Chapter 9

Survival of Shroud

Rt 66 Shroud, OK

January 11

11:19 am

As we approached the town of Stroud, I was still riding point. Our herd stretched out behind me with Leighann riding her paint horse and Granny Ann on the wagon pulling drag. Beau rode up next to me and recommended that we turn on to 7th street instead of continuing down RT 66. Once we are through Stroud, we can hop onto the I-44 ride down about 12 miles before taking the exit for Chandler.

Instead of carrying my double-bladed battle-ax for the cattle drive, I packed it away. I didn’t have the confidence that I could swing it successfully with one hand from the back of the horse. Wanting to have some additional protection, I had tied the goblin contender’s shield to the side of my saddle, with a loop so that I could pick it up easily and put my arm through the strap. Lonk had shown me how to strap the goblins contender’s sword to my back. Once in place, it was easy to draw. Plus, I was less worried about cutting off my own horse’s head in a fight. Practicing as I was riding into Shroud, I had already drawn it several times with no difficulty.

Cursing myself for my stupidity, I decided to assign my attribute points as we rode along. Promising myself, that I would do better at add in the future. I looked through my character sheet and focused on what I should increase. I wanted to keep my character balanced. In some games, there was a penalty if a character became unbalanced. Putting two points into agility, one point in constitution, and one in charisma, which raised all three stats to 14.

Normally, when playing a game, I like to put the last point into luck as it makes me laugh thinking of one of my favorite adventure heroes. However, this is now real life. After the last battle, the goblin had been a higher level and a better fighter than I was. I could have easily lost that fight. What had saved me and set me apart was my magic. Not only did I have more spheres, but I had also used more spells and seemed to have more mana as he didn’t use his mana other than to set his sword on fire.

The goblin contender had been overly reliant on his weapons. I didn’t want to make that mistake. Instead, I focused on a flexible character build that could attack, respond to attacks, and defend my team. Having used my early skill points on the Long-handled weapons and not seen a significant benefit, I decided to save my skill points for now.

As we were riding down 7th street, I kept my eyes open for any signs of people or anything that could attack us. It feels weird riding through a town and not seeing a person, not seeing a car moving or hearing any sound, but the wind blowing and the lowing of cows.

Perhaps the wind carried it to me, but the first thing I noticed was the smell of death. It was overwhelming. The horse’s nostrils were flaring in deep breaths. Comforting the horse, I continued on until we reached the center of town, I looked south about three or four blocks and noticed that the cars in the road were lined up bumper to bummer and had been turned on their sides creating a walled compound between the downtown building rubble.

Between us, scattered along the street, were a hundreds of bodies. I recoiled at the sight of all the dead spread out on the ground in front of me. So many lost. My eyes instantly filled with tears wondering how many of the people in this city were dead. Looking closer, I could tell that not all the bodies were human. There many different types of bodies, one looked like an Egyptian sphinx, with the body of a cat and a head of a man. A few of the minotaur’s which I had already seen, quite a few goblins, and a few orcs.

However, from this distance, it appeared to be mostly human bodies. As I was stopped in the road examining the carnage, a man climbed on top of the cars and waved his arms at me. Relief washed over me knowing that some people were safe inside the compound. He seemed insistent that we turn south, but that was not the direction that we were traveling.

Beau seeing me stopped in the road, had ridden up next to me. I turned to him and asked, “Can you keep the herd moving? We don’t have time to slow down and this doesn’t look like a safe place. It looks like there may be enemies, but I want to see if they have any information.

Beau nodded to me, I could see the concern in his face and his voice when he spoke. “Be careful,” he said. Then with a click of his tongue to the horse, he moved off towards the front of the herd. His eyes constantly looking for danger.

I paused again, as my first inclination was to stand in my stirrups, wave my arm goodbye, and ride off into the sunset. However, I wanted to talk to the man and see if he had any information, I was also cautious. Remembering how many people attacked each other for food or other advantages from all the end of the world TV shows, I didn’t want to get too close.

Also, with all the bodies lying on the road, I wasn’t sure if there were hostiles around. All the houses along the street were collapsed upon themselves. Suspecting that enemies could be hiding in and around those buildings. Drawing my sword from behind my back, I continued to examine the approach. I felt safe if I stayed out of bow range, or about 150 meters away. From my experience hunting, I know it is hard to hit a deer with a bow from that far away.

Riding cautiously forward, I weaved my way between the bodies. Seeing so much death, was overwhelming, I resisted the urged to hop down and go from body to body checking for a pulse. I looked closely at the bodies as I rode near them, the sphinx and the minotaur wasn’t the only combination of people and animals, there was also, the head of a cobra snake, the head of a snowy egret, and the head of a dog or jackal, all with the torso of a human.

At first, I had thought there were lots of bodies of children. However, many of the smaller bodies were not children but upon closer examination of those in armor, now appeared to be either a gnome, or halfling, and then some of the sturdier ones appeared to be dwarfs. Additionally, stopping briefly near some of those that I had thought to be adult humans in armor, closer inspection made me realize they were much skinner, with long hair and pointy ears, Elves perhaps.

I didn’t want to stop moving for long to perform a thorough examination but wanted to keep moving. Getting as close to the man on top of the car as I wanted to get, I turned the horse sideways and moved back and forth at a slow pace casting my eyes around at the nearby obstacles looking for movement or any sign of life.

I tried to examine the man on top of the wall of cars. The distance must have been too great to get a reading. Using my old-fashioned eyeballs, I observed what I could from that distance. A thin white man, perhaps, in his 50s with salt and pepper hair. He is wearing a long-sleeve white button-down collared dress shirt with brown stains on his chest and his forearms. Realizing that those brown stains were likely bloodstains, noting at the bodies around me, it looked like he had a long hard night.

Yelling to the man on the mechanical wall, “Looks like you had quite a battle. How is everyone?”

“Those of us that are left, we are surviving. As you can see, we lost a lot of good people,” he shouted with a choking sound of sadness in his voice.”

With as much possible sympathy that I could put in my voice, “I’m extremely sorry for your loss. I can see that a lot of people died here last night,” I called to him.

With agony in his voice, fighting back teams, he acknowledged “Thank you.”

As he composed himself, he got down from the cars and closed the distance to me by about half. Glancing behind him, he looked to be comfortable with the distance he had traveled but didn’t seem to want to go farther.

I tried to examine him again, but he was still too far away. I continued to look around at all the dead bodies. I still didn’t see any survivors among the bodies as I spammed my examine skill and got no results. My head was on s swivel, I didn’t see any movement of anyone trying to get close to me.

After a few tear-filled moments, he resumed the conversation. “I don’t recognize you. Are you from around here,” he yelled to me?

“No, I am not, I am from the OKC. I got stranded up at Beau’s Ranch last night,” I hollered back to him.

Nodding in acceptance, “I thought I recognized Beau when he rode by.” he shouted.

Glancing back north to the cattle moving by, I just caught a glimpse of Granny on her wagon as she came into view.

“Looks, like you got attacked by a lot of different races since the release,” I called. Hoping that he would give me some more information.

“Races,” he yelled back. “I don’t know about races, but there were a lot of different monsters. Many of them were coming in waves as we strived to defend ourselves. Most of us didn’t have any weapons as our guns wouldn’t work. Fortunately, we had a few bows and managed to kill some of the monsters and claim their weapons. If it weren’t for a few of those squat strong humans or the skinny ones with the pointed ears, I don’t think we would have made it through the night. They attacked the other monsters from behind and caught them by surprise. They haven’t yet tried to talk to us, I assume they are out there somewhere. We have been sneaking out to collect as many of the weapons and armor as we can. When we saw you approaching, everyone ran back into town. Be careful, we don’t know those that helped us in the armor, but we are thankful they helped. Can’t say for sure if they will attack you or help you.”

“That sounds a lot like people,” I reasoned, “Some are good, and some are bad. Hopefully, we find more that are good than bad.”

He acknowledged my comment, “That’s true. It looks like you’re going to ride on. Anyway we can talk you into staying? There is safety in numbers,” he stated.

“Sorry, we can’t stay. We need to head on towards the city,” I shouted back.

“I understand. Please tell Beau and his family that Jim, said hello,” he called.

“Just Jim,” I asked?

“Yes, just Jim, the mayor of this town,” he added.

With a shrug, I answered, “Will do. Nice to meet you,” I yelled as I started to ride away. Turning back, I shouted one more thing. “Just a friendly piece of advice, when you’re going around and collecting the armor and weapons, Think or say the word, LOOT when touching the bodies.”

As I was riding away at a trot, I heard him yell out a question, “Loot?”

Without slowing down, I yelled back over my shoulder, “Yep.” I hadn’t gone far when I heard his response.

“One piece of friendly piece of advice deserves another,” he bellowed, “avoid graveyards at all cost.”

Personal Interface Support System (PISS)

CHARACTER SHEET

QUEST

INVENTORY

MAGIC

SKILLS

TMS

HELP

Name

Rick O. Shea

Strength

18

Screen Name

LordShea

Agility

14

Level

7

Coordination

18

Experience to next level

498

Constitution

14

Total Experience

27,502

Intelligence

18

Faction

Undecided

Wisdom

17

Race

Human

Willpower

18

Profession

Undecided

Charisma

14

Class

Strategist

Luck

18

Personality

Survivor

Attribute Points Available

0

Titles

The Harbinger, Quickdraw, Quickening, Decisive

Skill Points Available

2

Maximum HP

64

Mana Recharge (PS)

0.35

Mana Well

72

Magic Capability

100%