From conversation with some of the first 'Gods', we know that the plan was thus: Locations for Dungeons would be allocated on a world, and a given area around them dedicated as an 'Adventurer Zone'.

Monsters would be generated by the dungeon to populate the zone, and would serve, as their name suggests, for those whom were playing the game to exercise their skills and harvest XP, allowing your civilisation to continue happily outside these areas, and making the System a truly Invigorating game which you could choose to escape from.

However, since the Administrators are gone, no Zones are defined – so the Dungeon expands its zone until it comes into contact with the zone of another Dungeon. The result is a patchwork of zones, centred on Dungeons, will cover the surface of your world.

It is thus imperative that, if you wish a safe place to rest and protect non-combatants, you will wish to procure a Fortification Spike immediately. They were seeded in the System for particularly powerful Adventurers who wished to create forward bases in particularly challenging Dungeons, and are the best way to found a new civilisation in the Void-bound System. Your first step in the survival of your species. Horde your SMU's until you can acquire one – make it your priority over everything else. The degree to which it aids your survival cannot be understated.

REMEMBER. Fortification Spike.

Do Not Forget, pray to your true gods that you can buy one as early as possible.

- What you need to know to survive the Voidbound System, By &*%:・%^%

Jonathan looked around the room, as it approached midnight. He'd had time to cast Rejuvenation on pretty much everyone, and – well, it showed. Everyone was reporting that if they'd had Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, or Looks below six, it was at six now: and regardless of their actual age, everyone now looked like they were in their early twenties. An early twenties where they'd been in good health, and had taken care of themselves, and worked out at least a little. Bluntly put, the room now looked like a casting call for a TV show. There were a lot more people here than they'd expected, as Michelle had thought of a fun exploit: She'd grabbed the Siphon perk, and after she'd taught Larry the creation magic for his new spell, she'd created another dataset and given it to Francine when she got back - Siphoning off her wheeled vehicles skill, allowing her to use her final dataset to teach Larry Wheeled Vehicles to initiate 1 – nice and fast – who then used Group Instruction to train everyone else in it, so the whole team suddenly knew how to drive every wheeled vehicle in existence. She'd gotten very woozy – apparently Create Dataset cost Health, but a quick round of healing spells from Jonathan handled that. After a series of phone calls and a bit of planning, and they'd all headed out – with a casting of Triple-step from Dave, to get them started – and pulled in everyone they could who would go with them by mid-afternoon.

Near the door, Larry stood with his friends from the gun store, all of them dressed in urban camo, with a healthy supply of guns and looking like they walked right off a Special Forces base. Larry himself... well, it was a radical change. His bald patch had vanished, leaving him with a head of crew-cut blonde hair, his eyes a piercing blue, and the paunch on his belly had been replaced by athletic muscle, his arms and chest filling out to match.

Shawn was still manning the phones and the Internet, helped by his brother and sister, still trying to get the warning out to as many as possible. They'd had the bright idea of calling the emergency services, as well as calling over some cops to pass on what they'd learned, and a bus had driven by a few hours ago, with loudspeakers warning everyone that monsters and dungeons would be spawning just after 2 am. The story was also on the TV, the news outlets finally having gotten confirmation, but Jon still doubted anyone was paying attention. Shawn himself looked quite debonair, the spell seeming to have smoothed out his features: The effect on some of the women in the room was noticeable – but he couldn't hold a candle to Michelle.

The artist was presently entertaining the children with a story, images of what she was reading appearing on the table to act out her words, and the slender brunette was drawing the eye, her natural charm bolstered by her renewed health, her hair cascading like a woman from a shampoo commercial down her shoulders: The spell had apparently even fixed her short-sightedness, and her emerald eyes twinkled with pleasure at the joy of the children to her words.

Francine was gathered with her boyfriend and some other motor heads, teaching those whose vehicle they'd been collecting how to drive them again: She was probably the most unchanged by the spell, though her partner seemed to appreciate her youthful looks. Her blonde hair was still cropped short, her curves generous, her body tight with muscle, and he (Jon still hadn't caught his name) seemed quite gung-ho to help her with her chore: namely, they were organising teams such that if they had to run out and rescue survivors, or relocate, or generally needed to move everyone as fast as possible, that they had it organised: There was a bus parked outside, and Jon wasn't entirely sure where they'd gotten it.

David, and Frank were in a huddle in the next room, he knew: what they were working on he wasn't sure, but it was something to do with one of Frank's miracles. The three of them had also benefited hugely from the Rejuvenation spell. David had easily gained fifty percent more muscle, his flab was gone, and his blonde hair – tied back in a ponytail – shone with a lustrous sheen: Again, his vision had been corrected, and he'd wryly commented that he'd probably be able to get a date now, if it wasn't for the looming magical apocalypse. For Frank, the changes were more subtle. He looked younger, but... there was no way he'd looked that good when he was twenty: Jon had caught more than one of the women present glancing at him, dressed in flowing robes bedecked with magical symbols, bearing a staff that glowed with magical power, like he had just stepped off a movie set.

They had maybe thirty people crammed into the place, those who'd taken the gamble here, rather than forting up in their homes, or joining with those at the University, or one of the three or four other groups they'd heard of preparing for a fight – of those who'd paid attention.

As for Jonathan? He'd been poring over the introduction to spell design, and was finding it quite intriguing indeed. It seemed that what he'd seen with Plasma magic- that it was like a list of instruction, a recipe, almost – a spell was pretty much exactly that. The complication was, the ingredients were the complex processes involved in that discipline, and the countless variations on how they could be manipulated, which is why spell design – at least – was locked until the Journeyman levels. He'd also learned he would gain XP for creating spells, and was quite interested in trying it out.

They'd enabled the functionality to show the XP to next level, and unsurprisingly, it was based on powers of twelve: But they'd initially been surprised the number was so low – until they discovered, in the survival guide, that typical XP rewards were 1-3, with larger numbers being quite large indeed – The writer noted he'd gotten all of four XP for killing a dungeon boss that had killed most of his team.

Looking back at the spell he was working on, he considered if anything was missing – the editor was literally in his mind, another one of his (now translucent) boxes, responding to his thoughts. He was aiming for something that would grant a temporary buff to a group, making them stronger, faster, and generally better able to handle themselves in a fight, while balancing the power requirements to make it actually feasible, using the 'ingredients' he knew without thinking. Deciding that it was as good as he could make it, he hit the 'confirm' button with a mental nudge, and was rewarded with a new prompt.

Congratulations! You have discovered the Spell 'Group Warrior Buff'

As this spell already exists in the System, you are not awarded Innovation XP.

As no-one else on your World has this spell, you have the right to rename it in your natural language, as the Creator of this incantation on your own world.

Would you like to do so?

He was mildly annoyed he was missing out on the XP, but he took the opportunity to name it 'Hero's Blessing'. The name was accepted, and then...

Congratulations! You have discovered and learned the spell 'Hero's blessing'

Requirements: Life Magic (Journeyman 1)

Cost: 108 Mana

Upon casting this spell, up to individuals receive a 27% increase to their Strength, Dexterity, Stamina, Perception, and Alacrity for 6.84 minutes.

You have gained 1 XP for your assistance.

Well, that was better. He smiled, then glanced at the time – just coming up on one in the morning. - And grimaced. Francine's amazing coffee had helped everyone else a lot, and his own perks were holding off the need to sleep with ease: he was rather curious if Balanced Biorhythms was stackable, like Peak Conditioning, and if so, if he would one day get to obviate the need for sleep entirely.

That was when a yellow prompt appeared in his vision – and going by the reaction of everyone else in the room, in everyone else's vision as well.

Warning! Warning! You are currently within an area that has been designated as a Dungeon. You are 4.3672 miles from the perimeter of the Dungeon. You are miles from the perimeter of the Adventurer Zone. It is recommended you depart before the Zone Instantiation (1 hour, 33 minutes, 26 seconds from now) so you may watch the glorious arrival of the System from a safe location!

If you are still within the Dungeon when it instantiates, your System Registry will be Reformatted to serve as a Denizen Seed, and you will lose a Respawn.

If your Respawn Location is located within the Dungeon, it will be erased, and you will be converted into a Prime Seed!

This will regrettably result in the loss of your Persona and erasure of your pattern in the Afterlife.

Warning! You should depart this area. Warning!

When he'd read the message, it faded, and a translucent arrow appeared in the air, the same sickly green as the profile screen, pointing vaguely South, with a countdown nestled to the left of his vision. A round of swearing filtered round the room.

Shawn stood up, calling for quiet. “Everyone! We prepared for this. Francine? Your team, get the bus loaded up. Everyone else, load themselves up. Jon, Make sure you have that damn fortification spike.”

Everyone, in a more or less orderly fashion – they had planned for this eventuality, after all – headed out to the bus, which went according to plan: Francine, her partner, and a couple of their friends moved to bikes, to act as outriders and scouts, while someone Jon didn't know took the wheel of the bus. The front seats were filled with Larry's friends, the guns ready in case they ran into monsters, and Dave, Frank and Jon were just behind them, to provide magical support as required. Michelle had gathered all the kids towards the middle of the bus, and was using her abilities to keep morale high – there was presently an animated kitten playing with them – and Shawn was at the back of the bus, doing his best to keep an eye on what was behind them. All was going to plan... Until they hit the road.

The problem was, the alert they'd received had, of course, been received by everyone else in the affected area – which seemed to be the entire city, going by the flood of people heading out, on foot, as fast as they could, filling the road: as the bus approached, they looked over, many gathering around to try get on, making forward motion impassable. Arguments broke out, as Jon looked at the timer floating to the left of his vision. 1 hour, twenty-five minutes and change, and after sitting there another five minutes, it was clear than Plan B wasn't going to work – at which point, Dave looked to Frank. “Want to see how well your Miracle works with triple-step?” he asked, sounding hopeful.

Frank gave a nod, holding forth his staff. “Maskeline, I ask this spell spread to all who would flee!” and as he intoned the words, Dave apparently cast his spell into Frank's staff – the orb flashed with light, and all the arguments stopped, as the world around them became... slightly blurry. Another alert popped up in his vision – the familiar toxic green.

Buff! You are under the effect of a miracle-boosted Triple-Step spell. For the next 21 minutes, 53 seconds, your personal time is faster by a factor of three.

Dave then looked back over the bus to Shawn. “This should let everyone we can see run three times faster – I dunno if Jon can help with that at all, but It'll get a lot more out – and maybe get us out – which we sure as shit aren't going to do through this crowd.” Shawn thought about it for only a moment, then gave a sharp nod. “Plan C. We're hoofing it. We need to make five miles in – an effective three hours, if you can keep casting that spell, David. Jon, can you help at all?”

Jonathan looked to Frank. “How often can you do that miracle?” he asked, as people started to pour out – some of the smarter people on the road had already started running, wanting to get as far away as they could before the buff ran out. “Twice more.” Frank replied, it's a four times a day thing, and we were testing it earlier. I have another than can refresh your Mana, though?” Jon nodded at that. “Once we're outside, I've got one for the same sort of boost, should give everyone a physical boost to help them get out of here.” Grabbing his things – especially the fortress spike – he joined the others outside, where Shawn was building some order around those who had been milling around the bus, explaining what the spell did (for those who hadn't figured it out) and what they proposed. Jon gestured to Frank, who repeated his incantation, as Jonathan cast Hero's Blessing for the first time – again, a wave of light swept over the crowd.

Buff! You are under the effect of a miracle-boosted Hero's Blessing spell. For the next 6 minutes, 50 seconds, you have a Strength of 7.6, a Dexterity of 8.9, Stamina of 8.9, Perception of 5.0, and Alacrity of 6.4. Your Health has increased to 106 for the duration.

You could visibly see everyone becoming healthier, more lean, and after a few more seconds of organisation, putting the children in the middle and the men with the guns on the perimeter, keeping the bikes as scouts, the group – now much larger – started jogging in the direction of the arrow. Jonathan kept an eye on his Mana regeneration as they settled into a gentle jog – after that casting, he was down to just forty points. Timing it using the countdown timer in his vision, and bearing in mind every three seconds he experienced was a second on the clock, it seemed that he recovered something like one point of Mana every eleven seconds or so. It was quite clear, now, that the System was primarily using the units of the race that created it, and running conversion algorithms – which did make him wonder what the average value of attributes was: The guide they'd found had made no mention of it – other than that attribute perks appeared every twelve points, which led to some interesting questions on what their growth would be like once they could level.

It quickly became apparent that Dave's miracle boosted spell had had a range based on how far he could see, and they found themselves jogging through more crowds of people who seemed to be moving comically slowly: a quick conference between Dave and Frank resulted in another casting of Triple-step (Refreshing their groups timers) and as the new group accelerated to their reference frame, Shawn quickly explained what was happening – And having saved as many as they could, the now much larger group – easily a few hundred people – kept jogging on, trying not to think about those who wouldn't be able to get out in time.

It took them nearly fifteen minutes under the influence of the spell, given the needed to dodge people and occasionally take turns, before they stopped getting the alert about being within a Dungeon: Shawn kept everyone jogging, however, after pointing out they probably didn't want to be right next to the entrance when it started pouring out monsters. They kept on jogging, then, until the ground became rough, and they found themselves in San Bruno Mountain and County Park, moving to high elevation to look back over the city and catch their breath. They could see more people streaming out of the city – there were even a few people who seemed to be flying, which Jon guessed was a relatively simple spell of Gas Magic, and as the timer started approaching zero, they saw a series of portals appearing, spaced perhaps half a mile apart, which would flare open for a few minutes, then another one would appear a little further along around ten minutes later. As it neared them, they saw the portal would open, a crowd would run out of it, then close again. Over and over, bringing that crowd to safety.

All in all, many people were successfully fleeing the city – if they were young, or healthy, had got the right kind of magic, lived on the edge of the Dungeon zone, or just got lucky. But that didn't describe a lot of Americans, and even of that set, there were going to be those who panicked or refused to believe it , and undoubtedly idiots who wanted to be a Dungeon seed. They were looking on a city of almost a million people, and Jonathan seriously doubted more than a few thousand would make it through the night: Even if they escaped the Dungeon area, from what they'd read, it would not take long until it started generating monsters – an initial burst to fill it's 'Zone'.

“I'm thinking we want to take the top of the hill, Yeah?” Frank said, walking over, nodding to the Fortification spike. “And we don't know how long that's going to take to set up, do we?” Jonathan shook his head. “Right now, all it tells me is that it can only be deployed in an Adventurer Zone.” he replied, gesturing Shawn and the others over. “Hey, Boss? Frank's raised a valid point. We don't know how long a Fortification will take to set up – or even how many it can hold – so we might need to hold this area against monsters while it deploys.”

Shawn nodded, and moved a bit apart from the crowd, raising his voice to be heard. “Okay. Good news and bad news. The good news is, we have something of a clue about what's going on and what needs to be done, and because my colleague here was very lucky, we have a way to make a safe space.” He gestured to Jonathan – who looked at all the faces looking at him, feeling a mite self-conscious. It was notable that he and his colleagues looked like protagonists, and the majority of the crowd – didn't. This seemed to give them a certain degree of respect, even if they weren't used to it.

“The bad news is, we won't know exactly how it works or how long it takes to set up until after the Dungeons go live, and we know that when they do, they will start spawning monsters all over the area. Which means we might need to defend it – hell, we don't even know if what it creates will be big enough for everyone here, so. Laurence, here..” he gestured to Larry, whom was gathered with his gun-toting buddies, “Is going to be in charge of defending this area. So everyone is aware, He's a budding Necromancer as well as a crack shot, so we might see some undead fighting on our side. Try not to freak out. Anyone else whom has offensive abilities – and all the different types of magic seem to - and is willing to help with that, please see him, and tell him what you can do. Michelle here..” he gestured to the animator, with all the kids gathered around her, “Is who you should see if you're not up to fighting – though I'll warn, from what we've read, this world won't really give you much of a choice in the long run. Michelle? Take your guys up to the top of the hill – Jon, go with them and see about getting it up as soon as you can. Anyone whom has food, Francine has got some amazing cooking skills – Maybe you can whip something up?” he nodded to her, “And anyone who wants to do a bit of labour – I'm thinking we can see about digging a trench, maybe a wall, around here to act as cover, if anyone has the right perk or spell from Solid magic, that would be ideal.” a very muscular woman nodded at that, starting forward. “Tanya.” she said, by way of introduction: She had a weather beaten, sun-kissed look to her that suggested she spent a lot of time outdoors, her black hair traced with silver, and her garb was vaguely suggestive of 'Hippy'. “Beginner four in Solid magic – I reckon I know the perk you mean. I have Shape Solid, Fertilize, and a nifty spell called Summon Earth sprite that should help.” Shawn nodded. “That's the one I was thinking of.” he sounded pleased, and moved to talk with her, drawing out what he intended.

There was a brief series of screams as Larry demonstrated what he could do with death magic – he gestured, again and again, and four skeletons appeared from thin air, armed with shield and sword: It grew more impressive after another prayer from Frank to refill his pool, and then he gestured at them again – and they reshaped themselves, growing bone armour, maws of filled with fangs, and spikes at their joints. “Skeletal Horrors.” he explained in an almost gleeful tone, Trying (And failing) to calm them down as best he could. “Double the stats of a basic skeleton.” He started talking about them as if they were a gun, generating a bit of laughter, extolling how effective they would be at close range., enthusing about their capabilities. This, in turn, gave Jon an idea, and he summoned a trio of Fire Elementals to assist: With each casting of the spell, a Burst of fire erupted in the air, reshaping itself into a squid-like form, moving on a trio of stumpy legs, with four multi-hued tentacles with which to attack: They were about his size, and he gestured to them to follow Larry's commands, joining his undead on the perimeter. Quickly checking their stats, he saw that they had Strength , Stamina, and Dexterity of fifteen, immunity to Plasma attacks, a vulnerability to Water magic, and all their damage was Plasma damage. Michelle was once more telling a story – She seemed to have a lot of skill now at captivating attention – and the stumpy little squid made of earth that Tanya had summoned was helping Tanya, Shawn, and a couple of the more muscular volunteers rapidly build a trench around their position. The guns were divvied out to those whom said they could still use one – it seemed almost all of Larry's friends had grabbed the 'unlimited Ammo' perk as well, which made ammunition distribution somewhat simpler.

Jonathan, meanwhile, stood at the top of the hill, watching towards the city, at more people fleeing, some in their direction – as an obvious focus of organisation – others not, a swarm of bikes that seemed to be heading along the road, and what looked like a fire that had already broken out inside the city – looting, he suspected. As the time grew closer, the trench (and a short fighting wall) surrounding the hill they had chosen to make their stand on were completed, and more and more people just stood, looking towards the city as the count reached zero, which it did with a wash of yellow light. And when it passed... everything had changed.