Apocalypse: Generic System

by Macronomicon

  “What about that guy?” Jeb asked, pointing his spear at the necromancer’s crotch.

  “This guy?” he asked, pointing at the skull over his junk. “I found this guy.”

  “I’m assuming you’re telling me all this to prove you won’t attack me without provocation.”

  Ron snapped his fingers. “This guy gets it. I’m actually pretty freaking hungry, and I was hoping….holy…shiiiit.”

  His eyes wandered over to the mass grave of kruskers.

  “It’s a bit gamey, but as long as you keep your ‘friends’ parked just inside the safe zone, I don’t see why you can’t help yourself.” Jeb said, levering himself to his feet – foot – with his spear.

  Ron hadn’t shown any hostility yet, so there was no reason to be standoffish and turn a potential friend into an enemy. Jeb wasn’t inviting him home for dinner, he was extending a tiny bit of trust.

  “fair ‘nough,” Ron said, motioning with his hand. Jeb saw a line of neon purple power flare into existence between Ron and his zombies for an instant before it faded away again. In addition to hundreds of other lines extending in every direction, totally surrounding the Safe Zone.

  Jeb’s eye twitched.

  Did he slaughter humans or did he zombify monsters and hold them back so as not to alarm me? Well, consider me alarmed.

  Jessica was nowhere to be seen, so Jeb could only assume she’d woken up faster than him and had immediately gotten out of sight.

  The four shamblers plopped onto their butts just inside the safety of the circle, but still far away from Jeb, while Ron walked forward, aiming for the topmost krusker on the pile.

  Ron pulled out a knife and tried to jam it through the creature’s thick hide, obviously having extreme difficulty due to his thin arms.

  “Couldn’t you just zombify the thing and make it carry its meat over here?” Jeb asked, pointing at the Krusker.

  “Huh? Oh, nah, as soon as I bring something back from the dead, its flesh becomes poisonous. Learned that the hard way,” Ron said, chuckling between grunts as he tried and failed to saw off a rib.

  “Here, stand back. I’ll help,” Jeb said, stabilizing himself with his spear as he held a hand out.

  I’m pretty sure I can target part of an object, He thought. He’d made a wall out of air. He wasn’t forced to target all the air in the atmosphere. Where did one object end and another begin? Density? Structural integrity? Or perhaps it was just intent.

  Orange Myst shot out of Jeb’s hand and caught the creature’s middle rib.

  With a mental yank, the popping of bone, and a meaty tearing sound, the rib and surrounding tissue tore itself free before floating over to the fire.

  “Oh...T-thanks.” Ron said, suddenly looking a little more nervous than before. He probably thought he could outrun the cripple or swarm him if necessary. Now that he knew Jeb could potentially tear his head off from a hundred feet away, he realized that Mutually Assured Destruction was possible.

  “Wizard master race, am I right?” Ron said with a halfhearted fist pump.

  “It seemed like the best choice at the time,” Jeb said. “Now come on, sit down and eat some krusker with me. I didn’t tear your head off when you first showed up, you didn’t sik your hundreds of zombies on me at first sight. I think we’ve established a certain basic level of trust.”

  Ron chuckled.

  “You saw the strings.”

  “I saw the strings.”

  “Man, I kinda got used to people not seeing shit.” Ron said, shaking his head and sitting down across the fire from Jeb, mouth watering as he watched the fat begin to sizzle off the rib meat.

  “I didn’t get your name,” Ron said.

  “Jebediah, but I prefer Jeb. I don’t like sounding biblical.”

  “So, what’s your story, Jeb?”

  ***2 days, 15 hours remaining***

  “So, where you headed?” Jeb asked, carving off slices of Krusker for both of them.

  “Oh, I’m headed west, I suppose. Towards the mountains. I was wondering why there was a stretch of empty land, but it must have been these guys.” He said, lifting the rib he was gnawing on to emphasize.

  “Careful of the raptors there. They took out a group of seven that passed by here a little over a week ago. They’re supposed to be stealthy.”

  “Thanks, man. it shouldn’t be a problem, though.” Ron said, before eyeing Jebediah quizzically. “Got anything to barter?”

  “I’ve got a couple lenses I might be willing to trade parts of.” Jeb said. “These, though,” he said, patting his cane and magical girl wand. “These I want to keep.”

  “I’m gonna bring in my gear. Don’t freak out.”

  “Kay.”

  Ron’s gear came in packs draped across zombified walkers that looked something like daddy long legs.

  He grabbed the packs off of them and spread the items out on the ground in front of Jeb. Most of it was quality of life stuff. It was fairly obvious that Ron would hold onto the truly powerful stuff for himself, but Jeb spotted another cleaning wand, along with a couple water spigots. There were a few rings with decent stat boosts.

  “Is there a limit to the number of rings you can wear?”

  “Two,” Ron said, waggling his fingers. There was a shining ivory and silver ring on his left and right hands. “So these are kind of superfluous for me.”

  Hmmm…

  Jeb pointed out the ivory ring of Myst +2, the magical girl cleaning wand, a water producing lens, and a peculiar looking stiletto knife without any kind of crossguard.

  Stilleto of Piercing.

  Crafted by a master smith, this Udium tipped blade rotates violently when pressed down hard, penetrating all but the strongest armor.

  “All this is on my wishlist.”

  “What’ve you got?” Ron asked, leaning forward expectantly.

  Jeb pulled out the scarab lens and the worm lens, laying them down in front of the necromancer.

  “Neat,” Ron said, looking at the scarab lens. “I hadn’t found any of these yet. Can I test it?”

  “NO!” Acorn shouted, attracting their attention.

  “I gave my word not to use it near their home,” Jeb said with a shrug. He reached out with Myst and pulled one of the discarded scarabs nearby.

  “They’re about this big, I figure you could use them to clean the flesh off your zombies, or, if you sanded the dots off the face of the front, you could probably summon one huge beetle, kill it, and add it to your group. You can use them for food, too.”

  “Oh, so it’s genesis and not a temporary summon?” Ron asked, looking intrigued.

  “Far as I can tell. I ate some, and it didn’t vanish or anything.”

  “Neato.”

  Ron eyed the rotted stick, immediately noticing the worms crawling on it.

  “This one you can test,” Jeb said, handing it to him.

  Jeb got to watch the neon purple power funnel through the necromancer’s palm into the stick before beams of white Myst shone out of the raw lens in every direction.

  A fraction of a second later, everyone and everything was covered in worms.

  “Ack, pbbblt, I got one in my mouth!’” Ron said, spitting.

  The surrounding fairies squealed with joy and began hunting the wiggling arms with enthusiasm, launching a worm-y massacre as they dragged them back to their ravenous grubs.

  “And that’s how the worm lens works,” Jeb said, chuckling. He’d hidden his face behind his sleeve and come out relatively unscathed, worm-wise.

  “Thanks, but no thanks on the worms,” Ron said, eyeing the stick where he’d dropped it. “I don’t really have any use for them.”

  “This though,” Ron said, holding up the scarab bone. “I could trade you the ring or the knife, or the wand and water lens together.

  “You can’t even use that ring.” Jeb protested.

  “Doesn’t mean it’s not valuable to somebody.” Ron said with a grin.

  “Some…body?” Jeb as
ked, his mind making a sudden connection. “What’s the going rate on the corpse of a level thirty-five warrior?”

  “Level thirty five!? I could make a death-knight with that!”

  Ron cleared his throat. “I mean…I could take it or leave it. No big deal.”

  Ron knew he’d goofed.

  Jeb didn’t even bother concealing his wicked smile.

  “Tell you what. You seem to be very interested in this Death Knight of yours. How about I give you the body for these items instead?” he said, pulling his scarab lens out of the pile.

  Ron clicked his tongue, scowling.

  “I wanna barter too.” Jessica said, landing two feet away from them, descending straight out of the blue sky to slam down beside the two Myst-users.

  Ron gave a strangled squawk and tumbled over backwards. His zombies flinched, leaping to their feet and raising their weapons for a moment before sitting back down, their owner processing the assassin’s words.

  “…sure.”

  Jebediah Trapper

  Unclassed, Level 14

  Body 10

  Myst 29 +2

  Nerve 8 +3

  Chapter 6: mermaids in lakes are larger than they appear

  ***2 days, 13 hours remaining until Safe Zones expire***

  “Muahaha!” Jeb cackled, admiring his new ring and especially the stiletto orbiting his head as he practiced his fine control. He wanted to be good enough to perform surgery with his telekinesis before he cut open his cleaning wand, searching for the death and dismemberment they’d promised.

  He even had a spare in case he messed up the first one. And a supply of infinite water.

  All for Redbeard's corpse.

  A damn good deal.

  “You went garage-sale-ing a lot before the end of the world, didn’t you?” Jessica asked as they walked through the forest, aiming for the sirens to the south.

  “My parents used to have money making competitions during the summer. They used to hand me the stuff they wanted to buy and tell me to make a lowball offer, because I was cute. It usually worked. Before I knew it I got pretty good at haggling.”

  “Yeah, well, I think George’s body should belong to me, given that I had to put up with him.”

  “I don’t know, he tried to kill me.”

  Jessica scowled at him silently.

  “You really wanted that necklace of adaptation, didn’t you?”

  “Did you see the size of those opals!?” Jessica demanded.

  She’d done pretty well for herself at Ron’s Post-Life Goods Emporium, trading George’s magical boss-axe and a few minor items for some rings, enchanted armor and a pair of boots with stylized wings that essentially gave her a double jump, improving her midair performance even more.

  I need better protection myself, Jeb thought, tapping his beaten brigandine. They were finally equal in terms of treasure, but Jessica could take a hit, and he could not, so he felt a little exposed.

  The goal was for him to solo the boss while Jessica ran crowd control again, and hopefully the Accolade would give him a fighting chance of surviving once the Safe zones went down.

  He glanced over at Jessica, bedecked in silent blackened mail armor, wearing shielding bracers, along with the Razorback sword, the wing boots and the rings…

  Yeah, she’ll probably survive it.

  “Hold on,” Jessica said, squinting. “I hear singing. Put in your earplugs.”

  Rather than listen to see if he could hear it too like an idiot, Jeb rolled up the stiff pine wax and shoved it in his ears, praying it would come back out.

  That was a problem for after they survived this, though.

  “~?” She asked.

  Jeb gave her a thumbs up, and they crept forward. After what felt like half an hour of creeping, but was more likely five minutes, they came within sight of the lake.

  Sirens were, for all intents and purposes, tiny little mermaid looking girls about four feet long, singing and playing with each other in groups of three, their torsos just above the water. On the miniature island in the center, were three more human-sized women, seemingly lounging around and tanning, their bare breasts pooling up on their chests.

  I’m not sure I wanna kill these women, Jeb thought, a lifetime of ‘don’t hit girls’ drilled into him since pre-school suddenly flaring up. It might have had something to do with the boobs, or the muffled harmonizing he could faintly hear, as well.

  Jessica must have read the reticence on his face, because she unslung her bow from her shoulder, took out an arrow and fired a shot through the chest of one of the smaller girls.

  Jeb opened his mouth to protest, when the ground shuddered underneath him. A huge creature, twice the size of a horse, reared out of the water, with stumpy finned legs and a gaping maw. He could hear its pained roar even through the earplugs.

  The three little midget mermaids were attached to the thing via a long and partially clear tube with a single thick blood vein this size of his wrist traversing it.

  Okay, never mind. My concern about their humanity was not necessary. I think I’ve seen art like that before.

  Jessica wagged her hand, catching his attention before pointing at the monsters and performing a sweeping motion, as if to say, ‘after you’

  Jeb aimed his stiletto at the infuriated creature, and sent it shooting out into the lake.

  The stiletto sank half an inch into the creature’s soft skin, then, when it met bone, the blade collapsed back into the handle, spinning inside an internal groove as it did so, boring a hole like a hand-drill.

  The result was the knife went in one side of the monster and effortlessly out the other, spilling the creature’s lifeblood into the lake as it collapsed.

  And then the fight was on.

  The sirens seemed to display rudimentary intelligence as they sank under the water, hiding behind flotsam or fallen logs to make themselves hard to hit.

  In addition to that, their mermaid tops made squeezing motions with their arms, creating little spheres of water floating in front of their chests before they started shooting water at the two of them.

  And not friendly squirt-gun battle levels of water, either.

  There was a hiss, and a spray of water as a fine line of H2O tore a chunk of wood out of the tree six inches away from his face.

  Jeb dropped to the ground on reflex, treating it like small arms fire and getting behind something big and thick. In this case, one of the oversize trees surrounding the lake.

  Ranged attacks, huh? Two can play at that game.

  He pulled out his little mirror from the crate and held it around the edge of the tree.

  Do you have any idea how hard it is to attack things using a mirror while facing backwards? He thought to himself, directing his floating knife to attack a smaller siren and missing horribly, plunging the blade into the water.

  Damnit. He pulled it back out and mentally adjusted before attacking again. The extra three points of Nerve must have helped, because he only missed one more time before he adjusted to using the mirror.

  He began racking in the kills, perched safely behind his tree, while Jessica leapt from trunk to trunk, drawing fire away from him and forcing the creature’s to turn to pay attention to her ranged attacks.

  They didn’t seem like they knew where his attacks were coming from, so he kept zooming the stiletto around, boring holes through anglerfish-looking bastard after bastard.

  You have gained a level!

  You have gained a level!

  You are now level 16!

  The good times didn’t last forever, though, as a thick beam of water knocked his Darting Dagger of Death out of his mental grasp, sending it whizzing through the air into the deep forest.

  Jeb made a mental note of the direction before refocusing on the one who’d shot it.

  Momma siren was awake, and she was pissed as hell. Her mermaid hair was writhing over itself in fury, creating frothing water above her main body, which was rumbling under the surface of the
water, and yet, the lure’s faces still looked serene and beckoning, plump lips half-parted, practically aroused.

  The strange dissonance made Jeb’s hair stand on end.

  If the midget mermaids were attached to things roughly the size of a bull buffalo, how big was the big one? Elephantine?

  Those thoughts nearly made him miss the creature’s next move.

  A nova of water erupted from the creature, and Jeb flinched his hand back to his chest just in time to avoid losing it.

  Everything in a hundred feet around the lake was lopped off at the three-foot line. His mirror got a bit taken off the corner, his tree was beginning to creak ominously, along with thousands of others, and his hair had gotten a much-needed trim.

  Crap.

  Jeb was tempted to roll out of the way of the falling tree, but all the trees were falling, and that meant that:

  1: He would simply be trading one falling tree for another, and;

  2: If he leapt out now, he would attract the direct attention of Momma Siren.

  God I hope I don’t get crushed.

  Jeb burned Myst and reached out, grabbing the tree falling above him and guiding it to the best of his ability, so it would fall onto some of its thicker branches further up the tree, leaving him safely ensconced in a pocket of wood. This would do double duty and shelter him from all the other trees falling to the ground.

  With a cacophonous thunder, all the trees hit each other and the ground, filling the air with the sound of exploding wood as arm-thick branches were sheared away and splinter-shrapnel went flying everywhere.

  This went on for a good twenty seconds, as Jeb just tried to cover his face and neck.

  Once the sound died down, he did a mental spot-check.

  Okay, nothing crushed, broken or stabbed, lucky me. There was a jagged branch pressed against his brigandine, but the inner plates had caught the wood and stopped it from becoming a problem.

  The only problem was…

  I can’t move!

  Despite his near superhuman strength, there was no chance of him getting out of the pile of trees surrounding him without help, or a lot of time.

  Shit, how’s Jessica doing?

  He siphoned off a tiny bit of Myst and put it into his mirror, lifting it up above the pile of trees he was buried in, then panned it around slowly, until his partner came into view.