Excise: A Post-Apocalyptic LitRPG (Ether Collapse Book 2)

by Ryan DeBruyn

  Rocky dropped the nonchalance and laughed uproariously along with Smith. The Native American man sobered after a time and looked after the two, “I saw them change a lot of people’s minds today. Especially the quiet one. He reminds me of a Native Elder—or a grandfather if you prefer. He has a way of speaking to himself but conveying wisdom through it.” His face morphed into a fatherly smile, and he continued into the silence, “I hope you know I wasn’t against bringing them in and am glad that the people’s minds seem to be changing now that they’ve arrived.”

  “I was just thinking to myself that I hope they find some more like themselves when they’re out saving humans!” He smiled back at the man. “I will feel a lot better about the safety of everyone and this Territory with more of them around.”

  Instead of buoying Smith’s mood, Rocky’s comment made the man grow serious. “I’ve been meaning to ask what you plan to do with Derik. I know he can be an ass, but honestly, I truly believe he was under control since we all returned. If what you said about Frankie is true, he was a huge part of what you all went through in Ottawa as well.”

  Rocky nodded somberly, but his voice was hard and somewhat cold, “I don’t plan to kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. However, I can’t just let what he did go unpunished, Smith. I know he’s your friend, and you’ll see the best in him, but from his own retelling, he wasn’t truly under full control of the Dragon Heartstring until after you dosed him with your potion.” Smith’s face fell further when he was reminded of his own part in the man’s fall to madness.

  It would appear that the Meditation every morning had managed to ward off a large portion of the effects of the necklace for Derik, and it had done the same for the others Frankie corrupted. They were, in fact, lucky that it seemed Frankie’s skill possessed some sort of cooldown—at least Rocky assumed as much—or they would have been attacked by far more people when they returned. In fact, Frankie assumed that they’d been forced to kill ninety-plus citizens to rid them of the corruption he worked.

  Rocky took a deep breath and softened his tone a bit, “I think if he and the others are willing to switch places with the four exiled members until they too have proven themselves, then that’s what I’m leaning towards.” He motioned towards the entrance of the Grotto. “I know that the four out there were in a similar situation as he was, and I think allowing them to rejoin their families will give the surviving twenty who are going to be ‘exiled’ hope.” He air quoted exiled because he felt that it was a very tame exile to allow them to remain in the protective safety of the Territorial borders.

  Smith opened his mouth for a moment with a thoughtful look on his face but never managed to respond because Joe came jogging up. “Rocky, according to my men, the shop AI has a message for you from someone. It will only deliver it to you.” He paused as he noticed Smith. “Oh, hey, Joaquim, sorry to intrude. Didn’t see you behind Rocky.” Smith smiled and made a dismissive gesture at Rocky with his hand. Rocky had to assume that meant he was satisfied with his decision or that he would hear more about it later.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The message was from Garnell, and Rocky felt confused as to why he would want to meet him in the shop at his earliest convenience but figured it was best to wait for Sela to wake up. While he felt relatively comfortable making a trip to the Bazaar himself, he had a strange feeling that Sela would be rather upset she missed it if he went without her. Instead, he’d gone into the Guild Tent and tried to keep a wakeful vigil on Sela using his trusty camping chair that he picked up on that fateful first day of the apocalypse but never really used. He quickly discovered that sitting down in something as comfortable as a chair gave his body an excuse to promptly fall asleep.

  He woke up to find Sela gone and that he had the entire Guild Tent to himself. He sat up and ran outside to discover Tao leading the Meditation that he normally would have led—not that it bothered him in the slightest. He sat down beside the nearest person and joined in as he contemplated why they’d let him oversleep. Were they really that sick of his poor instructions?

  I mean, with that giant leading the Meditation, it is easier to see him. Even sitting near the back, I can make out his dour expression.

  Rocky stuck his tongue out at Tao and saw a slight smile touch the corner of the golem’s lips. It was probably his imagination that Tao had noticed his childish antics; his eyes were closed after all. Instead of dwelling on it, Rocky closed his eyes and dove into himself. Once he became aware of his first Ether Channel, he immediately became aware of something else. Due to the most recent events in the Territory, the strange feeling almost broke his concentration as he freaked out and worried that it was some sort of attempt at manipulation.

  His skin broke out in a cold sweat, and he attempted to wrestle with the strands of Ether that touched his channels. As soon as he touched it with his projected consciousness, he heard a chuckle low and deep, followed by a familiar, angry voice, “Relax! You lazy sack of flesh!” Gamma’s unmistakable voice sounded in his mind.

  A moment later, Tao’s calm voice took its place, “Gamma, he was not present to hear the instructions. The others chose to let him sleep after how hard he’s been pushing himself. If he takes but a moment, he will see that we are guiding the apprentices in the art of Ether Channeling and Manipulation.”

  Rocky heard a physical grunt that shook the ground and could only have been Gamma’s response to the chastisement. He, however, relaxed after Tao’s words and sunk back into his calm, meditative state that he taught his guildmates was best for Channeling and Manipulation. Once he’d accomplished the proper mind space, he felt the subtle direction that Tao, and surprisingly Gamma, were offering.

  He allowed the small dendrite in and followed it through his channels in a pattern he hadn’t known existed. Every loop he created made endless figure eights forming around the central point of his heart. Within fifteen minutes, he had something that looked like a daisy in his mind with his heart at its center.

  The dendrite began to withdraw, and Rocky unconsciously continued to follow it. The moment it left his channels, his manipulated Ether tried to follow, but as soon as it exited his body, he gasped and lost focus. For a millisecond, he had felt everything so distinctly in the small space his Ether had touched. It was like he knew every nanobot that made up his under armor, every follicle that made up his skin, the denseness and flexibility of his leather armor, everything! He only knew about a piece the size of a quarter for each of those, but it had been absolutely shocking to see without seeing.

  To his surprise, Gamma stood up and told everyone to get to work. Rocky put a hand on the man’s arm beside him as he rose and asked, “What about the martial training?”

  The man smiled. “That was done first on Tao’s instruction; he said he wanted to build up a sweat and then give our bodies time to cool back down and absorb the teachings.” Rocky felt his eyebrows rise as the man patted his hand and moved away with the crowd.

  He was overjoyed that the man had treated him so normally, and he couldn’t stop the massive grin that split his face as he walked to join Sela, Joe, Smith, and Zippo, who were all converging on Tao. A bump in his back made him turn to see a massive lion head, and he turned to walk backward as he scratched Azoth everywhere he could reach.

  When they both arrived, Azoth mentally sent with his usual childish excitement, “Tell Tao he much better at that than you!”

  No more scratches for you! Traitor!

  He turned to Tao and instead claimed, “Azoth says you’re very good at that!” Azoth gave Rocky a shocked look, and Tao chuckled deeply from inside his chest as he winked at the massive Chimera.

  “He knows you is liar,” Azoth crowed in victory at him as he left Rocky’s side and wound around the much larger golem’s legs in mimicry of a house cat. Rocky felt his eyebrows rise at Azoth’s choice, but also found it funny to see a dump truck-sized Chimera treat a converted four story-ish building as a rubbing post.

  Tao r
eached down and patted Azoth on the head before looking to Gamma, and in his stead, Gamma awkwardly rehearsed, “We would like to thank you also. We both learned a bit more about stat ellipse capping and chaining from your Mont-iss-sorry group.” Rocky felt his eyebrows climb higher at the news. How long had they let him sleep in? He looked at Sela, who opened her hand in a placating gesture and pushed it down in a sign he interpreted as ‘calm down’.

  Joe smiled at Gamma and responded for the group, “I’m sure it’s currently more valuable for people of your impressive strength and levels. It will be a while before we reach the exponential breakthrough points, but I do believe it’s a good piece of knowledge for growth. Perhaps it speaks to a strategy of pushing a single stat with the free stat points we receive.” Joe finished with his hand on his chin, and Tao seemed to look thoughtful as Rocky looked up at his massive, aged, copper face.

  Zippo grew excited and whispered something in Joe’s ear. Joe smiled and then excused himself and Zippo with a quick, “Thank you again for the training, Tao and Gamma. Zippo wants to walk and talk about the lessons learned this morning. Would anyone care to join as we go to inspect the construction?”

  At his words, Tao gave a meaningful glance to Gamma, who was surprisingly smiling at Zippo.

  Could the angry golem have a soft spot for children? Too bad Zippo is the only teenager we brought back from Ottawa.

  That thought sobered Rocky, and he felt his shoulders climb towards his ears as he heard Gamma grumble, “Tao and I will join you; we have work to be about as well.” He somehow made the sentiment upset even though Rocky had just seen him smiling.

  What a Negative Nancy.

  Rocky spoke up then as well, “Joe, we’re going to have to deal with Derik and the other survivors of the failed ambush now. You sure you can miss that?”

  Joe looked surprised and then nodded sadly before indicating Smith; then he responded, “I talked with Smith earlier, and what he has to say is both well thought out and the best course of action. However, the final decision is yours. I’ll be around if I’m needed.” Then he turned and continued away with Jason.

  A cleared throat sounded, and Smith awkwardly intoned, “I’ve asked for a bit of privacy during your pronouncement.” He took a deep breath in and then gave one of the most awkward smiles Rocky had ever seen before continuing, “This morning we asked for nominations for the new citizen appointed council, and the name that came up the most was Derik’s.” He held up two hands to forestall Rocky from bursting in. “I know, I know. I just want to point out, I spoke to the people who did the nominating. Derik and I have been the only members of the current council,” Smith motioned around at the group and seemed to make it larger with that same gesture, “that have been going around and speaking with everyone to find out how they are feeling, what they need, and how to make their lives easier. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve the exile you’ve suggested. I just want to perhaps try to minimize the publicity of it.” He finished lamely, and Rocky blinked at him.

  “Do you mean that you think people would be upset with him receiving a punishment?” Rocky asked dumbly as he tried to understand what Smith meant.

  Sela nodded with a look of utter approval on her face and elaborated the question, “You want to minimize the shock and give people time to hear the rumor and ask questions about why Derik is in exile?”

  Smith tilted his head back and forth and then smiled. “Well, not in so many words,” he started sheepishly. “I just know that while most people have heard about the attack he made yesterday, I don’t think everyone has, as evidenced by his resounding support amongst some of the people for him to hold a council seat.”

  Rocky looked at Sela, who was nodding along and looking right back at him. “Good… thinking?” Rocky fumbled, feeling he had to say something but unable to think of anything better than that. Somewhere during the conversation, Joe, Zippo, and the two golems had walked out of sight towards the site of construction. So Rocky shrugged. “Well, let’s rip the Band-Aid off then…”

  As Smith took the lead towards the shop, Rocky asked Sela about the lesson that occurred this morning. She shrugged but answered, “It was overly complicated to point out something relatively simple. There are points, stat markers that, once reached, will create a breakthrough effect.” At Rocky’s puzzled look she shook her head and chuckled. “Okay, I realize that isn’t enough, now that I said it. For example, the first breakthrough point is at fifty points in any stat. Essentially, if you graph increases to your body, you will see that from about one to twenty-five points in a stat, you have exponential growth. Each point placed in a stat at this point will increase the associated characteristics by more than a single point will later.”

  She made a motion of a steeply rising curve with her hand then held her finger at the point she finished at in the air. “Then from twenty-five to thirty-five, you will have something closer to linear growth.” This time, she made a flatter line of increase with her hand and again held her finger at the point she reached. “During the linear period, think of every point added to the stat increasing the characteristics by a factor of one, at least in comparison to the exponential portion. Finally, from thirty-five to fifty, you have an inverse exponential, where every point placed into the stat is less effective than the one before it until you are placing stat points but they are almost doing nothing. With me so far?”

  Rocky nodded and swallowed before asking the obvious, “And after fifty?”

  “That’s why they are called breakthroughs, Rocky. After fifty, you have a steeper exponential increase for every stat point entered, then a higher sloped linear relation where one stat point gives you two, and finally, another inverse exponential leading to the next breakthrough, which is at one hundred and fifty.” Sela continued with a bit of exasperation in her voice. She made the motion of the strange curves joining each other over and over again in the air, “This pattern was dubbed Stat Learning Chains because of the unique S shape they make. Before you get too hung up on it and choose to base decisions off of it, please realize it is a purely theoretical notion that was put forward in my time. It was never proven–”

  Sela cut off as she realized Rocky had stopped listening to her. From her explanation, he realized most of his stats were about to reach the slower growth period. Sela frowned when she realized she was being tuned out and rolled her eyes seeing that her warning had been pointless; Rocky was clearly going to try to create a strategy based on the knowledge she just shared. A moment later, she smiled as he mumbled strategies to himself, and she shrugged; it was better to make plans for the future, after all, and while unproven, the theory was widely believed to be true.

  Should my focus be on pushing a prime stat to fifty to gain the increased growth? Or should I try to get all my stats to thirty-five to maximize my current growth?

  Rocky was so consumed by statistic strategy, he didn’t even realize when they arrived at the prisoner holding grounds and accidentally ran into Smith’s back. He sheepishly apologized before looking around and noticing the military guards and tanks on duty in the clearing. His eyes then fell on the twenty-two prisoners before he turned and met Derik’s defeated slouch. He felt somewhat bad for the man, as he truly did believe the attack was not entirely of his doing. However, he knew that a lot of his negativity and elitist attitude was entirely of his own design. Perhaps the exile would help him.

  As Rocky looked over the group, Smith whispered in his ear, “Do you mind if I tell them? And lead them to the other group of four?” Rocky, who’d been dreading the pronouncement, really wanted to let Smith be the bearer of bad news, but a glance at Sela reminded him that he was the leader here, and he better get used to that fact.

  He shook his head sadly at Smith and stepped forward to address the people present, “What happened yesterday was regrettable. Each person present harbored ill-intent towards me or my team, and because of it, people lost their lives.” He paused and looked at the military surrounding the pri
soners, then back at the Territory.

  Turning back slowly, he added, voice starting soft and gaining hardness as he continued, “Your violence wouldn’t have stopped at me and could have injured one of the men you see around you. If not one of them, then one of the innocents in the Grotto because you attacked right in the heart of it!”

  He took a deep breath to calm down before he spoke again, “I’m going to give you all the same opportunity that was given to the people who aided Arti during his disgusting deeds. You will be exiled from the Grotto–”

  The outcry from the individuals present cut him off, and a lump formed in his throat. He looked over at Sela, who was stoic, and wondered how she remained so steadfast in her determination. With her as his example, he hardened his resolve and dismissed any turmoil over the situation.

  He continued monotonously, “Smith will lead you to the other four exiles and will ask them to spend three days teaching you how they survived outside of the protection of these natural defenses.” Rocky opened his arms wide, indicating the natural bluffs and river that surrounded them on all sides. “After they’ve shown you the ropes, they’re welcome to rejoin us here in the Grotto. However, now that we have a guild, a few changes will come about in your treatment. First, you will be placed on the limited hunting list for the King’s Forest. This means that during your exile, all your loot will be taken and held by the guild. You can keep the meat and pelts, but that’s all.”

  Rocky saw a few grow agitated and angry in the group, so he raised his voice, “You’re welcome to hunt outside of the Territory and keep everything you kill, but there are no protections in place out there,” he pointed up and away, “to limit the levels of creatures!”

  He took a pragmatic pause, meeting eyes with the angry individuals in the group he had seen. Once they lowered theirs, he continued, “Second, Smith or someone from the military will come meet with you daily to guide you all in Meditation training. If you have any extras you wish to send back to the Grotto, that is your choice and should be sent back with the individual who meets with you.”