“Drop your weapon and put your hands up where I can see them asshole!”

Marcus automatically raised his hands above his head - an ingrained response from a lifetime of experience; he’d never identified as a rebel.

What had been a relaxed group turned hostile due to his poor choice of words. Soldiers fanned out around him, eying his staff meticulously. Marcus didn’t want any escalation so instead of arguing bent down, placing his armament gently onto the pavement; not that its loss meant much.

“Good, now turn tell your friends to do the same, slowly.”

“Just listen to him guys. If anyone in charge is still alive showing compliance will express our sincerity,” Marcus spoke towards Adrian and Greg.

The aforementioned pair dismounted, rose their hands and walked slowly towards awaiting troops

Jesus, I haven’t been arrested since college, I don’t know if I should be embarrassed or amazed all things considered; I wonder what Adrian and Greg think of this.

“Alright now each of you turn around and walk slowly towards the sound of my voice,” another continued.

Marcus walked backwards until directed, feeling a pair of cuffs snap into place around his wrists. The scene repeated for his comrades and wonder what came next for them.

“So, what now gents? I as well as you know that despite my ill choice of words that I’m human. Even if I’d done something illegal, I’m pretty sure that prisons aren’t a thing at the moment,” Marcus said.

One solider curtly read them their Miranda rights before continuing, “You’re being taken into custody on suspicions of collusion. Each of you will be questioned before further action is decided.”

“I understand, but what do you want me to do with them?” Marcus pointed towards his summons.

“If those monsters really are yours, direct them to stay here and take no hostile action,” a solider awkwardly said, “and welcome to Buckley.”

A trio of men wearing clothes in less than stellar condition was marched through several additional checkpoints and gates before arriving at their apparent destination; a nondescript three-story structure. If this situation had occurred before Integration, you’d have assumed that a trio of idiots had done something stupid like rush a military choke point. Split up and placed into individual cells, after having their possessions confiscated all they could do was wait.

Concrete walls made up his prison, with a stout metal door blocking any hope of escape – at least without making a lot of noise and destroying it. On the bright side they’d given him new clothes, consisting of a tan shirt, slacks, and black combat boots; even if they were a prison uniform, Marcus was happy to be in something clean.

Only one item, or rather two remained in his cell, the two books Azarti had prepared for him. Starting with Enchanting, he began to read.

Enchanting was broken into two main branches, temporary and permanent. Temporary enchants could be placed on basically anything, but like their name suggested, didn’t remain forever. Just how long they depended on various factors such as material medium, enchanter skill, and item capacity. For example, an iron sword could be enchanted with an increased durability that lasted several days, but the same enchantment could last months, or even years if placed on mithril; something the book insisted was a real thing now.

Permanent enchantments are the same as temporary outside of one factor, an anchor. Anchors can take on many forms but perform the same job, keeping an enchantment tied to its location. Common materials used to create anchors were gemstones, crystals, and certain magical metals. Anchors, and whatever material is used to create them, can additionally impart one or more aspects, radically boosting their effectiveness; Garnet anchors would be better for casting fire magic, while sapphires attuned towards water for instance.

Fundamentally, enchanting worked by imbedding properties into physical mediums through the altering of an object’s makeup. Creating these alterations was further broken down into more branches, but roughly worked out into two categories: Physical and Metaphysical, but both used one unifying script.

Script or language, both served inadequately for describing what he’d stumbled into. Looking akin to a cross between, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, and Celtic Runes, they baffled Marcus - the language’s complexity numbing his mind. English only has twenty-six letters, and with those letters, over 170,000 words existed. This system was compromised of over one hundred basic ‘shapes’ that could combined and rearranged, forming complex meaning. Azarti blessedly included phonetic descriptors, otherwise Marcus would’ve been totally lost.

Hours passed studying, eventually interrupted by clattering boots striking hard floors. Rounding a bend and coming into view, six men in uniform made their way towards his cell.

Putting down his book, looking up, “Time for my interrogation?”

“Indeed it is. Please, just make this easy - slip your hands through the gap and let us cuff you. You’ll then follow Rodriguez here as he leads you,” one man finished, while pointing at the Hispanic man beside him.

Not intending any resistance, Marcus complied and began following his new escort – flanked by the remaining soldiers. Initially he’d wondered how he qualified for a six-man escort before remembering they’d also be capable of simply inspecting him. Marcus was under no illusion, his level was high, much higher than anyone else; that is unless others also stumbled into dungeons early on as well… and survived.

It’s my level they’re afraid of, not my stupid one liner from earlier. It makes sense, everything hostile has been much more advanced in their leveling progress. How much do they know about the System? Whatever, that doesn’t matter for now. This interview makes so much more sense now; they want to know what I know. I’ll keep my personal secretes hidden - no need to fully trust the military, but other than that I don’t mind sharing.

Inner dialog aside, everyone else remained quiet during their walk. How this place worked at night was beyond him, their only light leaked in through windows lining the structure. Ten-minutes of walking later, they emerged outside into an enclosed space - rather than an interrogation room he was now in a small park.

Alone sat a woman wearing much of the same uniform as everyone else he’d seen thus far. Her nametag read Angelica, P. and inspect confirmed it.

Angelica Price – Level. 10 | Class: Military Logistician

She calmly waited, sitting in a chair set out placed behind a plastic folding table. They hadn’t brought him one, and seeing an opportunity to gain some leverage, quickly created his own. Angelica hadn’t had time to react before Marcus passed around his stone chair and sat into it.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Price. How can I help you today?” he said, mildly happy to see her face rapidly shift between emotions.

“Sorry for our accommodations, the Airforce has rooms for situations like this, but we have no way to provide illumination inside. That’s neither here nor there though and there’s no sense in bullshitting you, Marcus. You and I both know how to inspect people and creatures so let’s not dance around that fact,” gesturing towards his chair, “and clearly, you’ve learned something special if you’ve learned to just magic up chairs from the ground.”

She continued, putting far more emotion into her words, “Our country, and our world needs people who understand all of this. We’ve managed to hold most of Buckley, fighting for every inch, between monsters and even a couple of eager looters, its been difficult. Firearms don’t work, hell gunpowder won’t even burn – in many cases my soldiers have had to fight with maintenance tools, or even their hands.”

Angelica breathed deeply, tired, “I tell you all of this for several reasons. Firstly, your level the highest we’ve seen, period, monster or man. Second, you’ve just demonstrated a phenomenon that isn’t explainable by science. Lastly, and most importantly, you’re the only person, or least living person, that’s managed to make their way here.”

“So, you’ve seen The Blighted then? Surprised this place is still standing, the only thing they seem to care about are warm bodies,” Marcus said.

“Not personally, but I’ve had scouts inform me of their rapid spread and encroachment towards this base. Everyone who sees them gets a named screen with a quest, a damned QUEST, this isn’t a game Marcus, people are dying even now. Stop fucking tiptoeing around and tell me what you know,” she shouted, finally ignoring all decorum.

Marcus looked into her eyes, finding courage, but also desperation. War, while horrible, has a solution, and a ‘right’ way of conducting it. All this decorated commander experience had been thrown out of the window, trampled upon by a cold set of new norms. Her new enemies didn’t hide in caves, or behind walls of steel - instead they ran towards your position, stopping at nothing to tear you limb from limb.

With a sigh, he retold everything he’d already been telling people either way. Comparing information with Angelica proved fruitful in the end. Marcus had learned that over three thousand men and women still held on here, and that was just the soldiers. Local civilians flooded into Buckley shortly after Integration, looking for shelter with the military. In total, fifteen-thousand people made their way here, and even now slept in a tent city erected upon the tarmac outside.

“Food won’t last long will it? Even feeding your garrison must be a logistical nightmare.”

Receiving just a simple nod of ascent, he continued, “That aside, I believe the quest is something we can’t ignore. If you’ve been watching it, and I’m sure you have seen their numbers slowly increasing – we can’t afford to let it spread out of Denver into surrounding areas - we’ll be overrun.”

“Marcus, pray-tell, how I’m supposed to convince civilians whom I have zero jurisdiction over, to risk their lives fighting what amounts to a living nightmare? Frankly I’m surprised you’re so gung-ho about risking yours. So, tell me, what should I do?” she finished, frustrated.

“People need to gain experience and level up obviously. Information is going to be key for this, we need to gather everyone’s classes, levels, etc. After that, assigning them into balanced groups and sending them out to scavenge would be my best guess; sending one higher leveled individual along for safeties sake. As for how to persuade them? That’s the easiest part, people need to eat, once they start going hungry things will change quickly, tell them that,” Marcus finished, not entirely confident in his approach.

“Your inexperience shows, the first part of your plan is fine, but if you think letting people go hungry will motivate them towards combat of all things is delusional. Motivation will need to come from themselves. Play on their emotions will only get us so far – “

She was interrupted by a deep rumble, the trees around them shaking as if afraid. Thuds proceeded each quake, and with them a horrible premonition snaked up Marcus’s spine.

Everyone looked around their enclosure finding nothing, disregarding prior procedure, they all rushed outside with Marcus following. The ground continued to shake without apparent reason. Exiting the structure, he looked around and quickly found their culprit – another nightmare pulled from humanities worst dreams.

Standing at least forty meters tall, a gigantic of horrid proportions made slow, lumbering steps towards where Marcus assumed all of the civilians took shelter. Twisted faces covered its body, each permanently affixed into a visage of pain and fear. No sound came from these faces, but each silently screamed – their eyes darting around wildly. He hesitantly inspected their doom.

Blighted Colossus – Level. 70 | Type: Abomination/Horror | Flesh puppets controlled by a much greater foe. Blight Colossuses are combat units who designed to break sieges or to storm fortified positions. Each of these abominations are created in Distortion Vats where numerous Husks are molded together into one being. Like all Blighted, they are malignant and when left to fester they’ve been known to spread rapidly, subsuming all native fauna.

“I’m going to need help with this, get my companions, NOW!”