The System Apocalypse Short Story Anthology Volume 1: A LitRPG post-apocalyptic fantasy and science fiction anthology

by Tao Wong

  “It’s a pity you died in your attacks,” Vir said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “Do you think that lie will hold?”

  “Long enough for us to arrive on the new Dungeon World.”

  The Chameleon fell silent, weighing his choices and the seriousness of his opposition. Eventually, he relented under the pair’s silent focus. “Fine. What do you want?”

  “A token,” Roxley said, holding up a hand. “Three uses.”

  “One. No more than Master Class.”

  “Done.”

  The Chameleon’s nose wrinkled again, a new notification and Contract showing up on both their sides. After a quick acceptance, Roxley dismissed the assassin, watching it stroll out.

  Vir snorted as Roxley turned to him. “We’re looking. But at a guess, it’d be the Duchess.”

  “Her Envoy does favor Chameleons,” Roxley agreed. “Please do ensure the mansion is properly set-up. We have much to do.”

  0 Earth Days before System Initiation

  In his study, Roxley watched as the sentients on Earth reacted to the new notifications. Hands clasped behind his back, he looked at hundreds of open windows, letting the details flow into his subconscious mind as he searched for a common thread, for understanding. Soon enough, he would be their liege lord, and understanding his new people was paramount.

  In one corner, a woman stopped speaking, her voice stuttering as her presentation was interrupted. Dressed in a brightly colored sari, she gaped, swinging her gaze from side to side as her board members all stared dumbly into space. One after the other, the board members roused from their stupor and conversation broke out.

  A chimp wielding a stick and smashing it against a nut held in place on a split rock paused before it continued swinging, the notification dismissed, never to be seen again.

  Screaming, a construction worker in a fog-filled city fell from scaffolding, his footing lost as a blue screen appeared before his eyes. Frantically, the worker waved his hands, desperate to catch something, anything as he fell, never to see the new world.

  A killer wielding a knife was surprised when the knife sank into his victim’s shoulder, only for himself to be blinded. As he stood still in surprise, his hand was pried off the blade and the weapon taken for use by his victim. Blood flowed anew, in a surprising twist.

  In a prison, hushed silence fell over a previously noisy block. Shouts erupted before klaxons sounded, driving inmates who were hanging out back into their cells. The hubbub of conversation did not end as the outnumbered guards dismissed the notifications and attempted to quell the rising riot.

  A million stories, a billion of them. Some were peaceful, the new System members asleep and unaware of their introduction. They would receive a grace period when they woke. If they woke. In other locations, thousands, millions chose blindly and in haste, confirming the most important decision of their life as they dismissed it as a mass hallucination. Others grew quiet, concerned, a subconscious understanding giving them the time, the place to choose properly.

  In a small village, a “city” supposedly, its inhabitants were beginning to wake. Many dismissed the notifications as nothing more than a brief hallucination. Others chose more wisely, seeing the potential in this new world and hoping desperately that it was true. They wanted an escape from their mundane lives.

  And on one lonely mountain, a young man drew a deep breath, calmed himself, and achieved a world first.

  “How goes it, my lord?” Vir asked.

  “It goes well.” Roxley’s eyes drifted to the young man who stood in the middle of the wilderness, who would not survive the new few hours. Roxley dismissed the windows, turning to Vir. “Make arrangements. I had to spend more funds than I planned. We’ll have to travel via mundane teleportation.”

  “Not ideal.”

  “No. But it will do.”

  “Yes, my lord. We are ready to leave,” Vir said, bowing to his liege.

  Roxley drew a deep breath, casting his gaze once more to where the windows showing Earth had hung, then let it out. “Then let us go. To Whitehorse.”

  ***

  Intermission Four

  “Glad to hear you continue to mess up your Galactic expectations,” Amelia said with a smile. “But, any ideas of what they’re looking for. Other than the exceptional?”

  “Individuals – humans – of concern. Galactics as well, especially those who have been hampered in their progression before their arrival. I have already found the notices about myself and my lord,” Vir said. “But as well, any major Galactic incursions or takeovers.”

  “And what would you do with this information?”

  “It depends on the importance of that information, no?” When Amelia continued to stare at him, Vir sighed. “At the base level, we track and watch for such individuals. The Bounty Hunter might be of use in our own operations. His… companion… might be of interest if she continues to be around. At least, on a political level.

  “Others, like that creature are of no more than a passing interest. On a Galactic basis, it is not worth speaking of.”

  “Interesting. And if you’d found a human settlement who’d found a place with a Galactic? Who’d changed species?” Amelia said.

  “Like Tim and Carcross?” Vir said. “It would depend.”

  “Then tell me about this one,” Amelia flicked a new video over.

  Rebel Within

  by IX PHOEN

  Milliscorpion

  I jumped behind a mass of cacti and activated Subversive Stealth as my companion, Sumay, hovered above my head. Her wings were spread to keep her aloft, even though she could just as easily float while curled into a ball.

  “It’s tracing your scent trail, Adrian. You’ve got about ten seconds before it comes over the ridge,” Sumay sent. Our telepathic connection and her invisibility made it easy for her to spy while I stayed in hiding.

  My short brown hair and tanned skin would once have been my only reasons to believe I might remain invisible. When the System arrived, I had given up my humanity to become a Polymorph, able to change form and hide in plain sight. Now, my carefully reconstructed human appearance allowed me to fit in, and I was grateful for it.

  My best friend, Tae Song, caught my eye and offered an encouraging thumbs up as he crouched behind a drop-off. He held his Soulbound swords, ready to attack. As a Level 21 Twin Blade Defender, his job was to block the Level 60 Milliscorpion on my tail, preventing it from hitting me as I lured it into our trap. The creature had been prowling the mountain above our remote boarding school’s property for the last few days. We had decided to trap it on our own terms instead of waiting for it to surprise us.

  My Mana ticked upward as I waited for the signal to run.

  “It’s here. Go!” Sumay swooped toward the path I’d already mapped during our practice run.

  I activated Environmental Barrier, and the concealing cacti collapsed around me, flattened by a surge of Mana. My body absorbed the plants’ fluids in a revitalizing rush as the residue bonded to my skin for an extra few points of protection. Using Speed Boost, I leaped across the deeply carved stream bed at the cliff base and clambered upward.

  “Left! Stinger incoming!” Sumay sent.

  I dodged along a narrow, crumbling ledge, and a burst of stones rattled against my armor as the tail struck beside me. Already running low, my Mana drained rapidly, forcing me to release Environmental Barrier before the fibers could revert to shredding my skin. A cascade of thorns rattled toward the dry stream bed below.

  When I glanced down to check my progress, I realized the Milliscorpion had made it partway up the cliff behind me. Tae Song balanced on its back, his swords slicing at the joints of its tail. Hoping to distract the creature, I leaned to spit my own venom into its face. It jolted back, lost its grip, and skidded onto its side in the crevice below. I jumped to safety as Tae Song sprang away, leaving the stinger dangling by a thread. He flung himself behind a massive boulder as Cher launched Smite.


  A wave of light erupted from the earth beside me. On its own, the area-effect Spell wouldn’t have caused much damage to the Milliscorpion, but the cliff was another matter. A pulse shuddered through the ledge beneath me as the surface almost seemed to liquify and the truck-sized rock at the top tilted precariously. Dust billowed over the scene as a series of loud snaps, followed by a deep rumble, filled the air. I scrambled to find an unaffected location as my perch cracked and shuddered.

  When the air cleared enough to see again, I gave a sigh of relief. The landslide had pinned the Milliscorpion in the crevice, so even the lower-Level kids could safely participate in the kill. Its tail segments still swung violently free of the rubble, but Tae Song was already in motion to continue his initial task as the others ran to back him up.

  Cher lit up. As a Level 19 Holy Warrior, her Armor of God Skill coated her in literally shining Mana armor, and she drew her Radiant Sword Perk from storage. Her golden ponytail bounced as she jumped down the hillside to join the rest in bashing the writhing creature to death.

  I relaxed into my new role, keeping an eye out for anything that might be lured in by the battle while everyone was distracted. Sumay curled her lizard-like tail around my neck, offering a running telepathic commentary on the fight below. I tuned her out for the most part, assuming our plan would continue to work. We had enough experience by now that I knew everyone fought well as a team, and it was rare to have a moment of privacy to consider my situation.

  I was beginning to feel more and more useless as everyone Leveled. My morphed claws weren’t strong enough to pierce the Level 50 or higher monsters dominating the area. Frontline fighting wasn’t my strong point anyway. I needed some kind of ranged weapon that would mesh well with my Skills, and all the guns were taken. At least my Class would never paint a glowing target on my back, but hiding wasn’t of much help in a fight.

  Several of our party members cheered over gaining a Level when the Milliscorpion finally died. Distracted from my thoughts, I looked to see if anyone had poison debuffs for me to Purge, but everyone was already regenerating, some with the help of Marcus’s Minor Healing. Cher’s armor faded, and she wiped goo from her hands onto her ragged jeans as she found a perch where she could rest and keep watch with the others. Somehow, she still managed to look like a model, even while covered in muck.

  “Anything useful?” I swung my legs over the edge of the cliff as Mr. Sanders activated his Use What You’ve Got Skill to check for additional resources. He was our token teacher, sent along so the rest could imagine they were trying to keep us safe. Thankfully, he’d done a lot of hunting and hiking over the years and happened to be one of the few adults who treated us like equals.

  His rich, dark skin was dripping with sweat, drawing muddy lines through the pale dust coating his shaved head and muscular torso. He’d have made a terrifying Warrior, but everyone loved how his Logista Class Skills gave him the ability to break a carcass down to the parts that would be most useful to our crafters.

  He gestured for me to climb down. “Nothing we’d risk consuming, since you poisoned it. Thanks for that, by the way. The damage over time was a big help.”

  I shuddered. “The thought of eating bugs is just nasty!”

  “You’ve never tasted crab, have you?” He laughed and flicked through a screen, linking me in so Sumay could review the options.

  “We’ll use some of the meat for our cockroach herd. There are also several useful crafting components and a new toxin for you. Sumay might know if any of the rest could be worth more than our current stash. We won’t unearth the whole corpse this time.”

  I jumped from rock to rock back down the cliff, carefully avoiding the unstable area, then absorbed the venom sack with a touch. My Dimensional Lab would break it down and record its components later. Having a racial resistance and the ability to reproduce toxins meshed well with my Toxic Apothecary Class, even though I could only secrete one toxin at a time.

  Sumay became visible and, as usual, took a moment to preen, enjoying everyone’s admiring glances. Sunlight skimmed her black scales and wings with a shimmering rainbow. She had plucked the daydream of having a wyvern companion from my mind when I’d chosen her as my first Perk, and she decided the form suited her.

  “Keep the pincers,” she told Mr. Sanders. “They’re the most likely to be valuable. I’ll need upgrades from a Shop to be more accurate.” She disappeared again, unable to maintain visibility for long.

  Mr. Sanders nodded respectfully toward where he’d last seen her, then turned to direct the others. “Let’s finish up and head back before the light fades.”

  After wincing at the sight of Tae Song and a few of the others chopping into the creature, I hurried away. Ever since they’d learned I could secrete poison, I wasn’t allowed to help with harvesting. I couldn’t decide whether I felt grateful to avoid the disgusting task or excluded.

  “Sumay? I could just head along the highway to search for a Shop on my own. I’m not much use here.” Maybe I could create a better role for myself.

  “You need to bring a group.” Sumay landed on my shoulder as I groaned in irritation. “You’ll need help to carry enough loot to purchase some of the school buildings and turn the property into a Safe Zone. If you bring along an administration Class like Mr. Sanders, there’s an additional discount too. I could list even more reasons if you’d like.”

  I shook my head, feeling even more inadequate. Leaning back against the cliff, I practiced Chameleon Skin, taking on the color and textures of the stone behind me. Merging into the landscape this way took a lot less Mana than Morphic Disguise, but I sometimes wondered if I’d forget how to recreate my own face one of these days.

  Giving up my humanity had saved me in more ways than by simply making it easy to hide and run. Ironically, it was the end of the world that had given me hope.

  After my own parents called me a liar for asking for help after Coach Watson assaulted me, I had taken off for the national park behind the mountains. I’d spent multiple summers learning jungle survival skills from my Ayoreo friends. Based on those experiences, I’d planned to live off the land until the mission stopped looking.

  Then the System arrived and gifted me with both the supportive companion I’d always dreamed of and the power to protect myself. After surviving a hellish first day, I’d decided to fight my demons by returning to help protect my friends. I’d made it back to the school a few weeks after the System arrived.

  Ever since, I had been waiting for the chance to expose Watson, but the creep always found ways to make himself look good. He’d somehow ended up with the Missionary Class, which had tipped quite a few of the teachers toward believing that the System must somehow be a gift from God. Knowing the man’s true nature, I couldn’t help but worry about the abilities he must be using.

  “Adrian?” Tae Song was staring in my general direction, obviously unable to see me in spite of his Perception Skill.

  “Here!” I dropped Chameleon Skin and grinned as his eyes focused on me. It didn’t take long to refresh my human appearance these days, since I practiced so often. I assumed everyone had guessed that my suspiciously spotless black pants, boots, and shirt weren’t real, but I hoped they assumed it was a System clothing Perk. Better that than the truth of a crafted adaptation of fur and thickened skin that had taken two weeks to design and remember.

  “We’re heading back. You’re covering the right.”

  I nodded and moved to prowl alongside the party, keeping an eye out for danger as we hiked home, following the rambling animal trails between the thorn bushes and cacti covering the hillsides. Even before the System, many of the plants had been dangerous, seeming to jump forward to dig into our clothes and skin. Now that some had developed a truly conscious aggression, we had to keep an even closer eye on our surroundings.

  This time we only encountered a giant chicken the size of a small car, which Mr. Sanders forbade me from touching for the sake of our food supply. At least standing wat
ch resulted in repeatable Quests, giving me XP for staying alert and warning of potential threats. Otherwise, I’d have started to worry about my Leveling strategy. I needed to keep ahead of Watson.

  Fort Tin

  We eventually crossed the highway as the sun was setting. After making our way through a maze of traps, we reached what we now called Fort Tin.

  Located halfway between the cities of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz, our boarding school had offered safety, spiritual community, and education. Only the children of missionaries and a few others who had paid extra for the privilege of an English education were accepted. The only reason so many of us had survived was that a random System Fort had selected the walled-in hilltop that had once been our basketball courts as a Safe Zone. As the first sentients to find the location, we claimed it. This included a storage building and game room where we used to hold class parties. With no way to get System Credits, we couldn’t expand our Safe Zone or purchase upgrades to Fort defenses and facilities, though our crafters did their best with the resources at hand.

  Even the newly salvaged rows of bunk beds under ramshackle tin shelters didn’t offer enough space for everyone. We were grouped into shifts for everything from meals and shower runs to rest times, making privacy a rare treasure. From the middle grades on up, we all took turns at watch, though the hunting and defensive parties tended to fill in the gaps whenever we were inside the walls so the watchers could catch a break.

  I waved at the group of little kids near the food shelter as our party dispersed. They had a card game scattered across one of the tables, and I sighed in relief to count all seven still alive. Far too few of the kids had survived the first days before moving into the Fort’s brick-walled storage room, and the predators in our vicinity were only getting stronger.