Apocalypse: Generic System

by Macronomicon

  It would be the right size for a fairy to wear on their head, though, He thought, holding the ring in his hand and staring intently at it. A moment later the item’s details showed up in front of him.

  Silver adventurer’s ring of discretion.

  +3 nerve

  Commissioned by a noblewoman for her somewhat clumsy, somewhat dull-witted grandson, this ring subtly saved his life countless times before he made the dubious decision to trade it in for a shield with a stronger Body enchantment.

  On paper, the trade was a numerical benefit, however, the young lad immediately set about testing his new shield in the poison-swamp, proving once again, that there is no permanent cure for stupidity.

  “Not bad.” Jeb said, sliding it on his left pinkie. A moment later, he felt like he’d just woken up from a long sleep. He was alert, and aware, in a way he’d never really been before.

  He felt like he’d been sleepwalking with his eyes closed. He could see where everything was, the light level in the room seemed to rise by several shades. Everything looked and sounded so vibrant, he could feel his blood pumping through his fingertips, his face, his cock.

  Thinking about it made the problem worse.

  “DID IT RAISE NERVE!?” Jessica shouted at him

  “Stop shouting,” Jeb whispered, turning back to face her. He was immediately dumbstruck by the sheer beauty that stood in front of him.

  “Wow, you’re pretty, even without the hair. In the sunlight it was just like orange fire, which was magnificent, but without it, you’ve got this sharp but luscious thing going on.”

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his crotch.

  “THE EUPHORIA WILL FADE IN A COUPLE MINUTES. DON’T DO OR SAY ANYTHING YOU’LL REGRET!”

  “Shouting!” Jeb said, clutching his ears.

  Jessica smirked, but she didn’t say anything, just sitting her perfect body down, her pants tightening around her hips as she crossed her legs, watching him with amusement. He could see the way she filled out the armor, and he could imagine with perfect clarity how she was filling it up, her breasts squeezing against the plate as she breathed.

  “I’m just gonna…face this direction for a minute,” Jeb said, turning away, taking deep, calming breaths. A minute or two later, his senses were no longer out of whack, and he was able to turn around without undressing his partner with his eyes.

  Still pretty, but not intoxicatingly so.

  “Out of all of the Attribute sicknesses,” Jeb said, glancing up at the ceiling, “I think that’s the most embarrassing one.”

  “Really, what’s Myst sickness like?” Jessica asked, getting to her feet.

  “It feels like someone’s tearing apart your skull, and you bleed from every hole on your face.”

  “Yikes,” she said, throwing her sword over her shoulder.

  The ceiling was made of tiled stone, but the center tile bore a picture of a blue scarab. A handful of scarabs crawled along the ceiling, content to stay on the tile.

  More treasure? Why not?

  “Gimme a boost,” Jeb said, pulling out his pocket knife. A couple awkward minutes later, he’d managed to pry the business end of the trap off the ceiling, revealing a delicately carved bone with a thousand tiny indents carefully carved into the surface. Blue scarabs crawled along its surface, but none of them were real.

  Processed Starving-Beetle Summoning Myst Lens. (Large)

  These bone-shaped lenses coalesce in the dunes of the Bogash desert, where insects fight for every scrap of food they can find. They are a novelty in most parts of the world, although there are some wizards from those exotic parts who use these lenses as part of their spell-work.

  This Myst Lens has been worked to create 1024 equal-sized Starving Beetles, as part of a trap.

  Jeb worked his knife behind it and carefully pried the square of bone out of the wall, dropping it in his pocket.

  If nothing else, he could use it to make more food. Crab was arguably better than worm.

  “Got what you wanted?” Jessica asked as she set him down effortlessly.

  “Yep,” Jeb said, patting his pocket. “Got the business end of the trap.”

  “Good, let’s go.” She said, pointing toward the exit.

  Jeb was about to take his last hop out the door when iron fingers grabbed the back of his brigandine and yanked him backwards.

  A pair of gnashing jaws slammed shut in front of the entrance, a hair’s breadth from his face.

  Chapter 5: Necrobarter

  Jeb let out a choked cry as Jessica flung him backwards into the tiny dungeon, charging out to meet the creature face-to-face.

  Jeb landed on his ass right in the middle of the beam of light, triggering the magical swarm a second time. The Myst shot out of the ceiling, blinking like a strobe light, stirring the dust on the floor a bit, but not doing anything other than that.

  Thank god I disarmed this thing, he thought, turning his gaze back to the ongoing fight.

  Jessica was doing glorious battle with something that looked like a cross between an oriental dragon and a tapeworm, with huge, gnashing jaws that seemed to be primarily made of bone or chitin.

  Jessica was executing magnificent midair maneuvers that boggled the mind until you recalled her class’s ability for operating at effective low-g.

  The fight was swift and brutal, with the snake-like creature being cleaved in two in a matter of seconds, falling to the ground in two massive, bleeding chunks.

  The creature’s jaw was still trying to bite down on something , weakly opening and closing, even though the creature’s eyes were already devoid of light.

  “The fuck is that?” Jeb asked, getting to his feet and peering out the door. the whole thing must have been thirty feet long, a great white shark/eel on land.

  “It’s a wandering monster. We saw some of them hanging around the World Tortoise once,” She said. “This one must have been level fifteen or so.” She said, kicking the creature.

  “Parasites,” Jeb said.

  “Huh?”

  “Parasites. They live on the world tortoise. Going up there and trying to kill the thing is like kicking a wasp’s nest the size of a football field.”

  “Ah. How do you know that?”

  “Mystical powers,” Jeb said, waggling his fingers. He glanced over his shoulder at the dungeon they had just left.

  He absolutely would love to take the rest of the guts of the trap. If he could secure the power source along with the repeater and trigger mechanism, he could probably make some kind of Mystical machine gun.

  Alas, Jeb wasn’t capable of cutting through solid rock with his mind – yet – and they only had three days before there would be no safe place to sleep. They needed to spend all of that time achieving a basic level of self-sufficiency, not spend days trying to chisel stone for a maybe.

  Still, Jeb glanced at his map, scanning the land to the deep west. In the flaming mountains, the fairies had spotted a fire lens. Magical laser gun would be pretty bitchin’.

  It’ll go on the list if we get good enough to go there, otherwise, it’s superfluous. I also need to learn more about Myst and lenses.

  Between the boss monster, and exploring the local map, he needed some time to rest and do a little research.

  ***3 days, 1 hour until Safe Zone Removal***

  “You may look at the map,” Jeb said, holding it out for Jessica.

  She narrowed her eyes, but the circumstances of their meeting didn’t exactly give Jeb full confidence in her. If she wanted to track down one or two treasures and bring them back while he rested, great! but giving her the map so she could potentially ditch him for a better outfit?

  They didn’t know each other that well.

  “Okay, it’s memorized,” she said, nodding. “Thanks.”

  “Ah crap, Nerve.”

  “Nerve,” she said, tapping her skull. “I’ll be back in two hours if I’m still alive. I’ll be looking for the Shielding Bracers, and the Vivicant Cane.” She p
oked two spots near their safe zone.

  She looked him up and down. “You could use a cane.”

  “Ay, get outta here,” Jeb said, waving her off. Freakin’ Nerve.

  It was somewhat emasculating to be outclassed, mentally.

  On the other hand, I can move things with my mind.

  There was really no putting a price tag on that.

  Once Jess was gone, Jeb called Acorn down to haggle. Now that they were in the nesting phase, he was forced to get more creative, eventually selling a bit of the silk liner of his brigandine for the information he was looking for.

  “What is a Myst lens, and why do we need them?” he asked Acorn.

  “A Myst lens converts one form of Myst to another. They’re integral to wizardry in general. Myst lenses coalesce in areas that are filled with the memory of their focus.

  “Sunny places make sunny lenses, watery ones, make watery ones, and so on?” Jeb asked. He was pretty sure that was the case given the positioning of the worm one and the fire one on his map, but confirmation was good.

  “Yes! Exactly!” Acorn shouted pointing at him. “The variety of lenses in the world is practically infinite. There are so many that haven’t been discovered yet, and even between similar lenses, there are variations. The sunny lens you spoke of, there are dappled ones and ones that carry the scent of freshly mown grass. At public servant exams, you can find studying lenses and ulcer lenses taking the form of erasers. There’s practically no limit. The only issue is that the rarer Lenses take a higher Myst to identify as magical.”

  “So is it possible to cast a spell without using one of these?”

  Acorn stared at him for a moment, his jaw slack. “Your core is set. Of course it’s not possible.”

  “Explain.”

  Acorn heaved a huge sigh and rolled his eyes, as if Jeb was the slowest kid in the race.

  “When you develop a Myst Core,” he said, flying down to tap on Jeb’s sternum. “The Myst you process settles into the form of your most ideal magic. After it is set, you cannot change it.”

  “So, since I thought telekinesis was cool, that’s what it settled on?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Disappointing, but not the worst power to be stuck with. After all, telekinesis was pretty fucking cool.

  There were also interesting connotations behind the fact that these lenses could effectively change Myst from one…wavelength…to another…

  Does the Myst actually behave like light when interacting with a lens? Jeb thought, his mind buzzing. The idea had been tickling the back of his mind for a while, but after talking with Acorn, he was nearly positive.

  If Myst behaves like light, then if I were to carve the worm stick into the shape of a lens, I could make it summon a giant freakin’ worm! Or put two indents on it to split the light and make two giant worms.

  He pulled the square piece of bone out of his pocket and inspected it, still crawling with phantom scarabs.

  Or carve thirty-two by thirty-two dots to summon one thousand twenty four identical worms.

  “EEK!” Acorn screeched, backing away from the bone lens like it was radioactive.

  “Do you have any idea what that could do to us!?” he said, pointing at the lens with a shaking hand.

  “Nothing good, I imagine,” Jeb said. “I was planning on saving it for rations.” He slipped it back in his pocket.

  “Just to confirm, if the lens concentrates the Myst into a single point, It’s a more pronounced effect than if it’s scattered all over the place, correct?”

  “Of course,” Acorn said, still eyeing Jeb’s pocket nervously.

  “If I break a lens apart, will all the pieces of it retain their ability to alter Myst?”

  “Yeah, are you really going to keep that?”

  “Yes. Are creatures that I create with these lenses under my control?”

  Acorn shook his head. “Not without some kind of control lens or taming lens, or your Myst Core is a Summoning one. That’s why that lens is so dangerous. If you used that in here, and missed killing even a single breeding pair… they might eat all of us.”

  “I promise not to use this lens anywhere near your tree,” Jeb said.

  “Not in the forest at all, would be better.” Acorn said.

  “I don’t know yet if I’ll need it, so I can’t promise that.” Acorn looked miffed.

  “Well, that was all the burning questions I had for you – ah, wait – how much would you charge to actually collect these lenses for me?”

  “We physically can’t move treasure placed by the System for the Tutorial.” Acorn said, shaking his head. “Otherwise the fairies of the woods would have already looted everything.”

  “Suppose you’re right about that,” Jeb said, nodding.

  Alright, now we need to expand our repertoire. Can’t expect everything to just run into a spear on its own.

  Now testing: Floppy objects, and multiple objects at once.

  For his first test, Jeb grabbed the garrote wire and set it down in front of him, injecting it with Myst and lifting it up.

  The wire stayed looped up like it had been when he first set it down.

  He turned it upside down and tried to stretch it out, but his Myst felt like it was locked in position. The garrote stayed pooled up in a loop, unmoving in his mental grasp.

  He worked on it for half an hour without any discernable progress, then switched tactics, aiming at learning how to move two things at once.

  There was more progress on this front. Rather than feeling like an unyielding wall, this simply felt like really difficult juggling.

  If someone had a gun to your head and told you to learn how to juggle, you’d probably learn pretty fuckin’ quick.

  Jeb was in the same situation, and he poured all his concentration and focus into mastering the skill. Eventually he was rewarded with two spears, floating independently of each other.

  There were some caveats, though.

  Jeb had to target both of them with a fresh batch of myst drawn from his core. Something about splitting the myst into two identical portions was easier than lifting one object then another.

  He was sure he’d get the hang of it eventually, but for now he needed to target both objects at the same time.

  Still, it gave him a lot more options than he’d had before.

  Stab, stab, He thought, the two spears lunging forward at his mental urging. His speed had improved.

  Jeb had the feeling his Core was nowhere near done growing. His magic, and the little burning star inside him, would continue growing stronger until he stumbled across whatever his limit was, most likely defined by his Myst.

  The setting sun suddenly darkened, and Jeb glanced up, spotting the World Tortoise in the distance, having just walked in front of the sun, casting a shadow over the entire forest. The sunlight cast a red glow around the creature’s shell, which played host to its own forest, where the parasites lived.

  Stab, stab, Jeb thought, closing one eye to remove his depth perception and pretending to stab the boss monster.

  ***2 days 23 hours remaining***

  Jessica got back with the items that night, tossing him the cane that was seemingly made of one solid piece of ivory.

  Vivicant Cane, Consumable item.

  Carried as a supplementary item by the vaunted healers of Mestikos, These Canes allow the master healers to handle emergencies when circumstances would otherwise prevent them from being able to help, maintaining their prided success rate even in the most adverse conditions, along with their priceless prestige.

  Channel Myst through this valuable cane to heal wounds and remove fatigue in an area of effect.

  Effect is proportional Myst spent.

  4/4 Uses remaining

  Nice, Jeb thought, setting it down beside him, his mental evaluation of Jessica going up a notch. She came back despite having a map in her head, rather than leaving him to his own devices, or selling the information to another group and disappearing entir
ely.

  They set up a warning system around the edge of the safe zone and went to sleep.

  ***2 days 16 hours remaining***

  Right around dawn, the alarm went off.

  It was just a simple wind chime of throwing knives connected to a string, but it did the job.

  Tinkle tinkle, CLANG!

  The string broke, dropping the wind chime to the ground, accompanied by cursing.

  Jeb leapt out of his bedroll, put his back against the tree, and had a spear raised before his eyes could even focus on what he was seeing.

  “Good morning!” A man’s voice came from the woods. It wasn’t booming and growly like redbeards, rather it was reedy and a bit nasal.

  Jeb blinked again and spotted five humans dressed for battle standing just at the edge of the safe zone.

  “Careful of the,” Jeb cleared the sleep out of his throat and spoke up. “Careful of the pit traps!”

  “Yeah, we spotted those on the way in.” The leader said, taking the sword off his belt and dropping it by the edge before approaching. “It’s a good idea but a little work intensive, don’t you think?”

  “Pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood,” Jeb muttered, glancing around to take in his situation. The first thing he noticed: the four teammates of the fellow were Obvious Zombies.

  They walked with lurching steps, clutching swords and axes in each hand and covered in battle damage and grievous wounds. Three men, and one woman.

  “Hi,” The man said, pointing to himself. “I’m Ron.” Ron was a ginger maybe ten years younger than Jeb, wearing a skull as a codpiece. He was wearing normal armor underneath, his face was somewhat emaciated from lack of food, but he seemed pretty chipper, all things considered.

  “This is Suzie, she tried to kill me,” He pointed at the lady zombie, a blonde haired woman in her forties. Half of her skull seemed to have been bashed in with a rock. “This is Buck, he was the leader of the group. He tried to stop Suzie, but she stabbed him.”

  Buck appeared to be the best kept out of the four of them, save a big bloody spot right around his liver.

  “And this is Phil and Eric.” He said, pointing to the last two. “They tried to rob me.”