"That's Brandon, its best to let him explain, it's a long story," Louie watched as Brandon and a group of people entered one of the barracks. The next morning Louie woke up at five am; his System alarm screaming in his head after only two hours of sleep it was just before the sunrise. He had taken the room at the top of the spire since BOB made the other people in the fort uneasy and they didn't want to stay in the same barracks as him. Louie rolled his neck cracking a few vertebrae and rotating his shoulders a few times as he looked out over the slowly brightening surroundings. He saw one of the recruits practice his spear work against a target behind the shooting range. studied his movements as he made two fast strikes before dropping his spear and take a step forward and then stabbed with his iklwa. (short stabbing spear) Louie raised an eyebrow as he saw the recruit take a stance and use the long blade of the stabbing spear as more like a nagamaki than a short spear by making a couple of cross slashes while covering most of his body with his shield. The recruit shook his head before changing his grip and his stance a bit and repeated the cuts. Hmm somebody is taking this seriously. He looked around but the rest of the fort was quiet except for Johan that was working at the barbeque area. Damn, doesn't that guy sleep? Looking up at the town again he saw shadows moving through the ruins of buildings that he could see between the trees outside the fort, scavenging for food. I will have to expand the fort or create another enclosed area at the back to do some planting. Got to talk to Johan. Louie called BOB and they went down the stairs to the barbeque pit where the fire was burning. "Good morning, I see that most of your people got a roof over their head." Louie still noticed a couple of tents spread around the fort. "Morning." Johan handed Louie a skewer of meat. "Ja, thanks for that. Most will be sleeping late, it was a stressful time and we didn't get much sleep. Hannie and his team had gone out hunting already." Louie nodded his thanks as he tucked into the kabab. Louie saw the Centaur duck out from a doorway and looked around before coming over to the fire. "Morning Brandon, let me introduce you to our host. Louie, this is Branden the Blacksmith." Brandon held out his hand with a big smile. "Howdy partner." He laughed at Louie's confused look. "Don't worry. I'm from around here. I have loved horses for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I was fascinated by centaurs, the closest I got was to riding horses, so becoming a cowboy was the next best thing." Brandon looked around. "Aah I don't want to spoil your breakfast, but where do you go to do your morning bathroom routine?" "I made some showers in the left-back corner, next to it is a simple 'hole in a seat system' connecting to an outflow pipe joined to the town sewer system, but I think that will sooner or later be a problem, might have to find a way to fix the waste system. I haven't sat down and work something out yet. We only came here last night," "No problem, if you could open the gate then I can just go behind the nearest bush." "Ok, then I will make something suitable for you later. . . Johan I would like to talk to you and Bianca, I have a proposition for you, maybe tonight? Four of our squads are going to search the town for survivors and stuff that we can use." Johan nodded as Loo and Brandon started for the gate. Brandon suddenly gave a neigh and kicked out backwards. Only BOB's fast reflexes prevented him from receiving a hoove to the head. At the braai area, Johan was cracking up as he bends over with tears streaming down his face. Louie tried to stiffen his laugh as he scolded BOB. "Sorry Brandon, that's just the way that he greets everybody." Brandon was as red as a boiled lobster. "Sorry Loo, it just the horse part of me has its own instincts, and a surprising cold nose in your behind will get a reaction." Louie smiled and waved his apology away. "It's no problem, I must apologise for BOB. But the big question I'm sure you had to answer a million times. How did this happen?" Brandon shrugged. I don't know how, but we were rehearsing for the grand opening when the pulse struck. Like I said I had always loved the thought of being a Centaur, so a couple of years ago I had made myself a horses ass." He smiled. Louie indicated he should hold on. Leon came down the stairs to meet them. "Morning Corporal, you still awake? Did you get any sleep?" Leon gave the Centaur a curious look before greeting them. "Morning Sirs. Yes, sir, I found a dark corner and took cat naps during the guard's rounds. You here to check on the newest volunteer?" Louie nodded his head. "Is he still alive?" "Yes sir. He improved a lot about an hour ago. I think he might have received a class or something." He moved the gate aside and saw the councilman standing in the middle of the bridge. They walked towards him and Louie greeted him. "Morning Counselor, I see you had a fruitful night. You are welkom in my fort if you can be respectful to your fellow survivors." The Deputy Counselman sagged and leaned heavily on his shield while around him laid the bodies of twenty-four rats. He sighed deeply before he straightened up and looked Louie straight in the eye. "I hate you. . . . but, I had a lot of time to think, between facing these things. And you are right, there is no place in this new world for people that wait for somebody to fight for them, but I still hate you. And my name is -." Loo waved him to silence. "I think we will call you, Counselor, it will remind you of what you were, This was a good start, now you can see what others go through to keep you safe." Louie indicated Leon. "The Corporal here said that you showed a marked improvement over the last hour?" He stood a bit straighter. "I levelled up to level 3 and received a class." "Congrats can you share the info with us?" Louie explained how to share the stat info. He told the counsellor how to loot the rats while they started to read the BB. Louie just concentrated on the class and the ability together with the spells he received.

Status

Name:

Counsellor

Race:

Human (Male) Lvl 3

Class:

Wedge (0) (35%)

Sub-classes:

Titles:

Affinity:

Air

Class Skill Proficiencies Warcry: Level 0 (00/100) Wind Barrier: Level 0 (00/100) Skill Spear Mastery: Level 0 (70/100) Louie smiled as he saw Counselors name on the status page but right-clicked on the important bits. Class: Wedge Wedge is the head or point of a spear. Find the crack, force it open. He is the person that is the leading force in an attack. The spear must advance. Spear Mastery Level 0 (70/100) Spear Mastery is a passive skill that increases the damage you do with spears and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a spear. Many skills, especially spear attack skills, become more effective with higher Spear Mastery. Warcry: Level 0 (00/100) When used it provides the party with an +15% attack buff. Last 3 minutes Wind Barrier: Level 0 (00/100) Protect Yourself or One Ally, Grants 35% Damage Reduction, 25% chance to trigger this Effect on All Party Members. Lasts 3 minutes. Louie shook his head. "Counselor, that is a fine class that you got there, I'm going to give you this advice and I'm only going to give it to you once only. Lead by example. Show people what to do, by doing it and not sitting back and telling them what to do." He slapped Leon on the shoulder. "This is Corporal Koen. Go with him, I'm sure he can get you a better fit of clothes and something to eat. You will go out with one of the teams today. Stay quiet and learn what you can. Don't disappoint me." Leon and the counsellor walked back into the fort towards the braai area while Louie and Brandon stepped over the bridge towards the jungle. Brandon laughed. "Well, I can see that you don't hold much stock with politicians." Louie sighed. "Not when they want to tell me what I must and mustn't do. Politicians seemed to forget that they were there to serve the public, not the public to serve them. . . . You were saying about being a centaur?" Brandon was still smiling as he continued his story. "I made myself an attachment, a suit that I can strap myself into and post a couple of clips on youtube of me in the getup doing some metalwork, it was a great hit so I started going to shows and fairs mostly in America. I heard about the Ren Fair Johan's brother was starting so I joined up." "The first night during rehearsal I was doing some stunts, showing off, really getting into the centaur mindset and then there was the pulse, then a terrible pain and I blacked out. I woke up the next morning with my wife in tears beside me and everybody getting ready to move out and that's when I noticed that my attachment wasn't an attachment any more. It was real, real flesh and blood." "How it happened I have no clue, but I'm not complaining. Although my wife is. We haven't had time to sit down and talk about our relations, but we been married for over 20 years, kids are off to college, so the sex has pretty much gone the last couple of years, but we still love each other so we will keep it at that." Louie was captivated by Brandon's story. "Damn, you think that the fact that you might have imagined yourself as a centaur at the moment the pulse hit, might have caused the change?" Brandon nodded. "Yea and I bet I'm not the only one, I'm just lucky that I had people around that saw what happened and didn't think that I was some kind of monster." Brandon went behind the nearest bush and did what the horses do before he returned to Louie. "What are your plans for the future?" Brandon ran his hand through his hair. "Kids are in college in the Transvaal, so the chances of getting to them are small, but they are handy with their hands so I'm sure they are ok. I think me and the wife will stay with Johan and his bunch. They seem to know what they are doing." "Good to hear, if you are going to stay with Johan then I got a proposition for you. I'm thinking of asking Johan to stay and run the fort. If he accepts. Do you think you could run the smithy for the fort?" Brandon looked thoughtful for a moment and then agreed to stay and be the blacksmith if Johan stayed to run the fort. They entered the fort and Louie went up the stairs to the battlements to do a round on the wall. As he reached the eastern corner he stopped and looked out over the ruins of Worcester. He saw the destruction and started thinking of the loss of life, the children, the innocents that died with the pulse, he looks and slowly depression set in. How many times have I wished that some global tragedy would strike earth to reset the balance between humanity and nature? I knew that the death toll would be great for something like that to work, but knowing something and looking at the results are two different things. I want to be angry with Gaea, but how can you be angry at somebody that has been the victim for millennia and then decided that enough is enough. Better to be angry with the fucking politicians and rich guys who thought more about their deep pockets than the world around them. How many warnings should we as humanity have received before we started to listen? The tears silently rolled down Louie's face as he looked at what was left of a swing set in the yard of a destroyed house. He shook his head. Enough! I got work to do. Louie turned around after wiping his eyes and saw that the troops were all standing in squads, ready to start the day. But first, there was a funeral to attend. He addressed the recruits. "Morning all. We should have done this last night but we came here too late, and I think it would be disrespectful to have a funeral when everybody was thinking of sleep. I have thought about it and decided that since he was a warrior and died a warriors death, that we will hold a Viking funeral and burn our fallen." Louie led them through the gate to a stone bier that he had made earlier. The lance corporals helped him with the body, that he took from his inventory, and placed it on bier where they covered him with lumber that they brought just for that purpose. As the sun had just cleared the treetops to the east when they lit the funeral pyre. The body was consumed by the flames as they all stood quietly. The farewells were spoken at the site of his death. A few tears were shed, but most were thinking of their own lost loved ones. Too many innocent people had died. "Richard Stoner. I bet he got ribbed about his name a lot." Loo gave a small sad smile. "Like I said I will learn and not forget his name." He turned from the pyre and a stone monolith rose out of the ground, on it was written the name, Richard Stoner. "The first name, sadly it won't be the last." I will remember his name he died fighting next to me. After the fire died down Louie covered the bier in a fresh layer of stone and sunk all the ash into the earth. He then turned to the Lance corporals. "Sad to say but life goes on. You Corporals have your orders. The priority is survivors, keep your eyes and ears open, look for any survivors, go from house to house in teams of two, I repeat, in teams of two. Nobody goes alone. Second is any canned, preserved foods anything else that might be useful. Be careful if you enter any big buildings there might be a nest or lair inside, any sign that the monsters are too much, retreat. Be careful out there everybody." Louie called the medics together and handed each of them a healing spell cube. "Crush the cube and if the system deems you are ready, then you will unlock the spell and maybe a class." When nobody got the spell Louie just shrugged. "I will be trying to get some medical books today that you guys can study tonight." Louie led his ten troops plus Sally and the other medic out to the N1 while the survivors that attended the funeral went back through the wicket gate that he had created next to the main stone disc gate. At the N1 they turned left and jogged till they reached the spot where the vehicle pileup was, there they turned right and followed the R43, keeping an eye on the Mountainmill mall on their left. Louie was sure that there was a Rats nest there. Louie speculated that last night's march drew most of the lone creatures so there shouldn't be many attacks. But by now the rats didn't post much of a threat to the recruits. They reached the corner across from the dutch reformed church when they heard a shout and saw somebody wave at them from an upper-story window before disappearing into the church. The wall was pretty much destroyed and the open ground around the church like nearly all open areas had turned into a jungle. They moved slowly around the building towards the main entrance where they found about 15 people clutching an assortment of garden tools as weapons. The survivors looked haggard and their clothes were torn with bloodstains. Louie told them about the fort and that there are people there. He gave them the option of staying at the church and waiting for them to return later the day or moving out now and taking the road which should still be cleared of any monsters. They opted to try for the fort and Louie wished them luck and watched them till they disappeared down the road. Louie thought of how walking down the street felt strange. Silent, too silent, no children shouting, and the wreckage of cars all over the road made the road feel cramped and boxed in. Worst of all was the sight of nature encroaching on every piece of civilization. The huge trees in the jards with roots breaking the pavements and roads, and thick vines of ivy hanging from broken street signs and light posts lots of destruction and from the claw marks it looks like it had been done by monsters. Now and then Louie caught glimpses of buildings deeper in through the choking mass of trees, but the houses were all crumbling and ruined. They split into groups of two and started searching the ruined houses across from the church before meeting up in front of the OK mini-mart at the end of the block. They decided to go through the destroyed front entrance and see what kind of damage was done inside and if there were anything that they could save. Louie saw his squad eye the liquor store as they went past. "Priorities first, all the tin and dry foods we can get then we can check out the liquors store. Grab the trolleys." He pointed to the scattered shopping trolleys lying around. There was a container truck in the parking lot so Louie made sure it was disconnected from the trailer bed before inventoried it and then brought it out in front of the store. "Let's fill it up, people" They went through the store only encountering solitary rats and one creature that might have been a dog at one time. Louie was happy with the number of tined foods they got even though most of the store was a ruin, but what surprised and pleased him most were the locked basement stockrooms. There were so many boxes and wrapped foodstuff that Louie had them all placed on pallets and after encasing it in a thin layer of stone he took out his WTF chest and dropped everything in there. He was especially pleased with the sweets lockers filled with chocolates and all sorts of gummy sweets. Most of the gummies and chocolates went in his inventory and not the container or the chest. They also cleared the liquor store before moving on. They went over the train bridge and started going from house to house again, but most were nothing but ruins. Loo had some hope to find survivors at the two schools he had seen from the bridge. The first was a primary school and things didn't look good as there was no sign of movement and the broken doors and windows were not promising although the building was in a much better shape than those around it. As they entered the front doors they were attacked by a pair of giant rats. As Louie had feared, the school had turned into a nest. They went in and started clearing it room for room, it was good practice for the recruits as each room had between 3 and 7 rats and they used the door openings as a bottleneck to slaughter them. Louie noticed that the experience was divided by participation and not like in the dungeons where each member of the party got the same experience for a kill. He had the recruits form up in two rows of six, the first six crouching behind their shields and using their iklwa for close quarters and the second row which included Sally and the other medic was stabbing over their shoulders with their long spears. Louie included the two medics since they had no magical healing ability they would receive no experience from the kills if they did not participate, he took up the rearguard and followed behind everybody with a wave of stone ready to intervene if needed. As they passed the school library he stopped them and went in and made sure there were no monsters before he made two hollow stone boxes in which they placed all the books, damaged or not. Need books to teach the next generation. They cleared the classrooms quickly and everybody but Louie gained two levels. Even though he had two titles that work for killing Rats. The fact that he wasn't actively killing anything counted against him receiving any experience. The only real opposition they got was when they entered the school basement through a corridor lighted by lanterns hanging from the walls. It was here that they encountered the Ratking. It looked like something that came from somebody's darkest nightmare. Mutated Packrat King Level 9 (10/10) This Packrat has taken command of this nest and by melding with the previous spawn has become the king. It can call forth the life of all the rats it has killed. It has a festering bite and a breath that will strip paint. Think a cat got 9 lives? Think again. It walked on its hind legs. Was build like a brick shithouse, its teeth and claws looked like it could bite through steel and it was nearly 2meter tall. Louie warned everybody. "Be careful, it has a poison bite and probably claws and an acid breath or spit." Let's see if they can handle it, if not then I will jump in. The double-wall of spears moved in on the King and it started slashing at the shields they quickly realised that the shields won't last long as big chunks were ripped out of it. They shouted and advanced while stabbing it repeatedly till they backed it into a corner and they stabbed it to death. A sickly green vapour started seeping from the body and they backed away from it as the mist started condensing in the area. Suddenly the green mist parted and a different rat stood where the king's body was a moment ago. Mutated Brown rat King Level 9 (9/10) This Brown rat is the second king that has fallen in defence of the nest when the previous rat became the king. It can call forth the life of all the rats it has killed. It has a festering bite and a breath that will strip paint. It has a powerful Screech attack. Think a cat got 9 lives? Think again. "Damn, everybody out. It's got 10 lives, look like every time it gets killed it spawns a new body and another attack power and there is the green fog also." Louie parted the stone behind them as they retreated. The Rat squealed, disorienting them for a moment and then it charged. They rushed to the basement door and the moment it jumped Louie caught it in a stone fist, crushing it and encased it in a stone cocoon. The mist started to form around the cocoon. "Shit, look like the mist is a deadman's AOE spell centred on the king as it dies." They moved down the corridor with the cocoon riding a stone wave like a snail, trailing a stream of mist behind them. Louie ordered them to gather up all the lanterns as they went. When the mist stopped forming Louie collapsed the cocoon inwards killing the king and the mist would start forming again and they would start walking the hallways again. The recruits kept an eye out for any rats. They had just gone past a classroom when three rats jumped out but got caught in the mist and immediately they started convulsing. The rats got bigger, it reminded him of the old movie he saw, an American werewolf in London, there was a lot of bones snapping and moving, their teeth and claws turned shiny and sharp. Humanoid Wererat level 3 (Shapechanger) High Perception ( passive ) + Stealth. Darkvision 20meters. (Rat Form Only) Bite (Rat or Were Form) infects, use cure disease or be Cursed with arouranthropy. Immune to Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing From Non-magical Weapons They charged the line of shields and the recruits retaliated but the wounds closed as soon as the spearpoints were pulled out of the rat. Bob bowled them over and grabbed the one rat around its neck and dragged it away from the shields. Louie handed his ninjato and naginata to the recruits as he changed direction and moved the mist-shrouded cocoon away from the shield wall. "Don't let them bite you or get away. Their bite can change people into wererats." It took nearly 40minutes of walking through the school hallways towing the cocoon and killing the king before he got a notification. Defeated Mutated Rat King Level 9 (0/10) 900 exp gained = 100exp/ king Loot Ratking body (Y/N) Congratulations on defeating the Ratking of the WPS Nest, Nest loot is automatically added to your inventory. If there is not sufficient space then loot will drop next to the Ratking body Ratking Loot 9S coins Sabertooth dagger. (poisoned) Cloak of the Ratking (unique) 9 x ratking pelts 9 metallic claws 9 rat incisors Louie noticed that his subclass has gone up. There were excited shouts as one of the recruits got the loot for the first Ratking kill and everybody else got participation experience. Shortly after the kill, cracks started to appear on the walls, and Louie thought it was a good time for them to move out towards the school next door. They rushed out one of the back doors of the school and found that all the playgrounds had turned into a jungle, but there was still a trail towards the road that separated the two schools. "Let's take a 10minutes break before we move on." He started going through the loot he got from the nest and the ratking. Cloak of the Ratking This cloak will close 10 bleeding wounds after which it has a cooldown period of 10 days. Will heal the wearer for 10 HP and stop all bleeding when the wearer reaches 0HP. (Note: being hit while at ten health will still kill you.) once used the cloak will disintegrate Louie relaxed with his eyes closed against the wall of the school while he browsed the loot he stopped and opened his eyes when he heard BOB's low growl. He looked at the recruit that was walking towards him holding his ninjato and naginata. The recruit stopped in front of Louie and held out the weapons. "Thank you, Sir, our weapons were having no effect against those rats." Louie inventoried the weapons. "No problem, as far as I can understand, it's because only magical weapons or magic can deal damage to were animals." The recruit was looking around uncertainly. "Something else I can help you with?" He stood up straight. "Yes Sir. . . . it's about the loot we received from the wererats and the Ratking, also the other rats?" "You got loot from the Ratking?" "Yes Sir." Some of the other recruits walked closer as they heard the discussion. Louie looked around at his team. "Hold on to the loot, you can give the meat to the cooks at the fort. There are some artisans there as well, so you might be able to give some of the materials to them in exchange for making you something that you can use like armour or a personal weapon. Or you can keep your loot and give it to the Dungeon teams when we get back to starter town to swap at the vendor for something. It's all up to you." Most of them nodded and sat back down "You are the guy I saw practising your spear moves this morning?" He nodded. "What's your name?" "Jackson Pollok, Sir." "Mr Pollok, something else I can help you with?" Louie leaned towards Jackson as he saw a female recruit stand up and came towards them. "We would like to join your expedition to Paarl" "We?" "Yes Sir, me and Debbie." He indicated the girl that now stood next to him. "I will see, come to me tonight when we are back at the fort. Be ready to share your day's notifications. Ok, share your loot notification with me so I can see what you got from the King and Were. Just open the notification and think of sharing it with me." Ratking Loot 1S coin Cat o nine tail: Cat's Bane (uncommon) 1 packrat belt pouch 20sq (75%weight reduction) 1 ratking pelt 1 metallic claw 1 rat incisor WereRat loot 10Copper pieces 1 Tattered tunic 1 Vial of WereRat drool. 1 pouch of catnip (bait for trap) 2 Cat incisors Pair of bladed Knuckle Dusters (common) "Nice if you are not going to use it then you might be able to exchange the whip and knuckledusters for something at the Fort or Starter town. Be careful of that Drool, that will infect somebody with the Wererat disease. What does these loot from the wererat tell you, Mr Pollok, Ms Debbie?" Jackson closed his eyes and it looked like he was looking through his notifications. Debbie was the first to speak up. "When they changed, the system changed their loot also." Jackson agreed. "The loot also became better, there is a weapon in there where the ordinary rats didn't have anything, we also got more experience from the Wererats than from the ordinary rats." "Exactly. Always think outside the box. I want the two of you to think about the loot and what it can tell you. I will ask you about it tonight." Louie stood away from the wall. "Ok everybody, let's go, there is another school we need to get to and the day isn't waiting for anybody."