Next, Garath closed the Profile partition of his MENU panels and opened the Items partition in its place, remembering what the prompt had said regarding gifts for attending the event (as if they had a choice). He found that two new items had been added to his inventory at the kickoff of The Culling. The new icons looked like crystalline beakers, one filled with a ruby liquid and the other a deep blue liquid. He focused on each in turn.
Endless Potion of Healing
Type: Potion
Uses: Infinite
Cooldown: 10 Minutes
Item Score: 645
Quality: Marvel
Rarity: Epic
Restores 10% of your maximum Health instantly and an additional 50% of your maximum Health over the next 60 seconds.
***Note: Gift for attending the event: The Culling
Endless Potion of Mana Restoration
Type: Potion
Uses: Infinite
Cooldown: 10 Minutes
Item Score: 645
Quality: Marvel
Rarity: Epic
Restores 10% of your maximum Mana instantly and an additional 50% of your maximum Mana over the next 60 seconds.
***Note: Gift for attending the event: The Culling
Garath was unsure of how to retrieve the decanters from his Items panel. Fortunately, the system must have sensed his desire, and provided a solution in the form of a hand-sized black disk appearing just in front of him. He looked dubiously at the black disk, just knowing his hand would get eaten by some interdimensional monster if he was dumb enough to reach through it. In the end, he decided the epic quality potions were worth the risk and hesitantly reached one hand into the disk. He felt his fingers wrap around what felt like a small glass tube. When he pulled his hand back out of the anomalous rent in space (pausing only for a sigh of relief that it came out at all), it was grasping a beaker filled with ruby liquid. With his Health at maximum, Garath placed the Endless Potion of Healing back into his inventory through the spacial disk and retrieved its sapphire counterpart.
After downing the cloyingly sweet blue potion that reminded the Necrologist of blue slurpees, and then watching his Mana pool jump by twenty points in a flash and continue rising every second at a much faster rate, Garath quickly explained how to summon items to everyone on the Raid com-channel. He then willed open the Skill Tree partition of his MENU panels, eager to see what new options had become available with his recent level increase.
The vast majority of the three-section Skill tree was still greyed out. His eyes wandered to find the single Skill that had not been available at level one. It was beside, but not connected to, the Summon Flayer circle in the Demonology section. Garath willed it to provide more information and greedily read the details.
Summon Fel Hound
Summoned Creature - Demon
Cost: 75 Mana (.5x base Mana)
5 Second Cast
5 Minute Cooldown
*Additional Cost: Tainted Soul*
Effect: Summon a Fel Hound (maximum: 1) to aid you in battle for up to one hour.
Note: Unlike most Fel creatures, the Fel Hound is a loyal companion and will protect its summoner unto the final death.
*Tainted Soul: the form containing your soul is soiled.
Cost to Unlock: 1 Skill Point
Total Unused Skill Points: 2
Garath purchased the new Skill without hesitation. He was excited to perform his first summon and felt a great deal more comfortable summoning the Fel Hound than the Flayer (based solely on the Skill descriptions) and was excited to see what the demon-dog could do - but more than anything, the Necrologist and Raid leader really just wanted to get back in the fight.
Chapter 9
Daisy
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:21:
Hey look, chat function!
Athios read the message in a private chat box that opened in the corner of her vision and took a deep breath, then dropped back behind the melee classes swinging their weapons into the thinning horde of skeletons outside the old school building. Her Mana was nearing zero from the near constant casting and her head was swimming. She would definitely benefit from a rest, but would rather deal with the light-headedness than use the Raid channel again.
She rolled her eyes, then found she could maximize the chatbox and reply with nothing more than a few directed thoughts.
Private message from Athios to Garath - 00/00/01 @ 01:21:
Wow. Is that what you're up to back there? Let me take some of that extra time off your hands... I could use a breather.
"I'm switching in for Athios," came Garath's eager voice almost immediately over the Raid sub-channel established for the fighting force.
Athios was silently grateful to the Necrologist for saving her from her worst fear, public speaking - even as hundreds, if not thousands, of undead were quite literally at her doorstep.
"If anyone else needs a break, just call it on this channel,” the Raid leader told them.
Athios turned away from the fight and walked past the healers and group of non-combatants just inside, passing the glowy-eyed Necrologist, who flashed her a knowing smile that made her wonder what the hell he was thinking about - whatever it was that he 'knew' escaped her and she returned his smile with a confused smirk. They passed each other wordlessly and she took a seat in the gleaming main hall of their makeshift stronghold.
Private message from Athios to Garath - 00/00/01 @ 01:23:
Did you already check for other ways in?
Garath read the message just as he made it through the double doors and into the frey. He stopped to reply, standing casually between the joined melee and the group’s stronghold.
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:23:
Nope.
Private message from Athios to Garath - 00/00/01 @ 01:23:
Don't you think it might be prudent??
Garath frowned, he had meant to do that.
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:24:
Yep.
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:24:
Good idea. Let me know what you find?
He closed the chat box, it was time to get to work. This time though, he would be bringing reinforcements. Still uncomfortable with the idea of summoning a demon that may or may not join the opposing team to kill him, Garath decided to try his newest Skill, Summon Fel Hound - but paused just short of casting.
This would be the first time he had used a spell with the additional cost, Tainted Soul. He thought about the verbiage on the Skill tree, 'the form containing your soul…’ and wondered if paying the additional cost while in House Cat form would be some kind of loophole in the system, allowing him to use the Skills that had the Tainted Soul cost, whatever that was, without soiling his human form. He figured cats don't actually have souls anyways, and that the logic added up. However, he hadn't cast a spell in cat form yet, and didn't feel like now was the time for experimentation. Death Bolt had been serving him well to that point and had dispatched the skeletons just fine, so he kept up what was working and vowed to start summoning demons as soon as he figured a few things out.
***
Before Athios could leave her seat to inspect the rest of the building, a young girl approached her. The scrawny child couldn't have been older than ten or eleven.
"You're Athios, right?" the little girl asked.
Athios read the girl's nameplate and, without meaning to, triggered her Inspect ability.
Name: Daisy
Race: Human
Class: Elementalist
Level: 3
Age: 11
Health: 70/70
Mana: 70/70
Apparently using Inspect on another human only revealed a portion of the information contained in the Profile panel of her MENUs, Athios noted. Unknown to the introverted Dimensionalist though, was that Daisy had just made that very same mental notation after she had triggered Inspect on Athios
.
"Yeah," Athios confirmed. "That's me."
"I read your message in the Community thingy, that's how me and gran found you. I don't know what we would have done if I didn't find you. Thank you," the little girl said, tears in her eyes. "Gran isn't doing so good. She has syasmica."
"Sciatica?"
"That's the one. She doesn't walk so good."
"I bet," the Dimensionalist said, nodding in understanding. Then she remembered something. "Aren't you the little girl that opened the door for us with that fireball?"
"Blast!"
"Pardon?"
"It isn't called fireball. It's just Blast!"
"So it was you," said Athios. "Well, I was a little nervous about how we were going to get into the building when we got here, so thank YOU too, Daisy."
The little girl smiled and blushed, twiddling her thumbs nervously as she stood, knees together, on the marbled floor beside Athios.
"Listen, my job right now is to make sure the rest of the building is secure so we don't get attacked from behind. Do you want to go with me?"
"Really?! Yeah! Let me go tell gran!" Daisy exclaimed. She disappeared into the group behind Athios. Moments later, the excited little girl returned and flashed Athios a thumbs up. "Ready!"
Together, the Dimensionalist and the little Elementalist strolled through the main hall to the other side of the building. Though the structure was large, the vast majority of the first floor was just open space, so it didn't take the two of them long to locate the entrance on the opposite side. Unlike the double doors they had entered the building through, this door was a sturdy darkwood that was locked in place by a thick deadbolt.
"Looks pretty safe to me," Athios told the girl. "Let's check the windows in the side rooms while we're here."
"Okee," said Daisy.
"Give me just a sec to send a message to G."
"Is that the scary guy with the weird eyes?"
Athios laughed. "Yeah, that's him alright."
Private message from Athios to Garath - 00/00/01 @ 01:31:
Back door is deadbolted and made of solid fucking oak. Going to check the side rooms for any other way in.
As Athios awaited Garath's response, Daisy curiously twisted the dented, gold door knob on the door closest to the back entrance. The Dimensionalist watched her carefully, but didn't interfere - turns out it was just a maintenance closet anyways. The little girl shut the door and moved on to the next one, turning the handle and entering the room.
Private message from Garath to Athios - 00/00/01 @ 01:34:
Copy that. Thanks for checking.
Before she could remind him that was the reason for his little break, the shattering of glass and a blood curdling scream emitted from the room Daisy had just walked into. Athios bolted to the child's aid but managed one word over the Raid sub-channel.
"Help!"
Athios burst in behind the little girl, eyes darting around the mostly empty classroom. A skeleton gripping a cutlass was climbing into the room through a broken window, behind it another, and another. Athios sent a white disk from her right hand to land below Daisy and the little Elementalist's scream stopped abruptly as she was sucked into it. Athios turned and sent a second white disk with her left hand back into the main hall and the frightened girl emerged from it - eyes wide, searching, confused.
Daisy saw the scary guy with the weird eyes she knew as the leader of the group running in her direction with a skinny guy just behind him. She silently pointed to the room Athios was in, still unsure of how and why she was now standing back in the main hall.
Garath nodded his acknowledgement to the girl and barrelled into the classroom to fuck shit up with Warrion on his heels. Or that's what he figured would happen when he shouldered the door open - what actually happened was that Athios nearly sent him skydiving when he barged in unannounced. She had already dispatched the skeletons that had climbed through the window and was pushing a desk across the marble flooring. Another two of the undead monsters began climbing into the building, and were dispatched shortly with a second set of space-time bending disks.
"Little help?" said Athios with one brow raised questioningly as two skeletons fell from the sky outside the window.
Garath and Warrion lifted the standard school desk into place, covering the broken window then propped it into place with two more.
Breathing heavily, Athios accessed her Items panel and summoned her Endless Potion of Mana Restoration then downed the sweet, blue liquid in one go before heading back through the main hall to resume her post behind the non-combatants. Her Mana bar refilled by a small amount and continued to climb as she caught her breath.
Garath and Warrion closed and locked every door branching off the main hall on the first floor, then made their way back to the front line to combat the bottlenecked horde of undead.
The remainder of the first wave of The Culling continued without major incident, the fighting force of the Raid switched in and out in shifts as needed to recuperate Health and Mana. By 02:25AM (GST - Global Standard Time), the only Reanimated Bones they had to deal with were respawns as they popped out of vibrating black orbs on the basketball court - and the ones jumping down from the roof every ten minutes or so. At one point Warrion and Fergus even talked Garath into competing to see who could land the most killing blows.
Global Standard Time aside, for everyone in Garath’s Raid it was effectively 05:30 AM and some of the non-combatants were even falling asleep. At exactly 02:30 of the annoying new time system, a prompt appeared.
Monster respawns will be halted for the next 30 minutes as the next wave is prepared. Rest and hone your skills, human. The Culling continues at 03:00(GST).
The Culling Totals
Global Death Count: 1,809,500,431
Community Death Count: 27,965
Garath shuddered. He didn't know what the system deemed to be his ‘Community’ - but assumed it was likely just the city of Everett... and almost thirty-thousand people had already fallen victim to the unprovoked attack on the human race - over a third of the city’s estimated population. He turned to look at his group, huddled and safe inside their little stronghold. There was so much room in the old brick building. So much room to improve.
"We can do better," he told himself. "We have to do better."
Chapter 10
Growth
Garath knew he had to take advantage of the break before The Culling's next wave - summoning reinforcements for the next wave was definitely a priority. After he put a plan into place to get the word out to the Community about their little stronghold, the Necrologist stole a few minutes to go over his minimized prompts.
Congratulations, Garath! For reaching level(s) 4, 5, and 6, you are awarded 9 Attribute Points (3 per level) and 3 Skill Points (1 per level) points to distribute at your discretion. As a Necrologist, you receive +3 Wisdom, +3 Vitality, and +1 Regeneration per level. You have one week to distribute the points before they are assigned for you based on your chosen class.
The Culling of Man: A litrpg adventure (Peril's Prodigy Book 1) Page 7