Kaleb waited for a large pack of oversized dogs to pass by before he left his alley. 'Thank god there's so much chaos and blood out there of they would no doubt of found me.' He'd been chased briefly by the beasts and had sacrificed one of his minions as a chew toy to get away. 'Its been an hour and I'm only a few hundred meters down the street' he thought bitterly. Kaleb was starting to doubt his reasons for leaving his safe apartment but there even more monsters had started roaming the streets as they broke out of houses and pet shops blocking his retreat. He shivered at the fresh memory of the pet shop he passed. 'pieces of meat everywhere' he pinched his nose and forced himself to think of something else before he vomited again. He checked his mana was full enough and conjured a fresh minion. 'Hope these guys don't carry over memories.' It didn't immediately attack him for its previous abandonment but he still had no real idea where they came from so decided to keep an eye on them both. 'Still going to use them as bait though.' he thought wickedly.

He crept along a filth streaked alley with one minion at his side and the other he kept ten or so meters in front to spring any ambushes. It was just after midday but the constant noise and intense feeling of danger made it feel similar to a midnight stroll down murder alley. A dumpster lid exploded open and a monster raccoon the size of a black bear tumbled out, followed by a group of smaller raccoons. The momma raccoon drew the immediate attention of both minions but it was the smallest of them that caught Kaleb's eye. It was half the size of the others but had dark green stripes and long protruding fangs. The thing just 'screamed' poison and was headed right for him. At five feet away it lunged for him, 'Why haven't I made a shield?' he was struck dumb by the sudden thought only just recovering in time to get a half hearted hit on the monster. It lunged again, this time at his legs and he brought the head of the mace down on his spine. The things teeth grazed his shin and he could feel the poison coating them burn his flesh making him cry out in pain. 'Is it poison or acid!'.

“Conjure Water!” he shouted in panic and a globe of water just big enough to maybe fill a regular glass splashed onto his leg soothing it and diluting the poison. His attack had broken its back leaving it mewling on the ground. “It's only been a few hours, how did mauling animals become so normal.” he muttered and caved in hits skull. He really did hate hurting them but he hated dying more so set his sights on the remaining beasts. The minions had gotten their asses kicked by the big one but had caused enough damage that it had fled down the alley with the rest of its troop. Only one of the minions was alive but it wasn't long for this world and Kaleb decided to kill it just in case it could feel pain. Before he moved on he had a theory he wanted to test out and brushed his hand through the coarse fur of the acid raccoon.

Spell List Description Duration Mana Cost Rank Spell Gained: Conjure Acid Conjure a small amount of Acid 5m Low Rank 1

'What's with the crazy short duration?' he wondered. 'All my other spells are measured in hours or are permanent.' He wasn't familiar with acid or chemistry so had no idea what kind of shelf life normal acid had. 'Not like I can do anything about it.' he decided to just accept it for the free spell that it was but was surprised with another message

Acid Spit added to Minion Traits.

Kaleb let out a small cheer and checked his spell list but the Conjure Minion spell was still rank one. 'There must be some other way of ranking it up.' Thinking of conjuring a minion he pulled up the minion creator from earlier. On the right side of the 3D minion was a flashing box with the new trait. He selected it and the small picture had green saliva dripping from its already menacing jaws. Happy that it didn't cost much more mana than his regular little body builders he summoned two of them once he had enough mana. “Not having exact numbers really makes it a pain to track my mana.” he complained 'Maybe in the next patch.' he thought wryly.

A quick couple of spells and a mana break later had him, a new shield and his minions creeping out of the far end of the alley. A strange kind of calm had come over him after fighting the raccoons and he didn't feel himself panicking as much as he scanned the chaotic street. He saw people fighting each other to get away from the odd monster but this street seemed a lot calmer than the one he lived on. A closer look showed him that it was because most people had either fled or joined the piles of scattered dead. He clenched his jaw and kept his focus as he weaved through the fallen. Before he could react to it his minion on point chomped into someone's escaped pet 'Some kind of hamster, rat hybrid.' the thing was too mutated to tell and he didn't want to touch the half melted thing even if it had a chance to give him a spell.

The number of people in the street swelled as he got closer to the main thoroughfare that would take him right into the centre of the city. He saw people working in teams to hold of larger animals while others attacked them from behind. The further in he went the more hopeful he began to feel and he came to areas where no one was fighting and the injured were being healed. Watching the healer type classes was like seeing a miracle, cuts rapidly closed and colour quickly returned to faces pale from blood loss. He was momentarily envious of their ability but knew that if he had that kind of power he would never of even made it out of his carpark. He kept his minions close and waved off the few people who grabbed their weapons. 'It might be a bit insensitive to bring monsters here but I have no way to unconjure them.' Kaleb didn't think bashing in their heads would be any better than just keeping them close so carried on until he reached a hastily raised wire fence in the middle of the street topped with barbed wire.

“What is this?” he asked a man sitting in a blood covered hi-vis vest over blue overalls. He looked a bit like bob the builder with a yellow helmet strapped to his head.

“Few of us got a fence put up to stop the animals. There's a gate over there.” he said tiredly waving at a ragged queue not too far away.

“How did you get it up so fast?” Kaleb asked touching it to confirm it wasn't some kind of illusion.

“Magic of being a builder.” the man said proudly. “A couple of us got spells to build walls or fences. One of them has even got his to the second rank, won't tell anyone how he did it though the selfish git.”

Kaleb nodded politely as the builder complained about his selfish friend but he was more interested in the fence. It was way bigger than anything he could conjure and he could only assume it was either permanent or had a long duration. 'Not much point in a fence that disappears after an hour.'

He thanked the builder and joined the queue to get in. Four police officers stood guard and checked everyone coming in and warning them not to misbehave. A scowling officer pulled him to the side with a short female officer holding large looking rifle backing the man up. “What the hell are they?” he asked pointing his baton at the demonic looking minions who's drool was causing pockmarks in the concrete.

“They're mine, I can make them and they fight for me.” Kaleb said stumbling slightly over his words. Even in the apocalypse he got nervous talking to the police 'I always feel like I've done something wrong.' he forced himself to focus but that just made him feel more suspicious. As the man's stare burned into him Kaleb felt his hackles rising. “What?” he asked getting annoyed enough to overcome some of his nerves.

“How many can you make?”

The question caught him completely off guard. “Maybe three? No wait.” he said thinking it over. 'I can probably conjure three when I'm at full mana but they last an hour and my mana only takes about ten minutes to fill from empty.' It took him way longer than it should to work out 3x6 “Eighteen if that's all I use my mana for.” He felt like an idiot for not thinking of that earlier. He'd spent hours hiding from dogs when he could have been walking around with a pack of his own.

“That's quite the increase.” the officer chuckled making Kaleb relax a bit. “It might not come as a surprise but we're a bit short staffed at the moment. Eighteen extra fighters could help us a lot, Westbank Streets swarming with monsters.” he shook his head as he said it. “Fucking monsters, this is unreal.” A cough from the woman with the gun got him back on track and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, if you could head to Westbank and help out with the wall they're building we'd appreciate it, there not much I can really offer but...”

Kaleb cut him off with wave of his hand seeing that the stressed out man was loosing focus again. “I'll go. Its that way right?” he said pointing across to the crossroads with a different fast food chain on each corner. The cop nodded and headed back to the gate. “That guy really needs a break.” Kaleb whispered to his freshly conjured minion. 'Time to build an army.' As crazy as the situation was the thought of his own minion army left him grinning as he marched towards Westbank Street.