Alex needed to pick his Starter Spells.
Natasha’s pick of Force Shield had confirmed that something Force related would be a good choice. Still, he didn’t want to have the same spell as her.
They needed versatility after all.
So… he would take Force Burst (Uncommon).
With only one Spell Selection point left after that. He wanted something that could do many different things. He was fighting undead too, so the choice ended up being pretty obvious.
He grabbed Basic Life Transfusion (Common).
Choice:
A choice lies before you.
Choose
Starter Spells Chosen:
Force Burst, (Uncommon) [Spell]
Basic Life Transfusion, (Common) [Spell]
Decision Rating: Imperfect but quickly and wisely selected in a time of danger.
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
Hey, look at that. You didn’t die before you chose. Well done!
Alex felt his eye twitch at the Apology Tutorial Addendum, but before he could react the full spell descriptions popped up.
Force Burst (Uncommon):
Diplomacy is nice, but sometimes force is required to get out of a tricky situation. Now, you can call upon a burst of magical force at need.
Spend Mana to send a burst of Force magic outward from you.
10MP to affect a 5ft radius sphere centered on you.
All affected targets will be damaged and thrown as if they were the sole target of a perfect body slam executed by you.
Physical Power has a marginally greater effect when determining the effects of this spell.
Alex almost sighed. It was a magical spell that effectively depended on physical stats? That was… irritating and unexpected. He’d be okay for now, but it would force a more balanced build if he wanted to get the most out of this spell.
That might be for the best regardless? Or maybe I can modify it with time…
Basic Life Transfusion (Common):
It is good to have something that you believe in, something to fight for. In this case, you’ve taken ‘I will give my life for the cause’ quite literally.
Spend Mana to send HP into the target.
Damage or Heal that target at your discretion.
Damage or healing done is equal to the amount of your Health Points (HP) sent.
Costs an equal amount of Magic Points (MP) to impart.
Basic Life Transfusion (Common), was effectively a worse ‘basic heal.’
Basic Heal turned every point of mana spent into a point of healing, whatever that meant, exactly. This did that, but it also cost the same amount of Alex's own HP as well. The only saving grace was that it could be used as a touch based, magical attack.
Still, he healed quickly due to his new Attribute, Life Finds a Way (Unique), and the flexibility could be key.
He was about to refocus on where they were going when another prompt popped up.
Oh, that’s interesting.
System Notice:
Synergy Detected
Basic Life Transfusion (Common)
with
Blood Attribute, Life Finds a Way (Unique)
Spell Upgraded:
Basic Life Transfusion (Common) → Life Transfusion (Common)
Basic Life Transfusion (Common):
It is good to have something that you believe in, something to fight for. In this case, you’ve taken ‘I will give my life for the cause’ quite literally.
Spend Mana to send HP into the target.
Damage or Heal at your discretion.
Damage or healing done is equal to the amount of your Health Points (HP) sent.
Costs an equal amount of Magic Points (MP) to impart.
→
Basic Life Transfusion (Uncommon):
It is good to have something that you believe in, something to fight for. In this case, you’ve taken ‘I will give my life for the cause’ quite literally. What’s more, you’re better at it than most!
Spend Mana to send HP into the target.
Damage or Heal at your discretion.
Damage or healing done is equal to the amount of your Health Points (HP) sent.
Costs half the amount of Magic Points (MP) to impart.
Alex’s eyes went wide. “Natasha, the system rewards synergies. I don’t know how important it is at the moment, but when you have any other choices, keep that in mind.”
The woman gave him a quick glance, then nodded. “I’ll let them know.”
Alex took a moment to glance at his newly updated Character Sheet.
Character Sheet:
Alex Johnson
Life-Aspected Human (Rare), F, Level 2
Class: NA
HP: 360
SP: 360
MP: 50
Physical Stats:
Power: 17
Agility: 25
Fortitude: 18
Mental Stats:
Power: 15
Agility: 25
Fortitude: 18
Magical Stats:
Power: 5
Agility: 5
Fortitude: 5
Unused Points: 0
Attributes:
Blood:
Life Finds a Way (Unique)
Temporary:
Apology Tutorial Skill Acquisition -
Acquire Skills organically with vastly reduced requirements until a Class is Selected
Skills:
Great-Blades Basics - Dadao (Common)
Advanced Kinesthetics (Common)
Intercept Projectiles (Common)
Inventory (Common)
Team Sense, Temp
Analyze (Common)
Danger Sense (Common)
Basic Mana Sense (Common)
Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)
Spells:
Force Burst (Uncommon)
Life Transfusion (Common)
It was quite a bit more robust, now with both Skills and Spells. Nine skills and two spells seemed like quite a good haul to start off with, even if he didn’t really have anything to compare it to.
He almost asked Natasha, but not only was she busy, but he couldn’t think of a way to ask in the moment without it coming across as him wanting to compare himself to her… partially because that was the truth.
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Even as she finished sending the message on their group thread, both of their phones lit up like Christmas trees.
And if the reactions of the many, many pedestrians they could see was any indication, everyone’s phone had done the same. Even some drivers took the time to pull out their devices and look.
Alex saw and heard cursing and more cars pulled into the wrong lanes to get… somewhere.
He, himself, glanced at the message just long enough to take it in.
‘Shelter in place order in effect. Hostile magical creature containment breach. Do not open your doors for anyone you do not know.’
Alex and Natasha were supposed to make one final stop through a grocery store, but with the lockdown announcement, they would bet that they’d all be closed.
They could see the school at the end of the sidestreet, a high chain-link fence segregating off a wide field. The teens that they could see on that field were all running across Alex and Natasha’s field of view, likely toward one or another of the buildings.
Or just one interconnected building? That’s what his memories—and the maps—seemed to indicate.
With the newfound urgency Alex and Natasha’s jog became a run, but then, they passed a small bodega that still seemed to be open.
Natasha slid to a stop. “I think we should grab some food, if we can.”
“Go.” Alex said even as he nodded, and Natasha ducked inside. He was beginning to trust her judgment, and they did not have as much food as he’d hoped for them to have.
He heard her quickly speaking to the owner, buying the man out of prepackaged food and making it worth his while for staying open another minute more.
He even caught her beginning to dump stuff into her Inventory.
Alex briefly considered going in to help because he was faster with the Inventory than she was, but he shook his head to himself.
No, we need to be watchful. I need to make sure that she’s safe while doing what needs doing.
The quest had really screwed them over.
He was sprinting down the abandoned street with his two group mates.
They’d chosen to team up even if no one else in their meeting room had wanted to, and now he was regretting it.
Gretchen had been a horrifying beast in the one fight they’d been in, physically catching the zombie that had jumped them by the throat and ripping its head off before it could harm them enough for an infection. Unfortunately, she was built like that feat would suggest, and she was no runner.
True, she wasn’t that slow, and she had endurance to keep it up for long stretches, but Sinclaire had been running ironman races for years.
Tony was somewhere between them in capacity. Faster than Gretchen, but with much less endurance.
In the end, they were each slowing the other down at various points, and that led to what felt like their glacial crawl through the city, heading south, aiming for the ‘Southern District High School Gym.’
They almost hunkered down in several reasonable locations along the way, but the quest was calling, and the timer was ticking down.
The increasingly disturbing sounds from just a few blocks behind them were rather motivating as well.
The only stop they’d made was right near the beginning, when he’d seen an honest-to-goodness Magic store.
They’d absorbed the orb that they’d quickly bought for each of them, Mana Manipulation.
The spells were nice to have, he supposed, but he’d rather not be running from a horde of undead.
It had also been stalking them since then.
They were moving enough that it didn’t strike yet, but he could feel the undead eyes on him even if he could never pinpoint the exact source.
They were still too close to the horde, though, and he didn’t doubt that something was preparing to strike as soon as it thought it could win. Maybe it was getting help?
He prayed that wasn’t so.
Other people were fleeing around them, and that might have been masking the creature but—
A massive homeless man crashed into Gretchen.
The other pedestrians screamed and scattered.
She reacted quickly, her skin becoming some sort of dark metal that turned his attacks, but it filled the area around them with a sound like nails on a chalkboard.
The homeless man snarled then, and Sinclaire caught what it really was: an undead of some kind.
He cursed the fact that they didn’t have any sort of ‘Identify’ or ‘Inspect’ skill. Such a thing would be incredibly useful right then.
Another undead landed beside Gretchen even as she was recovering her balance.
The two each grabbed an arm of the massive woman and pulled.
A third creature slammed into Sinclair’s back before he knew it was there, and he was driven to the ground.
Tony screamed, his shotgun barking twice before a horrifying sound of tearing flesh signaled an end to Tony.
Sinclair tried to rise, but the creature came back, landing atop him and driving the wind from his lungs.
The last sound he heard was a soft whimper followed by the scream of shearing metal.
Then, fangs at the back of his neck sent him into darkness, and he knew no more.
Alex was starting to get a bit nervous.
There were fewer and fewer people on the street, and drivers were beginning to abandon their cars.
Quite a few actually left them turned on, even as they ran toward one building or other.
A few forgot to put their vehicles into park as they fled, and there were sounds of honking horns and the screech of metal on metal coming from streets in every direction save toward the school.
Alex pulled out his phone, looking up all the stores in the area of various types and trying to mark them on his map with different iconography. If he had to bet, he’d say that this was going to be a ‘long haul’ type of scenario, and they’d likely lose technology and need supplies.
He’d had about five minutes to do that when his Danger Sense suddenly rose to a crescendo, screaming within his own mind, and he let himself react.
It was odd, feeling his skills enact and surrendering to them so completely.
He twisted.
His hands were suddenly empty, the map and phone vanishing into his Inventory with the barest effort.
The next moment his dadao appeared in those same hands, unsheathed and already hissing through the air as he continued to spin.
There was a spray of thick blood into the air as his blade dug deeply into the withered wrist of a hand that had been reaching for him.
The owner of the hand had approached entirely silently among the crowd, wearing a heavy jacket with the hood up. Outwardly, the creature could have been mistaken for a homeless man, at least in the absence of a close inspection. It was only Alex’s Danger Sense that had alerted him to the… well, danger.
People surrounding them screamed but didn’t have a chance to move in what felt like a frozen moment.
In that moment, Alex locked gazes with pure-white, undead eyes.
Now that he was focused, he could sense the power within the creature. Continuing to follow his new instincts, he used Analyze. A System notice flashed across his understanding as much as before his eyes.
Wight
Undead (Uncommon), Level 4
HP: 95%
MP: 95%
Conditions:
Right Hand weakened
Apology Tutorial Addendum:
When most stare into the eyes of their killer, they just wish that they’d had longer to live.
You? You want to know who and what your attacker was.
You do you!
It was odd how much more information he got from a monster than he had from Natasha. In that moment, he felt like it was a spark within the wight similar—if twisted—to that he'd seen within every person around them, earlier. Somehow, he could tell that it was marginaly less potent than it should be, hence the percentage. Even so, he really couldn’t focus on the informational difference in that moment.
Alex broke free from the frozen moment even as the obviously magical blood was still splattering through the air.
He drove his dadao forward and into the creature’s shoulder. The blade barely pierced into the heavy jacket even as the wight hissed at him.
Right… not a thrusting weapon.
Some of the forms had thrusts incorporated into them, and that was why he used the move, but generally, this type of sword was for chopping and slashing. Even so, he did some damage and some combination of his skills let him get a good sense of its remaining health just by glancing at it.
He felt like it was at about 94% now… His thrust had barely hurt it at all.
Well, that isn’t good. Since when do undead wear anything like armor? It was just a heavy coat, but even so…
Then, the wight struck back, attacking in two ways.
First, indirectly. The splattered blood landed on nearby, fleeing pedestrians, and seemed to vanish through their skin like pebbles into a pond, the wight’s own magic using the blood as a medium.
Second, directly. It clawed toward him with its left hand.
Alex firmed his resolve. He knew what to do. He could win this.
Alex stepped sideways to gain just enough distance from the clawing attack, pulling back his blade before punching it forward, between two of the outstretched fingers.
He struck true, splitting the undead’s hand and slashing even further.
He cut between the two bones of its forearm all the way to the elbow before jerking the blade sideways and removing one half of the split forelimb entirely.
The wight fell backward, screeching in pain even as the infected pedestrians finished turning, far more quickly than he would have expected.
It didn’t matter.
He beheaded each in turn, kicking away the wight between each zombie death.
He was the herald of final rest for these undead.
He was Alex.
Alex’s incredibly agile mind had come up with a perfect plan.
It would work.
He could do this.
He stepped sideways, beginning the execution of his plan, but the enemy didn’t act as he’d hoped and expected.
The wight moved faster than he had imagined.
It raked its claws down his chest, leaving vicious tears across his flesh and pain radiating throughout his entire body.
In another frozen moment—this time from pain rather than surprise—only one thought ran through his heightened mind, Well…polka dot umbrellas. That didn’t work.
J.L.Mullins
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