Chapter 6

A place to rest

Rt 66 West of Shroud, OK

January 10

8:17 PM

Before continuing down the road, I decided to stay off the road and about halfway into the tree line. That didn’t last too long before I realized that the wheels on my cart and my wounded shoulder couldn’t handle the rough terrain and I moved back to the edge of the road. After walking about a mile, I saw a light up ahead. Slightly concerned about who had created this light I moved ahead cautiously. Having just had the skirmish with a few Goblin Warriors and wasn’t sure what else was nearby. Light travels a long way in the dark. As I got closer to the light, I noticed that there is triple piped fencing along the road. I wonder if this is a ranch for horses or cattle. After thinking about it for a moment, I reasoned that typically, ranches with cattle have barbed wire fences. This type of fencing makes me suspect a horse ranch or other type of farm animal.

Several minutes of walking later, I could see the glow of the fire pit down the road leading into the ranch. Over the gate and road leading towards the fire is a sign with a drawn Bow and arrow and then the word Ranch. Perhaps this meant Bow’s Ranch or Beau’s Ranch. Pulling my cart off the road, I left it near the gate. I crouched down and made my best effort to approach the fire without being seen. As I got closer, I could see that seated around the fire pit were an old woman and two little kids. I had started to make my way towards the fire pit, but as I came close a younger woman came out of the darkness and approached the fire with her arms full of bedding. I received a notice.

You have earned the skill Stealth. Level 1

You have left stealth.

I crouched down, trying to stay in the shadows. However, there was a sharp bark from a dog and I could see a larger border collie moving towards me.

Suddenly, the younger woman dropped her bundle and drew a pistol. “Stop right there, Sadie, Hold!!” she said. The dog stopped about 5 feet away, just out of reach and out of the line of fire.

I am not one that ever enjoyed having a gun pointed at them, so I tried to make no sudden moves. Having an odd thought at the moment, I wonder why when people point a gun at someone always say stop or freeze. I wasn’t even moving. Even though she had said stop, I held up my hands slowly. I didn’t drop my battle-ax but held the shaft near the ax head. “Hold on, I’m friendly. I just saw your fire and made my way over to check if you were okay. There are some dangerous monsters nearby” I continued as I stood up slowly.

“Do you live around here”, she asked not even raising an eyebrow when I mentioned monsters, still holding tightly, with her pistol pointed at me.

“I don’t,” I replied, “I live in Oklahoma City. I was in Tulsa trying to make my way home when the Release occurred. My car is back up the road a few miles. I am afraid I crashed into a tree.” I left off the part about the minotaur being stuck between my car and the tree and the Goblins. She didn’t seem surprised when I said monsters, but I wasn’t going to add more information unless she asked.

“Would you mind not pointing the guns at me,” I asked? She stood there regarding me until I continued. “In fact, I am a little curious as technology seems like it is not working. Would you mind pointing that gun up in the air and pulling the trigger?”

At that question, she chuckled and put the gun into her belt. “Sadie, come,” she said. With that, the dog gave me a warning look and moved over to stand with her.

“Well, I was wondering how long that bluff would work,” she said. “I tried it earlier on an Orc that showed up. I pulled the trigger, and nothing happened, it didn’t shoot. I cocked it multiple times ejecting the rounds and trying to shoot. All I got was nothing but a click. Fortunately, Dad was able to put it down with a few arrows.” After a moment's reflection to pause and wonder how close it had been. I got another thought and I grinned at her.

“That is cool, an Orc.” Shaking my head, “Crazy times. Did you get any good loot?”

“Loot”, she asked?

I said, “yes, loot, weapons, armor, jewelry, coins”. She started to laugh out loud and literally facepalmed her hand to her forehead.

“I had totally forgotten about loot in when fighting monsters. After all the time I have spent gaming. I have been so focused on taking care of the kids and trying to get as much out of the house as we could. I can’t believe that I forgot about loot.”

“Well let me know if you need a hand, I said, I am always up for a little looting”.

She laughed and her eyes sparkled as she looked me over, “I bet you are.” As she finished talking, she looked over her shoulder and said. “It’s okay, Dad, you can come out now.” At that point, an older man came out of the dark holding a crossbow.

He held out his hand and said, “Hello, names Beau, welcome to my ranch”. My right arm was still painful, I grimaced as I stuck out my hand and made an awkward handshake.

“Thank you, Beau”, I said, “names Shea”.

Giving me a puzzled look, Beau asked “Did you get injured”? In response to his question, I relayed my fight with the Goblins without going into a lot of detail. He seemed intrigued and asked, “Three at once? Pretty impressive.”

Remembering that I still had a magical sphere to unlock, after telling the story, I moved away from the group a little distance. I didn’t want them to hear me unlock my second magical sphere. I made a mental note to get better at remembering my upgrades. “Pansofia,” I whispered, “please unlock the Liquid Sphere”. Pansofia confirmed and I received a prompt.

You have unlocked the magical sphere: Liquid.

Holding my hand to my shoulder, I focused my intent to use the Liquid sphere to heal my shoulder.

You are casting a spell, Heal. The minimal MP cost is 3 MP. To heal fully heal this wound you need 9 MP. How much MP would you like to expend?

I thought 9 MP and immediately felt a warm healing sensation in my shoulder. This continued for about 5 seconds. So not an immediate action, but a Heal over Time (HoT). I wondered if this was because I had applied an additional MP to the spell. I received a new prompt.

You have cast Heal. The minimum Cost per cast is 3 MP. You have spent 9 points of MP. Healing is dependent upon the amount of damage taken and the amount of infection present in the wound. Increasing the amount of MP will increase the healing effect.

Heal has reached 1% synchronization.

Ahhhhhh, that shoulder felt so much better. I rolled my shoulder a few times and noticed that all the pain and stiffness in the shoulder were gone. Again, I looked through the hole in my jacket that was created by the sword wound and removed my bandage. However, it looked different this time. The raw burned scar tissue was gone, and completely healthy skin was underneath. Not even a scar. Wow, now this I could get used to. This could put doctors and hospitals out of business. Not to mention me. Wait, what is my job now that there are no machines to fix or building to work in… Fire Marshall?

I sat down by the fire to rest and was introduced to the family. Leighann introduced herself and her kids, Gabby and Cody. Gabby informed me that she is 6 and her brother is 10. Her birthday was in December in Cody’s is in June. We all had a little laugh at Gabby when she was talking. Her name seems to be well earned. Cody seemed more like the cautious silent type.

Granny Ann let everyone finish talking and then asked me if I was hungry. As she asked me, I realized that they were cooking steak over the fireplace with some potatoes wrapped in tin foil sitting in the coals. The smell made my mouth water as I realized I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Seeing the look in my eyes and probably the drool coming from my mouth, Granny Ann smiled and added another hunk of flesh to the fire pit and a few more taters.

Leighann and Beau were working to get as much of their goods out of the house as possible. They had managed to get the refrigerator open to get the steaks out. All the exterior walls in the house had collapsed. If Beau and Leighann were careful, they could crawl through the houses and pull out some of the supplies. While the steaks continued to cook, I carried goods from the hole in the wall that Beau and Leighann were using to bring out their possessions. To be honest, I felt a little like a punk for letting a woman and old man climb into the wreckage to get their goods. However, I didn’t go in because I didn’t know where things were.

As they rummaged through the house searching for anything still usable, Leighann told me about her husband between trips into the house. They were big gamers preferring the FPS genre or RPGs. When they played FPS, the two of them were a fireteam and used to clear houses together. Alternately, when playing RPGs, she was typically a Paladin and he was a Ranger. As a Paladin, she liked to tank it, usually as a sword and board. Her husband served in the Marines and had deployed to Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it back. I asked her if there was anything special of his that we should be searching for. She went back into the house and emerged a few minutes later clutching a shadow box with his flag and awards to her chest. She said, “thank you, if you hadn’t reminded me, I may have forgotten to get this. “

We took a break for dinner and enjoyed some fire-roasted steak with potatoes with butter, sour cream, sharp shredded cheese, and chives. Just the way that I liked them. Beau shared a can of beer with me. It was the good blonde ale, still cold from the fridge. The beer was made by a Texas microbrew. Not that crappy American brew that one has seen on commercials for all the major sporting events. Leighann also managed to pull out some of the dishes and silverware, from the house, so we were able to eat comfortably. As we were eating dinner, they discussed what they were going to do now. For them, it is a difficult decision of whether to leave one’s land. If they stayed, they were not sure what they were going to do for shelter. Would they be able to rebuild and what they would use for materials?

It was tempting to think of staying here. Looking around at the kids sleeping in their sleeping bags and at the other adults resting around the fire. I felt a sense of belonging. The family was friendly, and they would need help. If I asked, they would probably let me stay with them. I felt so much more comfortable with helping them than I did going to claim the territory in Oklahoma City. Who knows what is required to claim a territory? If I did manage to claim the territory, who am I to manage a territory, I am no politician. I hate public speaking and detest the idea of all the other administrative tasks that I would need to do if I managed the territory. Staying here seemed easier. Could I abandon my friends and just stay here?

I hoped friends were doing okay in OKC. If anyone would be able to survive and thrive in this environment it would be my friends. Perhaps, I should just spend the night here and think about it. Since I left Tulsa, I had been convinced by the quest that I needed to get to OKC as soon as possible. I decided to invite them to come with me and told them the little I knew about my quest and that I was hoping my friends would be waiting for me.

I was surprised to suddenly hear a ding and receive a prompt. Glancing at the message I was surprised again when I saw what it said.

You have just offered a quest to Beau, Granny Ann, and Leighann to accompany you to Oklahoma City. As a Contender, you can offer a low-level quest. Claim a territory and create a townhall to receive additional quest creation options.

From the look in their eyes, I could see that they were reading the same quest notice that I had just received. While they listened to the story of my quest and seemed surprised to receive a quest. They were non-committal, Leighann expressed concern about monsters. While Beau and Granny Ann debated back and forth between them whether there would be more monsters here or more in OKC. Additionally, if they stayed, would they be able to secure their ranch and meet all their needs. There were a lot of unknown questions. While they had only seen the one Orc, they knew that I had seen other monsters and asked me about the ones that I had fought.

After I shared my limited “combat” stories with them, Leighann told me that the combat notice they received said the Orc had been level six. It seemed that all the monsters we had seen so far were between level 5 and level 8. They hadn’t received enough experience from the Orc to level up as they had split the experience between the two of them.

All of the sudden, I realized that two level-one characters had managed to take out a level 6 Orc. I asked them incredulously, “you didn’t get hurt.”

Leighann looked down at the ground a little embarrassed and told me “we got lucky, I don’t know how we managed to kill it.” We moved away from the two kids who were now resting by the fire in the bedding that Leighann had brought out earlier. She told me more about what happened. The Orc had come out of the dark and was mostly focused on her. First, she had tried the pistol but dropped that when it wouldn’t fire. Then she had unsuccessfully tried the shotgun. He looked a little confused by the guns. Instinctively, he seemed to know they were weapons and had tried to dodge when she pointed them at him. Beau had managed to get a couple of arrows into his body. Knowing the time required to load and reload a crossbow, I was extremely impressed by Beau's calmness under duress.

However, once the Orc realized that the shotgun wouldn’t shoot either he had charged Leighann and tried to chop down on her with his sword. She was able to block the sword strike by raising the shotgun over her head with one hand on the grip and one hand on the pump action. Fortunately, the sword didn’t hit her fingers, but the blow knocked her to the ground. As she fell, Beau shot the last arrow he had on the crossbow and it struck the Orc in the head, causing a critical hit.

I glanced over at Beau. I could feel his concern for his daughter. The emotions he had on his face were clear to read. He realized what could have happened if he had missed. His arrow had struck at the perfect time in the perfect place. If he had missed that shot, his daughter, wife, and grandchildren could all be dead at this moment. I turned and took a glance to see what Leighann’s reaction was to the retelling of the story. She had a faraway look in her eye and a look of grim determination on her face. I wasn’t surprised, what else would one expect from the wife of a Marine.

After dinner, Leighann and I snuck down to the gate and brought my cart up to the fire. She earned the sneak skill, but I didn’t receive any increase. We didn’t talk because we weren’t sure what other monsters may be out in the dark. When we got back, she led me over to where the Orc body was. Leighann searched his corpse, he had a broad sword, a longbow, twelve arrows, and a bronze breastplate armor set complete with greaves and bracers. Reaching down, I heard her say “loot”. With a laugh, she had a handful of assorted coins in addition to all his gear.

Oh, how I hated missing loot. I wanted to kick myself and let out a startled curse. While I had touched the slain minotaur and goblins, I had never given the command of loot to gather the coins. Gathering up all the gear we went back to the fire pit to examine our loot. I didn’t notice anything particular about the gear on the Goblins. If I had the chance I was going to go back for the loot.

From the gear that I had taken from the goblins, earlier on the road, I decided that I wanted to keep the ring and the knife. However, I didn’t need the smaller armor sets, I gave two of the sets to the kids. While they were a little too big for the kids, Leighann agreed that some protection was better than no protection.

I felt it was important to discuss weapons and our strategy for how to defend each other if an attack came during the night. Besides the gear we had found on the monsters, they had two crossbows with ten total arrows. Unfortunately, only six of them had hunting tips. The other four only had target tips. Additionally, they had a compound bow with twelve arrows, four of those with hunting tips, and 8 with target tips. Beau was no longer able to pull the compound bow. Which meant that Leighann would be carrying it to maximize the number of weapons that we had. Granny Ann and Beau got a short sword in case they needed it for a melee fight. The hatchet went to Cody, only as a last resort. We hoped he would never need it. He had helped chop wood before and had killed a chicken a couple of times, but what ten-year-old is ready to stand up to attacking monsters. Leighann offered me the bow that the Orc was carrying with all twelve of his arrows. Granny Ann had a crossbow and a couple of target arrows. With the weapons distributed, all the adults had a melee weapon and a ranged weapon.

After discussion, the adults moved away from the fire in a diamond formation with the kids and the fire pit in the middle. With the possibility of an attack in the night, we posted a guard. Everyone agreed to a two-hour shift. As it was approximately ten pm, Granny Ann offered to pull the first shift. Beau would have the second watch, Leighann would have the third shift from two through 4 am, and I would have the last shift from four to six. Before I went to bed, I decided to assign my new ability points. I had forgotten to assign them after I leveled up during the battle with the Goblins. I glanced at the PISS to see what it looked like now.

Personal Interface Support System (PISS)

CHARACTER SHEET

QUEST

INVENTORY

MAGIC

SKILLS

TMS

HELP

Name

Rick O. Shea

Strength

18

Screen Name

LordShea

Agility

12

Level

6

Coordination

18

Experience to next level

5343

Constitution

13

Total Experience

16,657

Intelligence

18

Faction

Undecided

Wisdom

16

Race

Human

Willpower

18

Profession

Undecided

Charisma

13

Class

Strategist

Luck

18

Personality

Survivor

Attribute Points Available

0

Titles

The Harbinger, Quickdraw, Quickening, Decisive

Skill Points Available

1

Maximum HP

62

Mana Recharge (PS)

0.34

Mana Well

72

Magic Capability

100%

Checking on my inventory.

Personal Interface Support System (PISS)

CHARACTER SHEET

QUEST

INVENTORY

MAGIC

SKILLS

TMS

HELP

Weapon

Type

Damage

Armor

Type

Protection

Double Bladed-axe

Long Handled

2x Strength

?Mineral? Doublet

Chest

70% Torso

LongBow

Bow

arrow + 12

unknown Necklace

Jewelry

Variable

Barbed Arrows (12)

ammo

8

unknown Ring

Jewelry

Variable

short-bladed knife

Knife

4

First Aid Kit

Utility

n/a

Next, I glanced at my Magic Tab

Personal Interface Support System (PISS)

CHARACTER SHEET

QUEST

INVENTORY

MAGIC

SKILLS

TMS

HELP

Fire

Gas

+

Mineral

Liquid

SPELL:

Synchronization %

Learned Spheres:

Unlearned Spheres:

Flame

1

Fire

Gas

Mineral

Wall of Flame (WoF)

2

Liquid

Smoke Screen

1

Cauterize

1

Heal

1

The last thing I wanted to check before going to sleep was my Skill tab.

Personal Interface Support System (PISS)

CHARACTER SHEET

QUEST

INVENTORY

MAGIC

SKILLS

TMS

HELP

Weapon Skill

Level

Skill

Level

Long-Handled

5

Examine

2

Sneak

1