking if I wished to enter the Cursed Village dungeon - Cost 360 mana. I clicked YES. The world went white, and we were gone.
I blinked, then stood in a very dark, narrow cave, with a slight glow coming from around the next bend. “Joe?” Shanice called out my name questioningly. “Yes?” I replied, dropping the ‘Shanice’ out of newfound respect. “I know you said that you didn’t take any of your other abilities because they were monstrous, but do you think that maybe now is a good time to get over that? That panther would have killed me in two seconds flat if I hadn’t been so close to the entrance.”
I laughed and did as she asked. It was almost as if her accepting me made accepting the abilities for the tools that they were, and nothing more, okay. I was now the not-so-proud owner of ‘Meltdown’ and ‘EMP’. One devastating single-target ability, and one decent area of effect ability. Unless we had to fight robots. In that case, it might graduate to ‘pretty good’. Only time would tell.
We made eye contact, and both nodded. It was time to go. We slowly round the bend into the light, and as I was about to whisper to Shanice to stay behind me, a shadow flicked across the tunnel mouth ahead. Then a pair of eyes, green and hot as LEDs. A big cat, longer than me and with a head as high as my shoulder, black as the void and twice as hungry, stepped out and blocked the path. It didn’t snarl, didn’t even blink. It just stared, tail twitching as if it were waiting for me to make a move. Apparently, it had waited at the dungeon entrance on the off chance that Shanice would come back.
I couldn’t help myself. “Have you ever seen that old internet meme about the jaguar in the hallway?” I muttered over my shoulder. “Joe,” said Shanice, “now is not the time for jokes. Also, I believe that is a panther. Jaguars have spots.” “Killjoy.” I muttered under my breath and stepped forward, putting myself between Shanice and the monster.
The cat moved instantly, a giant black body, charging right at me. Shanice gave a little scream. Oddly enough, the ‘panther’ wasn’t nearly as fast as I was expecting… not even close. I didn’t even think to draw my Glocks, but reacted instinctively and punched the thing dead between the eyes as it leaped at me with all the force I could muster. With a sound of 100 bones breaking at once, it just collapsed at my feet, not even twitching. Dead in one hit. I felt a familiar tingle of heat, though not nearly as intense as I had at Wal-Mart. I smiled.
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Behind me, I caught a barely audible, “Holy… cow.” I whirled on Shanice. “You were about to say ‘Holy shit’, weren’t you!” I accused, a big stupid grin on my face. Shanice turned beet red, furiously denying that she was about to say any such thing.
“Shanice?” I asked, tone dripping with sugar. “Yes, Joe?” came the quiet reply, embarrassment still clear in her voice. “What information do you see about this dungeon? That seemed far too easy.” I asked, still scanning the treeline as I waited. “Not much… ‘The Cursed Village Dungeon: 1-3 Common’ is all it says about it. Why? I honestly don’t know what any of that means,” came the hushed reply. I burst out laughing, relief flooding my body. “Be quiet!” Shanice hissed, fearful eyes darting back and forth across the face of the jungle. “Sorry, sorry… I didn’t mean to be so loud. This is a newbie dungeon, Shanice. It’s meant for levels one to three.” I replied, rolling my shoulders and blowing out a breath toward the sky. “Well, if you hadn’t noticed, I am level one, Joe.” She hissed again, still not understanding.
“Not for long.” I said. “Stay right here.” With that, I bolted into the trees, screaming at the top of my lungs. Five minutes later I came hauling ass back to Shanice’s hiding spot, still screaming like a madman as I ran past her. I slowed down a bit and gave her my biggest, cheesiest smile and a little wave, “choo-choo’ing” at the top of my lungs. She looked suitably impressed.
A sound like thunder followed not far behind me. An absolutely colossal wave of mobs was chasing me… zero chance of catching me, but doing their best anyhow. I started turning; the mob following me like a particularly large turd refusing to go down the toilet bowl. I kept running in an ever-tightening circle, hundreds, maybe thousands of monsters vainly trying to catch me. When I figured grouped up tight enough, I stopped. As one, they charged. I heard a scream come from Shanice, and released my EMP spell right on top of the mass of writhing panthers, spiders, an absolute shitload of monkeys, and half a dozen alligator things that were bringing up the rear. ‘BOOM!’ The noise was fantastically loud, and except for a few stragglers that weren’t in the AOE, absolutely everything was dead. I lazily pulled out my Glocks and finished the annoyingly slow alligators, then walked calmly towards Shanice, a heat that did not burn billowing through my body.
She looked equal parts amazed and furious as I walked up to her. I thought she was going to slap me, but I knew. I knew she had gotten a level from that, probably more than one. I didn’t know how mana from kills was split up in a party, but I had gotten a full level, and at level 4, I was technically above the range this dungeon was meant for. Not by much level-wise, but I had the stats of somebody who was probably level fifteen under normal conditions.
Shanice was growing calmer as I stood there like an idiot, just smiling at her. “I assume that your obscenely inflated stats made this place that nearly killed me rather trivial for you?” She asked. “Got it in one.” I grinned, cheesing super hard, finger guns blasting. “Well, you scared me half to death! … and what was all that ‘choo-choo’ screaming about?” She continued, looking as if she were working herself up again. I laughed as I told her. “I was the train conductor.” A brief look of confusion, followed by a quick grab of her necklace and a whispered prayer, told me I was off the hook.
“Are you ready to go explore?” I asked, sweeping my arm out like a butler, letting her lead the way if she wished. “Did you get everything? Are you sure nothing is going to jump out at us?” she asked, glancing about a bit nervously, probably expecting to see some green glowing eyes. “Pretty sure.” I replied. “I saw the village. This place really isn’t all that big. A lot of it is like movie sets, making it look as if there is a full town, but really it is just a couple of small buildings and fancy camera work. Let’s go.”
A few minutes later, we were in the ‘central village’ where I had half expected to find a Starbucks on my first trip, but had found only grass huts, with one larger hut in the middle. I had paused mid-run to poke my head in and make sure that there wasn’t a boss inside, though to prevent future surprises. There was. A monster that looked a lot like a chimpanzee, but not quite right. The arms were too short, and the ears were too long. Although he was at least seven feet tall, I wasn’t worried. I punched him twice; he fell dead, and I kept running, as the pack had nearly caught me by then.
This next visit to the village was a bit more casual, with Shanice trailing behind, seeming to grow more and more comfortable accepting that we were alone. We were poking our heads into huts, but finding nothing of interest, we moved to the central hut, the largest of the bunch, where both the dead boss and, more importantly, the pillar awaited us. There was a chest I hadn’t had the time to notice my first time inside, but I know what chests in a dungeon mean as well as the next nerd, and gave a little ‘whoop’ as I went over to it.
Shanice followed behind, perhaps not knowing exactly what was going on, but smart enough to know that it was probably a good thing. As I opened the chest, a faint blue light emanated from it, as if I were opening my Christmas presents in a Hallmark Christmas Special. In the chest’s bottom lay two pulsing blue crystals, no bigger than unbroken walnuts. I pulled one out and handed it to Shanice, then grabbed the other. My interface did something it hadn’t done before. It identified what I was looking at in a pop-up notification.
“ITEM: Blue Mana Crystal. This item may store up to 250 mana, to be used at will. - Uncommon.”
“Nice!” I said, hoping that it would be usable inside the System shop, but even if it couldn't, having that much larger a mana capacity was still a huge deal. I saw nothing else in the chest and was about to turn away when a tiny green light blinked in the corner of the dark chest. I maxed out my perception and stared into the dark chest, then moved my mana crystal in to get a better look. The last thing I wanted to do was stick my hand into a dark place with glowing green stuff … especially in a dungeon full of things with glowing green eyes. I’m not a fan of snakes.
It was a watch. No, not ‘A’ watch. It was ‘my’ watch, complete with the little tear in the black nylon band just shy of the bezel. I slowly picked it up and brought it to my face, gazing at it intently. “This is impossible.” I whispered. Shanice turned from her mana crystal to see what I was doing. “What is that? What’s impossible?” She asked, leaning in closer to get a better look in the weak light. “It’s my watch.” I said dumbly, not elaborating on the fact that I had somehow lost my watch during the purge, and now it was here, in the bottom of a treasure chest, in a dungeon hidden in the Grand Canyon, over 1,200 miles away from where I had lost it.
Shanice shrugged and turned away. I did what I had done every morning for the last two years, except for the last few days. I slapped it on my wrist and closed the clasp. And then it bit me. A sharp, horrible pain that started in my wrist, then traveled through my body, quickly making its way to my head, causing me to scream in pain as I dropped to my knees and grabbed my head. Shanice was at my side in an instant, already casting her healing spell on me as she kneeled down next to me. A cool, pleasant rush went through me, like plunging into the ocean on a perfect day at the beach. The pain quickly subsided, but I was still breathing hard.
Hand shaking, I stared at the watch expectantly, not really expecting it to tell me the time, but then again I hadn’t expected it to bite me either. Shanice was saying something, worry clear in her tone, but her words didn’t register.
The face of my watch had blinked to life … it had flashed a little smiley face emoji, which was immediately followed by a voice I could tell was only in my head. “Hello Joe. My name is Atlas.”
