As they escaped the burning structure Walter realized he left his bag and bow inside. Watching the inferno he felt a tinge of regret however knew that finishing the survivor quest was worth it. Leading the survivors back to his base, they talked and introductions were made as he tried to remember every person’s name.

As they walked past the dumpster where he hid the body, he pointed it out. His wife and child ran to the dumpster balling as they tried to pull his body from it. Officer Martinez promised them that they would return for him except they needed to get to safety first.

Walking up to the base, the smell of blood and pepper spray filled the air. Walter began to panic, knowing that he left Stephanie alone. He rushed to the opening leaving the group behind.

“Stephanie,” he yelled as he crawled in the opening. He's sticking to the floor from dried blood, “Stephanie You OK?” he yelled again.

“You, Amish dick!” Stephanie yelled coming out of invisibility. “You weren’t here when I woke up,” she cried as she walked up to him. “You said you would be but you weren’t,” she said stopping in front of him.

“Sorry,” he said not sure what to say.

Stephanie dove in for a hug, squeezing Walter tightly.

“Broken ribs,” he wheezed out.

She quickly released him and stepped back, looking down abashedly.

“What happened,” she asked as the Martinez was attempting to crawl in.

As she realized there were more people and Martinez needed medical help immediately, she let the question go unanswered. Everything became a whirlwind of activity as Walter took command when everyone entered. The rat beasts’ bodies were carried outside and burned and the blood mopped up.

Walter let the fat man take charge after the walk back. The fat man was actually Police Chief Kovak and was great at delegating duties equally, and realized that he couldn’t tell Walter what to do.

Kovak saw Walter as a man even though he was maybe 16 years of age. Walter held himself as a person with serious military training but for some reason refused to take a gun preferring his spear. Kovak watched Walter as he led them to his base his head was on a swivel looking for trouble everywhere as they walked. Kovak knew that any altercation with this kid would be quickly ended by this and was their best hope for survival.

Walter left Martinez to someone who said they were an EMT. Supposedly they were trained in emergency medical treatments. They even offered to look over Walter’s room, but he waved them off saying that with a little sleep he would be fine.

As he walked upstairs to the cots, he checked his experience total and saw a whopping 159 points. Excited to upgrade his stats again and heard that when upgrading his stats his body would be healed some.

Going to bed he pulled up his stats page and began spending his points looking forward to the increases in power.

Name: Walter Freeman

Race: Human F-3 0/40

Titles: Exile of Valhalla

Experience: 39

Physical: F-4 0/80

Mental: F-3 0/40

Soul: F-3 0/40

Skills: Skitter F-3 0/40

He was a little bummed to be short a point from upgrading another stat but beggars can’t be choosers. As he accepted the changes The System put him under as started to affect its chances.

A full day later Walter woke up, the upstairs had been rearranged to make small bedrooms for individuals. Weapons and supplies were organized on the counters in the back and he could hear people talking downstairs.

Doing a few stretches to check his range of motions he found that he wasn’t hampered much besides a slight muscle tightness. He then grabbed a bow matching the one he used before. Testing the pull on it, he realized the increases in physical strength had left the weight on this bow laughably light.

Upgrading to the heaviest weighted bow he felt a slight quiver in his shoulder as he tested its draw. Repacking a backpack with supplies, he grabbed the binoculars he had since the Doctor’s office and gently packed them away.

Walking downstairs with his supplies he heard everyone talking about plans for the future. As they noticed him coming down the stairs everyone became silent as Chief Kovak walked up to him.

“Sorry about how I acted when you saved us but we need to talk The System,” he said. “Stephanie showed us what she could do, and then told us that you knew a lot more about The System.”

Walter agreed to answer every question they had but there was something he needed to tell them. He told them about where he came from and his life. Their world was now part of an expansive war between The System and The Darkness. How his upbringing had trained him to fight the darkness on countless worlds and that he would be leaving this world shortly.

Some of the people thought he was crazy but Stephanie looked at him like everything made sense. He then answered all the questions they had about The System and what their skill meant. He told them what he knew about skills when one lady made the link to MMORPG and how leveling them could change them. Listening to her explain passive and active skills he realized that she had a better understanding of skill than him and that they should talk to her.

Walter explained how quests worked until the lady that recognized the similarities to her games caught on. She began talking more about the quest themes they would most likely be dealing with. She only stopped when asked about quest rewards, where items appear, and if there was a store to purchase from. Walter had never heard of items being given by The System of a System Store but Karl did talk about how limited his knowledge of The System was. He told her that he wasn’t sure but that there were others like him in this world that had better knowledge.

Martinez joined them about what they needed to do. The people trapped by the horde were the objective. It was also important to take out any smart zombies before they go for the trapped people. They would need their best shot to perform that task, luckily Megan was the sniper for the local Swat team. Then once the horde was disrupted, they would drive a firetruck into the mass of bodies to get the people down.

Martinez and Kovak went on with their planning figuring out the minutiae details as Walter listened. Absorbing as much information as possible these two were a fount of knowledge of locations they could loot.

As they talked the topic of supplies came up. The MREs would only last so long. The grocery store a few miles away would be the closest place to gather supplies. With a truck, they could bring back more supplies. As they continued to talk about logistics, Walter listened and thought about his outburst when he rescued them. What he said and how he acted when Kovak started giving out orders. He would need to apologize for that.

Walter left them shortly after that, he wanted to look around to see what everyone had been doing while he slept. A barricade of wrecked vehicles had been moved to place to create choke points on the streets. Men and women with guns walked the perimeter. Walter would need to begin training them with weapons training soon. The guns would work for now but the loss of experience would really affect them when stronger beasts showed up.

Standing there, taking it all in Walter was amazed at what he started. Helping them lift another car for the barricade a truck came screeching to a halt in front of them. A guy named Dale stood at the yelling with abandonment, a large gun someone called an assault rifle held in his arms.

Stephanie’s head popped out of the driver's side window with a big grin on her face yelling, “Walter get your Amish ass in here, we're going shopping!”