Sponsored Apocalypse, ch 23

After fading away, the world seemed to be turned sideways.  Then it turned the other direction before resolving.  My vision flickered like an out of focus TV screen.  As the world came back into focus, my heart seemed to stop beating until it all stopped moving.  And then, just like that, I was standing back in my world.  Back to reality.

When I felt finally, firmly back in the moment, I looked around and saw that Aldina was in the room with me. The disturbance that had been in the air, the portal, was gone. The room itself was completely empty now. Aldina saw me, and her eyes widened.

“Thank goodness you're alive,” she said.  Her palm came up and she rubbed her forehead.  Then she stumbled to me and lightly touched my arm.  “I was worried I’d come back and you’d be half-dead on the floor.  Practically no time has passed here in the real world since we entered, so I was worried about treating you if you were injured, too.  I just got back a few seconds ago.”  She took a deep breath.  “You’re okay?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “So you know what that was?”

She coughed and picked at the skin on her wrist, a whiplash of emotions plain to see on her face, relief most visible.  “The Faceted should have told you that it was an Assessment Room, right?  The place past where we just fell through?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Most people actually call them Challenge Portals, or they will in the near future I guess.”

”Makes sense,” I said.  “Kind of just a more literal wording for what they are.

“Yeah.  A lot of people think the Faceted call it an ‘Assessment Room’ to make them seem less scary. So people are more likely to fail that way, probably.  Marketing.  The prizes are real, but so are the dangers, especially when people get greedy and push too hard.”

I sat with my back against the wall and blew out my cheeks. “So did you get something good?”

She sat on the other side of the room facing me and studied me.  Maybe she felt the same way I did, that things had changed.  I felt different, and I could tell that my relationship with Aldina was different now.

It was weird that just a short time ago, this housing development that had been decimated by goblins. Actually, much more time had passed for me than here, so nothing had really changed before we’d fallen through the portal.

Before the Challenge Portal, this residential neighborhood had seemed like hell on earth. It was still bad, still gross, still hopeless. But now…I felt like I’d been through a crucible of a different sort.  Instead of making me feel adrift, or lost, all the horrible things I’d seen in this place lit a fire in my belly.

I really had changed.  My unfocused, background level desire to get stronger had been refined, underlined. And now I knew a truth–in order to evolve from being just a cog in this machine, much less ever find the ones responsible for destroying my world, I needed to take risks. Danger was a fuel for greatness, at least in this new world.  If I wanted to accomplish any of my lofty goals, I couldn't be the same Shrug Lindstrom as before.  I couldn’t just skate through life before.

Honestly, I felt a little shame about it now, how I’d been. When I’d been preparing for the end of the world, there had almost been a part of me that was happy about it, knowing that everything was going to reset.  In most of the scenarios I’d theorized, I’d been set up to potentially be very, very rich…unlike I'd ever been in life before.

My perspective had changed.

Even though this apocalypse was much worse than anything I’d envisioned, the truth was the same for any end of the world event.  After seeing the cost, what had happened to my world, even if I’d kept all my stuff…there was just no joy in it.  Maybe deep down, I just wasn't a selfish enough person to turn a blind eye to what was happening around me.

Even if I someday managed to attain power necessary to ignore the horror around me…now I wasn’t sure if I was somebody who could. I still didn't like people, I didn't think that would ever change. But I still…cared.

Now I felt like I understood Aldina a lot better.  She was surviving, getting stronger.  Her highest priority had to be selfish.  She didn’t go out of her way to help other people, probably also because people were great at stabbing others in the back.  But at the same time, if she saw somebody in need, or thought someone needed help when she was there…

Aldina was still not me.  I don’t think I’d ever look through an entire residential area like this one to look for survivors, but I understood it now.  It made me admire Aldina more.  How could she be through everything she’d been through, much of it only hinted so far, but still…allow herself to care as much as she did?

I looked at my character sheet again. Now I was level 25.  

Finally Aldina said, “I got something that will be of great help, yes.  In fact, I got really lucky.”

The mood was strangely solemn between us.  I nodded and said, “I have another question.”

“Shoot.”

“You said at level 20 we can become a full blown champion or something right?”

“That’s what I said.”

“So let’s say I’m getting close to level 20.  Does it happen right away?”

She gave me a knowing look.  “Depends.  It would be a death sentence for most to just suddenly lose control in the middle of a fight.  The gods aren’t stupid.  They’ll usually talk to you when it’s a good time…or at least when they think so.”

Good, I thought. One less thing to think about.

“Any more questions?” she asked.  “You know, I really am glad you survived the Challeng Portal.  Even in my past life, they weren’t something that people could take lightly.”

“Thanks.”  I briefly thought about all the stuff Aldina knew, knowledge that could help me. But then I thought about how little it’d helped me with the Challenge Portal.  And I also wondered if I would have taken the risk to try it out if I’d known more about it before hand.  Maybe falling in had been one of the best things to happen to me so far since the end of the world.  My resolve hardened and I repeated, “So you really got something good, huh?  From the Challenge Portal.”

Her eyes came up. “Yeah.”

I shrugged.  “So…I think that might mean you don't actually need me around all that bad anymore, right?  Like as a backup healbot.”

She slowly shook her head but her eyes didn’t change.

I said, “Let me make this easy for you. I know that we weren't best friends when we met. We were strangers.  But I do have a certain amount of trust for you now. Meanwhile, the writing's on the wall. Realistically, even though we both get XP when we're together, we'd probably get more if we were solo. It seems like you don't need me all that much anymore, and I’ll be honest, I kind of want to try making it solo, too.  Also, we have the weirdness of how many monsters there are.  If we help ourselves, we’ll help the people around here more, too.

“Basically, even though I think even though there's a higher chance I’ll die, I’ll grow faster if you…aren’t with me.”

Aldina didn’t say or do anything, just continued to listen.  It made me a little nervous, but I continued, “This is what I think we should do. Uh, let's split, part ways. But let's meet up again in a week.”

She finally responded by shaking her head.  “A week is too long.  By that point, if we stay busy, actually do what we’re supposed to do and don’t die, it’ll be slim picking around here.  Maybe the most powerful, most dangerous monsters will still be around, but my goal is to get stronger, not clear out the entire area.  Other, new monsters will just move in anyway.  A week can go by fast.

“Something to maybe start accepting is that most normal survivors are nowhere near where we are right now.  It hasn’t even been 2 days here on earth yet since everything went to hell.  We were already ahead of the game to begin with, and we just did a Challenge Portal.  So in a week, if we're going to actually continue growing more powerful, we’d probably need to go somewhere else.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“Alright.  I think four days would be better.  Half a week rounded up.”

I held up a hand, signaling that I was thinking about it. After a second, I had to admit she had a point.  The reality was I was not a normal human anymore.  Without my system-granted abilities and stats, I wouldn’t have even been able to roll out of bed back in Aldina’s little bunker.  Four days was actually probably still a lot of time for me now.  I’d barely even need any sleep.  On top of that, I could sorta-kinda see in the dark now.  “Okay, four days. So where are we going to meet up again?”

Aldina gave me a half smile. “Well, if you're not working with me anymore, you won't have access to my safe house or my bunker. So how about in front of the tunnel that leads to my bunker?”

Oh shit, I thought. I hadn't actually considered that.  My house is gone, too!  Out Loud, I said, “That sure would be convenient for you, wouldn't it?”

She laughed/  “Well, yeah. But on the other hand, I think it's fair, since I've taught you quite a few things now.”

I remembered how she'd been so firm about paying her debts when I'd first met her. And now I was starting to understand why. There was some sort of metaphysical weight to debts in this new world. I could feel edges of it, maybe even back when I'd been in the Challenge Portal with the Faceted.

Even then I’d felt that the Faceted didn’t care about my life at all.  But now I could tell there were definite rules to this new reality, rules that the bigger players had to abide by.

I needed to understand this world better. And even though asking Aldina a million more questions was attractive in its own way, I reminded myself I couldn’t entirely trust everything she said. Nobody was infallible and I really hadn’t even known her for very long. On top of that, there was part of me that was stubborn and wanted to see things with my own two eyes.

“All right,” I said with a shrug.  “Four days it is. So if and when I hit level 20 and this ‘Champion’ thing happens, do you have any parting advice for me?”

She hummed before saying, “I think if I tried to tell you anything more, it might actually do more harm than good. Like, because every situation can be so different. And every god is so different. I guess all I can say in general when you meet your god’s representative or priest is make sure to be respectful. Especially if you meet one in person.  No matter how casual they act or their intermediary acts, at some level a god will be communicating with you.

“All of the gods and all of the beings in the universe that are at that level of power should never be underestimated.”

I nodded.  “Okay. I'll keep that in mind.” Then I stood up. “I guess I'll be going. See you in four  days. Four days from tonight, actually. How about that?”

She smiled tiredly. “Sounds good.  Don’t slack off and don’t die.”

For the first time, I noticed that she had what appeared to be a new bracelet on her wrist. Maybe that was what she'd gotten from the Challenge Portal. If we both survived to see each other again, I made a mental note to ask about it.  For now, everything necessary to say had already been said.

I left the house without looking back.

My plan now was to spend some time figuring out my abilities while taking it easy for the rest of the day.  I was still going to kill monsters, just not go too crazy with it right away. And since I’d been reminded that I didn’t have a place to sleep, I still needed to figure that out, too.

Hopefully I’d figure out what was going on with my supposed impending Champion status soon.  Maybe I could find out what being sponsored by a god was all about.

At least my stress level ha gone down despite all the uncertainty.  I was pretty sure that now, surviving an attack by a group of goblins solo wouldn’t be too much of a problem, now that I’d leveled up so much.

Oh shit!

I'd been thinking about all my points, but I hadn't used them yet!

With a hiss, mentally cursing myself, I ducked into one of the empty houses nearby.

Running into the house had been dangerous, and I was being stupid, but I didn't want Aldina to see me standing there with my eyes and focus like an idiot. Especially not after walking away with resolve.  Protecting my pride in the middle of an apocalypse was making me feel even dumber, so I just stopped thinking about it.

Once I was in the house I opened my stat screen.  I had 8 points available to spend.