I move through the lobby placing my hand on corpse after corpse. I fill the symbol on my hand with mana and watch the bodies vanish in black smoke.

I find that Scavenging the bodies takes very little mana from me. Less than a percentage per corpse. I also find that after the fiftieth body the symbol on my hand starts to sting.

Nothing useful comes from the cloud of smoke. The most useful thing that I Scavenge is probably a bottle of water.

Once the lobby is cleared I head to the kitchen and rid that area of zombies. After I clear the bike room.

Most of the items that I Scavenge are things like a scrap of paper or some other random piece of trash.

However, when I Scavenge the corpses of the high level bodies I get things like that water bottle or a regular leather belt.

Once the whole floor is clean from any bodies my hand feels as if it’s been run under hot water for too long. I can see sunlight pour in from the street and realize that I’ve been awake all night. Yet I don’t feel tired yet.

I wonder if it’s from my increases in Endurance or from boosting my Willpower. Either way it’s making completing the Sleep Matters Not Quest easier.

With the first floor done I head to the garage and start clearing the bodies down there. I get some pens and other random items from them. Most of which seems like garbage to me. I did get a really strange item from one of the bodies.

Its a chunk of metal the size of a quarter. It's a strange shade of green and feels cold to the touch. It’s blank on one side but on the other it has another strange symbol pressed into it.

Through the shade of green I can see the faint outlines of what seems to be a tower or a set of towers. One large tower sits in the middle and has two others set on each side for a total of five towers.

I feel like the symbol is suppose to have more minute details. But I can’t make anything other than the towers out.

I pocket the coin and continue hunting for bodies to clear out.

Halfway through clearing the garage a window pops up in my vision.

Skill Evolution:

Scavenging

Novice -> Apprentice

+3 to Luck

The window reminds me of the one I got while fighting the Spitter. I open my skill list and read through them again. Finding only my Mana Manipulation and my Scavenging skills to be at Apprentice proficiency.

So does each level of proficiency boost the power of the skill or is it just a numerical evaluation of my skill with the skill? The evolutions do grant Attribute boosts so maybe it’s a mix of both? I don’t know. All I know is that I should see if evolution has changed anything.

I continue looting the bodies finding that I get less garbage and more just random items. Like I get seven more of those weird green coins and some different rocks. I pocket all of those hoping to use them to learn more about my Earth mana with them.

Once the garage is cleared I go up through each flight of stares ridding them of the bodies. Then I go floor by floor making sure that the building is clean of rotting corpses.

Once done I have fifteen of those green coins, multiple rocks and a new pair of shoes. At least I think they’re new. They look like some old fashioned leather boots. But honestly I’m too grossed out from knowing they came from a rotting body to even want to try them on.

I open my skill list to see how far I’ve ranked up my Scavenging skill.

Skill List:

Name:

Level:

Proficiency:

Mana Manipulation

2

Apprentice

Channel Purification

2

Novice

Earth Element Control

4

Novice

Night Vision

1

Novice

Scavenging

3

Apprentice

I feel satisfaction at seeing the longer list. I even feel joy at seeing how much my skills have grown. Part of me wants to go back to the board and purchase any quest that gives a skill a reward.

I don’t really care what the skill is. I just like seeing this list grow and my skill levels increase. There’s a sense of satisfaction in seeing them.

My stomach growls, reminding me of how much time has passed. So I head to the seventh floor, hoping that people are awake.

As I walk onto the floor I start to worry about getting food. Back when it was just Decker, Andy, and Angila I wasn’t too worried about just grabbing some food. But now that there’s so many of us it feels wrong.

So far I’ve always been handed something so I don’t really know how we’re distributing food. I’ve kind of been an outcast from the group since the beginning.

I only participate when I have too. When I’m given free time I’m either off alone doing my own thing or I’m with Decker.

My worries are dashed when I find Angila sitting at a table in the break area of the floor. She’s holding a mug in her hands staring blankly into it.

I cautiously approach and give a slight cough to announce myself.

“Good morning.” I say.

The blond lady looks away from her mug and over to me.

“Oh. It’s you. Good morning.” She says.

She turns back to her mug making me feel awkward. Have I done something to make her uncomfortable?

I decide to ignore her. If she doesn’t like me then I’m more comfortable just doing my own thing.

I find one of the packets of ramen I took from my car. Since I brought it in, it's mine right? I did just put it down as if I was offering it to the group.

My stomach growls again, ending the internal debate. I pull out a bowl of water and place the dried noodles and seasoning into it. I find a fork and take a seat at a different table.

I watch the cold liquid fail to mix right with the flavoring powder. Does the water need to be hotter for it to mix right? Like hot chocolate?

With nothing better to try I place both hands around the bowl without touching it. Then I push mana outside of my body, forcing it to wrap around the bowl.

While I can’t conjure flames or anything, in my experience mana gives off some kind of heat. So maybe if I push enough mana I can heat up this water.

I feel my hands grow warm as the mana around the bowl glows brighter. A few minutes later my hands feel as if they’re burning and light steam rises from the water.

I cry on the inside, wondering just how long it’s been since I’ve eaten something warm. Testing the noodles I find them at the perfect softness and greedily slurp down the cheap meal.

Once done I drink the warm juice in the bowl and lean back. Feeling more satisfied than I have in a long while. Warm food always fills me up better than cold.

Maybe I should talk to Decker about getting one of those fire convertor things. Maybe someone from the restaurant can use it to cook hot foods or something.

“How did you warm that up?” Angila asks me.

I find her looking up at me from her table.

“I wrapped it with mana until the water was warm.” I tell her.

She stands suddenly and almost races over to the kitchen area. She shuffles around some cupboards and pulls out a large glass jar full of coffee grounds.

She pulls out more items that I assume are used to make coffee. Some white papers, a coffee pot, and three cups of water. She then hands me the cups of water.

“Please heat these up.” She almost begs me.

Her eyes are filled with a kind of pleading that makes me feel that saying no would be wrong. So I take the mugs and wrap them with my mana. Then I set the mana to burn brilliantly while I watch her.

She scoops out the coffee grounds and puts it into one of those white filter paper things. Then she sets that inside the coffee machine. Then she looks back towards me.

“How much longer?” She asks.

I shrug my shoulders.

“I don’t know. It could take a little bit.”

Her shoulders fall at my words. But then they rise and she walks over to me.

She places her hands near the cups of water and pours her mana over mine. The two energies mix in a strange way and I feel connected to the women standing next to me. Not in a sense that I know who she is as a person. But in the sense that I can feel the mana coursing through her.

I can almost see the channels leading from her hands and up through her arms. The spring of mana inside of her is a glowing beacon drawing my attention.

Yet as attention grabbing as the orb inside of her it, it feels wrong for me to see it. As if it’s something very personal and private.

I force my attention off of her and back to the mugs of heating water.

Minutes pass and the water in the mugs let off a decent amount of steam. I pull my mana in at the same time Angila does.

She takes two of the cups and I take the third, carrying them over to the coffee pot. The glass is hot to the touch but brings me a sense of warmth I haven’t felt since the start of all of this.

No more central heating. No more hot chocolates from my local coffee shop. Heat is going to be harder to come by, especially with winter just around the corner.

Why couldn’t the apocalypse happen in the summer? At least that way we wouldn’t have to worry about winter so soon.

Although on the other hand magic is a thing now. Maybe we can use it to become the masters of our environments again sooner rather than later. Maybe there’s spells or magical items that can heat whole buildings.

I watch Angila slowly pour the hot water into the coffee grounds. Making sure to not let the water build up too much.

A dark liquid slowly drips into the glass coffee pot. The odor of coffee becomes far stronger and I have to wonder who drinks this stuff.

I’ve tried it in the past but the stuff has always been far too bitter for me. Call me a child but hot coco will always reign supreme.

“Is that coffee?” A deep voice asks.

I turn around to see a tired looking Decker. The moments his eyes fall onto the still brewing coffee they almost bug out of his head.

“Oh my God that is coffee.”

He practically runs over and marvels at the black liquid. He is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet as we watch Angila pour the last cup of hot water into the coffee maker.

Decker grabs a mug from the cupboard and pours the water from it into one of the now empty cups. Then he takes the coffee inside of the pot and pours himself a glass.

Angila follows suit leaving only one mug full of coffee left inside of the pot. Decker smells the liquid in his cup and then breathes a deep sigh of relief.

“I need a cigarette.” He says. “Hey Joel, do you know where my office is on the tenth floor?” He asks me.

I nod my head. I mostly know because it has his name on a plate next to the door.

“Inside of my office is a black jacket. Could you bring that to the patio on the ninth floor?”

“Yes sir.”

He smiles at me and then starts heading for the staircase. I notice that he still hasn’t touched the liquid inside of the mug. He’s only smelling it.

I race up to the tenth floor and grab the jacket in his office. Then I run down to the ninth floor and find Decker sitting in a chair on the patio. I hand him the jacket and he takes out a carton of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Do you smoke?” He asks me.

I shake my head.

“Probably best you don’t. It’s honestly one of my worst habits.”

He places a cigarette in his mouth and pulls in deeply. Then he holds his breath for a few seconds. Followed by a slow and controlled exhaule.

Smoke rises in the cold air and drifts away slowly. Decker then finally takes a sip of the coffee in his mug.

Watching him smoke I’m reminded of the only other time I’ve seen him with a cigarette. If it’s such a habit why haven’t I been seeing him smoke more often?

“I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you smoke.”

“Yeah I’ve been limiting myself to a single cigarette before bed. But If I’m going to drink coffee I have to smoke. It just doesn’t taste right otherwise.” He says.

We fall into a silence as we watch the quiet city. The sun is barely over the horizon but it looks like it’s going to be a very sunny day.

My breath lingers in the cold air hinting at the continual drop in temperature.

“If we make it past whatever the countdown is ticking to then we’re going to need to worry about winter.” Decker says.

I nod.

“You know I was thinking that we might be able to use a fire converter to cook hot foods. It might even be useful in keeping us warm.” I say.

Decker looks at me causing me to feel awkward. Should I not have said anything?

“You’ve changed a lot in such a short amount of time. Or I just didn’t get a very good read on you kid.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well I have a knack for understanding people. When I first met you I pegged you for a quiet outcast who followed instead of lead. But you’ve been offering ideas here and there. And even sorta leading the Hunting party.”

I know what he means. Ever since the start of this apocalypse I’ve changed a lot. Before the earthquake I doubt I ever would have initiated a conversation with someone, let alone freely offer my ideas like I did just now.

“You know I used to have a son?” Decker says while looking out over the horizon.

“Used to?”

“Yeah. He would have been a few years older than you had it not been for a car crash.” Decker says. “But that’s in the past. We need to worry about the future.”

I feel at a lost for words. What do you say to that?

“Yeah.” I offer him.

It’s not much but what else can I say?

“Say, where did you get that tattoo kid?” Decker asks.

I look down at the rings on the back of my hand. It definitely does look like some weird tattoo.

I explain to him the quest and how I spent the past few hours cleaning the building of corpses.

“Now that I think about it, the staircase did smell considerably better. You never cease to amaze me kid. You truly are something special.” He says.

I’m left speechless by his words. I’ve never received much praise in my life. But this man has been offering it to me like I’ve been doing something special. Like I actually deserve it.

I haven’t been doing anything special. I’ve just been running from one thing to another with little to no thought put into my actions. What is there that I’ve done to be deserving of praising?

“You asked me to teach you how to fight with a sword right?” Decker asks.

I nod my head. The man pulls in another long drag of his cigarette.

“Give me five minutes. I’ll meet you on the roof. We should have a few more hours before we need to get the day started.” He says.

He stands and takes another drag from his cigarette. The tip flares hot and burns the rest of the white stick to the brown butt.

Decker breaths out slowly and drops the still smoking cigarette to the ground. He drinks the last of his coffee and walks back inside.

Leaving me with a sense of excitement. I race up to the roof, waiting for him to arrive.