Sponsored Apocalypse 2, ch 9

I took my time heading towards the farms outside of town, traveling cautiously.  There was plenty of evidence of monsters and people who had passed through the area, but other than some vehicles in the distance and the omnipresent, distant sounds of gun shots, I didn’t have any issues.

The relative peace was a nice change of pace.

I made good time, even though I mostly kept to the woods by following motorcycle trails.  When I started to get close to my destination, I went off the path into a thick bush for some concealment to take a break.  While I sat, I looked at my new character list.

It was getting even longer.  I realized as I looked at it that now I might have confirmed what Aldina said about killing other people not giving any XP.  The thought was comforting.

My character sheet read:

Miles Lindstrom 

Title(s): 

First Ten to Five 

First Five to Ten 

First Transcendents 

Challenge Room Champion 

Champion of Anubis 

Goblin Vanquisher 

Xenocide 

Level 41 

Class: Dark Contractor 

Traits: 

Merciless Xenocide: Poison 

Stats:

Str: 9

Dex: 6

End: 12

Int: 7

Will: 11

Origina: 1

Luck: 6

Reflex: 7

Armor (nat): 1

Available Advancement Points: 0

Affiliations: 

Sponsored by Anubis 

Associated Sponsor Titles: New Champion 

Boons: 

Eternal Struggle Reward System 

Class Skills: 

Entity Domination 

Sense Summons 

Summons:

[Goblin Spirit Summon]

Prime Skills: 

Tsukumogami Embrace 

Spirits of the Past 

Built Different 

First to Five Eyes 

Lower Prime Skills: 

Bone Strengthening 

Elastic Joints 

Natural Armor 

Basic Magic Resistance 

Lower Mystic Mind Armor 

Active Skills: 

Saliva of Hared Ha 

Bone Truth Eyes 

Basic Enchanted Sleep 

Pulverizing Pebbles 

Angry Arrows 

Transfiguration: Alcohol to Water 

Toxic Breath of Hellas Portentis 

Equipment-Related Skills: 

Better Days Auto Whisk 

Beaded Benediction of Delayed Solace 

Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain 

Lindstrom Family Hammer 

Private Malone’s Last Stand 

Weeping Island’s Resolve 

Passionate Earth Mover 

Sparkys Lucky Nail

Tuning Fork of the Forgotten Composer

Bent Crowbar of Ben the Scavenger

Heavily Borrowed Land Nav Compass

Enchanted Equipment: 

Iron Bracelet of the Weeping Island 

Skills: 

Dagger Combat 

Hammer Combat 

Magic Combat 

Club Combat 

Spear Combat 

Sword Combat 

Scythe Combat 

Explosive Combat 

Enchantment Combat 

Earthworks 

Ambush 

Healing Salve Application 

Firearms (pistols) 

Combat Endurance 

Pet Combat 

Familiar Communication 

Poison Application 

Chemical Warfare 

Execution

Conjuration

Tactics

The additional Willpower I’d gotten, a free stat, was even luckier since it was added to my second largest stat.  Nice, I thought.  Maybe if I’d had such a high willpower a few years ago, I would have done better in school.

Now I could drill down into [Angry Arrows] and see that the ability was stronger.

I had a few new skills. Conjuration jumped out at me first, and I wondered why I hadn’t gotten it for summoning Bacon before.  “Tactics” was new, too. 

There were still a lot of things about my character sheet that I didn’t understand, but some if it was starting to be a little less mysterious.  For instance, upon demonstrating aptitude in something the system thought justified a skill, it didn’t actually help me or make me more powerful. But now I knew that I could use my points from leveling up to force my skills to get better instead of taking the time and effort to improve them through practice.

I could definitely see how this could benefit some people going in different directions with their powers.  Like…if someone was a dedicated swordsman, investing in “Sword Combat” might be a good use of points, especially later when it would be harder to get better at it.

Of course, that would probably cost more points, too.

The system kind of makes sense at the same time as it doesn’t, I concluded.

When I left the bush and started walking again, I realized about fifteen minutes later that I was getting closer to my destination.  Then the woods began to thin and I slowed down.

From the edge of the forest, I used my trusty binoculars to watch the farm in the distance. This was one of several cattle farms in a row, to one side of a winding road. I hadn't been this way out of town very often before, but I’d come this way enough to know that the area seemed to be missing a lot of cows. What's more, the ones I could see were all huddled up together. 

I was not an animal behaviorist, but it didn't require further study or a deep understanding of cows to know that they were terrified. Of course, the mostly consumed cow corpse about one hundred yards away was a really good indicator that something was up too. None of the fences had been broken.  The cows were trapped.

There was still plenty of time in the day left, so I played it safe, staying in the woods and carefully scanning all of the farms that I could see. I paid special attention to the farmhouses, especially the nearest one, and frowned sadly when I noticed signs that the occupants were probably no longer alive. The back door was open, two of the windows had been smashed inwards, and there was what looked like a splatter of blood on the siding of the house near the front door. I couldn't spot any human bodies though, which was a little grim.

Finally, after a careful inspection of the entire area, long enough that I had even spotted a small canine monster as it traveled in the distance, crossing from one wooded area to another on the other side of the road, I decided to make my move.  The fact the canine monster had taken one look towards the farms before heading in the other direction had been ominous.

Well, I came here to find monsters, I thought.  It’s looking like I found some.  Maybe 

I kept well clear of the cows, not even stepping foot in their fields, so this meant I had to walk a much longer distance. The move was cautious, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. I had no idea if the cows were actually even still cows, or if they were infected with something, or were otherwise dangerous. Even if they were regular, mundane, cows, if all of them stampeded towards me, I was going to have a tough time.

As I got closer to the farmhouse, I realized that the situation I was currently seeing was likely a problem in other ways too. Even though a lot of people on the planet had probably died by now, food shortages might end up being a serious problem in the near future. Distribution was also a problem unless tractor-trailers in the United States could still run, and that was highly doubtful. Maybe trains would end up being the savior of humanity within the next year? I had no idea. If I survived long enough to meet up with Aldina again, maybe I could just ask her. She would probably know.

I made it to the closest farmhouse without any real problems and made a slow circuit of the perimeter. My senses were on high alert, and my adrenaline was spiked. I thought about my freakishly high Endurance stat with amusement. The only reason I could even be doing what I was doing so soon after a life and death struggle with an armed group earlier, then a brisk hike while carrying all my gear, was because of my superhuman endurance.  I was completely certain of that.

A circuit of the farmhouse didn't turn up any more clues. I was ready to activate [Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain] at any second to give myself some extra toughness. The broken football helmet I was wearing now, the only thing I’d gotten from the junkyard that was not mystical in nature, was a bit comforting. The helmet wouldn't stop a bullet, but against monster claws or a club or something, it could help a lot. I felt weird wearing the helmet, but honestly, the strangest part of it for me was that it was a Steelers helmet when I'd always been kind of a Green Bay Packers fan.

My focus was laser sharp, but something was stopping me from moving forward.  There was something in the air, or maybe my nerves were getting the best of me.  Maybe it was my instincts.  I realized I'd been staring at the open back door for about ten minutes and finally steeled my nerve to enter. 

Damn it.  Damn this world.  I couldn't help but remember the scenes of horror that I'd seen when I'd explored the goblin-ravaged housing development with Aldina. Luckily, I didn't see any bodies in the house, nor monsters, though I did see signs of a struggle. Some of the furniture had been knocked over and even destroyed. There were bullet holes all over the walls. And now that I was in the house, I could see that some of the windows had actually been punched out in small sections from gunfire, but not all the way.

Well, this is probably not good, I thought, with my heart in my throat. I crept around the house, going from room to room, and I even saw some in what was obviously a child's bedroom.  The experience was incredibly creepy.  I was starting to wonder which was worse, exploring a house with carnage all over the floors, or when there should be and there wasn’t any. 

Looking top to bottom, I didn't see anything except puddles of old blood.  Feet or shoes had tracked through some of the blood.  There were monster tracks, but I couldn’t quite make them out.  Guns were on the floor.  Most of them were complete out of ammo, and I didn’t find anything worth taking with me.  They’d just be added weight on top of all the stuff I was already carrying.

The entire house seemed weighed down with a horrible, heavy sense of sorrow. 

I found the hatch to the attic.  Slowly, ready for anything, I opened it and lowered the stairs.  Nothing happened.  The darkness above was making me much more nervous that it otherwise would have, and I gave myself a pass for that.

It’s not every day that someone explores a house where people had obviously had their last stand.  At least, it wasn’t every day I did it.  I made a face when I realized that I’d been doing an awful lot of it lately, though.

I thought of my skills and suddenly realized that I could use [Beaded Benediction of Delayed Solace] to light up the attic. That would be a bit of a waste, though.  Instead, I got a flashlight out of my pack, turned it on, and set it on the stairs.  Most of the light made its way into the attic.

My metaphorical finger was poised to activate [Stalwart Pan of the Lonely Mountain] in a heartbeat.

Then, using a hand mirror that I attached to the end of my bayonet, I was able to verify that the attic was empty. There was truly nothing up there. The family who lived in this house must have not celebrated Christmas or something. 

Oh, never mind, I thought. I'd spoken too soon. Behind me in one corner were a few colorful totes, and I noticed some dusty, fake pine needles, probably a wreath. I found this family's holiday decorations, but there wasn't anything else in the attic.

Now I was curious. I highly doubted that the monsters that attacked this place, whatever they were, had gotten up in the attic. So I wondered why the family hadn't hidden up here. Maybe they hadn't known what was happening until it was too late? I figured that was probably the best guess. After all, they'd been taken unawares. 

This was America, so even if people knew monsters existed, they would probably assume that they were zombies or something like that.  They’d also likely assume that anything smaller than a dinosaur could be killed with most modern firearms. In reality, even a lot of dinosaurs could probably be killed with a modern rifle.  However, not only had the system changed the world, but there were some monsters that guns just wouldn't work on very well. And we were all still in the tutorial phase.

I shook my head sadly and left the house, grateful to be outside. I really hadn't wanted to be in there much longer. Although nerve-wracking, the exploration of the house had told me several things about this particular monster invasion. Maybe in general. I'd already slept in an attic once before, and I was starting to wonder if that might be one of the best places to hide out from monsters. Now I sort of regretted not checking the attics in the goblin-ravaged residential neighborhood. But I hadn't been in a very good state of mind back then. 

Maybe Aldina had checked. I couldn't remember. We've been talking back then, so if somebody was hiding, they probably would have identified themselves. I didn't know if that was actually true, but the thought made me feel better.

It was kind of an interesting thing how my overall misanthropy seemed to slowly be weakening in the face of the absolute travesties that I've seen so far. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that yet. Maybe with monsters running around, people weren't so bad, even if they could be assholes.  Better to have dickhead neighbors than absolute evil.

Maybe Karens weren’t actually absolutely evil.  Close, but no cigar.  I cracked a smile at my own joke and wondered if I was starting to go crazy.

About twenty yards outside the house, I put my hands on my hips and looked around again. I was reasonably sure that whatever monsters had killed these people were probably the same ones that had been picking off the cattle. Well, actually, I had no idea if that was the case, but I decided to operate as if it were. Whatever it was had to be small enough to get inside a human-sized doorway, and I had definitely seen some inhuman prints in the blood in the house. 

I frowned as I absently tried drawing them in the dirt with my foot.  The prints were weird, but I figured they were probably made by something that wasn't too much larger than a man, if it was larger at all.

With one more scan of the area, it became obvious to me where the monsters might have gone to ground. Now it seemed sort of obvious.  Behind each farmhouse on each farm were at least one or two barns. At the farm I was standing in, there was one barn. 

Now that I was actually at one of the farmhouses, I could definitely count and see that there were a total of four cattle farms in a row. The farthest farm was barely in sight. Each of the barns that I could they were made of metal or at least had metal roofs, with the exception of the closest one, which was a smaller barn made entirely of wood. I wasn't quite sure what to expect but with a mental shrug, I went to go explore the barn. Part of me hoped I wouldn't find any monsters, but mostly I did.  Not just for some retribution, but also because I had used up quite a bit of the day so far and I still hadn't killed any monsters or leveled at all. I chuckled as I walked, realizing that I was putting pressure on myself to kill things. Yeah, I definitely had changed.

As terrifying as exploring the house had been, I knew the barn would be just as bad, maybe worse. But I pushed forward. Even though it almost killed me, the challenge portal truly had been one of the best worst experiences I could have had. Suffering for hours and hours on end, while being stung by venomous, creepy crawlies, all while fighting with everything I had, had definitely done something to temper me.

All my brave thoughts fled the moment I got to the barn and saw so many tracks leading up to it.  The sliding doorway was open just a crack, and the ground in this area had been so soaked with blood, it was still mushy under my feet.

"Fuck," I muttered.